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Communist Party USA (Marxist–Leninist)

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The Communist Party USA (Marxist–Leninist) was a small American Maoist group founded in 1965 by Los Angeles members of the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute a Marxist–Leninist Party (POC) around Michael Laski. Laski stated in a 1968 interview that this split was motivated by dissatisfaction with the POC's response to the Watts riots.[1][2]

Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist)
General SecretaryMichael Laski
FounderMichael Laski
Founded1965
Split fromProvisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute a Marxist–Leninist Party (POC)
Succeeded byProletarian Revolutionary Party
IdeologyMarxism-Leninism
Maoism
Not to be confused with Communist Party USA.

History

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In 1967 Detective James C. Harris of the Los Angeles district attorney's office testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about the group. He stated that the "intent of the CPUSA-ML has been to aggravate" the African-American population in Los Angeles "to the point of civil disobedience and to attempt to condition their minds to respond in a rebellious way in the event of a contact with a police officer." [3]

General Secretary Laski was expelled after gambling away nearly all of the party's funds in Nevada in an attempt to raise more funds.[4] After the expulsion, two groups existed with the name Communist Party USA (Marxist–Leninist), one led by Arnold Hoffman, which continued to publish People's Voice; and one led by Laski, which started a new paper, The New Worker. In 1969, the Laski group merged with the Proletarian Revolutionary Party led by Jonathan Leake.[5]

Laski was the subject of a 1967 essay by Joan Didion (later collected in Slouching Towards Bethlehem), entitled "Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.)." She described him as having constructed a personal world "of labyrinthine intricacy and immaculate clarity, a world made meaningful not only by high purpose but by external and internal threats, intrigues and apparatus, an immutably ordered world in which things mattered."

References

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  1. ^ "The American Battlefield".
  2. ^ "U.S. Anti-Revisionism, Third Wave, 1960-1970 Index Page".
  3. ^ ""Subversive Influences" - House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)".
  4. ^ Central Committee Expels M. I. Laski from Communist Party U. S. A. (Marxist-Leninist)
  5. ^ Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
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