By James Thompson

There has been some recent controversy over whether Hillary Clinton is a progressive. Bernie Sanders has argued that she is a fair weather progressive, but otherwise is a moderate. Hillary Clinton argues that she is a born-again progressive. It appears both views may be distortions of reality.

In its recent article on what is a progressive, the BBC offers this definition “A progressive is someone who wants to see more economic and social equality – and hopes to see more gains in feminism and gay rights. They’re also supportive of social programmes directed by the state – and they’d like social movements to have more power in the US.”

Sen. Sanders has pointed out Clinton’s addiction to Wall Street money and asks whether a progressive can take that much money from the bourgeoisie and fight for the interests of working people. It is a good question.

In a recent town hall meeting in New Hampshire, Anderson Cooper asked Clinton why the special interest groups paid her $675,000 for a few speaking engagements. Clinton looked like a deer caught in a headlight when she was forced to face this question and answered fecklessly “I don’t know. That’s what they offered.”

Working people are not stupid even though Clinton may think they are stupid. It was easy for working people to see through this lame response. Any working person knows that when a wealthy person pays you $675,000 they expect something in return. Any working person knows that wealthy people are not generous. They always want something for their money.

Although Sanders talks about a “political revolution”, it is clear that neither he nor Clinton are revolutionaries. Some view the word “revolution” as another word for change. Lenin defined revolution as the passing of state power from one class to another. Neither Clinton nor Sanders advocate for working people to attain state power. Both advocate reform of the capitalist system so that there is a kinder, gentler capitalism. Anyone who has studied the history of capitalism knows that this is not possible and is a mere flight of fantasy.

Back to the BBC definition of “progressive.” Both Sanders and Clinton give lip service to striving for more economic and social equality-and hopes to see more gains in feminism and gay rights. They are also supportive of social programs directed by the state-and they’d like social movements to have more power in the US. So, according to the BBC definition, both Clinton and Sanders are progressives.

It is important to remember that Sanders also talks about revolution. He is famous for advocating for a more fair distribution of wealth in the USA. He also talks about making healthcare a right and making education accessible to all. These are noble goals, but hardly revolutionary. In effect, Sen. Sanders advocates that the USA start catching up with European countries such as the UK, France, Sweden, Denmark and others who have democratic socialist governments. He does not advocate abolishing capitalism and implementing socialism. He talks about socialism but is not a socialist in the historical sense of the word. He is a socialist who advocates that the people in the US are worthy of living in a country where working people have equal benefits to workers in socialist democracies in Europe. Although some might deem this revolutionary, it is not. It is merely catch up reformism which actually would be very good for the working people in the USA.

Although Clinton has given lip service to certain reforms, she has distinguished herself in her latest campaign to be president of the United States by saying that Sanders proposals are too good for working people and are not feasible because her bourgeois benefactors would not allow them. She’s making good money from the bourgeoisie and anyone can easily see where her loyalties lie.

So, wake up sheeple and Google heads in the USA! The people in Europe did not get universal access to healthcare and education by waiting for the bourgeoisie to give them handouts. They had to fight for every inch of ground that they have gained and have had to continue to fight to keep from losing all that they have gained. The bourgeoisie, especially in the USA, are not known to hand out special treats on silver platters even to their most prized lapdogs.

Working people need to recognize that they are not lapdogs of the bourgeoisie. Working people need to recognize that they are the vast majority of the population in the United States and therefore wield a lot of political power. When working people recognize the power they have, they will unite and fight for what is right.

Sen. Sanders proposals are modest at best. Former secretary Clinton’s positions are reactionary at best.

Working people need to ask themselves if Clinton is correct that Sen. Sanders’ proposals are too good for them. They should also ask themselves, “Which side are you on?”

by James Thompson

Many people have noted that the leadership of the CPUSA currently is obviously bent on liquidating the party. The tactic that leadership has employed to these ends is to transform the Communist Party into the Democratic Party, thus alienating the membership. What would happen if Pope Francis announced that the Catholic Church would no longer be Catholic and instead would be Baptist? Of course, Catholics would either overthrow the Pope or bail out of the church and form a new church.

Working people are not fools and the CPUSA leadership should not attempt to fool workers in a play to abscond with party resources.

Why not try honesty for a change? Of course, this would be a novel concept to CPUSA leadership.

CPUSA leadership has been blowing out a lot of hot air about organizing mass movements. Anyone who has followed the party over the last 10 years knows that this is pure balderdash.

