Claudia Jones, the Longue Durée of McCarthyism, and the Threat of US Fascism

Charisse Burden-Stelly

doi:10.13169/jinte.3.1.0046

Abstract

This article examines the ways that the Black Communist luminary Claudia Jones theorized the fascist threat in the United States in the early Cold War era. Drawing on her political thought and that of her comrades, the article begins by defining the peculiar brand of US fascism that loomed large in the minds of Black radicals who critiqued and militated against global capitalist exploitation. Then, “the longue durée of McCarthyism” is employed as an analytical framework to explicate the post-World War II “fascist-like” political formation that both preceded and exceeded Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy's reign of repression. The next section highlights Jones's analysis of the 1940 Alien Registration Act, commonly known as the Smith Act, which was the first peacetime sedition act in US history. The focus of the final section is Jones's critique of, and subjection to, the Internal Security Act of 1950, also known as the McCarran Act, which President Harry S. Truman unsuccessfully vetoed. As Jones's biographers Buzz Johnson and Carole Boyce Davies note, taken together, the Smith Act and the McCarran Act created the conditions for the persecution of thousands of progressives, launched an all-out attack on their civil rights, and laid the foundation for immigration checks, deportation, and harassment particularly aimed at Black people. Ultimately, the lives of many Black anticapitalists, including Jones, Paul Robeson, C.L.R. James, and Ferdinand Smith were fundamentally disrupted by this “strong anti-Black and anti-communist hysteria” that portended the rise of fascism in the United States.

Highlights

Fascism from Hitlerism to McCarthyismOn December 5, 1955, the United States government ordered the deportation of Claudia Jones, a prolific leader and theorist in the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), who, though Trinidadian by birth, had spent most of her life stateside.1 Her expulsion was the culmination of years of harassment, surveillance, and state repression, primarily under the auspices of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (Smith Act) and the Internal Security Act of 1950 (McCarran Act)
As Jones’s biographers Buzz Johnson and Carole Boyce Davies note, taken together, the Smith Act and the McCarran Act created the conditions for the persecution of thousands of progressives, launched an all-out attack on their civil rights, and laid the foundation for immigration checks, deportation, and harassment aimed at Black people
After World War II (WWII), Jones theorized, the threat of US fascism was manifested in the rise in white supremacist terrorism, especially against Black people; the entrenchment of “Wall Street imperialism,” which included the subjugation of labor domestically and economic domination internationally; warmongering and militarism; and, the government’s utilization of anticommunism to crush the CPUSA and to cripple all progressive thought and activism

Summary

Introduction

On December 5, 1955, the United States government ordered the deportation of Claudia Jones, a prolific leader and theorist in the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), who, though Trinidadian by birth, had spent most of her life stateside. Her expulsion was the culmination of years of harassment, surveillance, and state repression, primarily under the auspices of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (Smith Act) and the Internal Security Act of 1950 (McCarran Act). On December 5, 1955, the United States government ordered the deportation of Claudia Jones, a prolific leader and theorist in the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), who, though Trinidadian by birth, had spent most of her life stateside.1 Her expulsion was the culmination of years of harassment, surveillance, and state repression, primarily under the auspices of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (Smith Act) and the Internal Security Act of 1950 (McCarran Act). Jones’s postwar anti-fascism is not surprising given that it was the spread of fascism in the 1930s that drew her to the CPUSA She was impressed by how the Party spoke about the linked fates of Africans who were menaced by fascist Italy and African Americans who were terrorized by white supremacy. Every subsequent issue of the ITUCNW’s newspaper, The Negro Worker, defended Abyssinian sovereignty, condemned the imperialist encroachment upon the country’s territory, and warned that fascist Italy’s actions represented a step toward another world war.6 “The struggle against fascism and war,” the paper enjoined, was part of a larger freedom struggle that included “[the] fight for the release of class war prisoners, [the] fight for the release of the Scottsboro boys and Angelo Herndon, [and]

Johnson 1985

Negro Worker 1935

Conclusion

92 Johnson 1985