Cpusa

[jinx92]

Hello Comrades,

I have heard from fellow comrades that the CPUSA is revisionist. What are your opinions on this? What are some non revisionist Marxist-Leninist parties?

[DecDoom]

The CPUSA aren't even communists, they're really just glorified Democrats.

As for some non-revisionist Marxist-Leninist parties, in the US there's the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Workers World Party, and the American Party of Labor, to name a few.

[Sixiang]

I have heard from fellow comrades that the CPUSA is revisionist. What are your opinions on this?
Yes, they are revisionist. They aren't in favor of revolution and they basically support the Democratic Party. They're liberals.

[graymouser]

The CPUSA has engaged in a longstanding orientation to the Democrats, to the point where they can really be said to be "enforcers" of this orientation within the labor and progressive movements. Most of their literature defends every decision the Democrats make as pragmatic and condemns people who even suggest independence.

As for the term "revisionism," it's a term used by Maoists and Hoxhaists to describe parties that sided with the USSR in the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s / early 1960s. Some also use it as an insult for competing parties of similar orientations to themselves. They claim that Krushchev (and possibly others) revised Marxism-Leninism, and instituted something they call state capitalism.

There are relatively few anti-revisionist groups in the US; the largest are probably the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Progressive Labor Party, both of which have gone off on bizarre ideological tangents after an initial pro-Mao orientation. The FRSO that publishes Fight Back! newspaper is anti-revisionist, as are the small US Marxist-Leninist Organization and the American Party of Labor. Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are ex-Trotskyist groupings and not anti-revisionist at all. WWP opposed the whole idea of the Sino-Soviet split, and in the context of anti-revisionism their position was that it should have united with revisionism.

[redSHARP]

liberals, but damn they have some nice swag.

In the mid-20th century they dropped revolution from their program and have opted for parliamentary procedure. I have their "manifesto", which is a nice piece of writing, motivating at times, but alias they are social democrats at best.

[28350]

It's a pity - many members are /actual/ communists, but the leadership renders them impotent.

[Jack]

The CPUSA aren't even communists, they're really just glorified Democrats.

As for some non-revisionist Marxist-Leninist parties, in the US there's the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Workers World Party


I wasn't aware Marcyism wasn't revisionist...

[NoOneIsIllegal]

The Communist Party USA chairman considers Obama a decent president. This really makes me wonder if he has read the Energy Bill or the Healthcare Bill... or even realizes Obama supports capitalism (GASP i know right?!?!)

I would recommend the Party for Socialism and Liberation if you're looking for a party that really adheres to Marxism-Leninism.

[Zanthorus]

As for the term "revisionism," it's a term used by Maoists and Hoxhaists to describe parties that sided with the USSR in the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s / early 1960s.

Originally it was a term used by revolutionary Marxists in the Second International to describe those who supported Socialists entering into governmental coalitions with bourgeois-democratic and liberal parties. The Maoist/Hoxhaist usage is intended to evoke this original usage, with the pro-Kruschev 'revisionists' having capitulated to an alliance with the capitalist world. It does so unsuccesfully I might add, but that's another topic of discussion.

[Kassad]

To clarify, Sam Marcy, the theoretical basis for the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, did not oppose the Sino-Soviet split because he thought "revisionist" socialist countries should unite with "non-revisionist" ones. Marcy advocated a united socialist bloc against imperialism, something that no other party called for at the time.

Also, to those who want to call Marcy or the PSL "revisionist," feel free to clarify and I'd be glad to respond.

[Jack]

To clarify, Sam Marcy, the theoretical basis for the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, did not oppose the Sino-Soviet split because he thought "revisionist" socialist countries should unite with "non-revisionist" ones. Marcy advocated a united socialist bloc against imperialism, something that no other party called for at the time.

Also, to those who want to call Marcy or the PSL "revisionist," feel free to clarify and I'd be glad to respond.

Support of the entire Soviet bloc post 1961? Support of Yugoslavia? Supporting the invasion of Hungary? Support of Jesse Jackson? The support of China against "US Imperialism" in modern times (aka support of Chinese imperialism)?

I could go on, essentially Marcyism equates to a 12 year old's perception of Socialism and "LETS COMBINE FUCKING EVERYTHING".

Jus' sayin', I don't think you'll find that Marcyism fits in close to any form of anti-revisionism.

[gorillafuck]

As for some non-revisionist Marxist-Leninist parties, in the US there's the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Workers World Party, and the American Party of Labor, to name a few.
The WWP and PSL are not anti-revisionists.

[The Red Next Door]

The WWP and PSL are not anti-revisionists.

Yes, we are anti revisonists.

