JCP CC 4th Plenum: ‘Two-party’ system is facing a collapse

Via: http://www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=2439

December 5, 2011

The Japanese Communist Party Central Committee held its 4th Plenum on December 3 and 4 at its head office in Tokyo.

On behalf of the Executive Committee, JCP Chair Shii Kazuo gave a report to the Plenum. First, he made clear the characteristics of the Noda Cabinet which has been brought about through the failures of his predecessors in the Democratic Party of Japan-led governments, Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naoto. The course of these governments shows that the “two-party” system is facing a collapse, and Shii explained in detail that a new situation is emerging, which increases the possibility that people become aware of the real point of contention existing between the DPJ-LDP-Komei and the JCP.

The report states that the public quest for a new turn in politics will continue, and that cooperation between the JCP and all strata of people is increasing. The unprecedented experience of the major earthquake/tsunami disaster and the nuclear accident accelerated such moves toward cooperation. The report also states that this move led to JCP advances in the three disaster-hit prefectural assembly elections, and that a historical situation promising change is emerging in Okinawa Prefecture over the Futenma base issue. The report at the same time specifically refers to the maneuvers aimed at responding to the ongoing political impasse in a reactionary manner, and calls for struggling against these moves.

Shii summed up the present political situation in Japan as standing at a historical crossroads, and called on members to work hard to demonstrate the JCP’s true value as the party calling for social change.

Secondly, the report refers to the heightened movements of people in various fields and the JCP role in them. The report gives details of various reconstruction efforts from the major disaster and the nuclear disaster, struggles aimed at a Japan free of NPPs; struggles opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the Futenma base transfer; struggles against the plan to increase the consumption tax and adversely revise the social services system; demands to eliminate poverty and the widening income gaps by rehabilitating employment, household economy, and the national economy; and the struggle to reform the election system. The report calls for a rapid development of struggles to realize various demands by ways of a joint struggle on a single point of issue. The report also calls for increasing efforts to have the JCP position endorsed by a majority of the general public.

Shii, thirdly, reported on the upcoming general election. He called on all JCP organizations to work even harder in prefectures which fall short of gaining 5% of the votes cast for the JCP. He proposed putting up a JCP candidate in all single-seat constituencies and several candidates in all proportional representation blocs. He stated that with the proportional representation election at the center, the party will set a goal to receive more than 6.5 million votes or 10% of total votes, and to win more than one seat in all proportional representation blocs.

Fourthly, reporting on party buildup, Shii proposed achieving an increase in JCP membership by 50,000, the daily Akahata readership by 50,000, and the Akahata Sunday edition readership by 170,000.

Finally, Shii pointed out that the basis of the present monetary crisis lies on the overproduction crisis, and that the latter crisis is being greatly increased. The poverty rate and gaps between the rich and the poor are also increasing on a global scale. Under such circumstances, the works of Marx are gaining much attention from the world. Shii called on all JCP members to study more and talk more about a vision for change, which is indicated in the JCP Program and its interpretation of scientific socialism.

In the 4th CC Plenum, JCP candidates for the general election as well as in House of Councilors proportional representation elections were introduced. The Plenum was broadcast live throughout Japan via the Internet.

During the two-day session, 53 members of the Central Committee took the floor to respond to the Executive Committee’s report.

To conclude the discussions, Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo took the floor and encouraged all JCP members to analyze and comprehend the ongoing situation, the party election policy, and the party buildup effort as one package. Shii then stressed the need to prepare to bring the package into shape. Citizens’ movements are dramatically increasing in various fields, and behind the widespread cooperation between the JCP and the people involved in movements is the collapse of the support base for “the two- party system”. This collapse is offering a greater possibility to bring about a change in the power balance between political parties. Shii emphasized that the JCP should take advantage of this change to achieve a JCP advance. As for the election policy, he said that many people are expecting the JCP to field a candidate in all single-seat electoral districts. He argued that to overcome the difficulty in putting up a candidate in each district, it is necessary to increase the number of JCP members and strengthen the financial ground based on self-reliance and independence. Regarding the party buildup, he stated that all members should work to help realize public demands in tandem with the party buildup effort. He added that all members should also subscribe to the daily Akahata and make efforts to build a stronger party based on the decisions made by the Central Committee.

The Central Committee unanimously adopted the Executive Committee report and endorsed its conclusion. All the members of the Central Committee resolved to take a lead in discussing the Program and policies with all JCP members to help them to understand the decisions reached at the 4th CC Plenum. The Plenum was adjourned after pledging to make a success of the party buildup effort and achieve a JCP victory in the next general election.

by Zoltan Ziggedy

Via: http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2011/12/chinese-puzzle.html

Whither China? was the name of a widely circulated pamphlet authored by the respected Anglo-Indian Marxist author, R. Palme Dutt. Writing in 1966, with The People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the throes of the “Cultural Revolution”, the pamphlet sought to shed light on the PRC’s tortured road from liberation in 1949 to a vast upheaval disrupting all aspects of Chinese society as well as foreign relations. To most people – across the entire political spectrum—developments within this Asian giant were a challenge to understand. To be sure, there were zealots outside of the PRC who hung on every word uttered by The Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, and stood by every release explaining Chinese events in the People’s Daily, Red Flag and Peking Review. A few Communist Parties and many middle-class intellectuals embraced the Cultural Revolution as a rite of purification. Yet for most, as with Palme Dutt, the paramount question remained: Where is the PRC going?

Today, forty-five years later, the question remains open.

The cultish followers of Mao have mostly gone on to their life’s work, though some still uncritically defend every aspect of Chinese Communist Party policies during Mao’s chairmanship.

But the PRC that we know today is a vastly different country from the country worrying R. Palme Dutt in 1966; yet it is one that is just as difficult to comprehend. In place of the economic stagnation of the Cultural Revolution period, the contemporary Chinese economy enjoys one of the highest consistent growth rates in the world and counts as an industrial giant well on its way to challenging the USA in annual national product. The economic autarky of the Mao period has been replaced with a massive effort to trade globally. And state enterprises and common land ownership are now eroded by private investment and private ownership. The PRC today has an abundance of millionaires and not too few billionaires, a fact that would violently offend the militants of the Cultural Revolution.

At the same time, the ruling party in the PRC is the Communist Party. Its theorists and ideologues insist that they are proceeding down a distinctive, deliberate road to socialism. Ironically the PRC is now the darling of many in the right wing of the anti-capitalist movement, embraced by those who defend the market mechanism and a gradualist, evolutionary approach to socialism.

Among those advocating socialism, the PRC constitutes a kind of laboratory for socialist policy, much the way the Soviet Union was regarded after 1917. Partisans of socialism sift through the massive literature, reports, and commentaries on the PRC to find evidence to support ideological positions. For the most part, conclusions are, at best, tentative and speculative. Comprehensive conclusions remain illusive to even the most elevated intellectual egos.

