ABSTRACT
American Communism has become a minor academic industry. By 1982, the subject had attracted enough academic attention to bring about the formation of an organization, Historians of American Communism, with about one hundred dues-paying members of varying political tendencies. The issue of Soviet influence, through the Communist International or Comintern, on American Communism inevitably turns up in other writings by the new historians. Domestic differences could be survived; something that struck at the heart of faith in the Soviet Union could not. The problem of the interaction between the Soviet Union and American Communism haunts the work of the new historians. A rhythmic rotation from Communist sectarianism to Americanized opportunism was set in motion at the outset and has been going on ever since. The periodic rediscovery of "Americanization" by the American Communists has only superficially represented a more independent policy; it has been in reality merely another type of American response to a Russian stimulus.
