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Saturday, December 1, 2012
Right Opportunism in the CPUSA
From: http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/right-opportunism-in-the-cpusa/#more-4971
The following is a discussion article for the upcoming Communist Party USA national convention. I a
m reposting it here from ML Today as an exploration of the development of Right Opportunism in the CPUSA. As Comrade Stalin has said, “Under capitalist conditions the Right deviation in communism signifies a tendency … of a section of the Communists to depart from the revolutionary line of Marxism in the direction of Social-Democracy.” For an important analysis of the historical roots of Right Opportunism in the CPUSA, see Harry Haywood‘s article, “The Degeneration of the CPUSA in the 1950s.” See also the section on antirevisionism of the Marxist-Leninist Study Guide:
The Old Bug of Right Opportunism Returns
by Mark Anderson
Although Marxist-Leninist terminology has fallen out of vogue with the top leadership of our Party, there’s no avoiding the use of precise, scientific language if one is to analyze contemporary phenomena from a Communist point of view. To do so would be like trying to have a discussion of Newtonian physics without using words like force or matter.
For several years our Party has been suffering from the corrosive effects of what Marx, Lenin and other Marxists called opportunism, specifically right opportunism. This was not name-calling on their part, but was instead an attempt to define a historically determined phenomenon that persists to this day.
Former CPUSA chairman Gus Hall, in a 1979 article titled “Opportunism: the Destructive Germ,” defined right opportunism as “an unnecessary and unprincipled accommodation and, in the end, a capitulation to the enemy. It is a sacrificing of the longer-term and more basic interests of the working class and the people behind the guise of getting concessions on some immediate questions.”
He called opportunism a recurrent “virus,” an “old bug,” that the Party, surrounded as it is by bourgeois pressures, had to constantly be on guard against.
Generally speaking, right opportunism means sacrificing principle for short-term gains. It means an excessive readiness to make compromises with the capitalist class at the expense of the working class, to “get along” with capitalist order, to “go with the flow” and work for small changes around the edges rather than for fundamental change. It’s closely related to the concept of reformism.
The “left” variant of opportunism is characterized by sectarian phrase-mongering detached from the real world, whose objective effect is to perpetuate the established order much like its right variant does.
Historically, right opportunism has been the primary danger within the CPUSA. In its most extreme form, it led to the dissolution of the Party under the leadership of Earl Browder in the 1940s. It also badly split the Party in 1991 when a right-opportunist faction tried to capture the leadership of the Party and transform it into a reformist, social-democratic association.
The right-opportunist affliction in our Party today is manifested in several ways, most notably in a de-emphasizing of the class struggle.
For example, instead of helping the working class understand that its interests are irreconcilably opposed to the monopoly capitalist class, and organizing to wage struggle on that basis, the right-opportunist trend advocates all-class unity against political conservatives in a classless “battle for democracy.”
It places strategic emphasis on supporting more liberal or “enlightened” elements of the ruling, capitalist class as the lesser of two evils, particularly in the electoral arena, until such time as the conservatives or the “ultra-right” are decisively defeated. What would constitute such a decisive defeat is never spelled out, however. Even now, with a Democratic president and strong Democratic majority in Congress, advocates of this approach insist it must be retained.
To justify its position, this trend invokes Georgi Dimitrov’s theory of the popular front against fascism in the 1930s, and a variant of that position developed by CPUSA leaders in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan came to power. Yet this trend is quick to point out that we do not have fascism today, nor does it appear to be imminent.
In practice, this all-class strategy means that the Party refrains from criticizing its would-be capitalist-class allies, mutes its criticism of the big monopolies (e.g. refrains from calling for their nationalization), exaggerates the significance of differences within the ruling class, and plays down basic Marxist concepts like the class character of the capitalist state.
One result of this approach is a blunting of working-class consciousness and socialist consciousness, and a weakening of the Party’s fighting spirit.
Among other right-opportunist ideas afflicting our Party are these:
The capitalist system is not moribund, as Lenin said, but is relatively strong. It is not in general crisis. Therefore, the U.S. party’s strategy should be solely to win attainable reforms within the system rather than advocate capitalism’s revolutionary replacement with socialism.
Anti-monopoly strategy, let alone anti-capitalist propaganda, is too advanced for this stage of struggle, and the main focus should instead be on rebuffing the most extreme right and the Republican Party.
Historically, socialism has shown itself to be unable to solve economic and social problems. Central planning is a failure; a market-oriented economy is the way to go. It’s not even clear anymore what socialism is.
The class struggle has ceased to be the central pivot around which all questions revolve.
Racism and national oppression are gradually receding. It is no longer necessary to aggressively push for affirmative action.
Issues of discrimination, anti-Semitism, and the struggle for the full equality of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, Asian-Pacific and Arab Americans, LGBT, women, and youth no longer requires special attention. Party Commissions and special demands on these questions are unnecessary.
The term “U.S. imperialism” is too simplistic. The U.S. government, especially under President Obama, can play a positive and humanitarian role in world politics. For this reason it is permissible for the U.S. military and NATO forces to occupy other nations like Iraq and Afghanistan, impose “democratic” reforms, and secure neoliberal economic advantages. Peace and solidarity work is therefore not as important as it once was.
Electoral politics should be limited to work within the Democratic Party. Any attempt to go outside the two-party system is sectarian and futile. Running candidates on the Communist Party ticket is especially narrow and self-defeating.
The CPUSA is bogged down by dogmatism, sectarianism and rigidity. Many of the stock slanders of the Party are indeed justified. It may not survive unless it abandons its outdated dogmas, including the dogma that it should play a leading, vanguard role.
The Party should emulate social democracy and seek to merge with the broad left. The “Communist plus” should be given a quiet burial, and Marxist-Leninist education and literature (including a printed news paper) are relatively unimportant. Strong party organization is no longer necessary.
The basis for the growth and development of this negative, right-opportunist trend in our Party consists of several elements, including: (1) the relatively long period of the capitalist system’s expansion, at least until the most recent crisis, and the resulting ideological pressures of ruling-class ideology; (2) the continuing ideological fallout from the demise of the USSR and the Eastern European socialist countries, (3) the weak class composition of our own Party — the insufficient number of workers in the leadership and membership (a number being further reduced by the passing away of many working-class Party veterans); (4) the inadequate theoretical training of the party membership in the basics of Marxism-Leninism, a problem compounded by the traditional U.S. baggage of “pragmatism” and “American exceptionalism”; (5) the broader influence of reformism and opportunism in the working-class movement; and (6) the corrosive influence of the Party’s extensive private property holdings, particularly in real estate, which now account for the vast majority of its operating revenue.
Defeating this retrograde trend within our Party is an absolutely essential task. Without its defeat, there can be no successful struggle for socialism.
February 19, 2010
http://www.cpusa.org/convention-discussion-the-old-bug-of-opportunism-returns/
MLToday on the 29th Convention of the old CPUSA
The following article is being posted here not as a full
endorsement of the views expressed therein but rather to share some
insights on the Right opportunist line in the old Communist Party USA. It is originally from the website Marxism-Leninism Today:
[ML Today editor's note: a number of delegates to the recent CPUSA
convention have forwarded to MLToday the following document, reflecting
their considered, collective opinion of the 29th CPUSA Convention.]
Many friends and comrades have asked us: what really happened at the CPUSA Convention on May 21-23, eleven weeks ago, at Party headquarters in New York City?
So far, there are only the self-congratulatory appraisals, one by Party chair Sam Webb and another by his supporter John Case. Both are champions of the social reformist trend in the Party.
In the view of the Communist (that is, the Marxist-Leninist) wing of the CPUSA, however, the May 21-23, 2010 convention was a disaster. We see the Convention as a scandalous retreat from the US Party’s honorable history of principled struggle. The Convention was a retreat from socialism, class struggle, political independence, and internationalism. The Convention gave up ground on the fight against racism, imperialism, and monopoly.
It was not a convention rich in substance. What little substance there was, was objectionable, and came in the Main Report and the Composite Resolutions, which are available in full at www.cpusa.org/a-way-out-of-the-deepening-crisis/ and http://www.cpusa.org/29th-national-convention/.
The Main Report
Sam Webb’s report could have been written by any liberal. When his
followers dutifully referred to it as “brilliant,” many a delegate could
barely believe it.
It is known that one or more members of the National Board (NB) urged Sam Webb to take into account preconvention discussion critical of his line. He refused, calling such criticism the outpouring of a “small minority.” In the old days many ideas in preconvention discussion — even if critical of the leadership — would have been taken into account and discussed in the Main Report. That did not happen this time.
His Main Report is full of Straw Men deployed against his left critics in the Party. Skillful at writing opportunist double talk, Webb can compose sentences that, to the unwary reader, sound like common sense. Read more closely, however, his formulations throw open the door through which have marched the reformism, tailism, and American Exceptionalism that are aggravating the crisis in the CPUSA. For example:
What I want to do is correct one-sidedness in our thinking. A transfer in class power — which will more likely be a series of contested moments during which qualitative changes in power relations in favor of the working-class and its allies take place…
Advances?
Webb began his report with a list of what he views as “advances” since the last CP convention in 2005. Many of these he credits to the Obama Administration which took office in January 2009.
It’s a curious list. Much of his list is simply Obama’s promises or hopes hailed as if they were achievements. The Administration talks about “reining in Wall St.” It aspires to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Global warming has been put “on the agenda.”
Much of the list is less than earth-shaking in importance. For example, the White House issued a proclamation on Workers’ Memorial Day.
Some items are wholly imaginary: “The pendulum of power has shifted.” He claims “progressives are on the offensive.” “Torture was prohibited.”
2005 versus 2010: Some Facts
His list of “advances,” of course, purports to be evidence justifying the CPUSA policy of tailing Obama and the Democrats. Here is counterevidence:
In 2005 the US didn’t have 30,000 fresh troops in Afghanistan. Now it has, all told, nearly 100,000 there, not counting mercenaries.
In 2005 the US had a military budget of around $600 billion. Now it is $708 billion.
In 2005 there was the blockade of Cuba. In 2010 there is a reauthorized blockade of Cuba.
In 2005 Honduras had a constitutionally elected government. Now it has a usurper government installed by the US and its Honduran allies.
In 2005 Guantanamo was open. In 2010 Guantanamo is still open.
In 2005 the Cuban Five were in prison. In 2010 the Cuban Five remain in prison.
In 2005, in the housing bubble, predatory lenders targeted people of color. In 2010 mortgage delinquencies, and foreclosure and evictions are at an all-time high, and the victims are disproportionately people of color.
In 2005 the unemployment rate of Black workers was double the unemployment rate of white workers. In 2010 Black workers’ unemployment rate was still double the white unemployment rate, if not more.
In 2005 we needed health care reform. In 2010 we got a new health inurance “reform” law that entrenches the private, profit-making insurance carriers, the most parasitic sector of finance capital.
In 2005 with Bush in the White House and Republican control of Congress, the war in Iraq wasn’t winding down. In 2010 with Democratic control of Congress and a Democrat in the White House, the Iraq War is still not winding down. It is being re-branded.
In 2005 we had a president who had recently launched a war of aggression in Iraq; in 2010 we have a president who escalated a war of aggression in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 2005 before the housing bubble burst, investment bankers and other lords of high finance were raking in billions by fraudulent means. In 2010, two years after the crash exposed them, the same lords of finance, their bonuses fattened by taxpayer billions, walk in and out of Congressional hearings fearing no one. They thumb their noses at the Congress and the public.
In 2005 the party had weekly newspaper we could give out at plant gates. Now it has a cyber newspaper.
If there was anything new in Webb’s report it was the reaffirmation of tailism, more emphatically than ever. Webb stated that for the CPUSA there is only to be “independent politics inside the Democratic Party.”
The Official “Composite” Resolutions
The content of the composite resolutions pushed through by the leadership illustrate vividly the political decay.
Historically, in the US working class movement, the chief features of right social democracy are 1) the defense of imperialism and 2) the soft-peddling of the struggle against racism. This convention marks a big shift in that direction.
The original resolutions from the Party grassroots were combined with similar resolutions and “edited” by the Resolutions Committee. But the “editing” destroyed the original political thrust of the submitted resolutions. It would be an exaggeration to say the Composite Resolutions bore any resemblance to the original resolutions. No original resolutions were read to or voted on by the Convention body.
One hour was allowed for discussion of the resolutions. The resolutions committee spent 45 minutes reading the edited resolutions, word-for-word out loud. Discussion was cut off after 15 minutes, even though many people were lined up to speak.
“Composite” Resolution #5, the long resolution on Peace and Solidarity is the most disgraceful and dangerous of all the resolutions. It is the most removed from anti-imperialist principles. It defends the Obama foreign policy against the facts. When facts don’t conform to the tailist policy, it adjusts the facts, asserting, for example, that the US withdrawal from Iraq is “on track.”
The underlying fiction put forth by the leadership is: the Obama Administration is never guilty of any crimes. The Obama Administration only does bad things “under pressure from the right wing.”
This Peace and Solidarity resolution will be of great interest to the international Communist movement, which can only conclude that it no longer has a Communist Party ally in the belly of the beast.
This resolution means the CPUSA leadership is consciously choosing alignment with Obama instead of the struggle against imperialism. The CPUSA leaders do not want to struggle against imperialist war, which Obama is waging and expanding.
It is easier for the CPUSA to make common cause with the US Administration on the basis of the golden words of his various speeches calling for nuclear arms cuts. The CPUSA wants “a new peace movement,” as Party peace leaders have stated, one that will dodge the issue of imperialist aggression. It will, instead, support nuclear disarmament and stress the wastefulness of military spending in terms of funds unavailable for economic and social needs.
