from MIM, November, 1994 Communist Party USA (CPUSA) turns 75, celebrates 35 years of Gus Hall revisionism by MC5 The CPUSA is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Key to these celebrations is claiming credit for political achievements that the current CPUSA had little to do with. While the CPUSA is happy to claim credit for all the things that happened when it followed in the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, it also never informs its readers that the CPUSA no longer has any genuine political connection to those times of the 1920s and 1930s. The following is a review of CPUSA newspapers from the month of October. The paper is called People's Weekly World (abbreviated PWW), 235 W. 23rd St., NY, NY 10011 (1-800-READ-PWW) As usual, its national statement claims credit for work done by more militant and genuine communists while leaving out how the current CPUSA betrayed those more militant communists: "the struggle against war and fasicsm, for public works jobs, unemployment compensation and Social Security during the Great Depression; the CIO struggles to unionize the mass production industries." (PWW, October 22, 1994, p. 5) These accomplishments happened in the 1920s and 1930s when communists in the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Stalin still led the party. Next, the CPUSA claims credit for things it had little to do with: "Our party was deeply engaged in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the movement to end the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s." Black churches had more to do with the civil rights movement and Maoists led the movement against the Vietnam War and for revolutionary nationalist struggles. The CPUSA even claimed credit for work cutting U.S. ties to South Africa. Thus, the CPUSA takes advantage of the ignorance of the public, which has heard of the "Communist Party," but does not know that the CPUSA has done very little by way of communist leadership for the last 35 years that Gus Hall has been leader. Without anti-communist fools like Reagan and North telling the public that the CPUSA was at the center of everything, the CPUSA would have been out of business a long time ago. As it is, the collapse of the Soviet Union left the CPUSA in bad shape. For the last 40 years, the CPUSA has distanced itself from the international proletariat, but now some of the rank-and- file are beginning to notice, thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union and other events too hard to ignore any longer. Most of the Committees of Correspondence are indeed mushy and opportunist, but a few show signs of political life. The CoC of Jamaica Plains, MA is holding an event on the People's War in Peru. We likewise credit a group in Providence from the CPUSA for some movement on the Peru question. This is surely a good sign from the rank-and-file, though it would be dishonest to pretend it was typical. In 1956, Soviet leader Khruschev, who came to power after J. V. Stalin died in 1953, denounced Stalin and adopted a new foreign policy. The CPUSA and especially Gus Hall followed Khruschev and all Khruschev's successors regardless of their politics. So pathetic was Gus Hall and CPUSA leadership, it did not really see through Gorbachev and instead tried to bask in his popularity in imperialist circles. First, though, back in 1956, Khruschev cut down Stalin and opened the door to foolishness concerning all the revolutionary struggles that Stalin inspired throughout the world with his leadership of the Soviet Union. Gus Hall proved unable to resist this sell-out of Marxism- Leninism. Initiating the "three peacefuls," the Soviet Union turned its back on the world's colonies saying it no longer supported armed struggle as a means to state power. Instead it advocated the parliamentary road and disarmament. Of course the colonies ignored Khruschev and Gus Hall and proceeded to liberate themselves from colonialism throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, under Khruschev, the rate of economic growth in the Soviet Union started its permanent decline until today's economic crises in the ex-Soviet Union. This is not surprising because as followers of Stalin including Enver Hoxha and Mao Zedong pointed out, Khruschev restored capitalism in the Soviet Union. All this was happening in the Soviet Union and Soviet foreign affairs and Gus Hall was just the man to sell-out the old communist principles and take up the new ones for the capitalist-road. Gus Hall became chair of the party in 1959. The CPUSA of Gus Hall has little to do with the CPUSA that with COMINTERN aid came up with the Black-belt nation theory in the late 1920s. Today, the CPUSA doesn't mention it in connection to current reality, and instead speaks of "civil-rights" instead of the struggle against national oppression. Oh, the CPUSA still claims credit for attracting the individual Black intellectuals, workers and farmers who supported this theory, but the CPUSA long ago sold-out the politics connected to the theory. In fact, it now criticizes people who might as well be its former members: Gus Hall said, "Some say that in order to understand and to know the working class, it is first necessary to know its separate parts [separate nations--MC5]. It *is* necessary to know the component parts of the working class and the specific and unique problems they face. However, we must not, as Karl Marx warned, stand things on their heads. We must always keep in mind that what gives the working class a sense of oneness. . . The gap created by racist inequality is a major obstacle to working class unity. . . . A critical arena for the struggle must be jobs and affirmative action. . . . Puerto Rican workers are another important component of the U.S. working class." (PWW, October 8, 1994, p. 5) Hence, with the waive of a pen, Gus Hall not only denied that Blacks are a nation, but also denied that Puerto Ricans need national independence. Instead, the only issues are residual racism that divides