Toward Soviet America
The Golden Age of Games and the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA)
In the 1930s, board games flourished as one of the most affordable forms of entertainment during the Great Depression. Among the era’s most iconic games was Monopoly, which allowed players to indulge in fantasies of wealth and power, a comforting escape from economic hardship.
However, not all games of the time celebrated capitalism. One lesser-known game from the early 1930s sought to dismantle it. This game had a radical objective: overthrow the rich, end oppression, and seize the means of production, ultimately transforming the USA into the USSA—the United Soviet States of America.
Download the game Toward Soviet America, by Esther & Allen Shields
This game, titled Toward Soviet America, never became a household staple. Its absence from the cultural landscape highlights a now obscure chapter in American history, where the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) envisioned itself as the vanguard of an imminent proletarian revolution. The 1930s, after all, were the golden age of American communism, with the Great Depression fueling discontent and driving many towards radical ideas.
William Zebulon Foster, the CPUSA’s Secretary-General, embodied this revolutionary fervor. Although his electoral impact was minimal—garnering just 0.3% of the vote in the 1932 presidential election—his influence was significant enough to earn him a state funeral in the USSR, a rare honor for an American.
Toward Soviet America Board A3 Toward Soviet America Rules A4
The book Toward Soviet America
Foster’s legacy is perhaps best encapsulated in his book Toward Soviet America, published in 1932. The book lays out a vision of a future Soviet America where real democracy would finally flourish, with industry and government under the control of the working masses.
In an effort to spread these ideas to a younger audience, the CPUSA turned the book into a board game. The March 1934 issue of New Pioneer, a communist youth magazine, featured the game board created by Esther & Allen Shields, inviting players to traverse capitalist America’s social injustices on their way to a communist utopia.
Download the book Toward Soviet America, by William Zebulon Foster
Toward Soviet America was a game of revolution, where players advanced by confronting the evils of capitalism—like Wall Street and the Ku Klux Klan—while receiving boosts from revolutionary forces such as militant workers and farmers. The goal was to reach the center of the board, representing a communist paradise populated by figures like Lenin, Marx, and Foster himself.
This game offered a glimpse into a world where American communists might have risen to the same stature as the Founding Fathers, had history taken a different turn. Instead, Toward Soviet America remains a curious artifact of an era when board games were not just a pastime, but a vehicle for radical change.
Toward Soviet America Board A3 Toward Soviet America Rules A4
How To Play “Toward Soviet America”
First make sixteen small cardboard disks. Mark four “N” for workers of the North, four “W” for workers of the West, etc. East set of four may be marked a different color with crayon or paint. Then take a button and color one side red.
Players place their men on the black circles at the four starting bases, North, West, South, East. The first player tosses the button in the air and moves two spaces if the plain side comes down on top, or moves four spaces if the red side comes up. Moves may be split between pieces.
No single piece may enter a blockade. Two pieces must be brought on the square before a blockade and a four-move won with the button to jump both pieces over the blockade. See the game board for other moves. When a player has taken a piece all around the board to the square next to his start-off, he turns up the home- stretch to Soviet America. The first player to get all his men in wins the game, and shows which group of workers leads the way toward Soviet America.
Download the game Toward Soviet America, by William Zebulon Foster
If the game takes too long with the button toss, try it with a cardboard dial. Make a circle with a saucer on card- board. Divide the circle into six equal parts, like slices of pie. Number each slice from 1 to 6. Then make a small cardboard pointer, like a thick arrow, with a head at one end, a feather-shaped tail at the other, and a round circle in the middle. Make a hole through the circle with a pin, then push the pin through a button or small cardboard disk for a washer, and then into the center of the dial. Corrugated cardboard makes a good backing for the dial and holds the pin firm. Spin the pointer and move the number of squares indicated when it stops.
Another way of playing is to take all the 1 to 6 cards from a pack of cards, or make four cards of ones, four of twos, etc. Shuffle the cards and put pile face down on table. Each player draws one at a time and moves the number of squares shown by the number on his card.
Ask your Pioneer comrades or the troop leader about anything that puzzles you on the game board. Do you know that L.S.N.R. stands for the League of Struggle for Negro Rights? Can you tell who every one of the leaders beckoning to Soviet America are? Tim Buck is a leader of the Communist Party of Canada and with six others is serving a five-year sentence in prison for militant activities.
Maybe you can think up other ways of playing “Toward Soviet America.”
Toward Soviet America Board A3 Toward Soviet America Rules A4
Download the game Toward Soviet America, by Esther & Allen Shields