Yet the PRC is entirely too formidable of a factor in global political and economic affairs to ignore. Therefore, I offer some modest observations.

“China-bashing”

Wherever the PRC road leads, it remains a lightening rod to bourgeois politicians and, unfortunately, most labor leaders. To hide their own failings, they easily and often point to some Chinese policy that stands in the way of satisfying the interests of working people. In its crudest form and in its essence, it is vulgar anti-Communism. Exploiting the deeply ingrained collective hysteria of the Cold-War, crass leaders and class-compromised union bureaucrats invoke the words “Chinese Communists” and mass distraction ensues. China-bashing has replaced Soviet-bashing (and the once popular Japan-bashing when Japanese corporate power was on the upswing) as an easy and frequent diversion from the rapacious behavior of multi-national corporations.

Rather than blame US multi-nationals for the destruction of decent paying jobs in the US, leaders scapegoat the PRC. From 1999 until 2009, US multinationals added 2.9 million workers abroad while cutting 864,400 in the US, according to the Commerce Department. In 2009, these monopoly capitalist enterprises employed 23.1 million workers in the US against 10.8 million in other countries. Most overseas employees are in Europe with the Chinese holding only 943,900 jobs from US multi-nationals. Canada, Mexico, and the UK, on the other hand, account for over 3 million of multinational overseas employment.

These same multinational corporations have reduced capital investment spending in the US at a decade long annual rate of .2% while boosting capital investment overseas by an annual average of 4%.

These job shifts are corporate decisions based upon profit expectations and, according to the Commerce Department, “primarily to sell to local customers… rather to sell in the US market.” Thus, politicians and union leaders are hiding behind simplistic and self-serving demagogy in blaming China for the demise of US jobs. And their aversion to class struggle against US corporate giants masks the role of those corporations in taking jobs to where they can recover profits most easily; bogus patriotism obscures corporate fealty to the bottom line.

When pressed to put some meat on the bare bones of China-bashing, bourgeois economists cite the currency policies of the PRC. They argue that the relationship between the yuan and other currencies is consciously maintained at a lower-than-market level to increase the competitiveness of the Chinese export industries. But that argument has evaporated over the last year. Third quarter reports of PRC current-account surplus – a widely acknowledged measure of trade imbalance – show a dramatic decline from a year earlier; against the third quarter of 2010, the PRC current-account balance fell by 43.5%. Through the first three quarters of this year, PRC current-accounts surplus as a percentage of GDP fell from 5.1% last year to 3% currently. Ironically, at the November, 2010 G20 meeting, the US pressed hard to establish 4% or less current-accounts surplus/GDP as the benchmark for determining whether currencies were reasonably valued. With the PRC easily passing this test, the US has no argument. Nonetheless, US policy makers and pundits, including liberals, like Roubini and Krugman, continue to pound away at PRC currency policies.

When these current-account numbers are coupled with the continued high growth of the PRC (9.1% in the third quarter), they suggest that the PRC has made a significant shift from export growth to investment and consumption growth.

For the US left, the myths supporting China-bashing should be emphatically rebuffed. While the PRC policies internationally are generally self-interested – the PRC has seldom demonstrated the kind of international solidarity associated with twentieth century socialism—they are nonetheless independent of US imperialism. That is, the PRC operates to promote its own security and economic health. Where it clashes with US imperialism, for example, in UN votes against NATO aggression, progressives should applaud its role. At the same time, it shares many features with imperialism in its competition for markets, resources, and economic advantage in the global economy. These features often place it on the wrong side in its relations with other countries.

White Cat, Black stripes; Black Cat, White Stripes?

Much heat has been generated over the question of whether the PRC is socialist or capitalist. But from a Marxist perspective – like that of Palme Dutt – the telling question is not where it is, but where it’s going: Is the PRC on a path towards socialism or capitalism? Where is the process leading?

No one can deny that for decades, the PRC has allowed — indeed welcomed — capitalism in the front door. Foreign direct investment, joint-stock and private-stock enterprises, privatization, securitization, and acceptance of the market mechanism have all transformed the PRC economy into a prominent player in the global economy. This change has brought forth stunning growth for the country and a general rise in the Chinese standard of living, certainly from the stagnation of the period of the Cultural Revolution. In only a few decades, the PRC leadership has mounted a veritable revolution as profound as the sharp turns organized in Mao’s era.

At the same time, capitalism has brought with it nearly all of its ills: inequalities that rival history’s worse, a shattered health care system, working conditions that too often approach that of Dickens’ England, corruption, cronyism, unemployment, and a broken sense of collective fate or communal solidarity.

The entry of capitalist features into the PRC economy has plagued it with the maladies that arise from the anarchy of markets: imbalances, speculative fervor and bubbles, inflation, labor unrest, grey and black markets, and labor market chaos. In the spring and summer of 2010, workers rose against low wages and working conditions in many areas. Again, this year, there were significant actions for better pay, working conditions and against layoffs. In the fall, the PRC’s sovereign wealth fund was forced to buy shares in major Chinese banks. Despite the fact that private investors own a quarter or less of the country’s biggest banks, a sell-off by foreign investors caused a near panic met by the sovereign wealth funds’ intervention. Today, inflation, a construction bubble, and over reliance on exports weigh on the economy.

Despite these ugly aspects of the PRC’s flirtation with capitalism, the PRC negotiated the most tempestuous waves of the global economic crisis without the catastrophic damage incurred by the other economic powerhouses. In addition, most honest analysts, including even The Wall Street Journal, credit the PRC with a large role in thwarting world economies from being swept over the brink in 2008-2009.

How was this done?

In my view, those structures intact from the PRC’s early commitment to socialist economics proved to be a bulwark against global economic turmoil, especially from the financial sector. Regardless of the future course of the Chinese economy, many elements of socialist economic structures remain and they and they alone, permitted the PRC to evade the harshest consequences of the 2008-2009 collapse and blunt the forces of the market.

1. Banks and finance: The PRC’s four largest banks dominate the financial system along with the Central Bank. Despite recent public offerings, the big four banks remain 75% or more under public ownership. The experiment in raising private funds through stock offerings has proven to be more damaging (a recent sell-off briefly rocked the stability of these public institutions) than advantageous, but, nevertheless, the banks remain steadfast under government management. And the Central Bank, unlike our corporate dominated Federal Reserve, functions as a publicly run and owned institution tuned in closely to government economic goals. The “shadow banking” that rocked Western private banks was virtually unknown in the PRC: no securitized US mortgages, no complex derivatives, opaque bank-to-bank deals, etc. The pillars of the financial system, because they were publicly owned and relatively transparent, stood solid against the crisis; they retained the central functions of a financial system without the corruption of private profiteering.

For sure, private banking in the PRC exists and jolts the smooth functioning and stability of the financial system, but to date the government has been able to adjust financial flows swiftly and efficiently.

