The Making of an American Communist: William Z. Foster

Abstract

Analyses the career of William Zebulon Foster, a leader of the American Communist Party, and a three‐time candidate for President of the United States under that party′s banner. Foster rose from the slums of Philadelphia to earn the reputation of an accomplished labour organizer and then to embrace communist ideology. The poverty of his immigrant parents, and the endless series of dreary jobs he was forced to enter, beginning at age ten, nurtured his rebellious spirit and cultivated an antagonism towards capitalism. Emphasizes the evolution of his ideology from socialism to syndicalism and finally Marxism‐Leninism. William Foster found his vocation as an organizer of trade unions on behalf of the Communist movement. He was a prolific propagandist for and historian of the Party. Never deterred by tortuous twists and turns of the party line, he followed it faithfully and inflexibly until his death in Moscow in 1961.

Citation

O'Donnell, L.A. (1993), "The Making of an American Communist: William Z. Foster", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 20 No. 5/6/7, pp. 142-152. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000000531