by Darrell Rankin  Leader, Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba

I’ve thought a bit more about Elena’s letter. There seems to be a rise in developments and plans lately in the CPUSA. There was Tyner’s letter and the November decision to focus on the PW, not the party, and the liquidation of the YCL. I may be missing a few developments.

It is wrong to read too much into this as an onlooker, but there seems to be strong and conflicting discussions within the leadership. Elena’s letter is liquidationist to the core, intended to demoralize and weaken the party. Tyner’s is the opposite, but he is now retired and more on the periphery. The plan to elevate the PW over the party is liquidationist.

If the party is facing liquidation, the experience in Canada (1989-1992) was that the money question came to the fore. So far, there’s no sign of dispute over that, but then the assets are still in the hands of the liquidationists.

The problem is liquidationism, and no other.

Marxist parties went through this at other times of crisis (1907-11, 1914, 1991), and the party crises all corresponded closely to crises in the dominant system (capitalism).

By all accounts, capitalism is headed towards more, not fewer or smaller, crises in the year or years ahead, much like in 1991.

Capitalism’s general crisis continues to deepen, and the mood and volatility of workers is on the upswing. They are not as likely to be fooled by Gorbachev’s convergence theory of universal values and a peace dividend, which explains imperialism’s drive to the right and for war.

Liquidationism is carried out by defeatists, by people with no confidence in the working class and no energy to find the right tactics. It is of the greatest assistance to the capitalists who want nothing more than to prevent the organization of revolutionary forces.

So I think this is not just an internal dispute unconnected to life. Liquidationism is connected to pressures on and changes in the working class, in the US and globally – Trump fascism, the rise of resistance to racism, the renewal of socialism as the alternative, and so on.

These are the conditions for the party to affirm its aim and to grow, and they are calling it quits.

These are times of growing danger but also of need and opportunity. It is impossible to say how long these conditions will last, but we can see how unstable capitalism has been recently.

Workers are looking for alternatives and a way out. This is not the time to liquidate, as happened on a world scale in 1914 and 1991.

I’m sure other parties are feeling or will feel such pressure. There may be signs that this is an international development, yet I see no dots to connect right now.

But US politics are pretty insular.

The world sees much of the US, but the US sees little of the world.

Darrell Rankin

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(Posted on facebook)https://www.facebook.com/darrell.rankin.9

Gus Hall and the CPUSA today

Gus Hall left a brilliant legacy for revolutionary workers in the United States and internationally. His books are models of explaining capitalism and the need for socialism in plain language.

Hall was one of the leading Marxists of the last century and is worth consulting on all of today’s major issues.

His books are essential reading on the working class, racism, imperialism, the environment, and many other topics.

They are available on used book sites on the internet, but not at International Publishers (located next to the CPUSA offices in New York) which remaindered his books in 2007.

This was a great loss.

Worse, many of the people who paid tribute to Hall when he passed in 2000 at a celebration of this life (see the appended video) are now openly campaigning to change the name of the communist party and drop its Marxist-Leninist ideology.

I hope they do not succeed. Such a move would liquidate the CPUSA and its role in organizing and strengthening the revolutionary working class’ struggle for peace, socialism, and the overthrow of capitalist imperialism.

When far-right forces are working hard to push U.S. imperialism towards war and domestic repression and when socialism is gaining tens of millions of adherents, it is the wrong time to lose a revolutionary party like this.

– DR

http://www.c-span.org/video/?160702-1/gus-hall-memorial-service