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In 1921, Lovestone became editor of the Communist Party newspaper, The Communist. Upon the death of Charles Ruthenberg in 1927 he became the party's national secretary. The party was divided into three factions, the Ruthernberg-Lovestone faction, the Cannon faction and the Foster faction which differed over a number of issues. The Cannon faction was the smallest and worked with the Foster faction. The Ruthernberg-Lovestone faction represented the vast majority of the party. With the Communist Party of the Soviet Union riven by a succession struggle following Lenin's death, the factions in the US eventually corresponded with factions in the Soviet leadership with Foster's faction being strongly supportive of Stalin and Lovestone's faction sympathetic to Bukharin. As a result of his trip to the Comintern Congress in 1928 where he, and Maurice Spector were accidentally shown Trotsky's thesis criticising the direction of the Comintern, James P. Cannon became a Trotskyist and decided to organise his faction in support of Trotsky's position.
Cannon's support for Trotsky became known before he had fully mobilised his supporters. Lovestone led the purging of Cannon and his supporters for TrotskyismTrotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. The term is sometimes used more loosely to denote various political currents claiming a tradition of Marxist opposition to both Stalinism and capitalism. An adherent of Trotskyism is called in 1928.
When Bukharin was purged from the Soviet PolitburoPolitburo is short for Political Bureau''. The term originates either from the Russian Politicheskoe Byuro which contracts to Politbyuro or from the German Politburo''. A Politburo is the executive organization for a number of political parties, most nota in 1929, Lovestone suffered the consequences. A visiting delegation of the Comintern asked him to step down as party secretary in favour of rival William Z. Foster. Lovestone refused and departed for the Soviet Union to argue his case. Lovestone argued that he had the support of the vast majority of the Communist Party and should not have to step aside. Stalin responded that he "had a majority because the American Communist Party until now regarded you as the determined supporters of the Communist International. And it was only because the Party regarded you as friends of the Comintern that you had a majority in the ranks of the American Communist Party".
When he returned to the US, Lovestone was forced to pay for his insubordination though obstenively he was expelled from the party not for challenging Stalin but for his support of Bukharin and the Right OppositionThe Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. It is also the name given to "right-wing" critics within the Communist movement international and for Lovestone's theory of American Exceptionalism which held that capitalism was more secure in the United States and thus different, more moderate strategies should be persued by socialists than elsewhere in the world, an argument that contradicted Stalin's views and the new Third PeriodThird Period refers to the ultra-left policy adopted by the Comintern, following the end of the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union in 1928 up to the adoption of the Popular Front policy in 1934. In December of 1927, the Russian Communist Party held i policy of ultra-leftism promoted by the Comintern.