By Gus Hall
Main report, 24th National Convention, CPUSA

In the minds of the people today there is a coming together of the two broadest concerns that involve the great peace and democratic majority:
1) the concern for the preservation of humanity and nature because of the threat of nuclear war, and,
2) the deep concern for the preservation of U.S. democracy, the democratic structure and democratic rights.
The danger in both cases comes from the same source: the most reactionary
militaristic, chauvinistic and racist, and anti-labor section of monopoly capital…
The broad forces reflecting overall democratic traditions and feeling include the working class, middle class, intellectuals, professionals and people in the mass media. This includes large numbers of Afro-Americans, Chicano-Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and other oppressed minorities.
How to tap the potential of this moment with initiatives that will lead to mass actions by the broadest democratic forces is the task at hand. Our task is to tap this potential so as to give rise to forms of political independence that will lead toward a new popular mass political party.
…There is a need for new initiatives, for the building of a people’s movement to establish a new democratic structure, a people’s democratic structure. There is a need for movements and struggles to strip the executive branch of much of its powers, to limit or repeal its war making powers and for constitutional reforms. In a nuclear world, no one individual should have such powers.
There is a need for people’s movements in the struggle to cut the military budget to the bone, to put an end to the war economy and the war budget.
It is possible to go on an ideological offensive against monopoly capitalism. It is a moment when millions can be made to see that monopoly capitalism is the root of all social evils, that it is associated with everything that is anti-democratic, corrupt, immoral, that hard rock of capitalist reality.

By Ron Gray via Political Affairs

I am inclined to agree with much of the recent article “Save the party.” However, concerning the internet, while not a panacea it can be a very useful tool. I am an internet recruit. Since affiliating myself with the party, I and four other web heads have started a club (pending party acceptance). I have written an article about the news media’s ignoring important statements made by the new CEO of Bank of America which was published, in People’s World. Another member is working on an article and a membership campaign after a furniture factory closing in North Carolina. Our club is working on a campaign to change people’s perception of the party here in the Carolinas. Once quite strong in the Carolinas, we have lost our advantage due to inactivity and the passing of former members. We must embrace this new technology, using it to our best advantage: to drive membership, fund raising and keep comrades informed and motivated. I agree with you that we can’t accept just anyone that sends in an application without some vetting process. There has to be some balance. There might be some people that because of illness or handicap can only participate via internet. But, they may make significant contributions. The ultimate goal must be finding and nurturing active, contributing members. To make the party strong we must have a large tent and allow for exceptions and diversity even in our membership policy. As Communists, Diversity and flexibility have been our strengths and bureaucracy and rigid policy our weakness.

I agree we must differentiate ourselves from the democrats and more closely examine ourselves against our Marxist ideals I agree that any step in the right direction should be embraced wherever it might come from but, we are communists not democrats. Let us boldly proclaim our identity and the noble truths it stands for. If we weaken our stand we run the risk of losing those principles that make us unique. We are a uniquely American communist party but, we must remain in unity and solidarity with our comrades in other countries with a view to worldwide communism. I too wish we could run a potent candidate in every election in America. However, at our current level of popularity I fear we run candidates at the peril of gaining a reputation of being a party of impotent “also rans”. This can become an entrenched perception which is difficult to overcome. Still, at some point we must step up and fight for a leadership position but, it should be in a race where we can give a good account of ourselves and if not win, at least show strength. Let us choose our fights wisely.

Finally, one thing we must not do is allow ourselves to become divided. It’s good to have diversity of opinion and to debate it strongly and openly but when a decision has been made let us come together in solidarity and give it our full support. I believe that it is good that we can criticize our leaders, in fact it is downright healthy and an American tradition to do so. When we do, let it be constructively, offering solutions to our problems and offering no unnecessary offense to our comrades that bear the burden of leadership. The diversity of ideas within our party must not become a “war of ideas” such as exists between democrats and republicans and will be their downfall. We will win by being the party of diversity, ideas, flexibility, compassion, a balanced approach and solidarity.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address this past week generated international headlines as well as many responses.

“In powerful oratory, he challenged some of the main ideological talking points of right-wing extremism, reminded everyone that he inherited record deficits and an unprecedented economic mess, and defended the stimulus bill and other recovery measures, including, and unfortunately the unconditional bank bailouts,” wrote Sam Webb for the People’s World. “An era of reform – and especially radical reforms – combines popular, sustained, and united action from below with new political openings from above. Both are necessary.”

The following is an interview with Communist Party Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner in response to President Obama’s January 27th state of the union address. It was conducted Thursday January 28th. Spotted at Political Affairs.

Communist Party USA Response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union Speech

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.