This, then, is the most shameful consequence of this opportunist leadership’s loss of its working-class and Marxist-Leninist bearings. It is de facto acquiescing to the criminal U.S. imperialist occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Fight for Jobs, Resolution #1, was supposed to be showcased at the Convention. It is little different from the AFL-CIO program. A clear Marxist approach, for example, would entail the class-struggle demand to cut the workweek with no cut in pay. Such a remedy would expand jobs at the expense of corporate profits. This notion is nowhere to be found. Worse, while the resolution takes note of the especially high unemployment rates among Blacks, Latinos, women, youth, etc. it opportunistically does not call for affirmative action in hiring and re-hiring them, the classic CPUSA position for many decades.
The Special Report on the Fight against Racism (Resolution # 2) True to the key policy of Webb and his allies — Tail Obama and the Democrats — this resolution sees the upsurge of racism (SB1070, the Arizona racial profiling law, the wave of anti-Muslim discrimination and repression) as a response from the ultra-right to the election of Obama. With this resolution, the CPUSA fight against racism is no longer primarily motivated by the necessity of building working class unity. Rather, the CPUSA leaders fear the ultra right is trying to “disrupt” the workings of the new Administration. In other words, the Obama Administration’s political interests, not working-class unity, are the main preoccupation. This resolution also dodges the question of affirmative action.
The Resolution on Political Action (Resolution # 3), equates the ultra- right with the Republican Party and shuns a class analysis of the Obama Administration. This resolution could have been written by the Democratic National Committee. It pledges to “extend and defend” the “victories” won in the November 2008 election. It is, simply put, more tailism.
The Resolution on Immigrant Rights (# 4) merely restates the AFL-CIO position in favor of immigration reform. It leaves out the highly relevant fact that deportations of undocumented workers have increased under an Obama Administration eager to appease nativist sentiment. According to figures from the federal immigration enforcement agency, in 2009 the Obama Administration deported 389,834 people, about 20,000 more than in 2008, the final year of the Bush Administration.
Resolution # 6, on Party-building, manages to discuss the “challenges” to Party growth without acknowledging that the Party membership is in steep decline. An honest discussion of why recruitment is failing was omitted.
How many party members are there? In a report on Party Internet work and Internet “recruiting,” one NB member inadvertently gave away the real size of this declining party, a number often lied about. In 2005 the CPUSA had 2500 members, according to Sam Webb. At the 2010 convention the NB member in question declared “3 times a week a new application comes by Internet, and at this rate the party could double its size in three years.” Do the math. If there are 150 yearly Internet applications, the current membership may be reckoned to be around 450-500 at most.
The present leaders would have us believe, of course, that the steep decline has nothing to do with the politics of the leadership. Rather, it is subtly implied that it is the members who must change their ways. Members are to blame, and they must work differently.
More on the Character of the Convention
The grim reality we face is that, in the May 2010 convention, the right-wing faction in the leadership led by Webb, for now, has consolidated its hold over the party.
The outcome was dreadful, but it was not entirely surprising. Opportunism has been the increasingly assertive trend in this party for years. This is the same right opportunist direction taken by some other parties.
In the pre-convention discussion, articles like “Save the Party,” give chapter and verse of our critique of the Party’s political decline (see www.mltoday.com), and what has to be done to turn matters around.
The current Party leadership is a faction. Factions and factionalism are not limited to oppositions to leaderships. In such cases, however, official factionalism functions in the form of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy stifles party democracy and membership criticism. It uses charges of “disruption,” and, of course, “factionalism” against its left critics. The present leaders have not — in so many words — repudiated democratic centralism. They will enjoy the democracy. We may expect to be on the receiving end of the centralism.
In June 2009 the factional nature of the Webb leadership was most clearly revealed when it rammed through a policy of ending the print edition of the Party’s weekly paper, the People’s Weekly World. It also withheld information at subsequent National Committee (NC) meetings on the extent of leadership and membership opposition to the move. This is one of a series of abuses for which they still have not been held accountable.
A notorious example from 2005, a CP convention year. The Illinois CP, after adopting a resolution calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, forwarded it on to the national convention for adoption. Although efforts were subsequently made by a clearly uncomfortable national Party leadership to have the maker of the motion change it (“to reflect the security interests of the Iraqi people” – i.e. to acknowledge the legitimacy of the U.S. occupiers), the maker refused, pointing out that even if he had wanted to do so (which he did not), it was already out of his hands. The resolution ultimately came before the national convention in a bundle of resolutions approved by the resolutions committee. That bundle was adopted unanimously.
Subsequently, that resolution was willfully disregarded by the Party’s leadership and editors. Its content was never reflected in the Party’s own newspaper. Efforts to have this position reflected in the Party’s publications were repeatedly quashed. Nor was the resolution implemented in the Party’s mass work, particularly on the national level. It remains a dead letter to this day.
The justification for this willful neglect was that Sam Webb, in his report to the convention, suggested a “different approach” — one acceptable to Democrats — calling for a “timetable” or an “exit strategy” from Iraq. This approach was and essentially remains a stalling tactic, an indefinite postponement of U.S. withdrawal that has resulted in many thousands of additional Iraqi and U.S. deaths and the continued presence of over 100,000 U.S. troops (and a similar number of “contractors”) in Iraq up to this very day.
Webb’s report, which was presented without any opportunity for substantive amendment, was perfunctorily adopted. His report was then used to invalidate the clear antiwar resolution.
And this from a Party leadership that purports to champion democracy!
Stifling Convention Democracy
The convention, a caricature of democracy, was tightly controlled by the present leaders.
It was small: only 158 delegates and 50 guests. Convention managers filled the three days with ludicrous time wasters, such as a bagpipe-playing session. They contrived delegate selection rules to give regions with no clubs a vote, especially if they were reliably pro-incumbent. For example, a defender of the right-wing line represented the state of West Virginia.
Unlike previous conventions, the mood of this convention showed little sense of internationalism, and little sense of outrage against the imperialist wars being waged by the US. The convention was stacked, as much as possible, with people willing to go along to get along, as well as the current leadership and its flatterers.
What was the mood? One Party worker, a man in his 50s stated:
At the convention, I felt like an outsider. My “home in this rock,” to quote Paul Robeson, seemed to be no longer my home. My political home has been transformed without my consent or agreement. It has been stolen. They have put an end to the necessary tools of our trade, so to speak, the party paper and timely class-oriented pamphlets on the important issues facing our working class. Tailing and nonsense analysis replaced class-struggle analysis and leadership. In general, it seemed to me that our misleadership has lost their class-conscious common sense.
Clearly, the goal, which conference organizers achieved, was to run a top-down, stage-managed convention that would squelch free debate, waste time, and run out the clock.
There was little time devoted to face-to-face discussion at the convention. People could not engage in discussion to collectively shape an agenda on how to best move the organization forward.
Most of the Convention’s time was squandered on self-congratulatory speeches from the leadership that took credit for general political trends way beyond any conceivable CPUSA influence. The “calls to action” amounted to nothing more than calls for legislative lobbying and electioneering for Democrats.
Yet the rightists in leadership had been worried about loss of control the convention, though, regrettably, their worries proved unfounded. In a preconvention comment one of their supporters voiced the worry:
A narrowly based, but very persistent campaign has been waged on the Internet and in the comments sections of CP publications — by my count nearly 20% of commenters and discussants and much more if you count the number of words — with the sole effective purpose being to distract the Left, and especially the CP, from working within the broadly defined Obama coalition, or from focusing on a majority-based agenda of reforms.
The right had reason for anxiety. Most of the resolutions, like most of the pre-convention discussion (available at the www. MLToday.com website), opposed the reformist line of the present leadership. It opposed the shutting down of the print edition of the People’s World. It supported ending the fawning tailism of Obama and the Democrats. It called for the Party to shed right opportunism and to return to its anti-imperialist, class struggle, and anti-war principles.
We believe the convention outcome does not reflect the political balance in the Party membership as whole. The grassroots opposition sentiment, which is substantial, was barely reflected. The convention delegates were carefully chosen by procedures that guaranteed majority support of the incumbents. In all organizations incumbents have certain advantages. This was done by various means, quite a few of them flagrantly dishonest, such as completely ignoring the content of properly submitted resolutions from the Party grassroots.
That the national convention would be a travesty of democracy was predictable, perhaps, from the chicanery at the state conventions that preceded it – the Illinois District convention being one of the worst cases. In the Illinois convention, the organizers killed time by watching videos and holding tutorials on how to send email. In Illinois and elsewhere the Webb faction maneuvered to keep key, articulate leaders opposed to the rightist trend away from the national convention.
The national convention was held in a room small in size, allegedly for economy reasons. The Webb faction has vacillated between 1) declaring a financial crisis that rules out face-to-face meetings and 2) denying any financial crisis exists if they are claiming that there is no problem with their stewardship. The spin depends on needs of the moment. Truth and consistency are not the guiding principles.
They smothered debate not only by ignoring preconvention resolutions and discussion, but also by making the convention smaller and less representative. Rural areas of the country, even if there was only one party member in a given state, got a voting delegate. But some industrial clubs were completely unrepresented.
They also isolated those critics of the Party line who were at the convention. One of the strongest of their opponents, an NC member from Kentucky, objected to adding to the NC a Midwesterner who evinced no understanding of the role of clubs in Party structure. He also objected to another candidate involved in questionable financial activity. He was overruled and the two were added to the NC. For his pains, he himself was dropped from the NC. Whenever he rose to speak, he was surrounded by Webb loyalists.
An Air of Unreality
Most leadership speeches proclaimed a mad eagerness to work in an imaginary coalition with the liberal wing of Big Business. In his Main Report, Webb boasted, “Broadly speaking, our view of the general conditions of struggle and the strategic path forward was and is on the money.”
A long-time Party peace movement leader made such delusional statements as: “Obama is listening to us [e.g., Peace Action, Military Families Speak Out]. He meets with us. We can’t close this door by criticizing him.” “We need to help Obama resist being pushed to the right.” “Obama’s sentiment on Afghanistan is shifting our way.” “Obama has realistic assessment on the withdrawal of troops.”
Thus, the content of the convention was remarkably unconnected to the Party’s real mission – leading struggle. Such pressing issues as climate change, one billion hungry people, a waning labor movement, a health care system given over to major profiteering, populations displaced and migrating, US militarization of the planet, and more received little or no discussion.
A Dearth of Internationalism
In the Convention’s deliberations there was little discussion of developments abroad: the multiplying wars, global economic crisis, struggles like that of the Haitian people for survival against racism and colonialism, resistance to US bases and militarization, popular resistance to the coup government in Honduras, and a real push to end the blockade and free the Cuban Five.
As for our relations with other Communist parties, Convention organizers minimized the number of observers from the international Communist movement. When realistic comrades pointed out that, if budgetary considerations were paramount, then inviting the UN or consular staff resident in New York from such counties as China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea was an option, for the price of a subway ride. The Party leadership resisted that obvious solution.
In the end, several parties did appear to give short greetings. The Vietnamese delegate spoke.
Convention managers minimized delegates’ knowledge what the international Communist movement was saying to the CPUSA.
For example, the Webb circle tried to suppress the full Greek Communist Party (KKE) greetings, especially the paragraphs that dealt with opportunism in the international Communist movement. When the full KKE text was handed in writing to the delegates (thanks to the fact that the KKE had speedily posted the greetings in English at its website) Webb and his supporters were forced to issue a message of solidarity to the KKE and eventually to post the whole KKE statement at the CPUSA web site. Of course, now that it is there, they are making no effort to call attention to it.
Youth
One of the most active YCLers expressed alarm at the lack of young delegates at the convention. There were, of course, YCL guests (and a few delegates) but participation from youth was scant. A healthy and vibrant Communist Party would give special attention to the training and support of young leaders and cadre. The lack of youth participation is a portent that the current political line of the leadership has no future.
The convention was stacked, as much as possible, with people willing to “go along to get along,” as well as the current leaders and their hangers-on. YCLers were given a code to register as guests, and when some leaders of the YCL tried to register they were denied access to the convention for the reason that “there was no room.” This was systematically done for political reasons.
Resistance to the Line
With plenary sessions a choreographed sham, what rebellion there was could only take place in skirmishes in the workshops and panels, not the plenaries. There were good discussions in the workshops. However, there were no minutes taken or reports given back to the larger body.
In one workshop, for example, the information technology panacea was challenged by an Arizona delegate who pointed out the reality of the digital divide.
In the “Club Life and Education” workshop the majority of participants steered the discussion towards theory – i.e., the leadership’s failure to incorporate and develop it and the need to focus on the Marxist-Leninist theoretical education of existing and new members. Indeed, the consensus of this workshop was that the leadership needed to be told that the Party needs to pay more attention to theory. The YCL co-convener of the workshop attempted to shift the discussion and assert control a number of times, without much success
Two Controversies
Two controversies burst out into the open at the Convention. One was the censorship of the KKE greetings, mentioned above.
The other was the treatment of the resolution on independence for Puerto Rico. The Massachusetts District resolution on Puerto Rican liberation was substantially the same as in the last convention. However, the nervous chair, People’s World editor Terrie Albano, perceived the resolution as an act of insurrection from rebel districts (Massachusetts, Kentucky, Indiana). Afraid of debate, Albano shut down discussion. This enraged Party members of Puerto Rican descent and other backers of the Massachusetts resolution, several of whom walked out.
One mendacious “special resolution” deserves a word. It emanated from the national leadership, commending the New York District for helping to re-launch May Day. New York trade union comrades familiar with the facts pointed out that national Party leaders had done their best not to participate in May Day on the grounds that “Obama need support; he doesn’t need criticism.” Sam Webb and Scott Marshall, Party labor secretary, had rejected early pleas for help from the trade unionists and immigrant groups trying to relaunch it.
More Liquidation
The “Composite” resolutions represent ideological liquidation. All the resolutions repudiate the idea that the CPUSA will seek to play a leading role in anything or initiate anything. It will merely “participate in,” “help,” “encourage,” “join in,” “give support to,” and so on.
But there was physical liquidation too. The convention decided henceforth to hold only one National Committee meeting a year. The other three meetings will be conference calls, which are, of course, easier to manipulate.