Now that leadership has jettisoned many party assets such as historical documents, books and other records of party achievements prior to the chairmanship of Sam Webb, advocated dropping communism, socialism and Marxism Leninism from party discussion and advocated the uncritical stance towards the Democratic Party, why not put your money where your mouth is?

The CPUSA has been posting articles very favorable to the Bernie Sanders campaign. If they want to be Democrats, let them be Democrats.

When Billy Bragg rewrote “The International”, he sang “Don’t hold so tight to your possessions because you’ve got nothing if you’ve got no rights!”

CPUSA leadership: “Don’t hang on so tightly to the party resources because you’ve got nothing if you have no credibility!” Don’t fret and worry about your pensions and how much money Elena Mora will need to go shopping and buy new hats! Liberate yourself from your ill-gotten gains! Instead of taking the money and running, give it to a real people’s movement! Donate all of the worker’s money that you clutch so tightly to the Bernie Sanders campaign. Turn over all party property to the campaign. Offer up your lavish, but unused offices in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles to the Bernie Sanders campaign.

You’ll feel better in the morning if you do this because you can be sure he won’t squander these precious worker’s resources as you have done.

Democratic road to the White House

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35499180

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have clashed over Wall Street and foreign policy, in the Democratic presidential candidates’ first one-on-one debate.

Mrs Clinton cast him as an idealist who will not get things done and Mr Sanders accused her of being too tied to the establishment to achieve real change.

The TV debate in New Hampshire was their first since the Democratic race was whittled down to two this week.

Without a third person on stage, the policy differences were laid bare.

The former secretary of state said Bernie Sanders’ proposals such as universal healthcare were too costly and unachievable.

Democratic debate – as it happened

And she went after her rival aggressively over his attempts to portray her as being in the pocket of Wall Street because of the campaign donations and the fees she had received for after-dinner speeches.

“It’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out,” she said.

Mr Sanders, a senator of Vermont, used a favourite attack line against her, that she backed the Iraq War, but she questioned his foreign policy expertise.

The debate comes five days before the second state-by-state contest in the battle for the presidential nominee, in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

Other highlights include:

• She represents the establishment, I represent ordinary Americans, said Mr Sanders
• By standing up to big money interests and campaign contributors, we transform America, he said
• Mrs Clinton: “I am a progressive who gets things done, and the root of that word progressive is progress”
• “Senator Sanders is the only person who would characterise me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment”, she added
• Mrs Clinton was asked to release the transcripts of all her paid speeches – she said she would look at it
• He demanded the break-up of the big banks but she said her regulatory policies would be tougher on Wall Street
• Asked what she stood for, she named clean energy, the affordable care act and getting paid family leave
• He said he was stronger because “Democrats win when there is large turnout” and he could enthuse young people

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Analysis – Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, New Hampshire

When in doubt, say you’re with Barack Obama. It was telling in this last debate before the New Hampshire primary that both candidates, when forced to defend themselves on grounds where they felt vulnerable, turned to Barack Obama for protection.

Early in the debate, when pressed by the Vermont senator on her ties to Wall Street, Mrs Clinton noted that Mr Obama had taken donations from the financial industry and still passed comprehensive reform. He did it because he was a “responsible president,” she said.

Later in the evening, Mr Sanders was pressed on his foreign policy views and willingness to normalise relations with Iran. He noted that he agreed with Mr Obama on the issue, despite Mrs Clinton criticising the then-senator in 2008 for being “naive”.

The Democratic president is still overwhelmingly popular among Democrats – and he proved to be a reassuring refuge.

But if this, in fact, revealed where the candidates were weakest, that can only be good news for Mr Sanders. Polls overwhelmingly show Democrats are much more concerned about the economy than they are about international affairs.

Democratic debate: Winners and losers

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Image copyright Reuters

Despite the tensions over policies, the debate ended on a warm note, when Mrs Clinton said the first person she would call would be Mr Sanders, if she won the nomination.

The debate was their first without the presence of the former governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, who quit the race on Monday night.

He was a distant third in the first state to vote, Iowa, where Mrs Clinton narrowly beat Mr Sanders after a prolonged count.

Mr Sanders holds a big lead in polls in New Hampshire, which borders the state where he is a senator, Vermont.

Both Republican and Democratic parties will formally name their presidential candidates at conventions in July.