2. Economic Policy: The PRC retains indicative planning, though flexible and partial. With the onset of the global crisis, the PRC embarked on a sharp turn towards domestic consumption and investment and away from a deteriorating international market. Quickly adopting a massive $622 billion stimulus program and loosening the valves on lending from the publicly owned banks, the PRC minimized the damage from a collapsing global capitalist economy. While the West, stumbled and delayed, politicizing and horse-trading intervention in the economy, the PRC acted promptly and decisively. As a result, the PRC maintained a growth rate well above Western norms through 2008-2009, while nearly all other countries endured negative growth.

Even with the corrosive and corruptive influences of capitalist social relations, the Communist Party of China remains a leading institution linked to advancing the general welfare of the people. That is, it continues to respect and seek the promotion of national interests. Compare its performance in the face of severe crisis to the appalling submission of bourgeois democratic institutions in the West to the welfare and interests of capitalist institutions; banks and corporations were rescued while living standards were decimated. In terms of serving the interests of the vast majority of the people, the PRC institutions proved far more democratic in content than the formal Western “democracies”.

3. Planned development: The PRC adopted the “National Medium- and
Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology” in 2006, a plan that proposed doubling the percentage of GDP devoted to research and development through 2020. At the end of this November, the PRC confirmed a plan to spend $1.7 trillion over the next 5 years on sectors including alternative energy, biotechnology, and advanced equipment manufacturing (Reuters, 11-21-11). Such national planning is virtually unheard of in the West since the massive investments in infrastructure, education, and research and development brought forth by the panic over the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

Chinese planning shows much more responsiveness and flexibility than policy initiatives in the West. With global demand shrinking from 2008 through 2009, the PRC shifted swiftly with internal investment and expanded consumption while Western powers debated and hesitated.

4. Public ownership: With state banks opening the floodgates, and a
Communist Party leadership quickly implementing a stimulus program, publicly-owned enterprises reacted immediately and decisively to the call to expand economic activity. While the public sector was curtailed in the early years of the shift to market relations, it remains dramatically larger than in Western countries or most Asian neighbors. In a generally hostile article in The Wall Street Journal (China’s ‘State Capitalism’ Sparks a Global Backlash, 11-16-10), the authors make the point vividly: In 2008, the assets of the PRC’s publicly owned firms totaled 133% of economic output; in the same year, France’s state-owned firms’ assets amounted to only 28% of economic product. While much speculation revolves around the role of the public sector in the PRC, these numbers give a perspective on how important publicly-owned enterprises are in the PRC. Thus, when essential stimulus programs or planning initiatives are undertaken, they translate into rapid, measurable results, unlike in the US where policies are pushed through the sieve of private contractors with the consequent siphoning off of overhead and profits, few jobs created, and long delays.

While many in the West are skeptical of the PRC’s ability to move away from export-driven manufacturing to domestic consumption, the following figures are revealing: Exports as a percentage of GDP have fallen from 35% in 2007 to 27% in 2010; third quarter 2011 import growth exceeded export growth; and retail sales grew by 17% in August and 17.7% in September of this year against the prior year.

Of course the PRC’s success in weathering the economic crisis is no guarantee that it will do so going forward. Certainly the PRC leadership is aware of difficulties ahead. The PRC Vice Premier, Wang Qishan, was recently quoted by the Xinhua news agency: “The one thing that we can be certain of, among all the uncertainties, is that the global economic recession caused by the international financial crisis will be chronic.”

The country’s participation in global markets could present problems that even its remaining socialist tools cannot overcome. Moreover, it is not clear if the PRC will strengthen these safeguards or jettison them, as its leading Communist Party shapes this awkward mix of socialism and capitalism.

Thus, forty-five years after Dutt’s pamphlet, we are still left with the burning question: Whither China?

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

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Posted By zoltan zigedy to ZZ’s blog at 12/14/2011 01:10:00 PM