It was clear from the comments of Roberta Wood, Party secretary-treasurer, that the Party will rent Winston-Unity Hall, a floor of the New York City headquarters building, to finance a pay raise for Party staff. It increasing appears that the paid staff is asserting its group interests regardless of the consequences to the organization or its rank and file members who were not present as delegates.
The CPUSA leadership composition became more skewed with near total removal of independent and critical voices from the NC. The leadership is now quite inbred, both politically and otherwise. The daughter of Sam and Sue Webb — a schoolteacher in Boston who plays little or no role in Party life there — was put on the National Committee.
There was an unsuccessful effort by Danny Rubin, an ideological ally and mentor of Webb, to enhance the powers of the National Board (NB), which has become really a rubber-stamp council of Webb loyalists. Rubin wished to centralize power at the expense of the NC on matters of Party constitutional change.
The incoming NC’s size remains about the same, still 82 or 84. The convention dropped 12 or 14 NC members, and added a like amount. Some departing NC members were not removed, they resigned in disgust.
Party veterans noted that the reports on local activity, customary at such gatherings were not “what we are doing” They were “what’s going on,” that is, what others are doing. It was another expression of the Party’s loss of purpose.
At the convention younger comrades barely spoke, most wondering what to make of the proceedings. Veterans of many Party conventions saw no — or at any rate few — new faces in key districts
Forty-five minutes of Webb’s keynote remarks were taped for C-SPAN. His supporters considered this to be of great importance. It seems to us that inviting C-SPAN to tape Webb’s presentation demonstrated that his intended audience is the TV-viewing public, not specifically Communists. His generalizations and lack of analysis could only be directed to non-Communists.
Conclusions
The Convention was undemocratic, scripted, non-Communist (in fact anti-Communist at times), and devoid of Marxist analysis of present conditions. One delegate, completely disgusted, predicted, “They won’t even bother to hold another convention.”
Validating our pessimistic analysis, since the convention, matters have continued to slide down the slippery slope. The first NC conference call took up the topic of “re-branding” the Party, as if the Party were a tube of toothpaste requiring a more modern name, like changing “Ipana” to “Aquafresh.” Reportedly, a consultant will be hired to advise on re-branding, including re-naming.
As one seasoned comrade who has subsequently resigned said privately to us, the convention result shows “the political gangrene of opportunism has spread very far indeed.”
Gangrene looks like this: one of the most appalling moments in this appalling convention came when Joel Wendland, editor of Political Affairs, a “Journal of Marxist Thought,” stated: “Isn’t it great we can have a CPUSA convention and not hear ‘Marx said this’ and ‘Lenin said that’?!” “We need to shed old skin on theoretical level.”
Evidently, Wendland is following his own advice. A few weeks back, he abandoned any theory of imperialism. He posted without criticism a proclamation from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Venezuelan Independence Day, as if the US State Department were a champion of Venezuelan independence. We believe the real State Department view is expressed in the seven new US military bases in neighboring Colombia, authorized by Obama and Clinton, aimed at strangling Venezuelan independence and democracy.
We view this convention as a hijacking of the Party by a faction of the leadership. Many good Party members are wondering: Can this party be saved?
We don’t know. It will take a fierce struggle. But most of us intend to try.
The present leadership is already in consultation with social reformist groups (DSA, CCDS, the reformist Freedom Road). It’s obvious that most of the present leaders don’t want a Communist Party. They view Leninism and even the name CPUSA as “baggage.”
As for us, a few voices among many, we are urging the healthy forces in the Party not to quit, but to stay and fight. How many will leave we do not yet know. Those who have left are honorable comrades who see resignation as a matter of principle. We have resolved to stay close to them and to work together closely. They have welcomed that.
Matters are serious. Yet, there are factors on our side. Here are a few: our opponents often miscalculate. For example, delaying the convention for one year proved a miscalculation on their part, insofar as it more easily enabled the left opposition in the Party to point out how absurd the official CPUSA “analysis” of Obama and the Democrats is. The international Communist movement is on our side. It is looking on with dismay and alarm at the deterioration within the CPUSA leadership. As the present US Administration moves steadily rightward, to justify its policies becomes ever more difficult. Disgusted by a Party that sees its sole mission the election of Democrats, people walk away or give up. The membership dwindles, and the organizational crisis deepens. The class struggle is sharpening in the US and around the world. Reformism has no solutions for US working people.
We doubt that there can be any recovery in the CPUSA until Sam Webb and his allies are removed from their present positions.
The daunting immediate task ahead for Marxist-Leninists in the US is to figure out how to move forward inside and outside the CPUSA.
_____________________________________________
August 18, 2010
CPUSA Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner speaking in front of the flag of U.S. imperialism at the 29th CPUSA convention
Many friends and comrades have asked us: what really happened at the CPUSA Convention on May 21-23, eleven weeks ago, at Party headquarters in New York City?
So far, there are only the self-congratulatory appraisals, one by Party chair Sam Webb and another by his supporter John Case. Both are champions of the social reformist trend in the Party.
In the view of the Communist (that is, the Marxist-Leninist) wing of the CPUSA, however, the May 21-23, 2010 convention was a disaster. We see the Convention as a scandalous retreat from the US Party’s honorable history of principled struggle. The Convention was a retreat from socialism, class struggle, political independence, and internationalism. The Convention gave up ground on the fight against racism, imperialism, and monopoly.
It was not a convention rich in substance. What little substance there was, was objectionable, and came in the Main Report and the Composite Resolutions, which are available in full at www.cpusa.org/a-way-out-of-the-deepening-crisis/ and http://www.cpusa.org/29th-national-convention/.
The Main Report
Sam Webb, leader of the old CPUSA, speaking at the 29th Convention
It is known that one or more members of the National Board (NB) urged Sam Webb to take into account preconvention discussion critical of his line. He refused, calling such criticism the outpouring of a “small minority.” In the old days many ideas in preconvention discussion — even if critical of the leadership — would have been taken into account and discussed in the Main Report. That did not happen this time.
His Main Report is full of Straw Men deployed against his left critics in the Party. Skillful at writing opportunist double talk, Webb can compose sentences that, to the unwary reader, sound like common sense. Read more closely, however, his formulations throw open the door through which have marched the reformism, tailism, and American Exceptionalism that are aggravating the crisis in the CPUSA. For example:
Enclosing him [Obama] in a narrowly defined, tightly sealed
political category – as many on the left and right do – is a mistake…it
also goes in the direction of pitting the president against the working
class and the people. That the right does this is no surprise. But when
left and progressive people do it, it is wrong strategically and thus
extremely harmful politically.
Our vision of socialism is a work in progress…
Our socialist vision should have a contemporary and dynamic feel;
it should be rooted in today’s conditions and our national
experience. If it has a “foreign” feel to it, people will reject it.What I want to do is correct one-sidedness in our thinking. A transfer in class power — which will more likely be a series of contested moments during which qualitative changes in power relations in favor of the working-class and its allies take place…
Advances?
Webb began his report with a list of what he views as “advances” since the last CP convention in 2005. Many of these he credits to the Obama Administration which took office in January 2009.
It’s a curious list. Much of his list is simply Obama’s promises or hopes hailed as if they were achievements. The Administration talks about “reining in Wall St.” It aspires to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Global warming has been put “on the agenda.”
Much of the list is less than earth-shaking in importance. For example, the White House issued a proclamation on Workers’ Memorial Day.
Some items are wholly imaginary: “The pendulum of power has shifted.” He claims “progressives are on the offensive.” “Torture was prohibited.”
2005 versus 2010: Some Facts
His list of “advances,” of course, purports to be evidence justifying the CPUSA policy of tailing Obama and the Democrats. Here is counterevidence:
In 2005 the US didn’t have 30,000 fresh troops in Afghanistan. Now it has, all told, nearly 100,000 there, not counting mercenaries.
In 2005 the US had a military budget of around $600 billion. Now it is $708 billion.
In 2005 there was the blockade of Cuba. In 2010 there is a reauthorized blockade of Cuba.
In 2005 Honduras had a constitutionally elected government. Now it has a usurper government installed by the US and its Honduran allies.
In 2005 Guantanamo was open. In 2010 Guantanamo is still open.
In 2005 the Cuban Five were in prison. In 2010 the Cuban Five remain in prison.
In 2005, in the housing bubble, predatory lenders targeted people of color. In 2010 mortgage delinquencies, and foreclosure and evictions are at an all-time high, and the victims are disproportionately people of color.
In 2005 the unemployment rate of Black workers was double the unemployment rate of white workers. In 2010 Black workers’ unemployment rate was still double the white unemployment rate, if not more.
In 2005 we needed health care reform. In 2010 we got a new health inurance “reform” law that entrenches the private, profit-making insurance carriers, the most parasitic sector of finance capital.
In 2005 with Bush in the White House and Republican control of Congress, the war in Iraq wasn’t winding down. In 2010 with Democratic control of Congress and a Democrat in the White House, the Iraq War is still not winding down. It is being re-branded.
In 2005 we had a president who had recently launched a war of aggression in Iraq; in 2010 we have a president who escalated a war of aggression in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 2005 before the housing bubble burst, investment bankers and other lords of high finance were raking in billions by fraudulent means. In 2010, two years after the crash exposed them, the same lords of finance, their bonuses fattened by taxpayer billions, walk in and out of Congressional hearings fearing no one. They thumb their noses at the Congress and the public.
In 2005 the party had weekly newspaper we could give out at plant gates. Now it has a cyber newspaper.
If there was anything new in Webb’s report it was the reaffirmation of tailism, more emphatically than ever. Webb stated that for the CPUSA there is only to be “independent politics inside the Democratic Party.”
The Official “Composite” Resolutions
The content of the composite resolutions pushed through by the leadership illustrate vividly the political decay.
Historically, in the US working class movement, the chief features of right social democracy are 1) the defense of imperialism and 2) the soft-peddling of the struggle against racism. This convention marks a big shift in that direction.
The original resolutions from the Party grassroots were combined with similar resolutions and “edited” by the Resolutions Committee. But the “editing” destroyed the original political thrust of the submitted resolutions. It would be an exaggeration to say the Composite Resolutions bore any resemblance to the original resolutions. No original resolutions were read to or voted on by the Convention body.
One hour was allowed for discussion of the resolutions. The resolutions committee spent 45 minutes reading the edited resolutions, word-for-word out loud. Discussion was cut off after 15 minutes, even though many people were lined up to speak.
“Composite” Resolution #5, the long resolution on Peace and Solidarity is the most disgraceful and dangerous of all the resolutions. It is the most removed from anti-imperialist principles. It defends the Obama foreign policy against the facts. When facts don’t conform to the tailist policy, it adjusts the facts, asserting, for example, that the US withdrawal from Iraq is “on track.”
The underlying fiction put forth by the leadership is: the Obama Administration is never guilty of any crimes. The Obama Administration only does bad things “under pressure from the right wing.”
This Peace and Solidarity resolution will be of great interest to the international Communist movement, which can only conclude that it no longer has a Communist Party ally in the belly of the beast.
This resolution means the CPUSA leadership is consciously choosing alignment with Obama instead of the struggle against imperialism. The CPUSA leaders do not want to struggle against imperialist war, which Obama is waging and expanding.
It is easier for the CPUSA to make common cause with the US Administration on the basis of the golden words of his various speeches calling for nuclear arms cuts. The CPUSA wants “a new peace movement,” as Party peace leaders have stated, one that will dodge the issue of imperialist aggression. It will, instead, support nuclear disarmament and stress the wastefulness of military spending in terms of funds unavailable for economic and social needs.
This, then, is the most shameful consequence of this opportunist leadership’s loss of its working-class and Marxist-Leninist bearings. It is de facto acquiescing to the criminal U.S. imperialist occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Fight for Jobs, Resolution #1, was supposed to be showcased at the Convention. It is little different from the AFL-CIO program. A clear Marxist approach, for example, would entail the class-struggle demand to cut the workweek with no cut in pay. Such a remedy would expand jobs at the expense of corporate profits. This notion is nowhere to be found. Worse, while the resolution takes note of the especially high unemployment rates among Blacks, Latinos, women, youth, etc. it opportunistically does not call for affirmative action in hiring and re-hiring them, the classic CPUSA position for many decades.
The Special Report on the Fight against Racism (Resolution # 2) True to the key policy of Webb and his allies — Tail Obama and the Democrats — this resolution sees the upsurge of racism (SB1070, the Arizona racial profiling law, the wave of anti-Muslim discrimination and repression) as a response from the ultra-right to the election of Obama. With this resolution, the CPUSA fight against racism is no longer primarily motivated by the necessity of building working class unity. Rather, the CPUSA leaders fear the ultra right is trying to “disrupt” the workings of the new Administration. In other words, the Obama Administration’s political interests, not working-class unity, are the main preoccupation. This resolution also dodges the question of affirmative action.
The Resolution on Political Action (Resolution # 3), equates the ultra- right with the Republican Party and shuns a class analysis of the Obama Administration. This resolution could have been written by the Democratic National Committee. It pledges to “extend and defend” the “victories” won in the November 2008 election. It is, simply put, more tailism.
The Resolution on Immigrant Rights (# 4) merely restates the AFL-CIO position in favor of immigration reform. It leaves out the highly relevant fact that deportations of undocumented workers have increased under an Obama Administration eager to appease nativist sentiment. According to figures from the federal immigration enforcement agency, in 2009 the Obama Administration deported 389,834 people, about 20,000 more than in 2008, the final year of the Bush Administration.
Resolution # 6, on Party-building, manages to discuss the “challenges” to Party growth without acknowledging that the Party membership is in steep decline. An honest discussion of why recruitment is failing was omitted.
How many party members are there? In a report on Party Internet work and Internet “recruiting,” one NB member inadvertently gave away the real size of this declining party, a number often lied about. In 2005 the CPUSA had 2500 members, according to Sam Webb. At the 2010 convention the NB member in question declared “3 times a week a new application comes by Internet, and at this rate the party could double its size in three years.” Do the math. If there are 150 yearly Internet applications, the current membership may be reckoned to be around 450-500 at most.