Americans will finally go to the polls to choose the new occupant of the White House in November.

The winner of the Democratic contest will likely face one of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump or Marco Rubio, who finished in that order in the Iowa primaries.

Response to recent articles by CPUSA leadership

By James Thompson

The USA is in a highly unusual period. There is a global economic crisis which reaches from Asia to the Middle East to Africa to Europe to South America and North America. No capitalist country is immune to this looming disaster. Oil prices are down, inventories are up, sales are down, stockmarkets are down, interest rates are in purgatory, profits are down, unemployment is up and, understandably, the working class is angry.

At the same time, there is no organized communist or socialist movement on the globe. Historically, communist parties around the globe have fought for the interests of the working class. However, at this juncture, no such party or movement is effective or even exists. To some, it might seem that after years of repression, wars and rumors of wars, the working class has capitulated since the bourgeoisie has the workers on their knees.

The CPUSA has distinguished itself by becoming the vanguard party of the bourgeoisie. The so-called leadership of the CPUSA has recently posted a number of articles which are blatantly anti-Communist and anti-socialist. Let’s take a look.

Susan Webb

The first article appeared on January 4, 2016 to welcome in the New Year. It was posted on the People’s World website since the CPUSA no longer has a printed newspaper. It has been reproduced on this blog in an effort to promote public discussion. It was written by Susan Webb who is the ex-wife of former CPUSA chairman, Sam Webb. Sam Webb and his new partner, Elena Mora, have been slowly, meticulously and surely dismantling and liquidating the CPUSA. Ms. Mora recently wrote a letter of resignation from the CPUSA. Susan Webb has been standing by her man (even though he is no longer her man) and at times seems to be attempting to outdo Mr. Webb and Ms. Mora in their efforts to destroy the party. Susan Webb’s article is entitled “Everyone’s talking about socialism, but what is it?”

Ms. Webb’s article sings the praises of Bernie Sanders while condemning the great socialist experiment which was called the Soviet Union. Ms. Webb attempts to outdo the apologists for capitalism by condemning anything which might be considered socialist. She even condemns what she calls “cheesy socialist realism paintings.” In doing so, she condemns the likes of Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, Charles White and John Biggers. These artists painted some of the greatest murals in the world. A recent article in the Houston Chronicle puts a value on one of John Biggers’ murals at over $1 million.

Ms. Webb quotes Bernie Sanders as he praises Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Pope Francis. In a speech that, according to Ms. Webb, Sen. Sanders delivered at Georgetown University, he stated, “Our government belongs to all of us, and not just the 1%.” He also said, according to Ms. Webb, “you cannot have freedom without economic security” and detailed this as “the right to a decent job at decent pay, the right to adequate food, clothing, and time off from work, the right for every business, large and small, to function in an atmosphere free from unfair competition and domination by monopolies. The right of all Americans to have a decent home and decent healthcare.”

Those of sound mind will quickly recognize here a mixture of fantasy and reality. In the USA, under capitalism, the government serves only one function: To protect the interests of the bourgeoisie. In the history of the USA, there has never been a period in which working people have had any economic security. Unemployment in the USA varies, but has always been high. Access to food, clothing, paid leave, freedom from unfair competition and the right to a decent home and decent healthcare has always been nonexistent.

The problem here is not to achieve a kinder, gentler capitalism. The problem is to chart a reasonable, feasible path of struggle to the goal of socialism. Reforming capitalism can never result in the goals that Ms. Webb and her idol, Bernie Sanders set. Exploitation, repression, wars, racism, sexism, unemployment and other forms of hatred and abuse are inherent in any capitalist society.

Ms. Webb attempts to reduce socialism to co-ops, privately owned companies, individually owned businesses and sets tactics to achieve these goals to include worker decision-making, expanding town halls, implementing proportional representation, taking money out of political campaigns and making voting easy.

Such simplification is merely obfuscation of the main strategic goal of any Communist Party which is to bring about socialism.

Ms. Webb, in her article, returns to a maniacal rant against the Soviet Union. Interestingly, all of her criticisms of socialism and the Soviet Union are based on US propaganda. Her criticisms could have been written by Joseph McCarthy or J Edgar Hoover. She even goes so far as to say that the Soviet Union was not “socialist.” This may be an historical first.