Final Statement
The 13th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties was held in Athens on 9-11 December 2011 with theme:
“SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE!
The international situation and the experience of the communists 20 years after the counterrevolution in the USSR. The tasks for the development of the class struggle in conditions of capitalist crisis, imperialist wars, of the current popular struggles and uprisings, for working class-popular rights, the strengthening of proletarian internationalism and the anti-imperialist front, for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism”.
The meeting was attended by representatives from 78 Parties from 59 countries. A number of parties that did not manage to take part for reasons beyond their control sent written messages. We salute from Athens the growing popular struggles releasing huge emancipatory potential against imperialism, against capitalist exploitation and oppression, and for the social, labour and social security rights of workers’ all over the world.
The meeting was held in critical conditions in which the deep and prolonged capitalist crisis continues to prevail in the international situation, accompanied by the escalation of the aggressiveness of imperialism which is expressed in the decisions of the Lisbon Summit for the new NATO strategy. This reality confirms the analyses outlined in the statements of the 10th, 11th, 12th, International Meetings that took place in Brazil (Sao Paolo) in 2008, India (New Delhi) in 2009 and South Africa (Tshwane) in 2010.
It becomes increasingly obvious for millions of working people that the crisis is a crisis of the system. It is not faults within the system but the system itself that is faulty, generating regular and periodic crises. It results from the sharpening of the main contradiction of capitalism between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation and not from any version of the management policy of the system or from any aberration based on the greed of some bankers or other capitalists or from the lack of effective regulatory mechanisms. It highlights the historical boundaries of capitalism and the need to strengthen the struggles for anti-monopoly anti-capitalist ruptures, the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
In the USA, Japan, the EU, and in other capitalist economies the impasses of the various versions of the bourgeois management are being demonstrated. On the one hand the restrictive political line leads to a prolonged and deep recession; on the other, the expansionist political management, with large state support packages to the monopoly groups, finance capital, and the banks, intensifies inflation and leads to the swelling of the public debt. Capitalism converts corporate insolvencies into sovereign insolvencies. Capitalism has no other response to the crisis beyond the mass destruction of productive forces, resources, mass dismissals, factory closures, and the comprehensive attack on workers and trade union rights, on wages, pensions, social security, the reduction in people’s income, the huge increase in unemployment and poverty.
The anti-people offensive is strengthening which is manifested with particular intensity in certain regions. The concentration and centralization of monopoly capital is intensifying the reactionary character of economic and political power. Capitalist restructuring and privatisations are being promoted, aiming at competitiveness and maximisation of profit of capital, at ensuring a cheaper labour force and the regression of decades in terms of social and labour rights.
The intensity of the crisis, its global synchronisation, the prospect of the slow, weak recovery intensify the difficulties of the bourgeois forces in managing the crisis, leading to the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions and rivalries while the danger of imperialist wars is being strengthened.
The attacks on democratic rights and sovereignty are intensifying in many countries. Political systems become more reactionary. Anti-communism is being reinforced. There are generalised measures against the activity of the communist and workers’ parties, against the trade union, political and democratic freedoms The ruling classes develop a multi faceted attempt to trap the people’s discontent through changes in the political systems, through the utilisation of a series of pro-imperialist NGOs and other organizations, through attempts to channel the people’s discontent into movements with allegedly non-political or even with reactionary characteristics.
We salute the people’s and workers extensive struggles and uprisings, for democratic, social and political rights against the anti-people regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, namely in Tunisia and Egypt. Despite the contradictions which the current situation manifests, it constitutes a significant experience that the communist movement should study and utilise. Simultaneously we strongly condemn the imperialist war of NATO and the EU against the Libyan people and the threats and interference in the internal affairs of Syria and Iran, as well as of any other country. We consider that every foreign intervention against Iran under whatever pretext attacks the interests of the Iranian workers and their struggles for democratic freedoms, social justice and social rights.
These developments confirm the necessity of strengthening the Communist and Workers’ Parties in order to play their historical role, to further strengthen the workers and people’s struggle in defence of their rights and aspirations, to utilise the contradictions of the system and the inter-imperialist contradictions for an overthrow at the level of power and economy, for the satisfaction of people’s needs. Without the leading role of the communist and workers parties and the vanguard class, the working class, the peoples will be vulnerable to confusion, assimilation and manipulation by the political forces that represent the monopolies, finance capital and imperialism.
Significant realignments in the international correlation of forces are under way. There is the on-going relative weakening of the position of the USA, the general productive stagnation in the most advanced capitalist economies and the emergence of new global economic powers, notably China. The tendency for the increase of contradictions is strengthening, between the imperialist centres, and of these with the so-called emerging economies.
Imperialist aggressiveness intensifies. There are already several regional points of tension and wars and they are multiplying: in Asia and Africa, in the Middle East with the increasing aggressiveness of Israel particularly against the Palestinian people. At the same time we note the rising of neo Nazi and xenophobic forces in Europe, the multifaceted interventions, threats and the offensive against the people’s movements and the progressive political forces in Latin America. Militarization is being reinforced. The risk for a general conflagration at a regional level becomes even greater. In this sense the expansion and strengthening of the anti-imperialist social and political front and the struggles for peace in the direction of eradicating the causes of imperialist wars are fundamental.
There are two paths of development:
– the capitalist path, the path of the exploitation of the peoples which creates great dangers for imperialist wars, for workers’, people’s democratic rights
– and the path of liberation with immense possibilities for the promotion of the interests of the workers and the peoples, for the achievement of social justice, people’s sovereignty, peace and progress. The path of the workers’ and people’s struggles, the path of socialism and communism, which is historically necessary.
Thanks to the decisive contribution of the communists and the class oriented trade-union movement the workers’ struggles in Europe and all over the world were further strengthened. Imperialist aggressiveness continues to meet resolute popular resistance in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America. This fact, along with experience accumulated so far especially in Latin America, the struggles and the processes that take place demonstrate the possibilities of resistance, of class struggle, in order for the peoples to make steps forward, to gain ground inflicting blows to imperialism when they have as their goal the overthrow of imperialist barbarity.
We salute the workers’ and people’s struggles and note the need to further strengthen them. The conditions demand the intensification of the class struggle, of the ideological, political, mass struggle in order to impede the anti-people measures and promote goals of struggle that meet the contemporary people’s needs; demand an organized workers’ counterattack for anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist ruptures, for the overthrow of capitalism putting an end to the exploitation of man by man.
Today the conditions are ripe for the construction of wide social anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist alliances, capable of defeating the multifaceted imperialist offensive and aggression and of fighting for power and promoting deep, radical, revolutionary changes. Working class unity, the organisation and the class orientation of the labour movement are fundamental factors in ensuring the construction of effective social alliances with the peasantry, the urban middle class strata, the women’s movement and youth movement.
In this struggle the role of the communist and workers’ parties at national, regional and international level and the strengthening of their cooperation are indispensable. The joint coordinated activity of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, of the communist youth organizations and the anti-imperialist organizations in which the communists have an important contribution constitutes one of the most reliable elements for the expansion of the anti-imperialist struggle and the strengthening of the anti-imperialist front.
The ideological struggle of the communist movement is of vital importance in order to defend and develop scientific socialism, to repulse contemporary anti-communism, to confront bourgeois ideology, anti-scientific theories and opportunist currents which reject the class struggle; combat the role of social democratic forces that defend and implement anti-people and pro-imperialist policies by supporting the strategy of capital and imperialism. The understanding of the unified character of the duties of the struggle for social, national and class emancipation, for the distinct promotion of the socialist alternative requires the ideological counteroffensive of the communist movement.
The overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism constitute an imperative need for the peoples. In view of the capitalist crisis and its consequences the international experiences and practice of the socialist construction prove the superiority of socialism. We underline our solidarity with the peoples who struggle for socialism and are involved in the construction of socialism.
Only socialism can create the conditions for the eradication of wars, unemployment, hunger, misery, illiteracy, the uncertainty of hundreds of millions of people, the destruction of the environment. Only socialism creates the conditions for development according to the contemporary needs of the workers.
Working people, farmers, urban and rural workers, women, young people, we call on you to struggle together to put an end to this capitalist barbarity. There is hope, there is a prospect. The future belongs to socialism.
SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE!
Athens, December 11, 2011
http://www.solidnet.org/13-international-meeting

Reply of the International Relations Section of KKE to the letter of PCE-IU

To the CP of Spain

And the “United Left”

Comrades,

We read your letter which you had already published and in which you wonder on what the assessment of the article of our newspaper “Rizospastis”, which was published in the edition of 22nd November, is based on. The article reported in relation to the recent elections in Spain: “the United Left trapped voters in illusions for a “better management” of the capitalist system.”

It is a fact that the very participation of the CP of Spain in the presidium of the so-called “European Left Party” which in its founding documents has accepted the safeguarding of the “principles of the EU” and is based on positions which defend the management of capitalism is an answer on its own.

Nevertheless after your letter, it is necessary for us to open certain basic issues quoting only a few of many extracts which anyone could come across in the electoral programme of the “United Left” (ΙU), which substantiate and confirm the specific criticism of the article in our newspaper.

More specifically the programme of the ΙU:

-does not mention anywhere as a precondition for popular prosperity the overthrow of the power of capital and the construction of socialism. On the contrary, it fosters a series of illusions that there can be a pro-people way out of the crisis within the capitalist path of development.

The goal of the “good management” of the system is proclaimed very clearly on page 6 of the programme “… we do not renounce the management of the immediate.” Strategically this is substantiated on page 18 with the “construction of a new productive model”, but always supported on old, outdated exploitative capitalist relations of production. On page 6 there is not the goal of overthrowing capitalism but of “surpassing the current social, political and cultural model which is dominated by neo-liberalism.” In other words, your entire approach focuses the problem on a form ofcapitalist management (neo-liberalism) and is in favour of another, allegedly better management. This is, without beating about the bush, the core of the IU’s programme, which refers to social-democratic management.

