Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 ‘Towards Soviet America’ -- 2 The Liberator (1929–1935) -- 3 Native Son: Ghetto Nightmares -- 4 ‘Communism is the Twentieth Century Americanism’ -- 5 Lonely Crusade: Union Dues -- 6 Invisible Man: Un-American Activities -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

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The legacy of the relationship between African American writers and Communism in the US is a contested one. Bergin argues that in three novels, by seminal mid-century authors (Wright, Himes and Ellison) Communism is not dismissed as incapable of meeting the demands of black political identity but is castigated for its refusal to do so. A detailed focus on the political milieu in which these texts operate challenges many of the presumptions about the ‘inability’ of Communism to comprehend racial oppression, which dominate literary critical approaches to these novels. She draws on the complex formations black political agency presumed and reproduced by American Communism during the Depression.