> Another Dark Day in CPUSA History
> Written by The Editors
> The resolution below, against the US escalation in Afghanistan, was
> rejected by the CPUSA leadership with only two recorded dissenting
> votes. Proposed before its mid-November regular meeting, the
> National Committee (NC) refused to consider the resolution on
> November 15, instead referring it to the National Board (NB) for
> further, expanded discussion. That NB discussion, which finally took
> place on December 2, the day after Obama's war speech at West Point,
> voted against the resolution by a vote of 34-2. The Editors
>

http://mltoday.com/en/another-dark-day-in-cpusa-history-739.html

Guessing that's a Trot site.....nonetheless, what kind of stupid game are they playing?

Guessing that's a Trot site.....nonetheless, what kind of stupid game are they playing?


The Taliban/Al-Quaida opposed the Socialist government and the Soviet intervention... so...
Also, the CP will tail very badly on Obama (trust me on this). Also, there are bound to be a few people who have had the passing thought that the U.S. entanglement in Afghanistan ain't all bad.

I'm not apologizing for them... I am just explaining.

Truth is that the CP is for real AND they are the most conservative bunch of commies you have ever met. It's hard to explain. The Soviets used to keep them on the straight and narrow. Now, no Soviets...

Can't imagine what they are thinking. You get some very sharp analysis on the one hand. And then, you get this.

Guessing that's a Trot site.....nonetheless, what kind of stupid game are they playing?


MLToday has an annual reenactment of the Sino-Soviet split I'm pretty sure.

As for this, the only thing you can say in fairness to them is that other people also say and endorse dumb shit.

That's pretty fuckin' weak.

Guessing that's a Trot site.....nonetheless, what kind of stupid game are they playing?


The Taliban/Al-Quaida opposed the Socialist government and the Soviet intervention... so...
Also, the CP will tail very badly on Obama (trust me on this). Also, there are bound to be a few people who have had the passing thought that the U.S. entanglement in Afghanistan ain't all bad.

I'm not apologizing for them... I am just explaining.

Truth is that the CP is for real AND they are the most conservative bunch of commies you have ever met. It's hard to explain. The Soviets used to keep them on the straight and narrow. Now, no Soviets...

Can't imagine what they are thinking. You get some very sharp analysis on the one hand. And then, you get this.




3-D chess will only get ya so far, see Obama.

Do ya think that the constraints of persecution have turned them into eunuchs?

Here's an add-on to this discussion:

Does The Working Class And The Employing Class Have Anything In Common?
Not all workers and not all bosses all of the time, mind you. Not now, in the capitalist present and every day, but in an objective and historical sense. Not as a matter of theory or an ideal, but in the real relations human beings live out as workers or capitalists.

How about it--do workers and employers have anything in common or not?

Sam Webb, Communist Party leader, has an article in the People's World in which he says:

The notion of the capitalist class on the one side and the working class on the other may sound "radical," but it is neither Marxist, nor found in life and politics. Pure forms exist in high theory, but nowhere else.

I highly recommend that everyone read the article. Sam Webb also has a related post here.

For many of us, we took Lenin at his word and came to socialism with at least two concepts in mind. One was that workers and bosses have nothing historically and objectively in common. Another was the notion that "ordinary" people can govern ourselves by holding all of society's wealth in common. This public ownership presupposed a different kind of administration of things--different social relations--and was neatly summed up in the slogan "Every cook can govern."

Many of us sharpened our thinking on this when we read Kuusinen's Fundamentals Of Marxism-Leninism. We read:

The genuine class struggle of the proletariat begins when this struggle goes beyond the narrow limits of defence of the workers’ immediate interests and develops into a political struggle. For this the first requirement is that the advanced representatives of the working class of the whole country should begin to wage a struggle "against the whole class of capitalists and against the government that supports that class" (Lenin).