The present leaders would have us believe, of course, that the steep decline has nothing to do with the politics of the leadership. Rather, it is subtly implied that it is the members who must change their ways. Members are to blame, and they must work differently.
More on the Character of the Convention
The grim reality we face is that, in the May 2010 convention, the right-wing faction in the leadership led by Webb, for now, has consolidated its hold over the party.
The outcome was dreadful, but it was not entirely surprising. Opportunism has been the increasingly assertive trend in this party for years. This is the same right opportunist direction taken by some other parties.
In the pre-convention discussion, articles like “Save the Party,” give chapter and verse of our critique of the Party’s political decline (see www.mltoday.com), and what has to be done to turn matters around.
The current Party leadership is a faction. Factions and factionalism are not limited to oppositions to leaderships. In such cases, however, official factionalism functions in the form of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy stifles party democracy and membership criticism. It uses charges of “disruption,” and, of course, “factionalism” against its left critics. The present leaders have not — in so many words — repudiated democratic centralism. They will enjoy the democracy. We may expect to be on the receiving end of the centralism.
In June 2009 the factional nature of the Webb leadership was most clearly revealed when it rammed through a policy of ending the print edition of the Party’s weekly paper, the People’s Weekly World. It also withheld information at subsequent National Committee (NC) meetings on the extent of leadership and membership opposition to the move. This is one of a series of abuses for which they still have not been held accountable.
A notorious example from 2005, a CP convention year. The Illinois CP, after adopting a resolution calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, forwarded it on to the national convention for adoption. Although efforts were subsequently made by a clearly uncomfortable national Party leadership to have the maker of the motion change it (“to reflect the security interests of the Iraqi people” – i.e. to acknowledge the legitimacy of the U.S. occupiers), the maker refused, pointing out that even if he had wanted to do so (which he did not), it was already out of his hands. The resolution ultimately came before the national convention in a bundle of resolutions approved by the resolutions committee. That bundle was adopted unanimously.
Subsequently, that resolution was willfully disregarded by the Party’s leadership and editors. Its content was never reflected in the Party’s own newspaper. Efforts to have this position reflected in the Party’s publications were repeatedly quashed. Nor was the resolution implemented in the Party’s mass work, particularly on the national level. It remains a dead letter to this day.
The justification for this willful neglect was that Sam Webb, in his report to the convention, suggested a “different approach” — one acceptable to Democrats — calling for a “timetable” or an “exit strategy” from Iraq. This approach was and essentially remains a stalling tactic, an indefinite postponement of U.S. withdrawal that has resulted in many thousands of additional Iraqi and U.S. deaths and the continued presence of over 100,000 U.S. troops (and a similar number of “contractors”) in Iraq up to this very day.
Webb’s report, which was presented without any opportunity for substantive amendment, was perfunctorily adopted. His report was then used to invalidate the clear antiwar resolution.
And this from a Party leadership that purports to champion democracy!
Stifling Convention Democracy
The convention, a caricature of democracy, was tightly controlled by the present leaders.
It was small: only 158 delegates and 50 guests. Convention managers filled the three days with ludicrous time wasters, such as a bagpipe-playing session. They contrived delegate selection rules to give regions with no clubs a vote, especially if they were reliably pro-incumbent. For example, a defender of the right-wing line represented the state of West Virginia.
Unlike previous conventions, the mood of this convention showed little sense of internationalism, and little sense of outrage against the imperialist wars being waged by the US. The convention was stacked, as much as possible, with people willing to go along to get along, as well as the current leadership and its flatterers.
What was the mood? One Party worker, a man in his 50s stated:
At the convention, I felt like an outsider. My “home in this rock,” to quote Paul Robeson, seemed to be no longer my home. My political home has been transformed without my consent or agreement. It has been stolen. They have put an end to the necessary tools of our trade, so to speak, the party paper and timely class-oriented pamphlets on the important issues facing our working class. Tailing and nonsense analysis replaced class-struggle analysis and leadership. In general, it seemed to me that our misleadership has lost their class-conscious common sense.
Clearly, the goal, which conference organizers achieved, was to run a top-down, stage-managed convention that would squelch free debate, waste time, and run out the clock.
There was little time devoted to face-to-face discussion at the convention. People could not engage in discussion to collectively shape an agenda on how to best move the organization forward.
Most of the Convention’s time was squandered on self-congratulatory speeches from the leadership that took credit for general political trends way beyond any conceivable CPUSA influence. The “calls to action” amounted to nothing more than calls for legislative lobbying and electioneering for Democrats.
Yet the rightists in leadership had been worried about loss of control the convention, though, regrettably, their worries proved unfounded. In a preconvention comment one of their supporters voiced the worry:
A narrowly based, but very persistent campaign has been waged on the Internet and in the comments sections of CP publications — by my count nearly 20% of commenters and discussants and much more if you count the number of words — with the sole effective purpose being to distract the Left, and especially the CP, from working within the broadly defined Obama coalition, or from focusing on a majority-based agenda of reforms.
The right had reason for anxiety. Most of the resolutions, like most of the pre-convention discussion (available at the www. MLToday.com website), opposed the reformist line of the present leadership. It opposed the shutting down of the print edition of the People’s World. It supported ending the fawning tailism of Obama and the Democrats. It called for the Party to shed right opportunism and to return to its anti-imperialist, class struggle, and anti-war principles.
We believe the convention outcome does not reflect the political balance in the Party membership as whole. The grassroots opposition sentiment, which is substantial, was barely reflected. The convention delegates were carefully chosen by procedures that guaranteed majority support of the incumbents. In all organizations incumbents have certain advantages. This was done by various means, quite a few of them flagrantly dishonest, such as completely ignoring the content of properly submitted resolutions from the Party grassroots.
That the national convention would be a travesty of democracy was predictable, perhaps, from the chicanery at the state conventions that preceded it – the Illinois District convention being one of the worst cases. In the Illinois convention, the organizers killed time by watching videos and holding tutorials on how to send email. In Illinois and elsewhere the Webb faction maneuvered to keep key, articulate leaders opposed to the rightist trend away from the national convention.
The national convention was held in a room small in size, allegedly for economy reasons. The Webb faction has vacillated between 1) declaring a financial crisis that rules out face-to-face meetings and 2) denying any financial crisis exists if they are claiming that there is no problem with their stewardship. The spin depends on needs of the moment. Truth and consistency are not the guiding principles.
They smothered debate not only by ignoring preconvention resolutions and discussion, but also by making the convention smaller and less representative. Rural areas of the country, even if there was only one party member in a given state, got a voting delegate. But some industrial clubs were completely unrepresented.
They also isolated those critics of the Party line who were at the convention. One of the strongest of their opponents, an NC member from Kentucky, objected to adding to the NC a Midwesterner who evinced no understanding of the role of clubs in Party structure. He also objected to another candidate involved in questionable financial activity. He was overruled and the two were added to the NC. For his pains, he himself was dropped from the NC. Whenever he rose to speak, he was surrounded by Webb loyalists.
An Air of Unreality
Most leadership speeches proclaimed a mad eagerness to work in an imaginary coalition with the liberal wing of Big Business. In his Main Report, Webb boasted, “Broadly speaking, our view of the general conditions of struggle and the strategic path forward was and is on the money.”
A long-time Party peace movement leader made such delusional statements as: “Obama is listening to us [e.g., Peace Action, Military Families Speak Out]. He meets with us. We can’t close this door by criticizing him.” “We need to help Obama resist being pushed to the right.” “Obama’s sentiment on Afghanistan is shifting our way.” “Obama has realistic assessment on the withdrawal of troops.”
Thus, the content of the convention was remarkably unconnected to the Party’s real mission – leading struggle. Such pressing issues as climate change, one billion hungry people, a waning labor movement, a health care system given over to major profiteering, populations displaced and migrating, US militarization of the planet, and more received little or no discussion.
A Dearth of Internationalism
In the Convention’s deliberations there was little discussion of developments abroad: the multiplying wars, global economic crisis, struggles like that of the Haitian people for survival against racism and colonialism, resistance to US bases and militarization, popular resistance to the coup government in Honduras, and a real push to end the blockade and free the Cuban Five.
As for our relations with other Communist parties, Convention organizers minimized the number of observers from the international Communist movement. When realistic comrades pointed out that, if budgetary considerations were paramount, then inviting the UN or consular staff resident in New York from such counties as China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea was an option, for the price of a subway ride. The Party leadership resisted that obvious solution.
In the end, several parties did appear to give short greetings. The Vietnamese delegate spoke.
Convention managers minimized delegates’ knowledge what the international Communist movement was saying to the CPUSA.
For example, the Webb circle tried to suppress the full Greek Communist Party (KKE) greetings, especially the paragraphs that dealt with opportunism in the international Communist movement. When the full KKE text was handed in writing to the delegates (thanks to the fact that the KKE had speedily posted the greetings in English at its website) Webb and his supporters were forced to issue a message of solidarity to the KKE and eventually to post the whole KKE statement at the CPUSA web site. Of course, now that it is there, they are making no effort to call attention to it.
Youth
One of the most active YCLers expressed alarm at the lack of young delegates at the convention. There were, of course, YCL guests (and a few delegates) but participation from youth was scant. A healthy and vibrant Communist Party would give special attention to the training and support of young leaders and cadre. The lack of youth participation is a portent that the current political line of the leadership has no future.
The convention was stacked, as much as possible, with people willing to “go along to get along,” as well as the current leaders and their hangers-on. YCLers were given a code to register as guests, and when some leaders of the YCL tried to register they were denied access to the convention for the reason that “there was no room.” This was systematically done for political reasons.
Resistance to the Line
With plenary sessions a choreographed sham, what rebellion there was could only take place in skirmishes in the workshops and panels, not the plenaries. There were good discussions in the workshops. However, there were no minutes taken or reports given back to the larger body.
In one workshop, for example, the information technology panacea was challenged by an Arizona delegate who pointed out the reality of the digital divide.
In the “Club Life and Education” workshop the majority of participants steered the discussion towards theory – i.e., the leadership’s failure to incorporate and develop it and the need to focus on the Marxist-Leninist theoretical education of existing and new members. Indeed, the consensus of this workshop was that the leadership needed to be told that the Party needs to pay more attention to theory. The YCL co-convener of the workshop attempted to shift the discussion and assert control a number of times, without much success
Two Controversies
Two controversies burst out into the open at the Convention. One was the censorship of the KKE greetings, mentioned above.
The other was the treatment of the resolution on independence for Puerto Rico. The Massachusetts District resolution on Puerto Rican liberation was substantially the same as in the last convention. However, the nervous chair, People’s World editor Terrie Albano, perceived the resolution as an act of insurrection from rebel districts (Massachusetts, Kentucky, Indiana). Afraid of debate, Albano shut down discussion. This enraged Party members of Puerto Rican descent and other backers of the Massachusetts resolution, several of whom walked out.
One mendacious “special resolution” deserves a word. It emanated from the national leadership, commending the New York District for helping to re-launch May Day. New York trade union comrades familiar with the facts pointed out that national Party leaders had done their best not to participate in May Day on the grounds that “Obama need support; he doesn’t need criticism.” Sam Webb and Scott Marshall, Party labor secretary, had rejected early pleas for help from the trade unionists and immigrant groups trying to relaunch it.
More Liquidation
The “Composite” resolutions represent ideological liquidation. All the resolutions repudiate the idea that the CPUSA will seek to play a leading role in anything or initiate anything. It will merely “participate in,” “help,” “encourage,” “join in,” “give support to,” and so on.
But there was physical liquidation too. The convention decided henceforth to hold only one National Committee meeting a year. The other three meetings will be conference calls, which are, of course, easier to manipulate.
It was clear from the comments of Roberta Wood, Party secretary-treasurer, that the Party will rent Winston-Unity Hall, a floor of the New York City headquarters building, to finance a pay raise for Party staff. It increasing appears that the paid staff is asserting its group interests regardless of the consequences to the organization or its rank and file members who were not present as delegates.
The CPUSA leadership composition became more skewed with near total removal of independent and critical voices from the NC. The leadership is now quite inbred, both politically and otherwise. The daughter of Sam and Sue Webb — a schoolteacher in Boston who plays little or no role in Party life there — was put on the National Committee.
There was an unsuccessful effort by Danny Rubin, an ideological ally and mentor of Webb, to enhance the powers of the National Board (NB), which has become really a rubber-stamp council of Webb loyalists. Rubin wished to centralize power at the expense of the NC on matters of Party constitutional change.
The incoming NC’s size remains about the same, still 82 or 84. The convention dropped 12 or 14 NC members, and added a like amount. Some departing NC members were not removed, they resigned in disgust.
Party veterans noted that the reports on local activity, customary at such gatherings were not “what we are doing” They were “what’s going on,” that is, what others are doing. It was another expression of the Party’s loss of purpose.
At the convention younger comrades barely spoke, most wondering what to make of the proceedings. Veterans of many Party conventions saw no — or at any rate few — new faces in key districts
Forty-five minutes of Webb’s keynote remarks were taped for C-SPAN. His supporters considered this to be of great importance. It seems to us that inviting C-SPAN to tape Webb’s presentation demonstrated that his intended audience is the TV-viewing public, not specifically Communists. His generalizations and lack of analysis could only be directed to non-Communists.
Conclusions
The Convention was undemocratic, scripted, non-Communist (in fact anti-Communist at times), and devoid of Marxist analysis of present conditions. One delegate, completely disgusted, predicted, “They won’t even bother to hold another convention.”
Validating our pessimistic analysis, since the convention, matters have continued to slide down the slippery slope. The first NC conference call took up the topic of “re-branding” the Party, as if the Party were a tube of toothpaste requiring a more modern name, like changing “Ipana” to “Aquafresh.” Reportedly, a consultant will be hired to advise on re-branding, including re-naming.