She throws out red flags, Che and Lenin with the bathwater. She does not condemn Democratic Party president Harry Truman for the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and betraying the US ally, the Soviet Union, after their great contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. After FDR’s death, Truman changed the course of US foreign policy which resulted in a very expensive Cold War and nuclear arms race which drained the resources of the working class and did irreparable damage to the planet. She did not condemn Democratic Party governor George Wallace for his virulent racism. She did not condemn the nasty, degenerate, vicious Dixiecrats.

You get the picture. Ms. Webb’s article is filled with filthy, destructive anti-communism which has always been a knife in the heart of the working class.

Let’s look at how Ms. Webb’s article measures up to Lenin’s 21 conditions (previously posted on this blog).

Lenin maintained that the political work of the party should have a “really communist character” and should be devoted to the cause of the proletariat. He stated “in the columns of the press, at public meetings, in the trades unions, and the cooperatives-wherever the members of the Communist International can gain admittance-it is necessary to brand not only the bourgeoisie but also its helpers, the reformists of every shade, systematically and pitilessly.” Ms. Webb obviously violates this condition. She seems to want to do away with the CPUSA and instead support a progressive candidate of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders apparently wants to reform capitalism to make it more comfortable for some sectors of the population in the USA. This is not a bad thing, but it is hardly the only thing that needs to be done. No one knows whether Sen. Sanders has any chance of attaining state power, and if he does, whether he will use that power in the interest of the working class. He is certainly not a communist or socialist.

Lenin goes on “Every organization that wishes to affiliate to the Communist International must regularly and methodically remove reformists and centrists from every responsible post in the labor movement (party organizations, editorial boards, trades unions, parliamentary factions, cooperatives, local government) and replace them with tested communists, without worrying unduly about the fact that, particularly at first, ordinary workers from the masses will be replacing “experienced opportunists.”

Ms. Webb advocates elevating a reformist, centrist opportunist, Bernie Sanders, to the highest office of the land.

Lenin discusses the class struggle but Ms. Webb seems to think that the class struggle is irrelevant to working people.

Lenin discusses the role of the Communist Party in working to prevent new imperialist wars. Apparently, Ms. Webb must believe that imperialism is also irrelevant.

Lenin advocates the elimination of petty bourgeois elements within the party. Ms. Webb embraces not only petty bourgeois, but fully bourgeois elements.

Lenin clearly states “all those parties that wish to belong to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country.” He goes on “The Communist international has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social Democratic parties. The difference between the Communist Parties and the old official ‘social Democratic’ or ‘socialist’ parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler.” Again, Ms. Webb extols the virtues of the social Democrats while damning socialists and communists.

Lenin wrote “those party members who fundamentally reject the conditions and theses laid down by the Communist International are to be expelled from the party. Ms. Webb and her partners in crime, Mr. Webb, Ms. Mora and Mr. Bachtell have worked diligently to expel any members of the party who have expressed opposition to collaboration with the social Democrats.

Sam Webb

On January 29, 2016, Sam Webb, former chairman of the CPUSA, and his hand-picked puppet, John Bachtell, the current chairman of the CPUSA, launched two articles simultaneously. These articles have been reproduced on this blog in their entirety in an effort to promote public discussion. Webb’s article is entitled “Bernie or Bust.” As background information, it is important to know that Mr. Webb has advocated publicly abandoning the use of the words “œcommunist” or “Leninist.”

The thrust of his article is to maintain that the only viable strategy of people on the left is to fight the ultra right. His concept of the ultra right equates to members of the Republican Party. He maintains that if Sen. Bernie Sanders does not prevail in his effort to be the Democratic Party nominee for president, people on the left, particularly communists, should fall in lockstep with Hillary Clinton or anyone else that the DNC chooses to anoint. Presumably, if the DNC could resurrect George Wallace and nominate him for president, by Webb’s reckoning, communists should throw all their support behind him.

Webb argues that Hillary Clinton is a far superior candidate than any of the Republican contenders. He allows that Clinton’s foreign policy would most likely be “more aggressive and military-inclined then Obam’s.”

Mr. Webb’s convoluted, contradictory thinking is exemplified in this paragraph: “In sharp contrast to her Republican adversaries, Hillary has a democratic sensibility and the commitment, even if hemmed in by her centrist politics and class leanings. She may not want to break up banks too big to fail, or rein in US military presence and activity worldwide, or embrace single-payer health care (arguably for good reasons), but she will fight for the full range of democratic rights-collective bargaining rights, wage rights, job rights, women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, and, not least, health rights-as well as defend the integrity of democratic structures, governance, and traditions.”