– It projects the idea that the capitalist state can be a shield for the rights of the working class and the people. Against reality itself which proves that the capitalist state is a class state, serves the monopolies and even more so in conditions of the liberalization of capital decisively promotes barbarity in labour relations, salaries, it attacks every working class right.

-In the framework of the whitewashing of the capitalist state the programme makes the relevant reference on page 22: “we propose a participatory social state, where, maintaining the central character of the public sector, promotes the public interest, equality, solidarity…”

Along the same lines: “The state must bring back balance to the market, not only correct it.” The utopia is being fostered that the capitalist economy, the rotten capitalist system and its anarchy can allegedly be tamed, “be balanced” and that this could benefit the working people. This appeal undoubtedly causes confusion among the workers, impedes the attempt for militancy and moves in the direction of assimilating popular forces in the objectives of the forces of capital.

On page 7 there is a goal for: “the creation of employment by the public sector because today the enterprises have many difficulties in creating it without assistance.” At the time when the working class is being led to poverty and destitution, the programme of the IU expresses its… anxiety over the “many difficulties” which the capitalists have. In fact it legitimises their demands for fresh state money as a support which operates as a vehicle for cutting or/and abolishing unemployment benefits in the name of the “subsidy of labour” which is a principle of the EU, of which the IU is a firm supporter. Also there must be no doubt about the labour relations which will apply in this employment as the programme declares on page 7 using the terminology of the EU and the associations of industrialists: “the redistribution and rationalization of existing employment”. For the working class these mean that the IU gives the green light to the flexible working hours to the abolition of the collective bargaining agreements, and the generalization of part-time employment.

-The bourgeois and opportunist viewpoint concerning the capitalist crisis as being a debt crisis is reproduced, but the cause of the capitalist crisis is the over-accumulation of capital. The debt is projected as a problem which must concern the working class and the people for which it is not responsible and the plutocracy must pay for it.

Thus misleadingly it supports the position that the peoples have something to gain from the renegotiation of the debt and the issuance of bonds by the EU (page 18). Is this not management “quackery” for the impasses of the capitalist system? However, the Greek people have a bitter experience from the new loans which they are called on to pay as happened with the well-known haircut of 50%, as well as with the proposal of sections of the plutocracy for the issuance of bonds by the EU.

-Your programme is firmly oriented towards the support of the imperialist EU, which is an enemy of the people, and radiates concern about its salvation and “correction” and not its dissolution.

– It talks about the “complete change in the model of the EU construction” (page 17), about “commitment for a change of the current foreign policy(…) of the EU” without calling into question, even for a single moment, this interstate imperialist union and moreover without mentioning the need for a disengagement from the EU.

In addition, it completely legitimizes the criteria of Maastricht and the Stability Pacts, which constitute a lever for the promotion of the anti-workers’ policy through the proposal to “increase the time limit for the reduction of the debt to 3% until 2016” (page 18). It also declares compliance with the criteria of big capital in order to reduce further the price of the labour force.

-It refers that: “the EU must buy public debt of member states and issue bonds to the extent that it is necessary to prevent speculation” (page 18). It fosters the logic that the EU can take on a pro-people character and that there can be a way out from the crisis through the EU which will benefit the working class, the poor popular strata. At the same time it is well known that the EU was constructed by the bourgeois governments in order to defend the European monopolies in their international competition with the American, the Russian, the Japanese and the Chinese ones on the one hand and on the other to exploit in a more intense and coordinated way the working people, safeguarding the bourgeois power by means of new political and repressive mechanisms. This is the EU, a union that serves the monopolies! It cannot be corrected from within, because monopolies are its “cell” and the bourgeois power its “backbone”! The only positive prospect for the working people is the disengagement of the countries from this union, with the establishment of people’s power that will lead to the socialization of the basic means of production, to the central planning and the workers’ control. Only this power can relieve the people from the immense public debt for which it bears no responsibility.

-Your programme calls on the very EU to make an exception in the freedom of movement of capital between the member states and the tax havens (page 12). Consequently, it does not fight against the freedom of movement of capital as a whole (a fundamental principle of the Maastricht Treaty which is supported by the ELP and its presidium where the PCE participates) but asks for exceptions from the general rule which will definitely continue to exist and constitute a tool in the hands of capital for the demolition of the workers’ and people’s achievements and rights. Once again the proposals aim at the management and not at the overthrow of the capitalist barbarity.

– Moreover your programme beautifies capitalism and promotes the view that capital and its power which are based on the capitalist exploitation can allegedly become “moral” and “just”.

What else can the following position (page 51) be if not a description of an alleged “good management” of capitalism? “In case that the process of privatizations begin the IU commits to struggle against them in cooperation with trade unions and social movements, demanding that this decision is adopted at least in a transparent and democratic way through the substantial participation of the affected citizens”. Likewise on page 81 the goal for “compliance of trade agreements with human rights”. In other words, privatizations, capitalist trade agreements with … morality and transparency, a … moral capitalism which is possible according to the programme of the IU and the positions of the “European Left Party”.

Comrades,

The abovementioned are merely a sample of the positions that confirm the criticism of the newspaper of KKE. These positions have no relation to the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist power. On the contrary, they provide an alibi to capitalism, they foster illusions and serve its perpetuation and actually in a period where more and more workers, toiling people are realizing its impasses and seek a way out from the capitalist barbarity.

This way out cannot be the so-called “socialism of the 21st century” which constitutes a denial of scientific socialism, of the workers’ power, of the socialization of the means of production and the central planning and in fact is a humanized capitalism which is impossible to exist.

Finally, in your letter to our party you also mention that “ it is time for the unity of the consistent left in order to converge”. The social democrat management line of a “humanized” capitalism, the denial of socialism which was constructed in the 20th century by means of antiscientific, anti-historical positions – this is the ideological political basis of the so called “unity of the left”. These choices erect obstacles to the class struggle, to the concentration of social, popular forces against the capitalist path of development. And this takes place in conditions that the coordinated activity of the working class, the self employed, the small and medium sized farmers, the women, the youth, becomes imperative so as to strengthen the people’s alliance and the struggle for the interests of the working people, for the overthrow of the power of the monopolies.

This line is also confirmed by our experience, by the development of the class struggle in Greece where, as it is well known, 22 general strikes, numerous multifaceted class confrontations were organized, with the PAME playing the leading role, based on the slogan “without you no cog can turn, worker, you can do without the bosses” and focusing on the organization of the struggle in the factories, in the workplaces.

Comrades,

In response to your request we will publish your letter and our reply to our newspaper “Rizospastis” so as to inform the workers about the positions of each party and enable them draw their own conclusions.

The International Relations Section of the CC of KKE

e-mail:  cpg@int.kke.gr

Response to Sam Webb’s paper on “A party of socialism for the 21st century…”

Is the CPUSA a Communist Party in name only?

