Reds with Maurice Isserman

Maurice Isserman's family has a long and complicated history with Communist Party USA. The most notable figure in this history was Isserman's uncle Abraham, a founding member of the National Lawyer's Guild who served as a defense lawyer in the first Smith Act trial against Communist Party leadership, and was subsequently cited for contempt, imprisoned, and disbarred. As a result, Isserman grew up with a personal view into the idealism that drove many Americans to join the party, as well as the internal tensions that made many leave years later. In college, he witnessed similar tensions in the internal politics of Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS—an experience that made him all the more eager to understand what happened with CPUSA. Isserman has devoted his academic career to this and other questions, and in 2024, he published Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism.

In September, I spoke to Isserman about Reds, and about his own experiences on the American left. In addition to his time in SDS, Isserman was also an early member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and he has been a frequent chronicler of the organization's history. He left DSA in 2023 over frustrations with the organization's new leadership and its response to the attacks of October 7, a decision he discussed in a widely read and widely critiqued essay in The Nation. Near the end of our conversation, I talk to Isserman about his decision to leave and ask him to engage with some of the questions that his public departure from DSA raised but didn't answer.