Working backwards, many of us then read in Marx:

These few hints will suffice to show that the very development of modern industry must progressively turn the scale in favour of the capitalist against the working man, and that consequently the general tendency of capitalistic production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages, or to push the value of labour more or less to its minimum limit. Such being the tendency of things in this system, is this saying that the working class ought to renounce their resistance against the encroachments of capital, and abandon their attempts at making the best of the occasional chances for their temporary improvement? If they did, they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation. I think I have shown that their struggles for the standard of wages are incidents inseparable from the whole wages system, that in 99 cases out of 100 their efforts at raising wages are only efforts at maintaining the given value of labour, and that the necessity of debating their price with the capitalist is inherent to their condition of having to sell themselves as commodities. By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.

At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerrilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!"

Anyone can throw quotes around, and quotes by themselves of course prove nothing. It may be that our understanding or the way many of us learned Marxism is at fault. Marxist methods either give us the tools to understand real and lived experience or they are worthless. Perhaps Marxism has missed something or is passe?

So--what is lived and real experience here? Do workers and employers have common interests or not? Is there a class struggle or not? Can "every cook govern" or not?

http://willamettereds.blogspot.com/2009/10/does-working-class-and-employing-class.html

Here are the 4 comments after the blog post:


strannik said...

Well, the slogan "multi-class coalition" always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I can understand playing ruling class groups off against each other, but what the Party leadership is doing is something more than that. What I got from Comrade Webb's article is the sense that he believes that being ruled over by a liberal plutocracy is a great step forward from being ruled by a reactionary one. It puts me in mind of the liberal imperialists in Britain, who had nothing against empire, but wanted to carry out their rapacious pillaging with more civility and gentleness toward colonial subjects. But in the end, imperialism is imperialism and plutocrats are plutocrats; that's what Marxists need to point out.
October 29, 2009 10:24 PM
annski said...

This is new? Sam Webb sounds like CPUSAers I knew in the 60's 70's. "We can't have a mass demonstration against the War in Vietnam this year, everyone's energy will be on the presidential election" Gee, the Democrats wouldn't like it.
October 29, 2009 11:34 PM
Communist Party Discussion said...

Sam Webb is simply an anti-communist, bourgeois liberal like the traitor Gorbachev. There is really not much else to say about him. The US left needs to carefully study the classics of Marxism-Leninism, which is the best way to avoid being fooled by right-opportunist clowns like the Webbites.
October 30, 2009 2:20 AM
Gus Hall Action Club said...

It’s superb that this essay shares quotations from and links to O.V. Kuusinen’s great Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism - the manual acclaimed by yesteryear’s world Communist movement for it’s educational value - and Karl Marx’s writings!! As V.I. Lenin once said: "the Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true!" It’s vital to study, re-read and teach the classic works of Communism. William Z. Foster taught future generations that a low Marxist-Leninist ideological level in the Communist Party can pave the way for revisionism and Party liquidation! This article has a Bolshevik attitude!

- Lenin, Three Sources & Three Component Parts of Marxism, March 1913

- William Z. Foster, April 1948, Political Affairs

3-D chess will only get ya so far, see Obama.

Do ya think that the constraints of persecution have turned them into eunuchs?


It's a long, long story. I can get into it if you want me to, but I'll piss everybody off by being typically obtuse. It ain't really about them. It's about all the Parties in the Imperialist countries. The CPUSA just has an American "perspective" on the subject.

Consider Marx, for a minute... If we accept the materialist perspective for a second and Marx's exposition of it, what would we expect?

Immiseration of the working class?
The reduction of political democracy into a mere figure of speech?
Continuous and deepening economic crisis?

All of that is obvious now, but how long has that been true? It would have been a stretch to claim all that as self-evident only a few years ago.

What was "obvious" five or ten years ago? How about 60 years ago?

In a word, "Imperialism" did it.

3-D chess will only get ya so far, see Obama.

Do ya think that the constraints of persecution have turned them into eunuchs?