As one seasoned comrade who has subsequently resigned said privately to us, the convention result shows “the political gangrene of opportunism has spread very far indeed.”
Gangrene looks like this: one of the most appalling moments in this appalling convention came when Joel Wendland, editor of Political Affairs, a “Journal of Marxist Thought,” stated: “Isn’t it great we can have a CPUSA convention and not hear ‘Marx said this’ and ‘Lenin said that’?!” “We need to shed old skin on theoretical level.”
Evidently, Wendland is following his own advice. A few weeks back, he abandoned any theory of imperialism. He posted without criticism a proclamation from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Venezuelan Independence Day, as if the US State Department were a champion of Venezuelan independence. We believe the real State Department view is expressed in the seven new US military bases in neighboring Colombia, authorized by Obama and Clinton, aimed at strangling Venezuelan independence and democracy.
We view this convention as a hijacking of the Party by a faction of the leadership. Many good Party members are wondering: Can this party be saved?
We don’t know. It will take a fierce struggle. But most of us intend to try.
The present leadership is already in consultation with social reformist groups (DSA, CCDS, the reformist Freedom Road). It’s obvious that most of the present leaders don’t want a Communist Party. They view Leninism and even the name CPUSA as “baggage.”
As for us, a few voices among many, we are urging the healthy forces in the Party not to quit, but to stay and fight. How many will leave we do not yet know. Those who have left are honorable comrades who see resignation as a matter of principle. We have resolved to stay close to them and to work together closely. They have welcomed that.
Matters are serious. Yet, there are factors on our side. Here are a few: our opponents often miscalculate. For example, delaying the convention for one year proved a miscalculation on their part, insofar as it more easily enabled the left opposition in the Party to point out how absurd the official CPUSA “analysis” of Obama and the Democrats is. The international Communist movement is on our side. It is looking on with dismay and alarm at the deterioration within the CPUSA leadership. As the present US Administration moves steadily rightward, to justify its policies becomes ever more difficult. Disgusted by a Party that sees its sole mission the election of Democrats, people walk away or give up. The membership dwindles, and the organizational crisis deepens. The class struggle is sharpening in the US and around the world. Reformism has no solutions for US working people.
We doubt that there can be any recovery in the CPUSA until Sam Webb and his allies are removed from their present positions.
The daunting immediate task ahead for Marxist-Leninists in the US is to figure out how to move forward inside and outside the CPUSA.
_____________________________________________
August 18, 2010
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Response to Sam Webb’s “Main report to the Communist Party USA National Committee, November 17, 2012″
Reblogged from: http://houstoncommunistparty.com/response-to-sam-webbs-main-report-to-the-communist-party-usa-national-committee-november-17-2012/
by James Thompson
What is really significant about Chairperson Webb’s “report” is that it is not a report at all. The document is written in vague generalities with a great deal of bombast, pontification and posturing. Chairperson Webb fails to specify what the CPUSA has been doing as an organized party or what it intends to do in the future. He only makes vague statements about how almost all of the members participated in the election. By participation, does he mean managing campaigns, running candidates, doing fundraising or working in a capitalist party’s campaign? Perhaps he just means voting. This is unclear.
It appears that Chairman Webb has forgotten Marx’ teaching that “content precedes form.” This paper is all about form with little regard to content.
Let’s examine the title of the document “Defeat for the right, victory for the people & democracy.” The first phrase “defeat for the right” is hard to fathom. Although it must be conceded that President Obama has taken a more progressive stance on a number of issues when compared with his opponent, candidate Romney, this does not mean that President Obama is a socialist or communist. He is a member of one of the two ruling bourgeois parties in the United States. For this reason, it can be expected that he will support the interests of the wealthy classes more often than not. It should also be remembered that he was elected with the endorsements of both Colin Powell and Michael Bloomberg. His campaign received truckloads of money from the ultra-wealthy and their corporate surrogates. These endorsements and financial contributions must be remunerated by Mr. Obama and such remuneration will dearly cost the people.
The second phrase “victory for the people” is also hard to stomach. To which people is Mr. Webb referring? Is he referring to the people of Palestine and/or Iran? Is he referring to workers in this country who are oppressed? Is he referring to labor union members who received no support from the president on passing the Employee Free Choice Act? Is he referring to maimed and deceased veterans returning from the endless imperialist wars in the Middle East and elsewhere? Perhaps Mr. Webb is referring to the people on Wall Street and in corporate offices across the USA. If you look at Mr. Obama’s record, it is clear that he has served those people well over the last four years.
The third phrase “victory for… Democracy” also presents some problems. To what kind of democracy is Mr. Webb referring? In the USA, there is only one form of democracy and it is bourgeois democracy. This form of democracy serves to protect the interests of the wealthy classes. It protects the wealthy classes from the demands of working people. It upholds the interests of imperialism, while simultaneously creating an illusion among workers that they really have a voice in the conduct of the business of the country. Although elections, even bourgeois elections, are an important arena for struggle, we should not harbor any illusions about their real purpose, which is to prop up the wealthy classes. As Lenin said, “elections solve nothing.”
Mr. Webb says “The better angels of the American people spread their wings.” This phraseology would be appropriate if written by a Catholic priest rather than the Chairperson of the Communist Party. Such idealistic thinking should be anathema to a Communist Party based on Marxism Leninism and dialectical materialism.
It is interesting that Mr. Webb notes that “An African-American president was reelected to the presidency, the Democrats unexpectedly strengthened their hand in the Senate and House, new progressive voices, like Elizabeth Warren, are coming to Washington, and victories, including for marriage equality, occurred at the state level.” Although it is a fact that an African-American was elected to the office of presidency, what does this mean in terms of the progressive struggle? In fact, the statement reflects some racist thinking. Martin Luther King, Jr told us that people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. It opens the question “What would Mr. Webb suggest we do if Dennis Kucinich was running against Clarence Thomas?” Mr. Webb’s reference to Elizabeth Warren “coming to Washington” fails to recognize that also the right wing Tea Party extremist, Ted Cruz, from Texas, will also be moving to Washington.
Mr. Webb maintains “The Communist Party said a year ago that the 2012 elections would be the main front of the class and democratic struggle and subsequent events have confirmed that fact.” To what events is Mr. Webb referring? Many people agree that wages and benefits of workers are always the front line of the class struggle. The fight for peace and justice and the right to organize are also main fronts of the class struggle. The fight against imperialism is also an important front in the class struggle. Mr. Webb goes on “Indeed, we argued…that defeating right-wing extremism was the key to moving the whole chain of democratic struggle forward.” There is only one way to defeat right-wing extremism once and for all and that will happen when socialism replaces capitalism on a global level. Again, it must be asked that if Mr. Webb believed that this election was crucial to the class struggle, what did the CPUSA do to participate in that struggle? Mr. Webb makes note that “a few weeks before the election, I attended a rally in Cleveland organized by the Teamsters, where many labor leaders and members of Congress spoke of the urgency of supporting President Obama.” Gus Hall and William Foster must be spinning in their graves. They would certainly ask why the chairperson of the CPUSA was merely attending a labor rally but not speaking. They might also ask if the party attempted to organize any activities of its own.
Mr. Webb makes a good point when he says “Not least, President Obama needs to hear from the tens of millions who reelected him.” However, he goes on to confusing statements such as “The president is the most popular politician in the country. Nobody has the political and moral authority that he has. He isn’t a radical, but by the same token to classify him as a run-of-the-mill capitalist politician doesn’t fit either. Of the Democratic Party presidents of the 20th century, none had the deep democratic sensibilities that he possesses. It is crucial that he lead the struggle.” To what struggle is Mr. Webb referring? Is he referring to the fact that Mr. Obama has deported more immigrants than any other president? Is he referring to Mr. Obama’s use of drones to assassinate foreign nationals? Is he referring to the struggle for the Employee Free Choice Act? Mr. Webb also states “Which is where communists, socialists and left and progressive people come into the picture. Our main task is to build broad people’s unity, guarantee the participation of the key social and class forces, counter the right-wing narrative with a working-class and people’s narrative, and bring forward an alternative program.” It would be helpful if Mr. Webb could be specific about the concrete actions that need to happen to bring this about.
Mr. Webb writes “For some time now our party has recognized powerful progressive trends in the labor movement. In this election, the actions of labor brought those trends to a new level.” The question must be asked “What is the party doing to build and support ‘progressive trends in the labor movement’”?
In his section on “foreign policy”, Mr. Webb takes some issue with the Obama administration “There is some reappraisal of the conduct of our foreign policy going on in the Obama administration and the national security state.” Again, Mr. Webb needs to be more specific about this “reappraisal.” He goes on “In all likelihood some changes will occur, not necessarily unimportant ones, but at the same time don’t expect the Obama administration or US ruling circles to give up their global ambitions.” Without labeling administration policies as imperialist, he does specify a number of global hotspots to which the Obama administration has mimicked the positions of right wing extremists including Iran, Palestine, Cuba, DPRK and Latin America among others. However, he proposes no action to oppose imperialism.
Mr. Webb seems to not have learned anything from Mr. Romney’s 47% remark. Speaking of the CPUSA, he writes “Our main audience is not among those who sat out the election struggle, but among those who were in its front ranks.” Since reports indicate that only 60% of eligible voters voted in the most recent election, he is dismissing the other 40% who may have been disgruntled with the capitalist parties and their policies. He is also dismissing people who are not eligible to vote. This would include large segments of the population such as undocumented immigrant workers, and people with felonies. He is also dismissing all those who have failed to register to vote without any study of why they failed to register. He notes that the CPUSA is too small. With such myopic vision, one can only say “no wonder.”
In response to his vague statements about building the party, the question should be asked “What are the concrete steps the party will take to build a larger party?”
Another man by the name of Webb, Jack Webb, who played the part of Sergeant Joe Friday, in the television series Dragnet many years ago used to say, “Just the facts, ma’am.” This is important to remember when discussing politics and economics. If we Communists are to have any credibility at all, we must be scientific in our analyses, method and program. We need leadership which meets those standards. The people of this country don’t need any more talking heads. There is enough of that on their TV.
by James Thompson
What is really significant about Chairperson Webb’s “report” is that it is not a report at all. The document is written in vague generalities with a great deal of bombast, pontification and posturing. Chairperson Webb fails to specify what the CPUSA has been doing as an organized party or what it intends to do in the future. He only makes vague statements about how almost all of the members participated in the election. By participation, does he mean managing campaigns, running candidates, doing fundraising or working in a capitalist party’s campaign? Perhaps he just means voting. This is unclear.
It appears that Chairman Webb has forgotten Marx’ teaching that “content precedes form.” This paper is all about form with little regard to content.
Let’s examine the title of the document “Defeat for the right, victory for the people & democracy.” The first phrase “defeat for the right” is hard to fathom. Although it must be conceded that President Obama has taken a more progressive stance on a number of issues when compared with his opponent, candidate Romney, this does not mean that President Obama is a socialist or communist. He is a member of one of the two ruling bourgeois parties in the United States. For this reason, it can be expected that he will support the interests of the wealthy classes more often than not. It should also be remembered that he was elected with the endorsements of both Colin Powell and Michael Bloomberg. His campaign received truckloads of money from the ultra-wealthy and their corporate surrogates. These endorsements and financial contributions must be remunerated by Mr. Obama and such remuneration will dearly cost the people.
The second phrase “victory for the people” is also hard to stomach. To which people is Mr. Webb referring? Is he referring to the people of Palestine and/or Iran? Is he referring to workers in this country who are oppressed? Is he referring to labor union members who received no support from the president on passing the Employee Free Choice Act? Is he referring to maimed and deceased veterans returning from the endless imperialist wars in the Middle East and elsewhere? Perhaps Mr. Webb is referring to the people on Wall Street and in corporate offices across the USA. If you look at Mr. Obama’s record, it is clear that he has served those people well over the last four years.
The third phrase “victory for… Democracy” also presents some problems. To what kind of democracy is Mr. Webb referring? In the USA, there is only one form of democracy and it is bourgeois democracy. This form of democracy serves to protect the interests of the wealthy classes. It protects the wealthy classes from the demands of working people. It upholds the interests of imperialism, while simultaneously creating an illusion among workers that they really have a voice in the conduct of the business of the country. Although elections, even bourgeois elections, are an important arena for struggle, we should not harbor any illusions about their real purpose, which is to prop up the wealthy classes. As Lenin said, “elections solve nothing.”
Mr. Webb says “The better angels of the American people spread their wings.” This phraseology would be appropriate if written by a Catholic priest rather than the Chairperson of the Communist Party. Such idealistic thinking should be anathema to a Communist Party based on Marxism Leninism and dialectical materialism.
It is interesting that Mr. Webb notes that “An African-American president was reelected to the presidency, the Democrats unexpectedly strengthened their hand in the Senate and House, new progressive voices, like Elizabeth Warren, are coming to Washington, and victories, including for marriage equality, occurred at the state level.” Although it is a fact that an African-American was elected to the office of presidency, what does this mean in terms of the progressive struggle? In fact, the statement reflects some racist thinking. Martin Luther King, Jr told us that people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. It opens the question “What would Mr. Webb suggest we do if Dennis Kucinich was running against Clarence Thomas?” Mr. Webb’s reference to Elizabeth Warren “coming to Washington” fails to recognize that also the right wing Tea Party extremist, Ted Cruz, from Texas, will also be moving to Washington.
