Within the past two decades, ‘American exceptionalism’ has become a trendy term both in political debates and academic discussions. Today, the words ‘American exceptionalism’ generally imply either the uniqueness or superiority of a number of American features over those of the rest of the world. However, the term originally had little in common with such interpretations when it was coined in a controversy among American Communists in 1920s. Relying on the publications of various Marxist factions in the USA and documents of the Comintern, this paper aims to trace the early history of the term ‘American exceptionalism’ in the 1920 and 1930s and to deconstruct related concepts. It is argued that even solely within Marxist discourse the term ‘American exceptionalism’ had several meanings and all of them differed considerably from contemporary definitions. First, it was used sarcastically to address the members of the Communist Party who did not believe that the