It's a long, long story. I can get into it if you want me to, but I'll piss everybody off by being typically obtuse. It ain't really about them. It's about all the Parties in the Imperialist countries. The CPUSA just has an American "perspective" on the subject.

Consider Marx, for a minute... If we accept the materialist perspective for a second and Marx's exposition of it, what would we expect?

Immiseration of the working class?
The reduction of political democracy into a mere figure of speech?
Continuous and deepening economic crisis?

All of that is obvious now, but how long has that been true? It would have been a stretch to claim all that as self-evident only a few years ago.

What was "obvious" five or ten years ago? How about 60 years ago?

In a word, "Imperialism" did it.




Those things were all obvious from a macro-perspective, but macro-perspectives are hard to come by. In fact, I'm not entirely sure such a thing really exists.

PS I was just thinking along the same lines and thinking it might be high time to revisit what you wrote about Berlinguer and Theseus sometime soon.

Also, if you go to cpusa.org you are greeted with the following


Slightly over a year ago, the American people elected a young African American to the presidency and increased the Democratic majority in the Congress. President Obama’s victory represented a repudiation of right-wing ideology, politics and economics and a setback for neoliberalism in both its conservative and liberal skins.

This victory was a long time in coming. When it finally happened it did so not only because of the brilliance of the candidate, but also due to the broad shoulders of a people’s coalition.

The swing in the political pendulum ushered in the possibility of a new era. After 30 years of right-wing dominance, the balance of political power tilted once again in a progressive direction.

Though that tilt wasn’t far enough for a people’s agenda to be easily enacted, political advantage did shift, and that’s no small accomplishment.

Perhaps it is obvious, but if McCain and Palin had been elected, a public option would not be in the center of the conversation — in fact, health care reform wouldn’t even be on the agenda. The Employee Free Choice Act would be off labor’s wish list. The stimulus package would be far smaller and unemployment much higher. There would not be a Puerto Rican woman on the Supreme Court. Our government would be actively supporting the coup regime in Honduras, and relations with Cuba would be frozen or worse. Legislation extending hate crimes to include anti-gay violence would still be on the ‘to do’ list. And not a word would have been mentioned about the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In short, President Obama’s election has made a difference, and the progressive movement has space to dream again. There are limits and obstacles to be sure, but what should frame our outlook are hope and possibility. The great reformer of the 20th century, Rev. Martin Luther King, taught us this lesson.

Whats doubly confounding is that the rest of the report is NOT about Obama or "collaboration" really

These guys are really weird. I emailed their Florida branch once. Turns out they don't have an office, just an email address. I didn't get past one response/reply with them. There is also a strong aura of craveness all around them.

3-D chess will only get ya so far, see Obama.

Do ya think that the constraints of persecution have turned them into eunuchs?


It's a long, long story. I can get into it if you want me to, but I'll piss everybody off by being typically obtuse. It ain't really about them. It's about all the Parties in the Imperialist countries. The CPUSA just has an American "perspective" on the subject.

Consider Marx, for a minute... If we accept the materialist perspective for a second and Marx's exposition of it, what would we expect?

Immiseration of the working class?
The reduction of political democracy into a mere figure of speech?
Continuous and deepening economic crisis?

All of that is obvious now, but how long has that been true? It would have been a stretch to claim all that as self-evident only a few years ago.

What was "obvious" five or ten years ago? How about 60 years ago?

In a word, "Imperialism" did it.




So, 1914 Social Democrats redux?

Hmmm, even the Russians were pretty stogy until some damned 'anarchist' shook them up. Not claiming the "great man' thesis but rather that events brought certain solutions to the fore and along with those solutions their proponents.

Historical perspective is hard to grasp when you're in the middle of it. One thing though, don't think there's gonna be a 'sealed train' this time.

3-D chess will only get ya so far, see Obama.

Do ya think that the constraints of persecution have turned them into eunuchs?