Mr. Webb maintains “The Communist Party said a year ago that the 2012 elections would be the main front of the class and democratic struggle and subsequent events have confirmed that fact.” To what events is Mr. Webb referring? Many people agree that wages and benefits of workers are always the front line of the class struggle. The fight for peace and justice and the right to organize are also main fronts of the class struggle. The fight against imperialism is also an important front in the class struggle. Mr. Webb goes on “Indeed, we argued…that defeating right-wing extremism was the key to moving the whole chain of democratic struggle forward.” There is only one way to defeat right-wing extremism once and for all and that will happen when socialism replaces capitalism on a global level. Again, it must be asked that if Mr. Webb believed that this election was crucial to the class struggle, what did the CPUSA do to participate in that struggle? Mr. Webb makes note that “a few weeks before the election, I attended a rally in Cleveland organized by the Teamsters, where many labor leaders and members of Congress spoke of the urgency of supporting President Obama.” Gus Hall and William Foster must be spinning in their graves. They would certainly ask why the chairperson of the CPUSA was merely attending a labor rally but not speaking. They might also ask if the party attempted to organize any activities of its own.
Mr. Webb makes a good point when he says “Not least, President Obama needs to hear from the tens of millions who reelected him.” However, he goes on to confusing statements such as “The president is the most popular politician in the country. Nobody has the political and moral authority that he has. He isn’t a radical, but by the same token to classify him as a run-of-the-mill capitalist politician doesn’t fit either. Of the Democratic Party presidents of the 20th century, none had the deep democratic sensibilities that he possesses. It is crucial that he lead the struggle.” To what struggle is Mr. Webb referring? Is he referring to the fact that Mr. Obama has deported more immigrants than any other president? Is he referring to Mr. Obama’s use of drones to assassinate foreign nationals? Is he referring to the struggle for the Employee Free Choice Act? Mr. Webb also states “Which is where communists, socialists and left and progressive people come into the picture. Our main task is to build broad people’s unity, guarantee the participation of the key social and class forces, counter the right-wing narrative with a working-class and people’s narrative, and bring forward an alternative program.” It would be helpful if Mr. Webb could be specific about the concrete actions that need to happen to bring this about.
Mr. Webb writes “For some time now our party has recognized powerful progressive trends in the labor movement. In this election, the actions of labor brought those trends to a new level.” The question must be asked “What is the party doing to build and support ‘progressive trends in the labor movement’”?
In his section on “foreign policy”, Mr. Webb takes some issue with the Obama administration “There is some reappraisal of the conduct of our foreign policy going on in the Obama administration and the national security state.” Again, Mr. Webb needs to be more specific about this “reappraisal.” He goes on “In all likelihood some changes will occur, not necessarily unimportant ones, but at the same time don’t expect the Obama administration or US ruling circles to give up their global ambitions.” Without labeling administration policies as imperialist, he does specify a number of global hotspots to which the Obama administration has mimicked the positions of right wing extremists including Iran, Palestine, Cuba, DPRK and Latin America among others. However, he proposes no action to oppose imperialism.
Mr. Webb seems to not have learned anything from Mr. Romney’s 47% remark. Speaking of the CPUSA, he writes “Our main audience is not among those who sat out the election struggle, but among those who were in its front ranks.” Since reports indicate that only 60% of eligible voters voted in the most recent election, he is dismissing the other 40% who may have been disgruntled with the capitalist parties and their policies. He is also dismissing people who are not eligible to vote. This would include large segments of the population such as undocumented immigrant workers, and people with felonies. He is also dismissing all those who have failed to register to vote without any study of why they failed to register. He notes that the CPUSA is too small. With such myopic vision, one can only say “no wonder.”
In response to his vague statements about building the party, the question should be asked “What are the concrete steps the party will take to build a larger party?”
Another man by the name of Webb, Jack Webb, who played the part of Sergeant Joe Friday, in the television series Dragnet many years ago used to say, “Just the facts, ma’am.” This is important to remember when discussing politics and economics. If we Communists are to have any credibility at all, we must be scientific in our analyses, method and program. We need leadership which meets those standards. The people of this country don’t need any more talking heads. There is enough of that on their TV.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Boycott the Elections! - Leaflet of the Communist Party of America, 1920
WORKERS:
It is the duty of every class-conscious worker in America to boycott the coming elections. A worker’s vote cast for any of the parties or their candidates standing for election — is a vote for reaction or reform! Whether it be the Republican Party and Harding or the Democratic Party and Cox — whether it be the Farm Labor Party and Christensen, the Socialist Party and Debs, or the Socialist Labor and Cox — a worker’s vote cast for any of these parties or their candidates IS A VOTE TO PERPETUATE THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM BASED UPON WAGE SLAVERY and the ROBBERY OF YOUR CLASS. IT IS A VOTE TO STRENGTHEN THE CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT — BY MEANS OF WHICH THE WORKING CLASS IS KEPT IN SUBJECTION BY LIES, FRAUD, DECEPTION, FORCE, AND VIOLENCE.
Do you workers want to perpetuate your own class slavery? Do you want to maintain and strengthen the capitalist government which has shown by its every act that it is nothing but the tool of the capitalist class and acts against the working class every time?
Then cast your vote in the coming elections! If you believe in capitalist wars in which the workers are called upon to lay down their lives for the profit of the master class — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in the high cost of living — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in being LOCKED OUT BY the BOSS — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in being clubbed and shot by the police and soldiers of the capitalist government — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in lynching — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in deportation of radical workers — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in NATIONWIDE RAIDS UPON REVOLUTIONARY WORKING CLASS ORGANIZATION — vote in the coming elections!
If you believe in DESTROYING SOVIET RUSSIA — vote in the coming elections!
If you believe in supporting REACTIONARY POLAND against the free workers and peasants’ government of Russia — vote in the coming elections! If you believe in sending arms, ammunition, and supplies to the enemies of Soviet Russia — vote in the coming elections!
If you believe in perpetuating prostitution, crime, child labor, and the thousand-and-one economic evils from which the masses in this country are suffering — vote in the coming elections!
A vote cast in the coming elections for any political party now in the field — is a vote in favor of the capitalist class and against the working class! The Republican and Democratic parties stand openly for the capitalist class — whose economic interests they represent. The Farm Labor Party stands for Government Ownership and Reform — which leads to State Capitalism — strengthens the capitalist system and keeps the working class chained in wage-slavery. The Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party pretend they are for the abolition of capitalism and the emancipation of the workers from wage-slavery, but actually, by adopting wrong tactics support the lies and deception of capitalist “democracy” and help to fasten these lies upon the workers — thus aiding the capitalist class in preventing the workers from taking independent class action for their own emancipation. These reform parties fool the workers by telling them that the capitalist system can be abolished PEACEFULLY. This is a lie! AN OUTRAGEOUS, DAMNABLE LIE! The capitalist system cannot be abolished peacefully — whether by the ballot box or any other method.
The present capitalist government is nothing but the concealed dictatorship of the capitalist class. Its army, navy, courts, police, bureaucracy, schools, press, church, etc. are the instruments through which the capitalist class perpetuate the lies of capitalist “democracy” and club and shoot you into submission when you wake up and attempt to resist their domination!
Every intelligent worker knows that so long as the capitalist class owns and controls the organs of publicity, of teaching and moulding the minds of the workers — the workers cannot free themselves.
Every intelligent worker also knows that no capitalist class ever gave up its power without a violent struggle. Look across at Europe and see how the ruling classes are striving by every possible means to keep the workers down! See how the German capitalist class combines with “yellow” Socialist to crush every uprising of the German workers! See how the Hungarian capitalist class, with the assistance of the “yellow” Socialist, destroys the workers organization, throws them into jails, places them against the wall to face firing squads, shoots, hangs, and slays without mercy!
See how the French capitalist class tried to destroy the workers organizations! How they suppress the revolts of their soldiers who are called upon to fight in Russia, Siberia, and Africa and who refuse — see how they shoot the workers down in strikes or demonstrations! Look at bloody England! One hundred thousand troops, fully armed, are sent into Ireland to suppress the Irish revolt. Thousands of soldiers are busy shooting defenseless Indian natives whose only crime is that they desire freedom from the rule of Britain. In Arabia, Turkey, wherever English colonies are rising up against the merciless rule of England — the English capitalist class uses FORCE to crush them!
And when the English workers themselves, who are beginning to think, act, make up their minds to destroy the capitalist government, the English capitalist class will use its troops and machine guns against them no less readily than it uses them against the natives of the colonies.
In Japan, Italy, Finland, everywhere the same thing occurs. Do you American workers believe that the American capitalist class is more tenderhearted than the European capitalist class?
Forget it! The American capitalist class is the richest, most powerful and reactionary class in the world. Just look at the history of the class struggle in the United States. At every step in the struggle of the workers to better their conditions the capitalist class and its government met them with persecution, repression, and oppression unequaled in all history. Homestead — Ludlow — Calumet — West Virginia — Paterson — Lawrence — McKees Rock — Seattle — Butte — these are only a few of the tragic milestones that mark the struggle of the American working class for BREAD — JUST BREAD! Or take the Longshoremen Strike — the Coal Strike — the Steel Strike — with its injunction, martial law, raids, deportations, and arrests — does this look as if the American capitalist class will ever give up its power without a bitter and violent struggle?
FORGET THIS FOOLISH AND CRIMINAL IDEA OF A PEACEFUL CHANGE! AWAY WITH THESE REFORM PARTIES THAT PREACH SUCH RIDICULOUS IDEAS TO THE WORKERS!
IT IS TIME THAT YOU AMERICAN WORKERS WAKE UP TO THE REAL FACTS!
THE WORKERS AND PEASANTS OF RUSSIA ARE SHOWING THE WAY! THE EUROPEAN WORKERS ARE LEARNING FAST FROM SOVIET RUSSIA AND WILL SOON THROW THE WHOLE GANG OF ROBBERS WITH THEIR “YELLOW” Socialist apologists and their capitalist governments into the garbage-heap!
Learn from your Russian and European brothers! The Communist Party of America — the only revolutionary working class political party — is the only party that stands for the emancipation for the working class from wage slavery! The Communist Party advocates mass action of the armed workers in an armed insurrection and civil war as the ONLY means of conquering political power for the workers, destroying the capitalist government, and establishing a Workers’ Government — A Soviet Government — the dictatorship of the Proletariat — as the ONLY MEANS OF ABOLISHING the capitalist system and emancipating the working class from WAGE SLAVERY. In order to bring this message before the masses of the American working class the Communist Party will utilize every weapon at its disposal for propaganda and agitation. It accepts participation in election campaigns and parliamentary activity as one of these weapons — but for revolutionary propaganda and agitation only. The Communist Party, however, will abstain from parliamentary activity whenever conditions make such a course necessary.
The Communist Party will have to boycott the coming elections, for reasons which are familiar to every informed worker. The Communist Party has been outlawed by the capitalist government and declared illegal in capitalist courts. Its leaders are all under indictment or in jail. Thousands of its members are held for deportation or trial. Under such conditions the Communist Party could not participate in the coming election and carry its revolutionary propaganda and agitation directly to the workers at shop meetings and hall meetings or debates with the “yellow” Socialists before the workers and show them up as a bunch of vote-seeking reformers.
The Communist Party will have to carry on its propaganda through its underground leaflets, literature, and press until the workers of America become class-conscious and compel the capitalist government to keep its hands off it. Therefore, because the Communist Party is the only revolutionary political working class party — and because this party has boycotted the coming elections — WE, YOUR FELLOW WORKERS AND COMRADES of the COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA CALL UPON YOU THE WORKERS OF AMERICA to boycott THE COMING ELECTIONS!
- The Communist Party of America.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Reply to Sam Webb's Essay on A Party of Socialism in the 21st Century: What Will It Look Like?
From: L.A. Metro Club
Los Angeles, CA.
