Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)
Publication Date
2024
College
Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, College of
Department
History, Department of
BURS Faculty Advisor
Peter Kuryla
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
The communist movement in the United States has struggled with many issues over its long history. One of these problems is the problem of American history itself. The United States, in many ways the quintessential capitalist state, would seemingly represent the ultimate enemy for a communist. It is more than a little bizarre, then, to see the, sometimes intense, admiration that many American communists had for men like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. While contradictory at first, this essay shows the logic behind this admiration, exploring the long history of American communism’s love affair with iconic figures of American history. This essay shows the ways in which American communists perceived the history of the United States as a dialectical unfolding, where men like Jefferson and Lincoln acted as progressive figures for their time, pushing the wheel of history forward, and by extension solidified themselves as integral parts of the American communist movement. Grappling with America’s history of agrarianism and slavery, these communists turned not only to Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, but also to theorists and statesmen closer to home.
Recommended Citation
Hill, Matthew H., "Communism as an Americanism: The Curious Case of the Red Jeffersonians" (2024). Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS). 401.
https://repository.belmont.edu/burs/401
