> Of course, in this weakened position, they were dead
> meat when McCarthyism took root.
And having supported the Smith Act against the Minnesota Trotskyists (Paul Robeson called the SWP, "Fascists."), the CPUSA with it's viciousness towards Trotskyists and Socialists and Left-Liberals, had far fewer allies in civil liberties battles during McCarthyism. Hell, as a piece in Studies on the Left in 1962 by Robert Schaeffer related the Wisconsin CPUSA supported Joseph McCarthy in his first race in which he defeated progressive LaFollette for U.S. Senate. Talk about ironies.