Michael Laski was the founder of the Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist)

Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist)

The Communist Party USA was a small Maoist political party in the United States. It was founded in 1965 by members of the Communist Party USA around Michael Laski who took the side of China in the Sino-Soviet split...

, a splinter group of the Communist Party USA

Communist Party USA

The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....

. Laski had taken the side of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 during the famous Sino-Soviet split

Sino-Soviet split

In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...

 of the early 1960s, calling for a return to ruralism and direct agitation of capitalist countries and organizations. In order to raise funds for his group (which peaked at around 50 members), Laski notoriously spent a day gambling the organization's treasury on the roulette wheel in Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

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Laski is perhaps most famous for being the subject of an essay by Joan Didion

Joan Didion

Joan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...

, entitled "Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.)", which was later compiled into her 1968 anthology Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a 1968 collection of essays by Joan Didion and mainly describes her experiences in California during the 1960s. It takes its title from the poem "The Second Coming," by W. B. Yeats...

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Quotes

The world Michael Laski had constructed for himself was one of labyrinthine intricacy and immaculate clarity, a world made meaningful not only by high purpose but by external and internal threats, intrigues and apparatus, an immutably ordered world in which things mattered. - Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.