It's a long, long story. I can get into it if you want me to, but I'll piss everybody off by being typically obtuse. It ain't really about them. It's about all the Parties in the Imperialist countries. The CPUSA just has an American "perspective" on the subject.

Consider Marx, for a minute... If we accept the materialist perspective for a second and Marx's exposition of it, what would we expect?

Immiseration of the working class?
The reduction of political democracy into a mere figure of speech?
Continuous and deepening economic crisis?

All of that is obvious now, but how long has that been true? It would have been a stretch to claim all that as self-evident only a few years ago.

What was "obvious" five or ten years ago? How about 60 years ago?

In a word, "Imperialism" did it.




So, 1914 Social Democrats redux?

Hmmm, even the Russians were pretty stogy until some damned 'anarchist' shook them up. Not claiming the "great man' thesis but rather that events brought certain solutions to the fore and along with those solutions their proponents.

Historical perspective is hard to grasp when you're in the middle of it. One thing though, don't think there's gonna be a 'sealed train' this time.


Thats really the thing I think BP..a party of "the people" can't run that far in advance of the people. And the people can't run that far in advance of what their material circumstances dictate. And of course when the people start running in advance of the party, thats a self-correcting problem.

EDIT: Also, part of the importance of the Thesues discussion is what Chlamor might call "internalizing the mythologized narrative" or, in lower paralance, believing our own bullshit.

So, 1914 Social Democrats redux?

Hmmm, even the Russians were pretty stogy until some damned 'anarchist' shook them up. Not claiming the "great man' thesis but rather that events brought certain solutions to the fore and along with those solutions their proponents.

Historical perspective is hard to grasp when you're in the middle of it. One thing though, don't think there's gonna be a 'sealed train' this time.


I did not intend a criticism of the CPUSA, let alone one as sharp as the one you heard. No, I don't think the CPUSA is anything like the 1914 Social Democrats faced by war. What I was saying was much closer to what the Kid wrote above. I meant that imperialism changed their circumstances. To continue with my questions...

What is the "job" of a revolutionary party? What if revolutionary conditions don't exist and will not exist for decades? Certainly, the "job" is to keep alive "the Tradition", but without anything more that leads you to the obstinant irrelevance of the De Leonists, the old Socialist Labor Party... slowly, almost imperceptibly, focusing exclusively on on the sectarian disputes of 80 years ago.

For the CPUSA, that would have been impossible in any case. It was and probably is still the most proletarian in composition of any American Left party. That means a continuing engagement in the struggles of the working class... After WW2, those struggles consist of what? The "struggle for peace"... The Civil Rights Movement, which is a fight to participate and not be excluded from the "American Dream"... Various movements in support of people "elsewhere".... Meanwhile, the heart of the Party is being ripped out by the decline of industry and the eclipse of the industrial unions. The erosion is palpable and it has nothing whatever to do with this policy or that "bureaucracy", let alone with personalities. I would argue that an identical process happened in Europe.

The details are interesting but, for me, it mostly counts as gossip... Where the Party lands in these new social conditions... that remains to be seen.

I understand the CP a hell of a lot more clearly than I do Trots, etc.

As far as your friendly jab goes, they were all "anarchists"... remember my little postage stamp bios of the Emancipation of Labor Group? Still, that should bring you no solace. They have nothing whatever to do with "anarchism" for a century, not even in Russia. The current breed stand in relation to even the misguided People's Will in the same relation as little manicured apartment dogs stand to wolves... to use your own slogan.

You misread my 'anarchist' comment, that was a reference to Lenin and the perception of some commies at the time. Old Trot said something of the sort in his history, as have you(with tongue firmly in cheek, I'm sure).