the working class and the need for affirmative action according to Gus Hall. Typically, the CPUSA replays its historical photos again and again, without mentioning the fact that if the leaders of those events were alive today, many would be purged as "ultraleft," "anti-Party," etc. For example, one photo shows a rally organized to support the Abraham Lincoln Brigade that fought against fascists in Spain. The article does not mention that it was Stalin who alone among world government leaders gave the anti-fascists weapons and other material aid. Nor does it mention that since that time, the CPUSA has categorically abandoned support for armed struggle. (See PWW, October 22, 1994, p. 11) NAFTA/GATT/White working class For most of what happened in CPUSA history from 1919 to 1953, MIM has a better justification in claiming credit than Gus Hall does. MIM actually continues in the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Stalin and now Mao. Gus Hall has left behind the politics of the CPUSA from 1919 to 1953. However, there is one sense in which we at MIM must give Gus Hall the credit and let others like the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCPUSA) try to prove that it is more deserving for the same turf. That one issue we must let Gus Hall have is the crucial issue of the Amerikan nation working class. The militants following Stalin in the Depression era and during World War II lived through crisis and built a class struggle, but they succeeded too well. The Amerikan workers lined up against the Nazis; the wages of workers went up and Blacks and women saw their roles in production increase in the leftist upsurge of the late 1930s and the early 1940s. A socialist bloc formed and the colonies had started to free themselves. What started as necessary or at least understandable compromises in the throes of struggle became permanent. The white nation working class and newly created national minority labor aristocracies bought into the reforms of the New Deal. To this day, the CPUSA represents the remnant political elements of the New Deal. That is the real source of its continuity. History has since proved that the New Deal could remain in effect to cement the alliance of workers with imperialism, but workers in the Third World were not included. The New Deal should have been called the Special Deal, because only workers in the imperialist countries could aspire to it or something like it. To Stalin's credit, when he was alive, communists throughout the world could not forget Lenin entirely and the CPUSA knew that the workers had fallen for the New Deal and should struggle to get on the revolutionary road. Once Khruschev and Gus Hall came to power, all those remaining guilt complexes were left behind. Gus Hall appealed to the labor aristocracy and Amerika-first nationalism and he found an eager echo in the CPUSA, which had succeeded too well in recruiting workers from the labor aristocracy. So the first part of CPUSA strategy today is to leach off its more revolutionary past. The second part is to hold together and advance the New Deal compromise, with regular articles about jobs and public works programs. The third most recent part is an open appeal to reactionary nationalism to oppose NAFTA, GATT etc. MIM has already addressed the NAFTA argument, but it arose again in CP papers in October, 1994. It is apparently a favorite theme of the CPUSA now. (PWW, October 8, 1994, p. 6; October 15, 1994, p. 17; October 22, 1994, p. 6) No where does the CPUSA explain that NAFTA or no NAFTA, there will still be some negotiated tariff agreement between the capitalist classes of the different countries. Tariffs are taxes the governments place on goods imported from other countries and NAFTA is simply a recent agreement or treaty on those tariffs. This issue gets to be most galling in the PWW article "GATT: Worse than NAFTA." (PWW, October 8, 1994, p. 6) It fails to point out that there was a GATT agreement in place before NAFTA! If GATT was worse, then the CPUSA should have supported NAFTA and focussed on GATT! Instead, CPUSA opposes both NAFTA and GATT and thereby further clarifies that the CPUSA's real basis is labor aristocracy job security for Amerikans, including Black, Latino, indigenous and Asian-descended bought-off nation aristocracies. At the end of the article, CPUSA explains what the GATT agreement is that is being discussed now: "The agreement, which reduces total tariffs throughout the world by some $800 billion, has been ratified by 23 countries, fewer than a quarter of the countries that must approve it by the end of the year." (PWW, October 8, 1994, p. 6) Opposing NAFTA or the proposed GATT agreement is not opposing capitalism. If one treaty deal for tariffs is knocked down, another capitalist treaty is still in effect and more are in the wings. Disputing trade agreements amongst the capitalist classes is worse than supporting some Democratic Party candidates. Some Democrats claim to be socialists. There is no trade agreement or failed trade agreement that can bring in socialism. Trade agreements are strictly intra-bourgeois fights, and if we are going to support one faction over another, then we communist internationalists in Amerika should support the more such agreements the better. The more trade occurs without reference to borders, the sooner we can live without borders in real life and the more immigrants will arrive within U.S. borders. Tariffs only exist because of borders enforced by governments. The real reason the CPUSA makes all this noise about GATT and even NAFTA is to fan chauvinist pro-labor aristocracy flames. The CPUSA is all too eager to take advantage of the fears Ross Perot so well typified by referring to "that sucking sound" as jobs leave the United States and head for Mexico. That is the real issue behind everything--the fear of U.S. jobs going to Mexico and the sense that the U.S. labor aristocracy is not getting its due respect in the world. Since MIM is internationalist, it does not care