JJ..could you have not said that all in one post?
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the thing with the CP is that the CP has been on a steady decline since the late 30s. They endorse capitalist politicians and bloc with a capitalist party as if the popular front was still relevant in the US.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
JJ..could you have not said that all in one post?
'So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song, And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting, O' those that they would throttle;, They needn't say the fault is ours, If blood should stain the wattle!"
- Henry Lawson
The CPUSA has become nothing but a "catch and return checkpoint" for straying Democrats. As to their involvement in the antiwar movement, they indeed were heavily engaged in precisely those coordination functions of UFPJ that were completely shut down the minute Democrats gained control of the White House. While the Dem leadership may wish them away and have done nothing to solicit their support, the leadership of the CPUSA has diligently by their "actions" proven themselves to serve functionally as nothing but a Dem Party front group. Those are the actions by which I judge them.
I'm used to newsgroups, where nobody bothers if we use as many posts as we find convenient for conversation purposes. As I was replying to different people, it made sense to post a message for each one. This way each may reply to the respective post.
Also, answering to everyone in a single post requires that I want to answer to all of them at the same time, and this might not be the case.
IMHO you should judge them by the actions of their leadership, but also by the opinions of the militants. And what I have read shows that there are many militants who are opposed to the tailing of the democratic party.
http://mltoday.com/subject-areas/com...uggle-799.html
"[FONT=verdana]Tailism means to accept the political and ideological leadership of the class enemy, monopoly capital. Marxism-Leninism allows for multi-class alliances. But, the "unity against the ultra right" formulation, correct in, say, a fight against fascism, is being wrongly applied by the CPUSA. The line incorrectly and mechanically equates the "ultra right" with the Republican Party. This is a "party label" analysis, not a class analysis.[/FONT]"
JJ.
Yeah, that's impressive. I mean they are only about what, eighty years late? I guess supporting Roosevelt and no-strike pledges during WWII as too subtle for the Canadian CP to pick up on. Oh,wait, they were doing the same shit too? Go figure
The CPUSA has a long and miserable history. After a promising start in the late teens and early twenties, it was sabotaged by the degeneration of the Communist International -- Internal problems, and ultimately all matters were decided by moscow -- based on narrow factional issues.
Now it is also fair to say that the CPUSA was involved in some important and useful work, such as defense of the Scottsboro defendants, defense of Sacco and Vanzetti. Also, they were very involved in the founding and building of the CIO -- leading some important strikes along the way.
By the mid thirties however, they basically had their lips pressed against Roosevelt's butt as part of the "people's front" strategy. In Europe and elsewhere it meant forming governments with reformist and bourgeois parties. In the US, where the CP was not strong enough to actually be a significant part of the government, it meant supporting Roosevelt and the Democrats -- the "progressive wing" of the bourgeoisie. Of course, Roosevelt's policies were primarily aimed at calming and placating the restive proletariat.
During WWII, the CPUSA was opposed to labor militancy and strikes as it weakened the "war effort" and the USA and USSR were nominal allies. This meant, in practice, scabbing on strikes. And spitting on the principal that, for communists, "the main enemy is at home." (we fight against our own national bourgeoisie). During the war, the CPUSA frequently espoused out and out patriotism toward the US. This included applauding the US using nuclear weapons against Japan.
After the war, the CP was purged from the unions as a reward for their efforts of being waterboy for Roosevelt. And although it might not have mattered in the end, part of the reason they were so easy to purge could be connected with how disgusted militants in the unions were -- about their patriotism and scabbing.
The CP remained the largest left group in the US, through the fifties, when they were really persecuted by anti-communist witch hunters in the US. In the sixties, they were pretty irrelevant to the new left -- although they got bigger, like the existing groups, the SWP. But it was SDS and Progressive Labor (originally a pro-Mao split from the CP) that really prospered in the sixties.
When I became active in leftist politics in the late 70's, the CP still had a core of support, but a lot of their supporters were rather old. They were one of three groups that were active on the campus of my small, liberal arts college. But they weren't really active, they had one supporter. I had a contact meeting with their district organizer from the nearest city. He was most unimpressive. And hostile to any questions I had about the CP's history or program. At demonstrations at this nearby city, I would sometime run into these older ladies wearing sneakers who would snarl at me and try to exclude me for the actually directly communist placards I might be carrying. One said to me as I asserted my right to march in the demo, "please sonny, I'm an old woman." I was also in contact with the SWP, whose supporter on Campus was also not terribly impressive. Finally there was the Spartacist League. They were pretty good -- they had no qualms arguing with me when I questioned their positions. And their press was so much better than any other on the left -- even where I did not understand or agree with their program, I liked a lot of what they wrote.
My main point is this. The CPUSA has a long and checkered history. While you are checking them out, I urge you to look into Trotskyism. All ostensibly Trotskyist groups in this country trace their beginnings to the CPUSA. in 1928 a Left Opposition Faction was expelled from the CP. It included a number of leading members of the group. They carried forward Lenin's program as the CP degenerated into a reformist, social patriotic group. Today there are quite a few groups that call themselves Trotskyist in the US. This is off topic, however -- send me a message if you want more info.
Psh, most Americans are too stupid to know what any of these terms mean at all.
"Socialism" = Universal Healthcare to most of these people. What a fucking joke.
I honestly do not see any form of communist revolution in the near future of this awful country. The "working class" of the "USA" is exported to China and other foreign countries, and the actual American working class lacks any form of class conscience. Most people lack class consciousness in the "USA", in fact. The country is the most bourgeois nation on earth.