I'm learning a great deal from this discussion, but, if its not asking too much, could some nutshell definitions be provided?? for one Trots? (I think, but I'm not sure, a kind of elitist form of commie? {if that's possible}), thanks in advance...

on edit: I'm really so far behind, the history of the movement and all its divergencies is strongly lacking, obviously, I'm sure...Is it necessary for me, or should I just keep trying to study the genesis?

You misread my 'anarchist' comment, that was a reference to Lenin and the perception of some commies at the time. Old Trot said something of the sort in his history, as have you(with tongue firmly in cheek, I'm sure).


I caught your reference... Funny, ain't it? The "anti-democratic, dictatorial, centralist", Mr. V.I., turns out to be a loosey-goosey anarcho-adventurist. Would that we had more such hippies.

On edit: My tongue was not in cheek, either. I am absolutely convinced that "anarchism" is a part of the socialist movement... perhaps even a "stage"... and it always has been. As far as the modern types who exclusively pick up the "democratic anti-authorian" slogans of the ruling class... they are to anarchism as Trots are to wolves... etc, etc.

I'm learning a great deal from this discussion, but, if its not asking too much, could some nutshell definitions be provided?? for one Trots? (I think, but I'm not sure, a kind of elitist form of commie? {if that's possible}), thanks in advance...

on edit: I'm really so far behind, the history of the movement and all its divergencies is strongly lacking, obviously, I'm sure...Is it necessary for me, or should I just keep trying to study the genesis?


Trots technically means Trotskyites, but really refers to any "academic" Marxists who consider Marxism to be more of an intellectual pursuit than a really existing "blood and guts" movement. For them, it reduces to an endless recitation of stock phrases and formuals coupled with tossing tracts back and forth at each other.

And of course much bluster from these ultra-sectarian cliques about "organizing the working class"

I'm learning a great deal from this discussion, but, if its not asking too much, could some nutshell definitions be provided?? for one Trots? (I think, but I'm not sure, a kind of elitist form of commie? {if that's possible}), thanks in advance...

on edit: I'm really so far behind, the history of the movement and all its divergencies is strongly lacking, obviously, I'm sure...Is it necessary for me, or should I just keep trying to study the genesis?


Trots technically means Trotskyites, but really refers to any "academic" Marxists who consider Marxism to be more of an intellectual pursuit than a really existing "blood and guts" movement. For them, it reduces to an endless recitation of stock phrases and formuals coupled with tossing tracts back and forth at each other.

And of course much bluster from these ultra-sectarian cliques about "organizing the working class"


Am I to gather "organizing the working class" is from without? or within?

(Sound a little like the lunch room when I was working for a very cultish fundamentalist family (snakes, tongues, the whole shebang) who owned a woodburning stove company; bibles and sandwiches...they said I didn't have to join them when I quoted from the gospel myself, not sure how much real "Christianity" they practiced... ditto trots???)

Thanks again.

I'm learning a great deal from this discussion, but, if its not asking too much, could some nutshell definitions be provided?? for one Trots? (I think, but I'm not sure, a kind of elitist form of commie? {if that's possible}), thanks in advance...

on edit: I'm really so far behind, the history of the movement and all its divergencies is strongly lacking, obviously, I'm sure...Is it necessary for me, or should I just keep trying to study the genesis?


Trots technically means Trotskyites, but really refers to any "academic" Marxists who consider Marxism to be more of an intellectual pursuit than a really existing "blood and guts" movement. For them, it reduces to an endless recitation of stock phrases and formuals coupled with tossing tracts back and forth at each other.

And of course much bluster from these ultra-sectarian cliques about "organizing the working class"


Am I to gather "organizing the working class" is from without? or within?

(Sound a little like the lunch room when I was working for a very cultish fundamentalist family (snakes, tongues, the whole shebang) who owned a woodburning stove company; bibles and sandwiches...they said I didn't have to join them when I quoted from the gospel myself, not sure how much real "Christianity" they practiced... ditto trots???)

Thanks again.