where capitalists hire their workers. As usual, although there is no international situation of war between imperialists and socialists to justify it, as was the temporary situation during World War II, the CPUSA allies itself with a faction of the bourgeoisie--in this case the Amerika-first faction. Even the CPUSA admits that this makes for strange bedfellows: "Hollings, a boll weevil Democrat [term for most reactionary Democrat--MC5] who has served six terms in the Senate, said GATT will cost one million U.S. textile jobs. Elmer Chaduk, president of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department, said that 'for once in his life, Fritz Hollings has done the right thing.'" (PWW, October 8, 1994, p. 6) The Amerika-first faction of the capitalist class does its business mostly or exclusively within U.S. borders and has a different outlook than a multinational company that does business everywhere and just happens to be headquartered in the United States. The Amerika-first companies can't stand the foreign competition anymore than the old labor aristocracy can. (The new and younger professional parts of the labor aristocracy will do fine with the NAFTA. NAFTA or no NAFTA there will be alliance between the white labor aristocracy and the imperialists.) They want to close the borders to trade. The argument about textile jobs shows why Ross Perot and Fritz Hollings are natural allies of the old labor aristocracy. It is also proof how the CPUSA is no friend of the international proletariat. The revisionism of Gus Hall is worse than the revisionism of Earl Browder, the leader of the CPUSA for most of World War II. Gus Hall's idea of class struggle is chauvinist. Browder just openly abandoned class struggle and didn't try to taint it. With much greater justification than Gus Hall in his alliance with the Amerika-first bourgeoisie, Browder urged alliance with any bourgeois faction that could look forward to peace with the Soviet Union. Browder took the lessons of World War II too far and put Amerikan peace with the Soviet Union above all else. To Browder's credit though, the Soviet Union was in position to take on individual imperialist countries and defeat them in war. Hence, being able to divide the imperialists meant a real possibility of conquering them. Today, no such situation exists because there is no powerful socialist camp, but Gus Hall still allies with sections of the U.S. bourgeoisie that not even Browder targetted for alliance. Since he would have become a spokesperson for the labor aristocracy like Gus Hall, Browder's outcome was actually better than Gus Hall's; although both CPUSA leaders were thorough revisionists. Browder's push for anti-militarism was closer to the mark than Gus Hall's championing of imperialist nation workers. To think that Amerikan workers could be talked into opposing an immediate world war against the Soviet Union was much more realistic than thinking that the Amerikan workers were capable of revolution against imperialism, especially via alliance with Amerika-first capitalists. Socialist bloc/Russia/letter-writers In 1962, some breakaway members of the CPUSA formed a new vanguard party, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). PLP supported Mao Zedong and saw through Gus Hall's revisionism. PLP went on to be a major actor in the social movements of the 1960s. The CPUSA fell into increasing irrelevance. Gus Hall never blinked in support for whatever was going on in the Soviet Union. There were no principles or theoretical understanding of what was going on, so it's not surprising to see his party all over the place on the issues. We at MIM think it is absurd to think you can build socialism in the United States some day when you can't recognize capitalism when you see it in the flesh, like in the ex-Soviet Union after Stalin. To this day, the CPUSA continues in confusion on this point. Some letter-writers to the PWW had to set the PWW straight on "socialism" in China. (See PWW, October 1, 1994, p. 16) About the only thing uniting the principle- less CPUSA on the so-called socialist countries is opposition to the blockade of Cuba. That's a pretty watered-down level of politics. MIM also opposes the blockade of Cuba, but it would never dodge the other questions about it and other so-called socialist countries. Credit where credit is due Most of the CPUSA's stories are tailing after the old New Deal Coalition. The CPUSA does not use the issue of economic conditions to lead to internationalism. In fact, as we saw, it uses the economic conditions of uncertainty in the old industrial working class to pitch propaganda against trade with other countries, not to break the hold of U.S. imperialism on the oppressed nations. Nonetheless, there were some articles that did address issues relatively correctly and did not try to claim credit for things that the CPUSA is not responsible for. The best articles of October's PWW we read exposed proposition 187 in California with great factual reporting and historical information on the organizers of this anti-immigrant balogna. (Two such articles Oct. 1; "Proposition 187's authors linked to white supremacist fund," October 8 was the single best article; October 15, p. 1; October 21, p.1) The coverage of Haiti was also good and some not very deep but good efforts were made to tackle the white nation "anti-crime hysteria." (e.g. October 1, 1994, p. 5) Another good article addressed segregation issues with the Mississippi government. (October 1, 1994, p. 5) Other issues we have some unity with are some aspects of health issues (October 1, 1994, p. 7), the battle against anti- Semitism (p. 9), ozone issues (October 8, 1994, p. 10) and nukes. (Ibid.) Most of the articles in the PWW we do not agree with and would not print ourselves, without editing at least 50 percent. MIM is happy to discuss any individual PWW articles to demonstrate our differences with the CPUSA. You may find the CP-USA at http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa/