There is no other movie where U.S. communists get to tell their stories. Glossing over the black struggle is a deficiency, though in the story proper you'd have to ask if John Reed or his Greenwich Village milieu had much contact with that struggle. If not, the story is a little more defensible.
^^^^^^ CB: One of main principles that Communist Party was founded on in distinguishing itself from the Socialist Party from which it split ( an act portrayed in the movie "Reds") was designation of Black workers as specially oppressed, and that the struggle against white supremacy required a special struggle along side of the class struggle. Socialist Party, Debs , took opposite position on this issue. I don't think Reed was in fact involved in any special struggles against white supremacy , so , it's not in the movie. See _The Cry was Unity_ by Mark Solomon on this national question in the early CPUSA. https://www.google.com/webhp?source=search_app#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=mark+solomon+the+cry+was+unity&oq=mark+solomon+the+cry&gs_l=hp.1.0.0i30.77085.81663.0.83853.20.15.0.4.4.0.177.1965.0j15.15.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.Z_znvqOZv1I&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=2a9229fc3c37bd96&biw=1440&bih=783
By the way, "Reds" has a sort of political microcosm of the betrayal- of- revolution (speaking of Trotsky) -by -the- Democratic- Party trope we live so much around here. Reed goes as a delegate ( I thought ; below says "to cover") to the Democratic Convention in 1916 Wilson ran promising he would not take us into WWI . Then Wilson broke his promise (shocking)
"...Through her writing, Louise becomes a feminist and radical in her own right. Reed becomes involved in labor strikes with the "Reds" of the American Communist Labor Party. Obsessed with changing the world, he grows restless, and heads for St. Louis to cover the 1916 Democratic Convention. During Reed's absence, Louise falls into a complicated affair with the alcoholic playwright Eugene O'Neill. Upon his return, Reed discovers the truth about the affair and realizes he still loves Louise. The two marry secretly and make a home together in Croton-on-Hudson, north of New York City, but still have conflicting desires. "