ABSTRACT
First published in 2000. This study examines how Progressive Labor, an antirevisionist offshoot of the Communist Party USA, attempted to revolutionize the labor front in New York City’s garment industry during the 1960s. An ideologically driven group, whose founders were loyal to Stalinism and attracted by Maoism, Progressive Labor set out in 1962 to become the vanguard of the American working class.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|68 pages
Reinventing American Communism
chapter Chapter 1|24 pages
Antirevisionism in Action
The Origin of the Progressive Labor Party, 1956–1965
chapter Chapter 2|17 pages
Purifying the Communist Movement and Searching for Utopia
Progressive Labor in Theory, 1965–1982
chapter Chapter 3|25 pages
Reform, Revolution, and the Search for the Working Class
Progressive Labor in Practice, 1962–1982
part II|128 pages
New Communists in an Old Anticommunist Union
chapter Chapter 4|28 pages
New Communists Challenge Old Socialists
Trespassing on “Dubinsky’s Plantation,” 1962–1966.
1
chapter Chapter 5|23 pages
The Making of a Communist Trucker
The Political Apprenticeship of a Progressive Labor Colonizer in Garment Trucking, 1940–1966
chapter Chapter 6|25 pages
Communist Truckers Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Progressive Labor, Garment Trucking and Local 102, ILGWU, 1967–1970
chapter Chapter 7|23 pages
Anatomy of a Communist-Led Wildcat Strike
Progressive Labor, Figure Flattery and Local 32, ILGWU, 1968
chapter Chapter 8|18 pages
Anatomy of an Anticommunist Purge
Progressive Labor, Figure Flattery and Local 32, ILGWU, 1968–1969
