The Communist Party: A Work in Progress in a Changing World

By Sam Webb
8-03-09, 11:42 am

Path to socialism

We are re-envisioning the path to socialism and socialist society, based on present day challenges and a critical examination of the socialist experience in the 20th century. What are some of its main elements?

Our vision is of a society that is peaceful, democratic, economically just and efficient, and ecologically sustainable. Our socialist goal privileges social solidarity, economic security and sustainability, equality, cooperation, respect for difference and peace.

In our view, socialism is not simply a good idea, but an overriding necessity for humankind to find timely solutions to problems that threatens its very future – massive inequality and poverty, global warming, war and nuclear proliferation, energy and resource depletion, pandemic diseases and so forth.

There are neither universal paths to nor universal models of socialism. Socialism has to grow out of the soil of a particular country, at a particular time, and in particular set of circumstances. Our country will be no exception. We will follow our own distinct nationally specific path.

Socialism must settle the “property question” (from capitalist to socialist property relations or to put it differently, from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production) to be sure. Every revolution must accomplish this essential task, and ours will be no different.

But how this is done and the pace by which it proceeds largely depends on concrete circumstances. At socialism’s dawn in any country and then long into the transition to socialism I expect that a mixed economy, operating in a regulated socialist market and combining different forms of socialist, cooperative, and private property, will prevail, albeit with tensions, contradictions, and dangers.

Such ownership relations and market mechanisms by no means preclude economic planning and democratic control. It is hard, in fact, to imagine how the transformation of the economy can be successfully tackled without democratic planning.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8848/

[div class="excerpt"]To begin, the ascendancy of the extreme right to political dominance signaled by the election of Ronald Reagan and continuing through the Bush years was a sobering and painful reality for anyone who favored peace, equality, fairness and democracy.

The aim of this right wing grouping, of which the Bush administration was the last and most dangerous example, was to reestablish by any means necessary the unchallengeable hegemony of US capitalism, to restore profits and wealth of the ruling elite, and to reconfigure the role and functions of the government to the advantage of the richest families and corporations.

While achieving many of their aims over a 30-year period, their political project is now in shambles and its perpetrators have been discredited. [/quote]

Seven months into the Obama administration and the author hasn't noticed that nothing has changed?

Wall Street bailout
AfPak e$calation
Autoworkers
Health care bill
etc

:shrug:

He needs to use the Google.

The ruling class agenda is full speed ahead.

In the aftermath of the Yalta Conference, then-CPUSA Chair Earl Browder proclaimed that it was the duty of all to help capitalism succeed. Browder was expelled from the party shortly thereafter.

Webb wants to turn the CPUSA into a watered down version of Socialist Party USA (we had the same type of revisionism inside SPUSA, but that's another story) with rumours that the word "Communist" will be dropped from the party's name next year.

CPUSA hasn't been the same since thousands left it on the aftermath of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Making a deal with Hitler was a bridge too far for those that had opposed fascism and supported the Spanish Republic.

Webb penned another DLC-sounding article here:

It's time to put the pedal to the metal

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/16574/

I wrote a letter to editor rebutting Webb, but it was never published. Here is an except of what I wrote:

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]CPUSA Chair Sam Webb is living in denial when he criticized progressives for our failure to, in Webb's words, to "factor in the whole array of forces and conditions that weigh on (Obama's) decision making process and performance before issuing a report card."

There is plenty of evidence indicating the Obama Administration is heading the way of the triangulating Clinton Administration. Progressives have plenty of reason to become alarmed at recent trends in which "Change You Can Believe In" has been replaced by "More of the Same." During this summer we saw the Obama Administration give a wink-and-a-nod to School of Americas graduates to overthrow the democratically elected president of Honduras, increase its sabre rattling against the Bolivarian Revolution, continue the Bush policy of spying on peace groups, freeze Single Payer advocates from the national health care debate, surrender on Card Check without firing a shot, and refusing to prosecute the law breakers from the Bush Administration. There are many other examples, such as Obama's refusal to even issue a Stop Loss executive order to prevent the discharge of gay and lesbian servicemembers, and an increase in bellicosity in Latin America, Afghanistan, and Africa.

At what point are we to "fully put the pedal to the metal," using Webb's own verbiage? Should we wait until the Obama Administration puts Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia on the State Department's terrorism list, as Cuba currently is? Shall we await to hear the sound of American bombs exploding over Caracas? Should we bite our collective tongues until the number of casualties in Afghanistan exceed the ones in Iraq?

From 2001 to 2004 we heard and read in the blogs an endless litany of excuses for the Democrats failure to oppose the abuses of power and war crimes of the Bush/Cheney regime. We were constantly lectured that we should "keep the powder dry" until such time as the "wiser" Beltway establishment decided that enough was enough. We know how well that went! There was a word that fully described what the Democrats did in response to the crimes of the Bush Administration: appeasement.

What will be the next criticism that will be hurled in our direction? That American imperialism doesn't exist in the current condition? That we are being alarmist? That we must "make capitalism work for everyone," as Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales first proposed in 2004? Rajan and Zingales proposal included curbing the powers of domestic lobbies (environmentalists and unions), opening borders to unrestricted flow of goods and capital (let the transnationals pillage to their hearts contend), transferring assets to "efficient" owners (more privatization), and creating a new safety net (private social security accounts). Sounds familiar? [/quote]


If voting changed anything, it would be illegal.

--Emma Goldman

I get where you're coming from, and the article is full of shit, but you can also be damned sure that their political project IS in shambles. How long can they keep ducking 20% unemployment? How much more blood can they squeeze from the turnip of state budgets? What are they actually going to do in Iraq and Afghanistan? What do they do when the rest of the stimulus money gets "spent" and it still amounts to jack shit?

The international picture is even more desperate. Not saying that means the ruling class is simply going to concede or relent, but its not so rosy for them right now.

17% OFFICIAL unemployment in Elkhart where Obama went yesterday. Ha, best of luck fuckface. Excuse me, *President* Fuckface.

but as you say he is an accomodationist through and through. Hard to call him Browder though because the CPUSA is nothing now compared to what it was then. Webb is barely a blip on the radar.

Beats me. If "they" want to continue the imperialist course in Afghanistan/Pakistan/Syria maybe they'll have to get someone other than US taxpayers to foot the bill? Maybe taxpayers in countries with resources being mined and widgets being produced?

I don't know.

So far though I see very little indication that they care shit all about how US citizens react to rising unemployment and gutted social services. In spite of the water carrier class wringing its hands and claiming that when enough suv driving latte drinkers lose THEIR jobs, when that unemployment percentage hits the magic number, when enough granite countertopped homes are foreclosed, "THEN we'll take to the streets!!"

Yeah riiiight.