By the Houston Communist Party

The Houston Communist Party met on 2/6/11 for its monthly meeting. Naturally one of the most important points of discussion was Sam Webb’s new vision of the party as presented in his recent article “A party of socialism in the 21st century: What it looks like, what it says, and what it does.” Most found the document confusing and contradictory. Confusion and contradiction are the classic tools used by the right wing to discredit Communists and the working class.

Many important points were made by club members. One of the first questions that came up was “Do xenophobia, nihilism, anti-communism and blatant self-destruction have any place in the program of the CPUSA?” These are fairly serious charges and should be examined one by one.

Since this revisionist document is the opinion of an individual party member and is not the party program, we will post a critical analysis of this article.

Xenophobia

Certainly Webb is correct that there is more opposition to anything “foreign” from the nutty nuts on the right. Does this mean that the party should capitulate to this way of thinking and formally jettison anything that might be taken as “foreign” from our ideology? He maintains that “Leninism” might be seen as “foreign” and should be removed from our ideological positions. From this logic, also Marxism, socialism, a revolutionary party and class struggle might be seen as “foreign” concepts and should be expunged as well. What does this line of thinking mean for internationalism, support for immigrant’s rights struggles as well as world peace? Back in the 60’s, the John Birch Society used to put up billboards along the highways demanding “Get U.S. out of the U.N.” Should the party embrace this thinking since the right wing view it as “pure” and not “foreign”?

One has to wonder what would have become of the great U.S. civil rights struggle led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. if he had decided to abandon Mahatma Gandi, since he was “foreign”? What if the leaders of the Haymarket uprising had been run off since they were German socialists and anarchists and were therefore “foreign”? What if Fidel Castro had sidelined Che Guevara since he was “foreign”? What if organized labor in this country silenced Joe Hill since he was “foreign”? By the way, Marx and Engels are just as “foreign” as Lenin and are equally detested by the wealthy elite.

If Leninism is seen as “foreign”, then that is a major failure of the party to educate people about what Leninism means.
Dropping Leninism from the party in any kind of formal way is not only dishonest, and self destructive but is “foreign” to the thinking of most party members.

Nihilism

The nasty stench of nihilism can also be detected in Webb’s long discourse which he, himself, describes by stating “Readers will surely note inconsistencies, contradictions, silences and unfinished ideas.” The scary part is that top CPUSA leadership seems to have finished their ideas on the party and intends to finish the party. Webb damns our party ideology (the same ideology on which a great history of working class struggle has been built) as “too rigid and formulaic, our analysis too loaded with questionable assumptions, our methodology too undialectical, our structure too centralized, and our policies drifting from political realities.” These are serious charges and Webb fails to back up his thinking with any facts. It appears that Webb is advocating nihilistic idealism and rejecting materialism. Adolf Hitler, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly could not have slammed the party more effectively.

Webb’s nihilism does not stop here. He predicts war, climate disaster and all manner of apocalyptic catastrophes which could prevent any forward movement of the working class. He certainly does not provide any answers as to how working people can fight back against these overwhelming forces. He opines “After all, there is no direct or inevitable path to socialism. Nor is the working class going to simply ‘rise up’ at some appointed time and fight for a society of justice.” With a CPUSA cowering in the corner, where can the working class seek leadership and guidance?

From this line of thinking should our new slogans be “Workers of the world, come to your senses! Your chains are better than starvation!”? and/or “What do we want? Nothing! When do we want it? Whenever!”

Anti-Communism

Again, it is appalling that the ugly face of anti-communism appears at our top leadership. One Houston member pointed out “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.” Webb is using the ideological weapons of right wing opportunism and liquidationism to mount an anti-communist assault on the party of the working class.
We have theory as a guide to action based on scientific socialist principles discovered by Marx, Engels and Lenin as well as others. The uniqueness of our party is that our theory (Marxism Leninism) is interconnected, interdependent and coherent as well as flexible and fluid to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world. We have a method of analysis (dialectical materialism), practice (historical materialism) and organizational principles (democratic centralism – democracy and unity of action). Without theory, we have no vision that is based on sound foundations, leaving us to flop around aimlessly. Without a path forward based on material conditions, we grow frustrated and ineffective. Without organizational cohesiveness, our force is greatly diminished, easily split and made to work at counter purposes. What Webb proposes is to discard those elements which make us a revolutionary party.

While most of the article was an attack against an imaginary left sectarianism, the most effective disruption of the CPUSA program has been from the right. This is easily demonstrated in our history – Jay Lovestone, Earl Browder, Committees of Correspondence, etc. Have we forgotten Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Yakovlev? How did their “new ideas” work out for them? Gorbachev and Yakovlev are some of the most despised people in the former Soviet Union. It is often said that those that do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Have we learned nothing from the experience in the former Soviet Union where opportunists in the party gutted the CPSU until there was nothing much left to defend?
Liquidationism is the elimination of the party of the working class as an independent force, gutting its theory and purpose and blurring the lines of fundamental class conflict.

Webb has propelled the CPUSA onto the slippery slope of right wing opportunism, reformism, economism and finally liquidation of the party

Self Destruction

Continuing along the road chosen by Webb will only lead to the self destruction of the party. We are reminded of the boiling frog analogy. If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out and save itself. This is what happened when Earl Browder proposed dismantling the party. Webb is being much more subtle and potentially much more effective in destroying the party. If you place a frog in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.”

The future of the party and the working class

Obviously, anti-communism, xenophobia, and nihilism are poison to a working class party of action. It is up to the members, friends and allies as well as local clubs and district organizers to recognize the self-destructive path we are on and take concrete steps to get us back on course. Obviously, the tactics and strategies we use to fight the class struggle cannot be identical to those strategies and tactics used by Lenin, and Stalin. But to renounce them because the right wing might find them distasteful is unforgiveable. We must not throw out the baby and keep the bathwater. It is up to us to educate working people about our history and what our theory has to offer them in their everyday struggles against the real enemy, capitalism. If we renounce Stalin completely, then we are saying that his contributions to the defeat of German fascism and Japanese imperialism were wrong and we are renouncing the fact that he was a powerful ally of the U.S. in those global struggles.

Since the left and organized labor are in disarray, our party needs to seize the moment and reclaim our role as the vanguard party of the working class. No one is going to award it to us just because we’re good looking. We are going to have to earn it through struggle and victories for the working class.

We, the Houston Communist Party, call on all Communists to demand an extraordinary National Convention to decide the future of the party. We are calling for a people’s trial of the Webb faction for its blatant and open betrayal of our Party Program and Constitution, mismanagement of party resources, disassembling of the party organizational structure as well as advocating right wing opportunism and efforts to liquidate the party. Such a trial should be easy to carry out since Webb and his small group of cronies have been very public about their treachery against the CPUSA. If found guilty of crimes against the working class and the Communist Movement, they should be unceremoniously removed from office and the control of party resources should be wrenched out of their grasp. It is time to close this humiliating chapter of CPUSA history and move forward with a fully rejuvenated party.