Let us begin by saying that we appreciate the work it took to produce the essay. It was put together with honesty and I believe that Sam Webb truly believes what he writes. That being said, we offer a different perspective. We cannot afford to do away or retire the term, Marxism-Leninism. For one thing, to say that “it has a negative connotation among ordinary Americans, even in left and progressive circles” is running from the class struggle. Our job as communists is to educate ordinary Americans about communism and what it is all about. For instance, production and manufacturing in this country are at an all time low. What little there is being produced is not socially useful production. That is one reason why unemployment levels are so high. To begin with, our party should review its industrial concentration policy and call for a return of manufacturing jobs to the USA. We should use all legal means at our disposal to initiate unemployed councils, lobby for legislation, work with industrial unions that are on the same page, and put out information in our communities that says that the Communist Party is for full employment and we have the science to prove it. The pamphlet, “ Feeling locked out of the American Dream?” is a good start. We should return to our roots. The term Marxism-Leninism has served our party well for ninety years. Running away from it gains us nothing. As for Stalin, the main reason for using the term, Marxism-Leninism has to do with his (and Lenin's) work on the national question. He was faced with uniting a nation by protecting the rights of peoples that were not Russian, fighting against great Russian chauvinism, while at the same time, fighting against nationalism. Using the science of Marxism-Leninism this was accomplished, culminating in the so-called Stalin constitution of 1936 which guaranteed the rights of all citizens in the U.S.S.R. Further, the science of Marxism-Leninism corrected the error in the theory of Marx and Engels that assumed that socialism would first come to the industrially advanced countries of the world. As we now see, socialism first came to Russia (the U.S.S.R.), the eastern bloc countries, and then China, and then Korea, and then Cuba, and then Viet Nam and Laos. None of these countries were industrially advanced. Stalin wrote volumes on the need to support national liberation movements to bring about socialism in underdeveloped countries and provided material support toward that end. To say that Marxism-Leninism “took formal shape during the Stalin period during which Soviet scholars, under Stalin's guidance, systematized and simplified earlier Marxist writings-not to mention adapted ideology to the needs of the Soviet state and party” does not mean that we can not do the same in the United States. Of course Stalin and the Central Committee of the party adapted ideology to the needs of the soviet state and party! That is what every political party that takes power does. That is what we should do. But that does not mean that the term Marxism-Leninism is foreign by any means. Stalin learned from Lenin. Hence the term, Marxism-Leninism. Where it is said, “Marxism is revolutionary in theory and practice, but it doesn't consider “gradual” and “reform” to be dirty words,” no one is suggesting that about Marxism-Leninism. Perú and their party led by Secretaty General Roberto De La Cruz Huamán are leaders of large numbers of masses. At a recent demonstration that was called by a “coalition” of left parties of which the PCP is a part, along with the Confederación General de Trabajadores de Perú (CGTP) the workers of Perú made minimum demands. It was a huge legal demonstration against neo-liberalism and the selling off of public entities (privatization). This demonstration is just part of the effort by the five left parties that includes the PCP and the CGTP to win the Presidency of the nation on April 10. There is a good chance. Of course, they are using Marxist-Leninist tactics that work in their country, as the Chinese party is fond of saying ,with their own “characteristics.” Before we fight for the interests of the entire nation, we must fight for the interests of the working class. When people see us fighting for the workers, many will join us, including small business people and people from other parties. To wait until the working class is destroyed “to fight for the interests of the entire nation” is just wrong. “The deterioration of infrastructure, the destruction of the social safety net, the undermining of the public school system, the decay of urban and rural communities, the privatization of public assets, the growth of poverty and inequality, the hollowing out of manufacturing and cities, the lowering of workers wages, and a faltering -now stagnant-domestic economy” are the reasons why we should be fighting for the working class first. It is no secret that pension funds in OECD countries lost $3.5 trillion (US) in market value during the global financial crisis and are still unable to fully restore savings to their 2008 levels. Defined benefit pension funds are underfunded because of wild speculation throughout the world's capitalist markets. The workers are punished through no fault of their own. This is one area of the financial mess that needs to be properly explained. The CPUSA should issue a position paper on the subject of pension funds, noting first of all that workers take less money in wages with the expectation that pension funds will be available when they reach retirement age. This is not to say that there are problems that effect all of humanity, like global warming, nuclear power and weapons, and natural disasters. Of course we do all we can to identify these problems and make the struggle for a better world part of our program. “The struggle for socialism goes through phases and stages, probably more than we allow for in our current writings and program.” Exactly! We have a defeat and retreat strategy. The CPUSA seems to be afraid of the capitalist system. Workers can sense this. They know when the party is weak. That is one reason they don't join in greater numbers. “A party of socialism understands that in any broad coalition of social change, competing views are inevitable.” The role of the left is to express its views candidly, but in a way that strengthens rather than fractures broad unity, which is a prerequisite for social progress.” That is why Lenin and the bolsheviks formed “a party of a new type.” A communist party. They found that working with the social democrats was a defeatist policy. Later they found that working with the Trotskyites was a bad idea. It depends on how one defines left. We all know that the CIA works overtime since the end of the cold war setting up left groups that are for the purpose of discrediting the communist movements and parties. There is another very important reason they form these groups. They finance them to fool workers who are looking for solutions to their problems. A party of the 21st century must be ideologically strong so as not to be enamored by the glitz and glamor of capitalism. Now the social-democratic elites have cell phones and blackberries, and laptops and they drink their Starbucks coffee in the morning and they travel like kings while the majority of people in the world have nothing to eat! We must have humility if we are to be real communists. “Don't be surprised to see a movement back to class concepts and historical materialsm -not to mention a new interest in the theoretical contributions and political biography of Lenin. No one in this or the last century can match his theoretical body of work on questions of class, democracy, alliance policy, nationality, power, and socialist revolution.” In fact in the former Soviet Union, there is renewed interest in the lives of Lenin and Stalin, and their popularity there is rising. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation placed second in the regional elections, passing the Russia United party. All the more reason not to change Marxism-Leninism to simply Marxism. “A party of socialism in the 21st century doesn't irrevocably lock social forces, organizations and political personalities into tightly enclosed social categories that allow no space for these same forces, organizations and personalities to change under the impact of issues, events, and changing correlations of power.” We seriously doubt that a party as small as the CPUSA can have this kind of power. We had better grow first, before we assume such things. Regarding immigrants having a tradition of struggle, suggesting that their spirit is militant and anti-capitalist while failing to mention the neo - liberal policies in their countries of origin that caused them to emmigrate makes the assumption that they were born that way and that all immigrants are that way. They have to continue the fight in their own communities in the United States which is why many immigrants don't join the party. We have witnessed this with my own eyes. We work with immigrants every day. Immigr ants work within their own community. We have worked many years in the past within the Irish community and had to fight against nationalism and anti-communism. Despite this, we were able to establish a party club of Irish immigrants, and they were mainly concerned with problems back home. We are not suggesting that all communities are the same, but we are patient, and we observe how immigrants react to our party. Are we really interested in their problems or are we just using them? It is something we should discuss before assume that all immigrants will jump at the chance to join the party because they are immigrants. We have to ask, why take over the Democratic Party? What can be gained by such talk? Are we organizing them or are they organizing us? Are we having influence with them, or are they having influence with us? Who is leading whom? Wouldn't it be better to work with workers' organizations directly, that is to say, the unions and the union movement? Wouldn't it be better to organize a coalition of parties and left forces into an electoral coalition that can win real political power like they have done successfully in Perú and El Salvador? A party with its own independence and it's own name, led by labor and communists? That is what we see . And it is working. First we tried to work with the old parties, and we were sold out. That is what the Democratic Party is good at. When we speak of Stalin, we need too speak of him in the continuum of history. Before there was a Soviet Union there was Russia, with its culture, tradition, and its brutality. Stalin acknowledged publicly that “the purges and executions of hundreds of thousands of communists and other patriots and the labor camps that incarcerated, exploited and sent untold numbers of [innocent] Soviet people to early deaths, and the removal of whole peoples from their homelands.” The most precise number of deaths from purges and executions of innocent Soviet citizens is 640,000. Most of this was done by Nicolai Eshov, a German spy working under direct orders of the German SS. When he was discovered, he tried to hide his crimes. He was promptly tried and executed. Others with authority high in the Soviet government were also found to be murdering innocent Soviet citizens. They were also double dealers working for the Germans. Following Lenin's death, many intellectuals doubted that the Soviet Union would continue. They joined the party, acted like loyal party members, worked their way up into positions of authority and worked as spies Germany. The assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934 was the first major provocation of the Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites. There was sabotage including falsifying of grain and cotton harvest reports, killing of livestock including horses, destroying railroads, blowing up mines, and so on. In short, there was a fifth column operating in Soviet Russia. The threat was real. And the man who was charged with stopping the sabotage , Nicolai Eshov, was protecting the spies, and conducting trials of innocent Soviet citizens, and lying to the Central Committee of the CPSU the whole time. What do you do when people lie to you? Do you take their testimony at face value? Can they be trusted? Are they loyal comrades? Or are they lying and destroying the lives of innocent people? When Stalin acknowledged the atrocities, he did not call them a mistake. He said that horrible crimes were committed that have nothing to do with socialism, and those crimes were committed by Nicolai Eshov, a German spy. When we speak of war crimes or crimes against humanity, we have to put the blame where it belongs, not on the people who discovered the horrible crimes, Stalin and Beria. There are many witnesses to Stalin's leadership of the USSR. Firstly, there is the American ambassador to the USSR, Joseph E. Davies, author of the book, Mission to Moscow. Then there is Anna Louise Strong, who wrote, The Stalin Era, which is her account of her time in the USSR under Stalin's leadership. There is also the book, Stalin, written by a German biographer, Emil Ludwig. There is also The Red Archbishop, the Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson and his book, The Soviet Power. There is plenty to read on the subject of the soviet Union during WW II. On the subject of war crimes and labor camps, it should be pointed that the United States bombed Dresden and murdered hundreds of thousands of German citizens, and later dropped not one but two atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens. These bombs were dropped on civilian targets where they would do the most damage. The reason for these atrocities had nothing to do with winning the war. The goal of the capitalism was to destroy the industrial capacity of Germany and Japan so that the United States and United Kingdom would be unchallenged superpowers in the world. The Soviet Union decided not to use nuclear weapons and instead attacked the Japanese main land, liberated the Sakhalin Islands, and kept the Japanese Army from valuable fuel to continue the war. In short, the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary. Before and during the war, there was no “forced” collectivization of Soviet agriculture. It was entirely voluntary. “it was found that the voluntary principle of forming collective farms was being violated, and that in a number of districts the peasants were being forced into the collective farms under threat of being disspossed, disfranchised, and so on.” (History of the CPSU, p.307, International Publishers, 1939 ed.)This was in direct violation of the order of the Central Committee of the CPSU which was “against any attempts whatsoever to force the collective-farm movement by 'decrees' from above, which might involve the danger of the substitution of mock-collectivization for real Socialist emulation in the organization of collective farms.” (Resolutions of the C.P.S.U.[B] russ. ed., Part II, page 662.) What there was was a discontinuation of Lenin's New Economic Policy, which had become outdated. Stalin needed to ramp up agricultural output so that there would not be food shortages during and after the war. There was nothing forced about it. In fact having received a number of alarming signals of distortions of the Party line that might jeopardize collectivization, on March 2, 1930 Stalin's article “dizzy With Success,” was published. This article was a warning to all who had been carried away by the success of collectivization. When whole peoples were relocated from their homelands, this was done because their homelands were under attack. In fact, Soviet troop trucks were sent to Poland to relocate Jewish people behind the Ural mountains so that they would be safe. Once again, the threat was real. With regard to Stalin's so-called labor camps, we should consider that most of the people in the camps were deserters from the armed forces that were captured. This has been researched and verified by the writer Geoffrey Roberts in his book, Stalin's Wars. Secondly, we had labor camps of our own. Japanese-Americans were relocated from the major cities on the west coast into internment or concentration camps. These people were American citizens, many of whom served in the 244th army regiment in Europe while their families stayed behind. This was a great violation of civil rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Before we find fault and throw stones at Stalin, who has been dead for more than 50 years, who led the USSR in the great patriotic war and saved socialism, th e legacy of Lenin, we should first look at our own country's “mistakes.” The United States also had a “cult of personality.” His name was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and while he did many good things, internment of Japanese-Americans wasn't one of them. Regarding the statement that “The state isn't simply the instrument of the ruling class – a monolithic and tightly integrated class bloc and weapon. While the capitalist class is dominant, the state is filled with with internal contradictions and is a site of class and democratic struggles – not just any site though, but a crucial and decisive site.” What you fail to mention is that Gorbachev and his social-democratic friends used this idea to destroy socialism and the USSR. The history of social-democracy of one of anti-communism and anti-Leninism. The social-democrats do not want socialism. They want to reform capitalism. The communists on the other hand, have always been guided by the revolutionary teachings of Marxism-Leninism. In the new conditions of the era of imperialism, imperialist wars and proletarian revolutions, its leaders further developed the teachings of Marx and Engels and raised them to a new level. That is what the CPUSA must do if we are to call ourselves “communist.” regarding the statement. “Bureaucratic collectivism and a command economy that reduce people to cogs, social relations into things, and culture to a dull gray will be resisted by a 21st century party of socialism” who is suggesting that a command economy has to reduce people to cogs? The command economy will be run by the workers themselves, not the party. That is what socialism is! Why assume that the party will run everything? It certainly does not in Brazil or Venezuela, or Cuba. As for the statement that “Our socialism will embrace a new humanist ethos and value system, that is what Marxism-Leninism does. Marxism-Leninism is synonymous with humanism. This has nothing to do with whether or not there is a command economy under socialism. Furthermore, a command style economy with bureaucratic collectivism could be construed as trade unionism, something that will be replaced by socialism in the 21st century. The dream that “the builders of socialism should put into place a dense network of worker and community organizations that are politically and financially empowered to govern” assumes that everyone will participate. Unless incentives are put in place, this will not work. As for dropping the term democratic centralism, this cannot be done in a communist party. This is how we function. Democratic Centralism “is” force of argument. That is how unions decide questions of major importance such as the decision to strike. The conscience of the majority, by unity of will. Remember that the Bolsheviks we busy in 1917 too. Workers worked more than the customary 8 hours a day. What makes us any different. Membership in our party is voluntary. If members can't follow what is in our constitution, they shouldn't be members. That is what distinguishes us from other political parties. We are disciplined. We make a plan and we stick with it. We are not like the social-democratic parties that spend all their time in endless debates. Regarding the internet, the party should not abandon ground organizing if favor of the internet. It should use both. Our clubs depend on literature to reach people in our communities. We can't neglect this work. The internet that we have seen is very limited. There isn't much there to see. There has to be more on those pages like the CPUSA website. There should be a direct link to International Publishers on the home page. We shouldn't have to surf through endless links to find it. International Publications is a party entity and should be treated as such. Currently there is no members section. There is no on-line store to purchase party supplies or to order pamphlets in print. We should have position papers on things effecting the working class: a paper on the foreclosure crisis, a paper on homelessness, a paper on war and peace, a paper on the struggle to reform labor law, a paper on immigration and citizenship. If these were on the web page,in PDF format, our clubs could download them and use them in our communities. If we are concentrating on the web so much, we need to use it to our advantage. Right now it looks like something of a command style bureaucracy. Regarding the statement that, “No party , including ours, is mistake free; we make mistakes and we make them in the present as well as the past. Politics is complex and fluid, and mistakes in theory, assessments and practices are inevitable” it would be nice if the party of the first country of socialism was afforded that same luxury! What gives us the right to judge Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union in the great patriotic war? What right do we have to distance ourselves from him? None. What was achieved until 1953, the year of Stalin's death could never be achieved by the CPUSA. Never! The USSR saved the world from fascism and fought a war on two fronts. To distance ourselves from Stalin is anti-communism at its worst. This is not worthy of our party. Let us reunite ourselves with the legitimate communist and workers parties of the world. It is ours to win in the 21st century.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Communists and the so called “Socialism of the 21st century”
Reposted from the International Communist Review: http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue2/communist-and-the-so-called-socialism-of-the-21st-century.html
Pável Blanco Cabrera
Member of the central committee of the Communist Party of
México
In memory of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, on the
occassion of the 140th anniversary of his birth.