"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." - Mao Tse-Tung
I don't know how the things work in the USA because I've never been there, but it's obvious that it will never be easy to build a revolutionary party there in the belly of imperialism. This difficulty mainly encompasses making difficult political choices. Hoping to find a mature revolutionary party that was built under such conditions and that has never had some misfortunes is hoping to find utopia. People who want such a party are those who are not interested in real class struggle, but in an idyllic form of political struggle that simply does not exist and is impossible. I'm sorry, but life is like that.
IMHO, the intelligent tactic for a truly communist party in such a situation is to help guide the popular movement (working-class but not only) towards the fight for the concrete reforms that were promised (i.e. defend not the government, but what the government promised to do), and build it's reputation on the organizational work done by party members which contributed to the strengthening of the popular movement. This reputation and visibility must be used to propagate the revolutionary program of the party, and to say that the reforms were good but meant actually very little to the working class & allies as a whole, because they were reforms, not a revolution. Otherwise, how could a party take advantage of the situation? Should the party oppose the reforms? I think I don't have to convince you about what stupid such a tactic would be...
My point was not that ambitious. I was only ciriticising what I see as an excessive emphasis in ideological principles in a country that doesn't even have a strong communist and revolutionary movement, let alone one with the Correct Line (TM). I see people saying "fuck them" or "dump them" out of the blue as if a party was some sort computer-based database that can be erased and recovered by a few simple commands. :-) Those people act just like the demoniac "stalinists" who they usually accuse of threating people like numbers. It's exactly that: leftists treat their comrades like numbers who can be discarded and dumped at will, so they copy the worst of Stalin, whereas the best of him was shunned.
In my country, the annals of our communist party say very clearly that the party had a "right-wing deviation" in the end of the 1950s, when the comrades of the clandestine central comitee adopted the theory that the (portuguese) fascist regime would fall by pacific means. At that time, many leftist groups appeared. This thesis had some negative effects in the practical work of the party, and some years later the insurrectionist path to overthrow of fascism was restored. However, the cretin pseudo-maoist radical groups lasted, and some of them still say such bullshit as that the PCP program is a capitulation to capitalism, or that the PCP strengthened capitalism during the carnation revolution. Most of them were controlled by the CIA and by murderer Frank Carlucci who was ambassador at the time, and this fact alone provides enough reason to think twice before creating another stupid sect party. And this is a universal lesson.
That's why I usually don't buy the claims of some people who say that this or that CP is lost.
JJ.
yeah, just shit all over a few hundred million workers in the US. fuck them, what do they matter?
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
My point is the working class in the USA is the most drugged and clueless of this entire planet. What percentage of them actually have a class consciousness at all?
I am not going to lie; I hate this country with every bone in my body, so I am somewhat biased, but you cannot tell me that most Americans aren't totally ignorant of politics and economics in general.
"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." - Mao Tse-Tung
While I agree that the proletariat of the US lacks class consciousness and rather finds itself immersed into the consumer culture that is no reason to abandon it! On the contrary due to it's dismal state of awareness we should place greater focus on the education of American workers! What these polls show is willingness to see another way, they show the potential end of the myth of Capitalist fatalism. Even if their understanding of socialism isn't totally accurate atleast the opportunity to develop it exists. Hating a country should only inspire greater desire to change it, not to discard it as lost.
They are not only mostly reactionary, but also idealist and part of the system workers should abolish.
Remember: "Religion is the Opium of the People"
I bring with myself the idea of Communism, so that you may survive when law is lawless.
"Both nationalism and patriotism are the equivalent of an animal exclaiming how much it loves it's cage." - Octavian
Formerly FightTogether.
I think it's funny people seem to be complaining that the survey said 11% prefer communism over capitalism. I'd hate to see how many people on here would flip out if it was over 50%.
"[People] act like its some kind of rock solid homogeneous body of masculine oiled men with big hammers and flat caps standing outside factory gates chewing tobacco and muttering 'those damn petit-bourgeois students and their alienating camera-smashing, I sure love me some CCTV! Don't you, comrade stakhnov?'." - Ravachol
Although that come from very different backgrounds, the DSA serves the exact same function: funnel any potential radicalism back into electoral politics and the democratic party.
Question 2: What is the aim of the Communists?
Answer: To organize society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society.
"For the whole task of the Communists is to be able to convince the backward elements, to work among them, and not to fence themselves off from them by artificial and childishly "Left" slogans." -Lenin
The current CPUSA are garbage (there's 2 or 3 parties with similar names, neither are very impressive but I think I read one of their newspapers). They hit the skids when they were still supporting Stalin after everyone with a brain realized Stalin was a monster. They were still supporting Stalin when I had the unique misfortune of encountering them.
If you've ever dealt with them, you'd know. They don't actually want to do anything, they just want to be famous. Like dealing with petulant children. I have no problem with dealing with differently minded people with a common goal, either.
God forbid they do anything pro-union, either (which is a shame, because pre-Stalin, they were a good group). I don't even know - are they still even Marxist? Or are they scene kids or something?
The CPUSA is nominally Marxist. A few years ago they sold their archive to New York University's Library where it was added to the Tamiment Collection. Their current membership is small and they routinely endorse and campaign for Democratic candidates. The Party is ideologically and organizationally bankrupt.
Well, they sometimes have passion for struggling against oppression, and so they can in some contexts and terrains unite with communists.
But perhaps the leaders of the CPUSA have united recently with reactionary religious leaders. I don't know. I was only criticizing the simple statement that "working with religious leaders" was forbidden for a revolutionary party.
JJ.
that could have been said about peasants and serfs.
its not like everyone in russia was listeing to "Kill the Tsar" by the Dead Ikons. (joke)
but seriously though. its immature to say that the american working class will never be revolutionary because right now not that many of them have class consciousness. and in fact, i would think you are wrong. Im sure many workers are alienated and do realize they are getting fucked everytime they clock in.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
Building a party doesn't take generations, one can definately be built seperate from the post Stalinist CP-USA.
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
