The Communist Party USA has donated its archives to New York University. "Decades of party history including founding documents, secret code words, stacks of personal letters, smuggled directives from Moscow, Lenin buttons, photographs and stern commands about how good party members should behave (no charity work, for instance, to distract them from their revolutionary duties)," says today's New York Times. Local tidbit:

The Los Angeles branch, known as “XO1XO5” uses the password “ ‘Kur-heiny,’ which means: ‘Are you advancing?,’ ” he writes. “The answer is: ‘Teip,’ meaning ‘yes.’ ”

Who knew?