Que contrar, Mr. Webb. It is well known that the Clintons have fought the unions, failed to support the employee free choice act, and as you have cited, opposed single-payer health care. However, even if a hypothetical President Clinton II took office, if she led the USA in further and more intense military provocation of Russia, and China, all humans on the planet could be transformed into cockroach food. As Pete Seeger sang “we can all be cremated equally.” After mass cremation, all of the above reforms become moot issues.

Mr. Webb does not seem to recall that former Secretary of State Clinton committed international war crimes when she presided over the destruction of a sovereign state, Libya, and the barbarous assassination of its leader, Moammar Qaddafi. He doesn’t seem to recall that Hillary Clinton’s husband, former Pres. Bill Clinton (who would return to the White House if his wife is elected president) presided over the destruction of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia and the persecution of its leaders. He does not recognize that this set the stage for George W. Bush to preside over the destruction of the sovereign nation of Iraq and the barbarous assassination of its leader, Saddam Hussein.

He only recognizes the extreme right elements within the Republican Party. He turns blind eyes and ears to the extreme right elements within the Democratic Party.

Again, Mr. Webb, like Ms. Webb, violates Lenin’s conditions by denigrating the Communist Party and touting Social Democrats and reformists while working tirelessly to liquidate the CPUSA. One of the tactics Mr. Webb has employed was to elevate his favorite henchman, John Bachtell, to the position of chairman of the CPUSA.

John Bachtell

It is no coincidence that Mr. Bachtell posted his article “Taking a sober look at the 2016 election” on the CPUSA website on the same day that Mr. Webb posted his article on his own personal blog. Both articles make reference to “Bernie or Bust.”

Mr. Bachtell apes the Webb line of “defeat the extreme right” which translates into support for the Democratic Party candidates, no matter how reactionary they may be. Much of the article is extremely poorly written with grammatical errors that would make anyone blush. His sentences don’t have any logical cohesion. They are presented in a staccato fashion which is highly confusing and raises party obfuscation to a new level.

Bachtell writes “We have to continue to emphasize the issues, promoting the best of both Sanders and Clinton, especially the most advanced positions. For example, there is growing discussion among the candidates about a financial transaction tax on Wall Street.” Bachtell does not seem to think that the class struggle is an issue worth discussing. Imperialism, socialism, and/or Leninism are not on the table for discussion either. However, the class struggle, and imperialism/fascism are the evils which plague the working class. Marxism Leninism and socialism are the tools which historically have been most effective in fighting the evils mentioned above.

Bachtell fecklessly quotes the New York Times and other sources of the bourgeois media and continues to confuse these voices of the bourgeoisie with the voices of the working people.

Bachtell talks about building a grand coalition to defeat the ultra right. Unfortunately, his predecessor, Sam Webb, has been very successful in dismantling and almost liquidating the party. It would be interesting to know what the party has done over the last 10 years to build any coalitions. The only coalitions that the party seems capable of building is a convergence of various sources of hot air. They also have been successful in infusing reality with a heavy dose of fantasy about their own importance.

Again, Bachtell follows in Webb’s footsteps and violates Lenin’s conditions in all regards.

On this eve of the Iowa primary and caucuses, is there any hope that the working class will inch towards the achievement of state power in the coming election cycle in the USA? Lenin said bourgeois elections do not solve anything. The great CPUSA chairperson, Gus Hall, urged communists that choose to engage in electoral struggle to “Aim to win.” When he said that, the CPUSA fielded candidates for various electoral offices around the country with little success. It is likely that he would be horrified at the state of the CPUSA today. Communists and socialists have been reduced to the position of deluding themselves into thinking that if a Democrat wins office, it is a victory for the working class. On the contrary, some might argue that support of bourgeois candidates is “Aiming to lose.”

The choices we must make are disgusting at best. It is like being forced to make a decision whether to drink poison and die or drink castor oil and get sick. The reality is that it is better to get sick and recover rather than to die and be gone forever.

Mr. Bachtell and Mr. Webb seem to think that there is no danger of fascism in the USA. Some might argue that it is already here. Much of Pres. Obama’s foreign policy might be characterized as fascist. His failure to support working people on many levels is not antithetical to fascism. The same can be said of both Sen. Sanders’ and former Secretary of State Clinton’s platforms. Sen. Sanders is clearly more progressive on more issues than former Secretary of State Clinton.

