Stalin took a personal interest in the American situation. Speaking in May, 1929, to the American Commission of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, he started the line that the communists were to revive after World War II, and asserted that the United States was heading toward a depression that would develop a revolutionary situation. I think the moment is not far off when a revolutionary crisis will develop in America.... It is essential that the American Communist Party should be capable of meeting that historical moment fully prepared and of assuming the leadership of the impending class struggle in America. Every effort and every means must be employed in preparing for that, comrades. For that end the American Communist Party must be improved and bolshevized. For that end we must work for the complete liquidation of factionalism and deviations in the Party. For that end we must work for the reestablishment of unity in the Communist Party of America. The Russians, by disciplinary purges, were hammering out a Party “of a new type,” or, in the words of Stalin, bolshevizing it. In the 1930’s, with the beginnings of the depression, the Communist Party broadened its propaganda-agitation work. Economic disorder was exploited. The Party organized parades, hunger marches, petition campaigns, mass demonstrations. It plunged with vigor into strikes such as the San Francisco general strike of 1934 and the textile and bituminous coal strikes of 1934-35. In November, 1935, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was launched, and communists attempted to burrow themselves in its member unions. In addition, they attempted to convert members of other labor unions, minority groups, especially Negroes and individuals recently arrived in the country. The Party increased in numbers. By 1930, after the great “purges,” membership stood at 7500. By 1935 it had jumped to 30,000, and to 80,000 in 1944. The Young Communist League, the youth organization of the Party, reached 20,000 by 1938. Communist “cells” were being formed in industrial plants, and Party members had infiltrated governmental positions, some even carrying out espionage. Intra-Party struggles had ceased, with Earl Browder, a native of Kansas, being elected in 1930 as General Secretary. He was to remain “in power” until 1945. Step by step the Party was becoming stabilized, developing its agitation and propaganda functions. Disciplinary machinery maintained “unity” and “correctness of views.” This was a period of accepting new members, broadening struggles, and strengthening organizational structure.