False: Communist party US changed its name in 1919 to progressive party

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July 30 2020

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The Progressive Party was a short-lived competing faction born out of the CPA established in 1924 for the presidential electionCommunist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), also called Communist Party USA, was a left-wing political party which was founded in 1919. In 1919, inspired by Russia's October Revolution (1917), two U.S. communist parties emerged from the left-wing of the Socialist Party of America (SPA): the Communist Party of America (CPA), composed of the SPA's foreign-language federations and led by the sizeable and influential Russian Federation, and the Communist Labor Party of America (CLP), the predominantly English-language group. They were established legally but were soon forced underground. Although the two parties feuded and various factions broke away to establish competing communist groups, the Communist International encouraged the unification of those organizations. One of the factions that broke out was the Progressive Party of 1924, a short-lived independent political party assembled for the 1924 presidential election. Bob La Follette headed it. The 1924 Progressives pledged a 'housecleaning' of executive departments, public control of natural resources, public ownership of railways, and tax reduction. The party polled only 17 percent of the popular vote and did not influence the election, in which President Calvin Coolidge and the Republicans won a majority. The Progressive Party dissolved when La Follette died the following year.