 Given the fact that the Communist League of America (Opposition), the group from which it split, had a membership of "less than 200" during the 1931-1933 period, it seems highly probable that the CLS began with a membership of fewer than 50.The group seems to never have attained critical mass and to have dwindled to a small handful of activists during its final years.The group was severely weakened by the death of one of its leading members, the Polish-born Sam Fisher, of tuberculosis in early 1935, at the age of 27.