Collection F0332 - Philip J. Jaffe collection

Philip J. Jaffe was an American businessman resident in New York who took a special interest in Communist parties and governments in the Soviet Union, China, Southeast Asia (including India), as well as the Communist Party of the United States. He was a book collector and author of several studies on communism. The Workers' Party, formed in 1921, was a successor to the Communist Party of America, a largely foreign-language dominated communist body which itself split-off from the Socialist Party in 1919. The Communist Party of the United States was founded in 1921 and, although it has contested American presidential and other elections, its strength has largely been confined to those involved in the labour and civil rights movements, and among students on university campuses. It reached its zenith, in terms of popular support, during the 1930s and 1940s. The party was influential in the establishment of the CIO and benefitted from the US-Soviet alliance in the Second World War. The Cold War diminished the strength and resources of the Party as did the revelations of Stalin's policies in the USSR.