Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster

Chairman of the U.S. Communist Party and three-time presidential candidate, Foster (1881-1961) is often regarded as a dogmatic opportunist and worshipful adherent of Stalin. This absorbing, colorful biography attempts to emend that view. An itinerant worker who drifted from the slums of his native Philadephia to Portland, Oreg., Foster was a pivotal American Federation of Labor organizer between 1917 and 1919. According to Johanningsmeier, who teaches history at the University of Delaware, the wily, ascetic socialist was an eclectic thinker who borrowed from both European anarchism and the managerial ethos of American corporate enterprise. But, argues the author, Foster's insistence that militant radicals working within the trade-union movement could ignite a revolution in the U.S. contributed to his party's decline and isolation in this country. This brisk biography of a prominent radical who was spied on by Hoover's FBI holds lessons for those seeking progressive change. Photos. (Apr.)