By James Thompson and Arthur Shaw

Sam Webb’s latest article “Class and democratic struggles in a volatile time” analyzes what he sees as the current situation in U.S. politics and prescribes the direction for the CPUSA to follow. Under one subtitle, he describes his vision of the “Role of the Communist Party” by stating “Our role is to assist labor and its allies to fight more consciously and strategically across every front of struggle.” We’ll revisit this tactic later in this paper. One of his “radical” proposals is a new ad campaign on Facebook.

Since this is the work of an individual party member and is not an expression of the party program, we will respond critically to the paper’s assertions.

Let’s face reality about our party. After all, a number of International Communist Parties have heaped criticism on the CPUSA and condemned its leadership for its revisionism and opportunism. A number of clubs around the country have also criticized leadership and even called for corrective action. It is natural that given the building pressure, leadership would want to conceal its intentions and attempt to hide and run. However, as they say, “you can’t hide and you can’t run.” Leadership should immediately respond to international criticism so that party members will know where our party is headed. Party members need clarity, but Webb’s paper muddies the waters.

Let’s look at some of the major points.

Occupy Wall Street

Webb makes the point that OWS does not have a specific set of demands. This is the big lie that is being repeated by countless talking heads on the mainstream media. Instead of simply regurgitating this right wing claptrap, the Huffington Post does an admirable job of analyzing the OWS demands http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-hayat/occupy-wall-street_b_1089079.html  .

Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate organization, proposes demands as follows:

“Tax Wall Street for gambling with our money. Pass the financial speculation tax.

Support Education. Put teachers back in classrooms and ease the crippling burden of student debt.

Keep working families in their homes. Pass a mortgage relief plan that puts the needs of homeowner above the greed of mortgage bankers.

End too big to fail. Rein in the big banks NOW and hold the people who caused the financial crisis accountable.

Fair share of taxes from the 1%. End the Bush tax cuts for the 1% and close corporate tax loopholes.

Businesses should invest in jobs. Corporations must stop sitting on their profits and start hiring again here in America.

Extend unemployment insurance. Millions of Americans are still out of work, and unemployment insurance is a vital lifeline.

End corporate control of our democracy. Abolish “corporate personhood” and restore full voting rights to real people?”

If CPUSA leadership was doing its job, it might propose demands to include:

End all imperialist wars and bring the troops home.

With 58% of Federal Discretionary Spending going to the U.S. military, it is no wonder that there is no money for health care and education and rebuilding our infrastructure. Stop provocations of Iran, North Korea, China and other nations. Drastically reduce the military budget and redirect funds to support working people.

Pass the Employee Free Choice Act right away. Pass further legislation to facilitate expansion of unions and increase their power.

Expand Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid. Implement Universal Health Care immediately.

Pass laws to outlaw hate speech, racism, sexism and all other forms of exploitation and oppression of working people. End wage discrepancies between men and women and between various ethnic and racial groups.

End the blockade of Cuba and expand trade with one of our closest neighbors. Demand release of the Cuban 5 immediately and facilitate their return to Cuba.

Shorten the work week and provide equal pay.

Put the working class on a fast track to become the ruling class. Educate people about socialism and worker’s democracy.

Webb further opines that Labor, although supportive of OWS generally, diverges from the movement in that it “sees the defeat of the Republican Party – the party of right wing extremism – as the critical terrain on which the class struggle will be fought.” He fails to mention that some in the leadership of the major trade unions are openly discussing the possibility of withdrawing union financial support to the Democrats because of their anti-union, anti-labor policies. Probably when Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff under President Obama, declared “F… the AFL-CIO!” he did not create a warm fuzzy feeling among trade unionists. Throwing the Employee Free Choice Act under the bus probably did not create much enthusiasm for the Democrats among union members or working people in general.

According to Webb, the greatest fear of the 1% is that the 99% might vote on Election Day. If the choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee cheerleaders for capitalism, what difference could it possibly make to working women and men. The 1% could only see a high voter turnout as an affirmation of their power. What could be more chilling to them would be if the working class organized a party of working people to fight for the rights of the 99%. This would require leadership who pushed for training in electoral political struggle so that working people achieved a mastery of the technological skills and grassroots organizing necessary to win a political campaign. If CPUSA leadership really wanted to chill the 1%, they would provide the support and direction for Communists to run and win political campaigns.

Strategic direction of the CPUSA

The report briefly considers the possibility of a change in strategic direction but then immediately dismisses this possibility. It holds up the bogey man of the right wing and even lists the dire consequences Webb conjures up if the right wing controlled all three branches of the government.

He predicts:

“The right to organize into a union would be annulled.

The unemployed would be left out to dry.

Abortions would become a criminal offense.

Education and health care would become a privilege.

The social safety net would disappear.

Discrimination would become the law of the land.

Global warming would accelerate to the point of irreversibility.

Prison populations would expand still further.

The projection of military power would become the favored instrument of foreign policy.”

What he fails to understand is that the election of Democrats in the legislative and executive branches of government has failed to halt or even slow down the process leading to the above mentioned social disasters. In fact, under the Obama administration the process has been speeding along with no brakes in sight. In reality, the only items that he mentions above that have not already happened are the annulment of the right to organize, and criminalizing abortion totally. Everything else is already in place.

Following from his previous uninspiring thinking, Webb fails to envision any leadership role for the CPUSA, no matter how small. While embracing the Democratic Party as the answer to all evil, he fails to recognize some problems with that capitalist party. The Democratic Party is not a monolithic structure devoted to the interests of the working class. On the other hand, the CPUSA should be a monolithic organization which is devoted to the interests of the working class. By hitching the CPUSA wagon to the Democrats, Webb weakens the party and annuls the independence of the party and nullifies any positive political contribution our party might make.

He fails to recognize that the Democratic Party, unlike the Republican Party, is a very diverse, heterogeneous organization made up of people primarily committed to capitalism ranging on the political spectrum from the extreme right wing to left leaning liberals. It is made up of some people who supported George Wallace as well as people who support Dennis Kucinich. It is made up of people who despise unions as well as people devoted to unions.

Webb makes an important statement when he says “The main obstacle to social progress remains right wing extremism and its corporate backers. It casts a reactionary shadow over the whole political process.”

However, he equates the right wing with the Republicans when many right wingers can be found among the Democrats. The CPUSA position of supporting the Democrats uncritically and proposals to change the name of the party and drop Leninism as “foreign” could be considered “right wing.” Parties and candidates should be judged based on their current programs, policies and actions, not according to their names.

He goes on: “This election is not about choosing a lesser evil. Politics is not a morality play and the Obama administration and Democrats are not evil. It is about our nation’s future: are we going to move in a progressive-democratic or right wing anti-democratic authoritarian direction?”

