Series I: Communist Party National Organizational Bureau and Department, 1930-1991, inclusive

This subseries consists of general files created as a result of Daniel Rubin's national work for the Communist Party. It includes correspondence, meeting minutes, research files, draft reports, and select administrative files documenting Rubin's work as National Organizational Secretary and his work for national Party departments. Files of particular interest in this subseries include National Organizational Secretary correspondence, Organization Bureau meeting minutes, and Organization Department general files. The Organization Bureau and Organization Department refer to the same department in the Communist Party, and were used interchangeably by Rubin. These files contain Rubin's notes from national department meetings and correspondence between Rubin and Party leaders, the bulk of which are dated between 1970 and 1990.

Collected memorabilia related to Rubin's work in the Communist Party is also included in this subseries. These items include a large collection of political buttons and lapel pins dated from the 1930s to the early 2000s. They touch on a wide array of topics including elections, anti-war and anti-nuclear protests, labor movements, and socialism. Lapel pins feature images of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx as well as the insignia of various Communist organizations.

This subseries also contains a significant amount of recordings on audio cassette tapes. Tapes feature lectures, workshops, reports, and conference discussions on topics related to economics, politics, and Party ideology. Speakers featured in these recording include Herbert Aptheker, Arnold Becchetti, Alva Buxenbaum, Gil Green, Gus Hall, Esther Rand, Daniel Rubin, and Henry Winston. Titles for recordings were derived from annotations on the cassettes, and some topics and speakers featured on these recordings are unidentified.

This subseries contains files documenting communication between the Communist Party's National Organization Department and local Party districts and clubs. Materials in this subseries include correspondence and statistics related to Party building, publication distribution, and recruitment activities of local Communist Party branches. New York and Eastern Pennsylvania districts are most well represented, and include notes and drafts of regional committee reports, leadership training seminars, and outlines for local workshops.

This subseries documents Communist Party National Conventions, beginning with the 16th National Convention in 1955 and ending with the 25th National Convention in 1991. Other conferences documented in this series include the 1962 Special Convention, the 1982 Extraordinary Conference, the 1989 Ideological Conference, and several other topical conferences. Files on conferences include discussion bulletins, committee reports, draft resolutions, notes and outlines for workshops on various discussion topics, notes from meetings.

This subseries contains a small amount of documentation related to elections of Communist Party candidates. The bulk of these materials document the presidential campaigns of Gus Hall and running mate Jarvis Tyner in the 1970s. They include campaign memoranda sent to Party members, correspondence related to ballot petitioning efforts, electorate research, candidate schedules, press releases, and campaign flyers.

This subseries contains minutes, discussion notes and transcripts, agendas, reports, and resolutions from meetings of the national administrative bodies of the Communist Party. National bodies documented in this subseries include the National Board, National Committee, Central Committee, National Council, Political Committee, and Program Committee. In several files the Central Committee and National Council meetings overlap. The Central Committee was the leading body of the Communist Party and responsible for the development of Party policy. The National Council, established in 1972, was created to assist the Central Committee with implementation of Party mobilization. The bulk of Central Committee member served on the National Council and consequently the two bodies held many meetings together. Also included in this subseries are 22 audio recordings from a 1990 Program Committee, which include discussions and reports from the meeting.