[Jack]

Yes, we are anti revisonists.

lolu

Even with your brigades of Cuba and USSR supporting "Maoists", you're not anti-revisionists by any definition of the word.

[Savage]

Was that idiot 'Communist' that Glenn Beck interviewed from the CPUSA? That guy almost lost an argument that I'm sure anyone on Revleft could have won.

[graymouser]

Was that idiot 'Communist' that Glenn Beck interviewed from the CPUSA? That guy almost lost an argument that I'm sure anyone on Revleft could have won.
Yes. Sam Webb is the national chair of the CPUSA, and its main leader. His leadership in the CP has basically stripped away any illusions that the party is anything other than a social democratic party with a program of support for the Democrats.

[DecDoom]

To be honest, I wasn't aware that the PSL was "Marcyist" or even what Marcyism is. Could someone explain?

[graymouser]

To be honest, I wasn't aware that the PSL was "Marcyist" or even what Marcyism is. Could someone explain?
Sam Marcy was a local leader of the US Socialist Workers Party in Buffalo during the 1940s and 1950s. He developed a line called "Global Class War" and a strong orientation toward China, and left the Party (along with the bulk of the Buffalo branch) in 1958, over the attitude toward the Hungarian uprising of 1956. The SWP was in support of the revolt, while Marcy regarded it as fascist and supported its suppression by Khrushchev. He founded the Workers World Party, which he led until his death in the late 1990s.

Marcy's Global Class War thesis was that the world, in the 50s, was divided between soclalism and imperialism. It was necessary for all the socialist countries to unite and fight against the imperialist countries (whereas anti-revisionists regarded revisionist countries as "social imperialist"). This meant at the time a strong pro-China and pro-Cuba rhetoric and was fairly unique politically. With the fall of the USSR and the eastern bloc, Marcy and his followers re-oriented toward a hypothetical anti-imperialist bloc of states. The Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a 2004 split from WWP, are (as far as I know) the only parties espousing this ideology.

Some people say Marcyism is Stalinist, but that's not quite accurate. It's more of an outgrowth of the unorthodox Trotskyism of Michel Pablo, which had held that "centuries of degenerate workers' states" might be in the future, with a strong pro-Mao bent but not actually becoming Maoist in a strict sense.

[28350]

Support of the entire Soviet bloc post 1961? Support of Yugoslavia? Supporting the invasion of Hungary? Support of Jesse Jackson? The support of China against "US Imperialism" in modern times (aka support of Chinese imperialism)?

I could go on, essentially Marcyism equates to a 12 year old's perception of Socialism and "LETS COMBINE FUCKING EVERYTHING".


Hardly. Just because we don't spend our time denouncing every other leftist group within a practical context doesn't mean we have no theoretical rigor. I recommend you read some of Marcy's writings. (http://www.workers.org/marcy/)

[Jack]

Hardly. Just because we don't spend our time denouncing every other leftist group within a practical context doesn't mean we have no theoretical rigor. I recommend you read some of Marcy's writings. (http://www.workers.org/marcy/)

If I wanted to read something as theoretically deep as Sam Marcy I would have started with the essay of a 12 year old YCL member.

You really don't have theoretical rigor, you essentially support any historical movement that called itself "leftist", tacitly support Dengism and capitalism in China, and really seem to have no concrete idea of what Socialism is.

[Kassad]

If I wanted to read something as theoretically deep as Sam Marcy I would have started with the essay of a 12 year old YCL member.

You really don't have theoretical rigor, you essentially support any historical movement that called itself "leftist", tacitly support Dengism and capitalism in China, and really seem to have no concrete idea of what Socialism is.

How immature. That'd be like me calling Anarchism childish without having read any of its theoretical texts. Marcy's writings elaborate in great details as to why we defend what we do. What you would define as "socialism", many of those who uphold Marcy's theoretical contributions would call defending imperialism, which is what many ostensibly socialist people tend to do. Don't want to read it? Than your opinion is as valid to me as someone who criticizes Marx and hasn't even read any of his works.

As for whoever asked about the term "Marcyism," it is just a term that has been coined to label members and supporters of WWP or PSL. Both parties consider themselves Marxist-Leninist and I recommend the works of Marcy to anyone attempting to understand our theoretical tradition. If anyone has anything else to contribute to the question aside from "I refuse to read Marcy because it's what a twelve year-old would write," I'd love to answer.

[28350]

tacitly support Dengism and capitalism in China

I know Jack sure won't, but if anyone else wants to read really obvious evidence to the contrary, it's right here: http://www.workers.org/marcy/china/index.html

Anyway, back to the subject of the CP.

One thing I really admire about them is that in the early days, they were incredibly efficient, because all their orders came from Moscow. Of course, this is bureaucratic centralism as opposed to democratic centralism, but it was effective nonetheless.

