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.

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.

Over the coming days, the Communist Party USA Houston club will be posting discussion documents for the upcoming CPUSA convention. However, the party’s current direction is generating discussion going into the May event. Here we present one viewpoint.

By Dean Christ, Kevin Kyle, and Joan Phillips via Political Affairs

We think the CPUSA convention, postponed several times, cannot come soon enough. We believe the Party has been heading in a wrong direction in far too many ways.

What has happened the Party’s tradition of class struggle, anti-racism, anti-monopoly, anti-imperialism, political independence, international solidarity, and indeed Marxism-Leninism?

Instead of building the Party, the current top leaders (no matter what they think or claim they are doing) have been dismantling the Party piece by piece: eliminating the print versions of the People’s Weekly World and Political Affairs, giving away the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, keeping bookstores shut, abolishing the national Organization Department and several clubs in New York, not to mention cutting YCL funding instead of prioritizing it.

The June 2009 move to end the print edition of the PWW sent shock waves through the Party. Moreover, for top leaders to sweep under the rug the many letters of protest from individuals, clubs, and districts, constituted factionalism and a violation of democracy, for which there should be accountability. With some top officers of the Party now advising against the use of the word “Leninism” as “foreign,” the word “liquidation” used by some comrades seems no longer an exaggeration.

How to Build the Party

While those of us opposed to the current direction may not wholly agree on the way forward, many would agree on the broad outlines:

• Put the class struggle at the center of our thinking and work. Organize the people’s rage at Wall Street bailouts and mass joblessness by calling for nationalization and democratic control of the banks and basic industry, and by putting the Anti-Monopoly Coalition back at the center of our revolutionary strategy to win socialism.
• Put forth an anti-crisis program centered on job creation and call attention to the special suffering of youth, immigrants, and African Americans. Work in union rank-and-file movements, building unity, militancy and class-struggle policies.
• Organize the unemployed into a political force to be reckoned with by the ruling class. We need Unemployed Councils to fight politically for jobs at living wages.
• Resume our historically second-to-none role as a leading opponent of racism, national oppression and all forms of discrimination, and as an advocate and exemplar of Black-white unity. The conditions facing African Americans, Latinos and other nationally oppressed people are disproportionately bad and getting worse. Symbolic of the top leadership’s tone-deafness on national oppression, it was an affront to Latino workers, an increasingly important group of the specially oppressed, to dismiss the Spanish-language editor of the PWW.
• Build political independence ideologically and organizationally. Support progressive Democrats when they take the side of the people, and oppose them when they take the side of corporate and military interests. Support progressive independents. Run Communist candidates where possible and appropriate.
• Oppose in principle the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan as predatory, unjust wars that must end at once. Oppose U.S. imperialism in all its manifestations.
• Build mass people’s movements with renewed energy, including the anti-war movement, the movement for women’s equality and movements against racist and political repression. Rebuild Party-related left organizations, including in the labor movement.
• Revive Marxist-Leninist inner Party education to enhance members’ political development. Its neglect is evident in the party leadership’s opportunistic collapse on so many issues under the ideological pressure of monopoly capital.
• Join unequivocally the fight against the impending catastrophe of climate change and link this cause to the class struggle.
• Heighten solidarity with the Cubans, Palestinians, and other peoples besieged by imperialism.
• Work with other Communist Parties, such as the Greeks and Portuguese, who have been confronting opportunism and promoting international Communist cooperation in recent years.

Most of us recognize that the Party’s practice in the recent period, sadly, has fallen far short of these aspirations.

The blame belongs squarely with the Party’s general political and ideological line, and not, as some say, member lethargy. The political line, rendering us indistinguishable from the Democrats, makes recruitment hard, saps Party morale, and leads to chronic financial crisis.

All clear-headed Communists acknowledge that, in response to the greatest capitalist crisis in 70 years, President Obama has opened up some policy debates around health care, job creation, workers’ rights, environmental protection and nuclear disarmament. These issues were not and are not even on the agenda of the Republican Party.

Yet these positive openings do not cancel out the Administration’s role in the growing death and destruction in Afghanistan, the billions of dollars pouring into Wall Street banks and the corporations, the re-authorization of the blockade of socialist Cuba, or the refusal to reverse Bush’s policies of rendition and the abridgement of civil liberties.

These openings do not justify exaggerating the “possibilities” opened up by the Obama presidency or warrant fantasies about a “social movement” led by Obama.

More and more, the Party line subordinates everything to Democratic Party electoral work. It fails to grasp the centrality, the sheer gravity and scope of this world capitalist economic crisis and the hardships the crisis is inflicting on the working class, and the corresponding need for a militant fight-back.

The line wildly exaggerates Obama’s progressive side and sows illusions about the Democratic Party as a vehicle for social change.

The Iraq War rages on. The President recently signed an all-time high $680 billion war budget, an obscenity, yet the Party voice is muffled.

The line since the last convention has weakened our ties to the international Communist movement. Too many joint statements by the world movement on the Middle East and other burning issues go unsigned by the CPUSA. Our Party’s rosy “analysis” of the Obama Administration is rejected by the rest of a world Communist movement which is mobilizing against U.S. imperialism’s current crimes.

Some top leaders push technological panaceas. Yet the over-reliance on technology is creating a party of people sitting alone in front of a computer screen. The Internet cannot substitute for direct mass contact with workers through print publications. It cannot replace struggle in the streets, shops, and communities.

Militant tactics measuring up to the desperate conditions created by this economic crisis are not pushed by the CPUSA. In practice, the current political line ignores the lessons of the 1930s and our Party’s finest legacies, the CIO, and the building of all mass movements from the grass roots.

Our Party publications have lost working-class common sense. Their pages lavish undeserved praise on the Administration, and downplay what really matters such as: an immediate end to the U.S. aggressions in the Middle East; a jobs program which is not a carbon copy of the AFL-CIO program, and which puts forth advanced demands such as a cut in the workweek with no cut in pay; equality for all nationally oppressed groups; an end to the blockade of Cuba and freedom for the Cuban Five; and health care reform worthy of the name.

The gap between reality and the current political line has rarely been greater.

We need a change. We want to restore a fighting Communist Party organization that leads struggle.

Let’s make the most of our pre-convention discussion.