Two Souls of Communism

Lester Cole and Steve Nelson were two American Communists whose active years in the party coincided—the years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II, and the early cold war. Yet their experience and what they learned from it diverge considerably.

Steve Nelson is that rarity American Marxists are always looking for—an authentic working-class radical. He arrived in the United States as a Croatian immigrant in 1920, and almost immediately found himself at work in a North Philadelphia slaughterhouse. To immigrants like Nelson, the Communist party became a vehicle for Americanization. His memoir offers us a fascinating account of his years in the CP—organizing miners in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal fields; at wor...