[Jack]

Oh, nice job of ignoring my other post and choosing the one that's easiest to address.


Support of the entire Soviet bloc post 1961? Support of Yugoslavia? Supporting the invasion of Hungary? Support of Jesse Jackson? The support of China against "US Imperialism" in modern times (aka support of Chinese imperialism)?


GOGOGOOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

[Kassad]

Why would anyone respond when you haven't even done the research as to why we take certain positions? I'm not going to spend my time lecturing you when you have no desire to take the initiative to learn what you're making assertions about.

[Jack]

Okay, so what I'm getting is that you can't defend your party's ideology from accusations of revisionism. Even when given specific reasons how your party is revisionist, after asking for such.....you just dismiss them.

Nice excuse, bro, maybe next time you can make claims you can back up.

[Lucretia]

To bring this thread back to its initial subject: the CPUSA is neither revisionist nor anti-revisionist because both are labels that refer to parties that at least profess and attempt to put into practice revolutionary socialism. The CPUSA is now just a branch of the Democratic Party.

[Kassad]

Okay, so what I'm getting is that you can't defend your party's ideology from accusations of revisionism. Even when given specific reasons how your party is revisionist, after asking for such.....you just dismiss them.

Nice excuse, bro, maybe next time you can make claims you can back up.

I've spent days at a time defending my party line on here and frankly, I don't have the time for it right now. The answers to your questions can be found:

1) In the works of Sam Marcy which are provided for you.
2) On the PSL website. It's not difficult to look it up.

I also don't feel the need to spend time providing a rebuttal to Hoxhaist arguments which are practically baseless. You succumb to rabid anti-communism and anti-Sovietism which winds up with you going down the road of aligning with imperialism. This isn't new.

[Who?]

Isn't there some internal conflict within the CPUSA? I mean, we've all heard of the supposed left-wing of the party and their contempt for the Webb clique.

[Jack]

I've spent days at a time defending my party line on here and frankly, I don't have the time for it right now. The answers to your questions can be found:

1) In the works of Sam Marcy which are provided for you.
2) On the PSL website. It's not difficult to look it up.

I also don't feel the need to spend time providing a rebuttal to Hoxhaist arguments which are practically baseless. You succumb to rabid anti-communism and anti-Sovietism which winds up with you going down the road of aligning with imperialism. This isn't new.

So, say "read it yourself" after saying you would be glad to reply to any specific accusations of revisionism. I'm not going to find out how your party claims to be anti-revisionist through reading clearly revisionist works. I didn't ask you if your party took up those specific actions (which would be something I would need to "look up" and not inquire about), I asked how you can say they're not revisionist.

Nice strawman there to absolve yourself of any responsibility for upholding your party's claims. I'm not sitting here calling you a split of a split of a split of a Trotskyite group, I'm just saying your party clearly is revisionist, and to deny that is.....frankly dumb.

[Jack]

Isn't there some internal conflict within the CPUSA? I mean, we've all heard of the supposed left-wing of the party and their contempt for the Webb clique.

The "left wing" of the party are basically YCL kids who're tired of the leadershit (YCL members don't really have influence in the party, though) and old timers who've just been in the party too long to leave it. We'd have heard more of CPUSA's left wing if it was notable at all.

[RED DAVE]

Isn't there some internal conflict within the CPUSA? I mean, we've all heard of the supposed left-wing of the party and their contempt for the Webb clique.Why oh why would anyone who was in any way "left-wing" get within pissing distance of the CPUSA? Anyone who's in there deserves their fate: eternal boredom.

The CPUSA reminds me of a very old, third-rate Jewish Borscht Belt comic who might have had a good joke or two 60 years ago.

RED DAVE

[graymouser]

Isn't there some internal conflict within the CPUSA? I mean, we've all heard of the supposed left-wing of the party and their contempt for the Webb clique.


The "left wing" of the party are basically YCL kids who're tired of the leadershit (YCL members don't really have influence in the party, though) and old timers who've just been in the party too long to leave it. We'd have heard more of CPUSA's left wing if it was notable at all.
Actually, Jack is completely wrong here. YCL doesn't have a left wing; it's a very small group of kids who think that they're being quite radical by voting for the Democrats, and the actual CPUSA left wing has made itself known.

The left of the CPUSA is a group of die-hards, most of whom believe in the Gus Hall style party that still supported Democrats but was more independent and, of course, tied at the hip to the words coming from Moscow. Their website is mltoday.com (http://mltoday.com/), which has a number of critiques of the liquidationism and tailism of today's CPUSA but looks back only to the party that they had before the fall of the USSR. They mostly think that what existed in the USSR under Brezhnev, in the rest of the eastern bloc at that point, and what is in Cuba today are just peachy as far as socialism goes.