The world counterrevolution of the end of the 20th century
gave impulse on the ideological field to the thesis of the end of the
history, a campaign directed to affirm capitalism for all eternity,
centered on questioning the validity of Marxism-Leninism and to disarm to the
working class and the opressed people in their struggle for emancipation. Also
known as deideologization this pretension designed by thinkers in
service to imperialism had as premise to discredit the theory of communism and
the praxis of socialist construction using the effect of the crisis that
carried to the temporary retrogression of the working class in the USSR and
other countries of the socialist field in Europe, Asia and Africa. At the
same time, taking advantage of the confusion of the momment in the workers'
movement and in the communist parties – several of which renounced to their identity
and objectives in order to transform themselves into socialdemocrat parties-,
it cultivated the surge of new forms of dominant ideology, such as
postmodernism and other variants to influence not only in universities and
centers of formation, culture and art, but to permeate unions, popular
movements and organizations, left political forces, progressive intellectuals
and also to impact negatively in communist and workers parties.
The general objective of imperialist strategy was not
achieved, since reality cannot be holded to a straight jacket, and class
struggle did not stop for a single second, regardless of the fact that
counterrevolution, triumphant at that moment, presented with propaganda
historical events distorted to its favor. Today –two decades after the Berlin
Wall and all that volley of irrationality- capitalism at crisis has the working
class and the communist and anti-imperialist movements confronting it in all
continents. Nevertheless in a secondary way this served as breedign ground
for a series of approaches that today can become constraints to carrying the
struggle to new favorable levels for the international working class and the
peoples of the world. Various of these approaches converge in the so
called "Socialism of the 21st century".
The so called "Socialism of the 21st century"
cannot be identified with the theoretical elaboration of a single political and
ideological current, since its the confluence of diverse currents identified by
their hostility to Marxism-Leninism and to the international communist
movement: for example various trotskyist groups; heirs of the new left; latinoamericanist
marxists; supporters of movementism and neo anarquist; intellectuals that
consider their contribution produced in the frameworks of the academy as
indispensable and essential for social processes. The paternity of such
concept can not be attributed to a single current, to a single author, although
they all have sought as platform the actual processes in Latin America,
particularly in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, but without renouncing to be
considered as universal and disqualifying like unfeasible all that can not be
grouped under its approaches. Another element of their positioning is
that they insist on the "new", “innovative”, "novel" character
of their proposal in front of which they consider the workers' movement of the
20th century and the ideas of Marxism-Leninism as old and out dated.
In class struggle, since the conditions of social
development made possible the creation of the materialistic conception of
history, its not the first time that communists confront themselves with
currents that in the name of socialism present the positions of the petite
bourgeoisie, its not the first time that reform or revolution are placed face
to face.
In The German ideology and in The Manifesto of the
Communist Party, just fot citing two works of Karl Marx and Friederich
Engels, adjustments are done with "true socialism", "reactionary
socialism" ("feudal", "petite bourgeois"), with
"reactionary or bourgeois socialism" and with
"critic-utopian communism and socialism". In another work,
result of the polemic of Marx and Engels with Düring (although the work as was
custom in the division of tasks of the teachers of the proletariat carried only
the sign of one of them) the following is affirmed: "Since the
capitalist mode of production has appeared in the arena of history there has
been individuals and entire sects who projected more or less vaguely, as a
future ideal, the appropriation of all means of production by society.
However, so that this was practical, so that it became a historical necessity,
the objective conditions for its execution were needed to be given first.[1]”
A synthesis of the criticisms of Marx and Engels shows us
that not everything that is presented in the name of socialism has to do with
the historical role of the proletariat and of the communists:
The negation of socialism built in the 20th century.
Among the promoters of the so called "Socialism of the
21st century" there is a fundamental coincidence: the demarcation and
rejection to the socialist construction experience in the USSR and in other
countries of Europe and Asia. Some of them go further blaming the own
October Revolution assuming the old ideas of Kautsky and the opportunists of
the II International on the immaturity of the conditions for the conquest of
political power by the working class and the impossibility of socialism because
what corresponded was to develop capitalism, deriving from here the bases for
the alleged separation between democracy and communism; to explain that It was
all condemned beforehand to failure. However the generality is that
although they vindicate 1917 October the developers of "Socialism of the
21st century" assume the Trotskyist critics towards socialist construction
and to the role of the Bolshevik Party particularly, and to Marxism-Leninism in
general, in fundamental matters that we are going to examine further
ahead. In this they are can not be differentiated from for example the
theses assumed by the opportunistic group of Bertinotti for the V Congress of
the Refoundation Communist Party of Italy in the year 2002, that planted a
"radical interruption with regard to the experience of socialism as it
was carried out", something to which they also refer as to a
"radical break with stalinism".
Some of those –really reactionary- ideas preached as
characteristics of the so called "socialism of the 21st century", is
argued, are not criticized in the name of tactics. In order not to
torpedo the process in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador that are in the center of
the anti-imperialis struggle of Latin America. There are even communist parties
that integrate such concept to its routine vocabulary, to propaganda and to the
programmatic question.
We do not believe –upon setting our divergent and critical
point of view- to lack respect for those processes, which we support, of which
we are supportive. These processes were not born with the flag of
"socialism of the 21st century" and they have advanced a lot with
relation to their initial programs, but is necessary to add that they are not
consolidated processes and that the ideological confusion that is promoted with
the "socialism of the 21st century" can carry them to defeat.
With Marx we say that a step of the real movement is worth more than a thousand
programs, adding that an erroneous program as north of the movement can conduct
it off the cliff. It is a duty of the communists to place scientific
socialism as the road of the working class and of all the peoples, defending
Marxist-Leninist theory and the praxis of socialist construction in the USSR
and in other socialist countries.
Before proceeding to a serious, scientific study of the
experience to extract the necessary lessons for overthrowing capitalism the
historical experience of the working class is condemned based on premises
elaborated by reaction or by opportunism, reformism and revisionism.
Communists reaffirm that in the same way in which the little more than 70 days
of the Comune of Paris provided extraordinary teachings that enriched the
revolutionary theory of the proletariat, the experience of socialist construction
that started with the Great Socialist Revolution of October constitutes a
valuable patrimony for the heritage of the proletariat in its fight for
socialism and communism and that it constitutes a serious error to reject or
avoid it. We coincide with what is expressed in the document of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece On the 90th
anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution of October "One of the
main tasks of communist ideological front is to restore to the eyes of the
working class the truth about socialism in the 20th century, without
idealizations, objectively, free of petite bourgeois slanders. The
defense of the laws of development of socialism and, at the same time, the
defense of the contribution of socialism in the 20th century suppose an answer
to the opportunistic theories that speak of "models" of socialism
adapted to "national" pecularities, they also respond to the
defeatist discussion about errors.[2]”
Emerging subjects versus working class
The developers of "Socialism of the 21st century"
coincide all in that the revolutionary role of the working class today is
occupied by other "subjects", calling inclusive to the construction
of new social agents; They resort to arguments of the new left, of
marcusianism, of t 60’s and 70’s, on the gentrification of the working class,
on their fragmentation, on the "end of labor". They call to
rethink the concept of "worker" and without performing that exercise
they pass to claim social movements, indigenous, the "multitude" as
the center of the transformation.
A very important aspect of Marxism-Leninism is the
clarification of the role of the proletariat. Lenin express it
thus: "The fundamental thing in the doctrine of Marx is that it
emphasizes the historical international role of the proletariat as the builder
of socialist society" and further on the same work he expresses:
"All doctrines of socialism that have not a class character and of the
politics that are not of the class, showed to be a simple absurd[3]”.
There have been changes that is true, but in no way they destroy the
contradiction in capitalism that is the one existing between the bourgeoisie
and the proletariat; in no way do they destroy the fact that the proletariat is
the only consistently revolutionary class to carry to the very end not only the
overthrow of bourgeois order, but the emancipation of the whole human
genre. They do not take into account that their role is determined by
their place in production, by their objective role in economy. The proletariat,
the working class, the workers, in function of acquiring class conscience
"for themselves" not only emancipate themselves, but all human kind.
Nobody will deny that in political struggle the working
class needs and should forge alliances with the opressed mass of the peoples.
But there exists a distance with that and the affirmations of those who search
for "new social actors" assigning them a liberating role above class
conflict when reality shows how passenger movements are.
Socialism without Revolution and… without party
"Socialism of the 21st century" claims that
neither the conquest of power or destruction of the State is necessary, but
with the conquest of government it is possible to initiate a new road. Because
of it all its developers do not speak of overthrowing, of breaking, of
Revolution, but jumping that vital need, they present post capitalism and they
devise already programs to transit to a new society. Because of it in the
speech of this political-ideological nonsense not the most minimum strategic
approach exists that conducts to the destruction of the State.
Consequently neither any worry regarding the construction of a revolutionary
party of the working class exists, a party of vanguard, a communist party.
What for? if it does not claim the working class as the interested in burying
the exploiters?, If Revolution is not claimed as the moment in which the
working class overthrows capitalism?, If the possibility of undertaking post
capitalist transformations is claimed in the framework of the old bourgeois
State?
Let us take into account that besides planting that "in
the Socialism of the 21st century" private and social property are able to
and should coexist, inclusive the praise of a socialist market is done.
When the programmatic approaches of "Socialism of the
21st century" are observed one can not stop from noting the similarity
with what was the democratic- bourgeois Revolution of 1910 in Mexico and the
period of greater radical nature in the developments that happened during the
government of Lazaro Cardenas in 1934-1940. During that six-year period
it was established that in schools, social organizations and in state
administrations along with the national anthem, The Marsellaise and The
Internationale were sung; an impressive distribution of lands was carried out,
a true agrarian reform; oil up till then in the hands of the American and
English monopolies was nationalized and in general a politics of
nationalizations was opened that conducted to the result that in the 80’s 70%
of the Mexican economy was nationalized; even a great aid to the Spanish
Republic was given. From this, under the influence exercised by
browderism illusions on the Mexican Revolution as way to socialism grew. Just
like the followers of today’s "Socialism of the 21st century" then
they spoke of a State placed above classes and of class struggle, as a lever
for development. For Marxists-Leninists the State is not a referee above
the classes in combat, its the apparatus of domination, of repression, in the
case of capitalism, of the class that has the property of the means of
production and of change, the bourgeoisie. Nationalizations are not by
themselves socialists, therefore in the case of Mexico they showed to be a
mechanism for centralization and concentration of capitalism.
In stead of contradiction among capital and labor: north
against south, center against periphery.
Another notion sustained by "Socialism of the 21st
century" notes as a fundamental problem to resolve the contradiction
between the rich North and the poor South, parting from deceitful statistics
and above all leaving sideways that both in the north and the south of the
Planet class struggle exists; the same thing is the harmful idea of the center
versus periphery that intends to ignore that we live in the monopolist phase of
capitalism, the higher phase of capitalism which is imperialism and that all
the countries are immersed in it, as well as with relations of interdependency.
It is not a matter of minor differences but of different
roads.
There are those who sustain that in reality such proposal
has come to bring up to date the debate on the alternative against capitalism
today in crisis; that that is its value and relevance and that besides its a
critical focus that with a similar ideological base than ours helps to
surpass the errors of socialist construction bringing fresh air.
We try to show here some questions in which the followers of
"Socialism of the 21st century" converge, however it is necessary to
affirm that we face a proposal that is not structured, but that results from a
mixture of positions, in some cases based on aspects of marxism, of
christianity, of the ideas of bolivarianism; eclecticism dominates.
They express that participatory democracy, cooperatives and
self-management will come to give answer to the "authoritarianism" of
the Dictatorship of the proletariat. And in short they throw
incoherent concepts with the purpose of torpedoing communist theory; but without
arguments; nowadays a position, tomorrow another; full confusion as the calling
to the construction of a "V International" with enemies of the
workers like the Institutional Revolutionary Party of Mexico.
Contemporary struggle requires to advance firmly grouped
around the red flag of communism, for the transformation of the material
conditions of life, for the abolition of bourgeois relations of production by
the only possible way, the revolutionary way. Confusion helps In nothing, the
maelstrom of incoherent approaches that are raised with the debated concept and
that in last instance only are presented to retouch capitalism trying the
unrealizable operation of "humanizing it". For the working
class, and not only in Latin America, for the class-conscious forces and
revolutionary forces the duty is to fortify the communist parties that inscribe
in their principles and program, in their action the historic experience of the
workers of the world to overthrow capitalism and to build socialism, from the Paris
Comune to the October Revolution.
It is nevertheless necessary to conclude that “Socialism of
the 21st century” is an alien position and even opposed to
Marxism-Leninism and to the international communist movement in not only
questions of politics but ideological matters. It corresponds to the
communist parties to raise the red flag for the development of class
conscience, the organization in class of the proletariat and the assembly of
exploited and opressed workers, the construction of the necessary alliances
with all interested in overthrowing capitalism with an objective that since
1917 has full force and validity, Socialist Revolution. Its a task of the epoch
that we live at, that of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, and there is
no space left for "compromises" neither for confusion.
Bibliography
Marx, K.; Engels, F.; Collected Works in two Tomes; Progress
Editorial; Moscow; 1971
Marx, K.; Engels, F.; The German ideology; Ediciones de
Cultura Popular; México; 1979
Lenin, V.I.; Collected works in three tomes; Progress
Editorial; Moscow; 1977.
[1]
Engels, F.; From utopian to scientific socialism; in Collected Works by
Marx & Engels in two Tomes; Tome II; Progress Editorial; Moscow; 1971; Pg.
149
[2]
Communist Party of Greece; On the 90th anniversary of the Great Socialist
Revolution of October; in Propuesta Comunista number 51; Ediciones del
Partido Comunista de los Pueblos de España; 2007; Pg. 48.
[3]
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich; Historical destiny of K. Marx’s doctrine; in
Marx, Engels, Marxism; Foreign Languages Editions; Moscow; 1950; Pág. 77 y 78.
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Editor's Note: Compare this then to Sam Webb's "A Party of 21st Century Socialism: What it says and what it does"... - Koba
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