Here we have an ideological dead end leading straight to idealism. Webb conjures up images of hobgoblins, sprites and demons to justify his claims. He also uses words to suggest that “democrats are progressive” and the people who oppose democrats are “anti-democratic authoritarian(s).” This obfuscation sets up an idealistic smokescreen to conceal the “anti-democratic authoritarian” tendencies we have seen from the Obama administration and right wing democrats. It is also a splitting tactic that will alienate progressives from the CPUSA.

Progressives are not stupid and can detect unreserved, blind, slavish, subservient, homage to the Democratic Party by CPUSA leadership. Many progressives are concerned about the expanding wars and increasing deaths of innocent people in our armed services and deaths of the people in the countries which are attacked by our military. Mindless allegiance to the Democratic Party will stop them in their tracks if they are considering allying with the CPUSA.

The CPUSA should completely redirect its policy. As an independent party with a Marxist Leninist tradition, we should remain firmly grounded in science and wholeheartedly reject the nihilism, idealism and revisionism/opportunism advocated by national CPUSA leadership.

Most people who want to work for a better future for all recognize that the electoral struggle, even though it occurs within a bourgeois dominated political system, is one of the most important arenas for struggle. However, we must reject the diabolical idealism of Webb and his supporters and affirm dialectical materialism as our methodology in political struggle. Instead of beseeching mythical political entities that may well be poised to throw working people under the bus, we must carefully examine each political candidate and view them through the age old filter “Which side are you on?” If their record and views and positions are in the interest of the working class, we should support them as long as they support working people. If they change direction, we should sharply criticize them on each position they take that is not in the interest of working people. The same test must be applied to Democrats, Republicans, Greens, and any other political party candidates including Communists. If they fail to get back on track, that is a sign they have sold out to the capitalists and they must be repudiated and defeated. Communists should not be hypocrites and should oppose reactionary Democrats just as vigorously as reactionary Republicans. The working people do not need a Communist Party in name only.

Only by sticking with the scientific methods of dialectical materialism can we move forward in our efforts to support the working class and build our party. Anything less will result in confusion and a reduction in the power and prestige of the party. Most party members have seen enough of that in the last few years.

So instead of posing the question “Are we going to move in a progressive-democratic or right wing anti-democratic authoritarian direction?” we should be asking “are we going to fight for the working class or are we going to fight for increasing imperialistic wars of occupation and decimation of worker’s wages and benefits, the social infrastructure, as well as the right to organize.”

Failure to lead

The CPUSA has abandoned many of the cornerstones of Marxist Leninist ideology. These important concepts include: dictatorship of the proletariat, democratic centralism and the Communist Party as the vanguard party of the working class.
Webb’s first statement about the role of the party is “Our role is to assist labor and its allies to fight more consciously and strategically across every front of struggle.” Again, the idea of leadership or of a vanguard party is completely lost.

Webb states:

“In other words, broad unity is the path out of this crisis and the fight for such unity is a distinguishing hallmark of communists. As Marx and Engels wrote long ago, we have no interests separate and apart from the movement and our foremost concern is with the unity of the movement as a whole.”

It is certainly understood that our interests are congruent with the interests of the working class. However, it is our duty to educate, organize and lead the working class in fighting for their interests. Working people are so distracted by the culture of confusion created by the bourgeoisie that it is hard to chart a path out of the darkness. We working people need all the help we can get and a vanguard party could fill a gap in the direction of struggle, organizing opposition and clarifying the current situation in which we find ourselves. Working people don’t need a CPUSA leadership that advocates uncritical support of a President that has expanded wars and is caving to right wing demands to reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and social security. CPUSA passivity and failure to speak out on a wide range of issues is a disservice to the people of the United State as well as the international working class movement. Workers need a vanguard party and the CPUSA could be such a party. Failure to assume our historical, independent role will only lead to further decline of the party in terms of membership and prestige among workers.

Fighting for party unity is essential, but this does not mean uniting uncritically with reactionaries. Fighting for party unity should refer to fighting for unity among the working class and the party to fight for our interests.

Fighting for the rights and interests of working people is what we are about. If the Communist Party firmly and unreservedly moves in that direction, we cannot fail since we will be fighting for the vast majority. Once the 99% recognizes that the Communist Party is their party, the party will be propelled forward at a breathtaking speed. However, we have to break our ties to reactionaries in order to move forward.

Instead of continuing with the “circle the wagon” mentality of national leadership of the CPUSA, why not reach out to our allies for advice on where to go from here. Has anyone in leadership had a conversation recently with Michael Parenti? Has anyone in leadership proposed a meeting or conversation with the parties that have sharply criticized CPUSA? What can be learned from the criticism? Has leadership conducted any kind of poll of membership to seek advice on what direction the party should take? We know that discussion at the last convention was severely limited and criticisms of major party documents were ignored and censored.

Direction of the party

In sum, we propose

1. That the CPUSA reaffirm its allegiance to the working class and the independent role of the Communist Party, not to bourgeois political parties.

2. That the CPUSA embrace Marxism-Leninism as its philosophical foundation.

3. That the CPUSA renounce imperialism and all imperialistic wars.

4. That the CPUSA embark on a bold program of education of our membership and allies.

5. That the CPUSA answer the criticisms from international parties and local clubs of its ideology, tactics and strategy.

6. That the CPUSA embrace the concepts of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e fight for the working class in its efforts to become the ruling class and for the CPUSA to assume its historical role as the vanguard party of the working class.

7. That the CPUSA develop a means of screening candidates for political office based on their positions and policies vis a vis the interests of the working class. This could be similar to the COPE committees of the unions, but should be different in that it should have an internationalist and anti-imperialist perspective.

8. That the CPUSA develop concrete methods for supporting the development of local clubs. This would include providing the names of people who contact the party to the local clubs, but also listening to the concerns of local clubs about local conditions as well as national and international concerns.

9. That the CPUSA reorganize our party press and provide a national paper for use in organization efforts.

10. That the CPUSA institute an organizing department made up of people committed to the growth of the party. Focus should be on organizing the unorganized and reaching out to low income neighborhoods and people.

11. That the CPUSA be more transparent in disclosing financial resources to membership and provide a clear direction on how these resources can be used to promote the interests of the working class.

12. That the CPUSA denounce, cease and desist from engaging in revisionist, opportunist tactics which devastated the party under Earl Browder and is having the same effect on the party today.

13. Fully support democracy within the party. Efforts should be made to clarify who is a member of the party. Once established, membership as a whole should elect officers of the party. There should be a clear path defined so that the membership as a whole can recall officers if they fail to discharge their duties properly according to the constitution of the party.

14. Elected officers should uphold the constitution of the party.

15. A national message board should be instituted so that all party members can discuss issues and the direction of the party without censorship and suppression of free speech.

Let’s fight for more democracy in the party! We have nothing to lose but our alienation!

PHill1917@comcast.net