Review Article : The Decline of the Communist Party and the Black Question in the U.S.: Harry Haywood's Black Bolshevik

The race question has been difficult for the American left both within theory and practice. This review of Harry Haywood's autobiography, Black Bolshevik, reconsiders the position of the U.S. Communist Party in the 1930s. Haywood's history is reviewed with special attention to the adoption of a party position favoring the right to Black self-determination in the South. Hay wood's charge that the CP degenerated into Browderism is also discussed. His analysis of white chauvinism in the party and the efforts to overcome it give im portant insights into the historical role of the CP. The broader questions of the Party's historical successes and failures are considered against the background of Haywood's life and the struggle for Black liberation.