Will working people decide to drink castor oil or drain the poison? We will know more tomorrow. For sure, the class struggle will be very intense in the coming years.

(A response to Sue Webb opinion in People’s World on January 4, 2016)

Dear Editor:

In Sue Webb’s opinion piece which appeared in the January 4, 2016 edition she implies that all that is needed in the USA is for us to change the word “capitalism” to “socialism” and everything will fall into place. Of course, this is pure fantasy, the words of a person who is satisfied with the capitalist system of greed and corporate control, what we used to refer to as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” Ms. Webb is, indeed, bourgeois and her oversimplifications show that.

Her slanders of the USSR and socialism are particularly disturbing. She writes “[socialism] – has been tainted by much of what happened in the Soviet Union and some other countries. But there’s nothing in socialism that equates to dictatorship, political repression, bureaucracy, over-centralization and commandism, and so on. Those features of Soviet society arose out of particular circumstances and personalities. But they were not “socialist.”

Ms. Webb never objected the to the USSR when, in an act of great proletarian internationalism, the Soviet Union and the socialist community of nations led an international movement to save the life of Angela Y. Davis. Now that there is no more USSR thanks to the counter-revolutionary activities of Mikhail Gorbachev and those around him that promoted the concept of socialist “markets” and private enterprise, Ms. Webb all of a sudden finds fault with the socialism of the 20^th Century, calling it dictatorial, politically repressive, bureaucratic, and over-centralized, with a command style structure. And what dare I ask, was the USSR when they supported the CPUSA and its fight against racism and its political anti-monopoly program? So soon she forgets! Ms. Webb never objected when the Soviet Union supported the Cuban economy and the development of Cuba. She never objected when the USSR supported the national liberation movements in Angola, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and the Congo. All during the existence of the Soviet Union, the world witnessed the greatest fighter for world peace and socialism. Real socialism. To deny that is the worst kind of right opportunism.

As her alternative to scientifically planned economic socialism, Ms. Webb describes how we in the USA have many publicly owned electric utilities. That’s nice. We also have private utilities Sempra Energy, Pacific Gas, and Electric (PG&E), and Edison International for example, that endanger our environment and public health, cause great disasters like the natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California, the natural gas leak in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the financial manipulation of energy prices by companies like Enron. What is the plan of the social-democrats to deal with these privately owned conglomerates in a socialist economy?

Ms. Webb says that Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist because he rejects the idea of a planned economy. Great! So we should continue living with the chaos we live in now, where material goods are produced not for the benefit of the people, but to continue the system of private profits and exploitation at any cost? She speaks like a typical believer in American exceptionalism. As long as we have markets for goods everything will be OK. She even says it would be OK to operate private businesses that continue to exploit workers, a kind of touchy, feeley, nice capitalism!

Gus Hall, the great American Communist leader, said many times that there is no “socialist model but that there are general concepts and economic laws of socialism that cannot be ignored. When they are cast aside as Sue Webb suggests we should, the result is counter-revolution and an increase in anti-worker activity. As long as there is a bourgeois class and that class holds the levers of power, it makes no difference who is President of the United States. We have two Americas. A capitalist America, and a working class America. The class war intensifies more every day. We will never have socialism unless and until the workers themselves take power and own the means of production and write their own ticket. They don’t need a Democratic Party messiah to do that. They need a real trade union federation like the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), another contribution to humanity from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

So what is socialism? In any country, in any language, socialism is the intermediary step toward a communist society. Socialism is defined as follows: “The social order which, through revolutionary action by the working class and its allies, replaces capitalism. It is “the first phase of Communist society, as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society” (Marx). It is the social order in which the exploitation of man by man has ended because the toiling masses own the means of production. In contrast with the higher phase of Communist society, where “each gives according to his need,” in Socialist society “each gives according to his ability, and receives according to the amount of work performed”.

Contrast this with Democratic Socialism, *which is the general term for reformist and opportunist parties in their “theory” and practice in the Labor Movement [in sharp contrast with class conscious, anti-imperialist trade unionism of the WFTU]. Social-Democracy’s history is marked by timidity, legalism, “respectability,” capitulation to the influence of the capitalists, and consistent betrayal, of the working class.

Time to ask yourselves, which side are you on?

*Marxist Glossary, L. Harry Gould, Sydney. Australia 1948

Joe Hancock

PCUSA, Los Angeles