Its neither within or without because they've never organized anyone, not even themselves. That Monty Python skit might as well be about them. Nothing can grow exponentially in real life..except Trotskyite splinter parties.

I'm learning a great deal from this discussion, but, if its not asking too much, could some nutshell definitions be provided?? for one Trots? (I think, but I'm not sure, a kind of elitist form of commie? {if that's possible}), thanks in advance...

on edit: I'm really so far behind, the history of the movement and all its divergencies is strongly lacking, obviously, I'm sure...Is it necessary for me, or should I just keep trying to study the genesis?


Trots technically means Trotskyites, but really refers to any "academic" Marxists who consider Marxism to be more of an intellectual pursuit than a really existing "blood and guts" movement. For them, it reduces to an endless recitation of stock phrases and formuals coupled with tossing tracts back and forth at each other.

And of course much bluster from these ultra-sectarian cliques about "organizing the working class"


Am I to gather "organizing the working class" is from without? or within?

(Sound a little like the lunch room when I was working for a very cultish fundamentalist family (snakes, tongues, the whole shebang) who owned a woodburning stove company; bibles and sandwiches...they said I didn't have to join them when I quoted from the gospel myself, not sure how much real "Christianity" they practiced... ditto trots???)

Thanks again.


Its neither within or without because they've never organized anyone, not even themselves. That Monty Python skit might as well be about them. Nothing can grow exponentially in real life..except Trotskyite splinter parties.


Argh, yuck, got it now, helps enormously...

Hey Kid, just found the encyclopedia under The Old Man on the front page, duh, think I can use that...

I'm learning a great deal from this discussion, but, if its not asking too much, could some nutshell definitions be provided?? for one Trots? (I think, but I'm not sure, a kind of elitist form of commie? {if that's possible}), thanks in advance...

on edit: I'm really so far behind, the history of the movement and all its divergencies is strongly lacking, obviously, I'm sure...Is it necessary for me, or should I just keep trying to study the genesis?


Trots technically means Trotskyites, but really refers to any "academic" Marxists who consider Marxism to be more of an intellectual pursuit than a really existing "blood and guts" movement. For them, it reduces to an endless recitation of stock phrases and formuals coupled with tossing tracts back and forth at each other.

And of course much bluster from these ultra-sectarian cliques about "organizing the working class"


Am I to gather "organizing the working class" is from without? or within?

(Sound a little like the lunch room when I was working for a very cultish fundamentalist family (snakes, tongues, the whole shebang) who owned a woodburning stove company; bibles and sandwiches...they said I didn't have to join them when I quoted from the gospel myself, not sure how much real "Christianity" they practiced... ditto trots???)

Thanks again.


Its neither within or without because they've never organized anyone, not even themselves. That Monty Python skit might as well be about them. Nothing can grow exponentially in real life..except Trotskyite splinter parties.


Life can expand exponentially, or nearly so, but it doesn't end well. Consider many invasive species, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, for example. Or some disease organisms. Apparently doesn't work so well with the social organism either, the 1934 Textile Strike for example, a mile wide but millimeters deep, no staying power, no ability to weather a blow.

Yesterday, "Salt of The Earth" was on television. Hadn't seen it for a while, and it was on a commercial free channel, so I watched. It was made in the mid 1950s, and independently produced by several members of the Hollywood 10 who went to jail for refusing to cooperate with HUAC, and distributed by the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (previously known as the Western Federation of Miners).

I'm posting this because the film's approach to class, race and gender is an accurate reflection of the CP's position at the time. And it's a remarkable narrative, one of the best working class films ever made. We can read CP documents from the period, but "Salt of The Earth" gives life to their work. Their work in the shops and mills was important for many years, we tend to lose sight of it in light of their consequent domestic and foreign political line.

The filmmakers were CP members (or fellow travelers) and the union was expelled from the CIO during the red scare for not renouncing its leadership who were Party members. Eventually, the union was raided by the Steelworkers, and folded into USWA.