It would be wrong to say that these people are young. They're not, many of them are the people the CPUSA recruited over the later years of the Soviet Union and are getting to be older. And they aren't anti-revisionists by any stretch of the imagination; if anything they are the hard-line revisionists. Amazingly most of them are still in the CPUSA, although they effectively have no voice in the party.

[RED DAVE]

Again, why bother unless you enjoy the odor of a corpse.

RED DAVE

[DaringMehring]

Again, why bother unless you enjoy the odor of a corpse.

RED DAVE

The whole left-wing is a graveyard, if what you're looking for is a Party based in the working class, fighting for working class power.

I mean seriously, the only thing approaching a Bolshevik approach is some small group-let like The Spark. And they have their own problems. Basically, the defeat of the Russian revolution, and the de-coupling of the labor movement from revolutionary socialism, has totally wrecked us.

At this point, there are only imperfect forms to participate in.

[graymouser]

The whole left-wing is a graveyard, if what you're looking for is a Party based in the working class, fighting for working class power.

I mean seriously, the only thing approaching a Bolshevik approach is some small group-let like The Spark. And they have their own problems. Basically, the defeat of the Russian revolution, and the de-coupling of the labor movement from revolutionary socialism, has totally wrecked us.

At this point, there are only imperfect forms to participate in.
The Spark? Seriously? The tiny sect (satellite of Lutte Ouvriere in France) doing pointless "underground" work and selling a paper that talks down to workers? I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.

"Imperfect forms" may be accurate, but certainly nothing justifies one so degenerate as the CPUSA. The politics are just awful, and the membership is getting antiquated.

[Red Commissar]

I'm not sure why they don't just end the charade and rename themselves to something more appropriate for a soc-dem outfit. I guess they like the publicity "Communist" brings to their organisation and possibly getting a hand on newcomers who don't really know what "communism" is.

[graymouser]

I'm not sure why they don't just end the charade and rename themselves to something more appropriate for a soc-dem outfit. I guess they like the publicity "Communist" brings to their organisation and possibly getting a hand on newcomers who don't really know what "communism" is.
They've talked about it recently, but in a party as old and as hidebound as the CPUSA is, I don't really see it happening. You can read the discussion:

http://politicalaffairs.net/discussion-topic-what-s-in-a-name/

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

It's embarrassing that their leader goes on Glenn Becks show and basically validates his argument that Obama is a "communist" through defending him while being chair of CPUSA. What a fucking joke of a "communist" group. I hope we see them dissolve soon, or at least change their damn name.

[DaringMehring]

The Spark? Seriously? The tiny sect (satellite of Lutte Ouvriere in France) doing pointless "underground" work and selling a paper that talks down to workers? I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.


Yeah they're small, as for their newspaper, I don't see how it "talks down" to workers, judge for yourself at http://www.the-spark.net/paper.html --- I was citing them, out of being personally impressed with how their work is all oriented to the working class & their members are all working class, they put heavy restrictions on petit bourgeois becoming members. Chegitz can probably tell you more, I think he was once associated with them.



"Imperfect forms" may be accurate, but certainly nothing justifies one so degenerate as the CPUSA. The politics are just awful, and the membership is getting antiquated.

True on both counts. I was just point out, that calling one left wing party a corpse, is like mocking a dead body in the middle of a graveyard.

[DaringMehring]

They've talked about it recently, but in a party as old and as hidebound as the CPUSA is, I don't really see it happening. You can read the discussion:

http://politicalaffairs.net/discussion-topic-what-s-in-a-name/

Who knows... the membership is all dying off, and a few people who control the party might be interested in becoming more "respectable" so they can better suck up to the Democratic pundits they adore. Hopefully if they do change name, something more true to the communist tradition can assume the name.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

They've talked about it recently, but in a party as old and as hidebound as the CPUSA is, I don't really see it happening. You can read the discussion:

http://politicalaffairs.net/discussion-topic-what-s-in-a-name/

So they basically want to be the new DSA?

[graymouser]

So they basically want to be the new DSA?
Well, the CPUSA is already social democratic with some leftover half-baked Stalinist rhetoric, such as the "broad all-people's front" they describe for bourgeois electoral formations, or the occasional invocation of Marx or Lenin for more or less ceremonial reasons.

My actual sense is that the CPUSA leadership wants to become a not-for-profit foundation or think tank with no membership or democracy to get in the way, run some pro-Democratic Party web sites, and pay their remaining staffers salaries until the assets of the old CP are drained. Those assets are not inconsiderable and are pretty much the main reason anybody would stick around at all, aside from force of habit.