1945-1975: Openly socialist, yet reformist, active in trade unionism, peace movement and distrustful of the USSR.
We can actually put a hard end date on these guys: 1956, when the Soviets intervened in Hungary. De-stalinization really hurt western communist parties and then the intervention caused most of them to split into "hardline" and reformist tendencies, which all fizzled out or became decrepit (with help from the FBI). Also, communists in the west have a earlier history than 1945. In the 1930s the Communist Party was relatively popular in the US and had a civil rights emphasis. In the 1920s you had the first red scare. Debs and major union battles in the 1900-1910s, plus first peace movement. And the 1880s you see major anarchist activity and the Haymarket affair. Before that there are some scientific socialists but also a lot of utopian commune movements.
We can actually put a hard end date on these guys: 1956, when the Soviets intervened in Hungary. De-stalinization really hurt western communist parties and then the intervention caused most of them to split into "hardline" and reformist tendencies, which all fizzled out or became decrepit (with help from the FBI). Also, communists in the west have a earlier history than 1945. In the 1930s the Communist Party was relatively popular in the US and had a civil rights emphasis. In the 1920s you had the first red scare. Debs and major union battles in the 1900-1910s, plus first peace movement. And the 1880s you see major anarchist activity and the Haymarket affair. Before that there are some scientific socialists but also a lot of utopian commune movements.
1945 was an arbitrary starting point, yeah.