Claim the Convention!

The 32nd National Convention of the CPUSA will be held this weekend, from June 7 until the 9th. All members of the party who call themselves Marxist-Leninists must grasp that the future of the party is at stake, and set it on a path towards genuine revolutionary action. 

Tendrils of revisionism, opportunism, and tailism (ROT) clench onto the convention documents, and seek to drag the party back into its days of bleakest reaction. The entrenched leadership clique, represented by Sims and Cambron, but avatared in the grinning form of John Bachtell, seeks only to window-dress the funneling of dues to People’s World and of hard-won radical energy back to the Democratic Party. Many of the 23 convention resolutions have openly reformist aims that content themselves with moldy scraps leftover from the bourgeois government’s table. A Communist Party must act like a Communist Party, not sleepwalk alongside sleepy Joe, shaking hands with ghosts when there’s a real world to seize. As the legendary Irish socialist James Connolly declared, “For our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth.”

What does it mean to want the Earth? It means the end of imperialism, the end of the genocides in Palestine, Sudan, the Congo, and everywhere across the globe. It means decolonization of settler states such as the U.S. and Canada, and full self-determination for all peoples. It means the end of foreign domination over Haiti, and an end to the American enforced isolation of Cuba and the DPRK. It demands the depatriarchalization of society, the emancipation and structural liberation of women, LGBT+ persons, and gender nonconforming persons, and the abolition of disability as an oppressive social structure. Possibly most urgent, it demands the radical reorientation of all of society to prepare for and combat the impending climate apocalypse.

It may be true that many of these points appear within the CPUSA’s convention resolutions, but they are malformed and, like produce that has been chemically treated to not sprout, they are seedless. They cannot, in their current form, revolutionize the CPUSA into the party it needs to be, or its Communists into the revolutionaries they need to be to build the world that we demand. They have remembered to be moderate, but have forgotten to demand the earth! Each resolution is guilefully crafted to speak the words of Communism, and to enact the essence of capitulation.

For instance, in its Palestine resolution, there is implicit recognition of the zionist entity contained in its phrase “just peace in Israel/Palestine” and the comment concerning “supporting the work of fraternal parties in Palestine and Israel.” This recognition negates the possibility for peace. The only thing a so-called Communist party in ”israel” could adequately work towards would be the annihilation of its own state — this U.S. imperialist outpost — but we can see from their proposed, “two states for two Peoples,” that this is not their goal. Thus, the CPUSA hamstrings its own potential so long as a fraternal relationship with the Communist Party of “Israel” (CPI) exists, and the resolution as it’s phrased leads to a dead alley. A genuine resolution would exclude all colonizers, their institutions, and even their “Communists.” For no matter how friendly the fox, it can’t negotiate the return of the henhouse. Or as the Palestinian writer Mourid Barghouti said of left-wing zionists, “A killer can strangle you with a silk scarf or can smash your head in with an axe; in both cases you are dead.” We are at a time of heightened Statesian consciousness and fury towards the imperialist zionist project and the governments that give it life. Now is not the time, nor should there ever be a time, when garroters with silk scarves can influence the demands of Communists.

Implicit in the resolution on Palestine, and the resolution on an internationalist and anti-imperialist CPUSA, is a refusal to denounce colonialism, and tacit support for imperialism in its most ruthless form — the form of the zionist imperialist outpost! Through its recognition of fraternal parties in every country, regardless of the actual character of those countries or parties, the CPUSA is dragging its would-be Communists into complicity with humanity’s most depraved butchers. To “promote a policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other nations; to support movements in other countries striving for national sovereignty and self-determination; to support multilateralism and equality among all nations: and to offer a correct, Marxist-Leninist analysis of imperialism” presupposes the possibility for equality between colonizers and the colonized, oppressors and the oppressed. It is a silver-tongued disavowal of Marxism-Leninism that’s calling itself correct, and a damning liquidation of class struggle.

In its resolutions concerning “full equality for Native Peoples and Tribal Communities, LGBTQ+ equality, Women’s equality, and Latina/o equality” the emphasis on equality is apparent. But equality for any of these peoples is a structural impossibility within the U.S. system, so the real demand can only be a tepid, liberal representationalism. It is ultimately a demand for more diverse oppressors and compradors; for more Indigenous betrayers and sellers of Indigenous lands and rights, for more quisling women to erode abortion rights, and more queer drone strike operators. The party does not demand national liberation or self-determination — to do so would be to demand the destruction of the capitalist state, which the leadership of CPUSA neither want nor condone.

Similarly, many of the points have CPUSA concerned with the rights of these various groups and other members of the working class to vote, but deliberately avoid mentioning in the system of which ruling class the votes will be cast. This is not work for Communists. Communists must demonstrate to the masses the real powerlessness of voting in a bourgeois system, and make it clear that the only possibility for change lies beyond that system. This cannot be achieved if the CPUSA encourages the oppressed and working classes to vote as if it’s meaningful, which is merely encouragement to invest in one’s own oppression.

In fact, numerous other resolutions, if adopted, would vitalize the bourgeois system, rather than undermine it. These include the resolutions on Social Security, Medicare for All, Immigrant Rights, and Housing. The content of these resolutions sounds pleasant, but they are bribes for the working and oppressed classes against the full realization of their real rights. Just as the original New Deal forestalled an American Communist revolution by giving the working class a greater share of the imperial plunder, so too would any of these acts be signed in the blood of Third World children. For this reason, Communists must push back against the idea that “we just want healthcare” and so on.

The root of this putrescent language, which suffuses the convention resolutions and documents, and dangles over the party’s future like a noose, grows from the mouths and literature of the party’s ideologues and organs, such as its National Committee and People’s World. It is most pungent in their insistence, which we at the Red Clarion have previously investigated, that it’s vital for the “future of democracy” to defeat “Trump, Trumpism, and the MAGA Republicans,” or that Trump represents the only real strain of fascism in the U.S. These coils of reformism, which threaten to strangle any revolutionary potential from the CPUSA, must be sliced apart through a real struggle at the convention. The principle of “curing the sickness to save the patient” must be adopted by all resolute Communists within CPUSA. These poisoned resolutions must be defeated and healthy ones planted in their stead. True Communists must lay claim to what the revisionists, opportunists and tailists have possessed since the Webb years, claim their convention and the party-still-to-be.

Can it Be Done?

In short: no. But that shouldn’t stop anyone who considers themselves to be a true Marxist-Leninist from trying. The effort will prove the question, and if it truly is impossible to seize the convention from the ROTten faction, then attempting to do so will reveal the corruption for all to see. So, why not? What are the things preventing a seizure of power by the revolutionary faction? How have the reformists secured their power completely? By examining these questions, we can also lay out the plan most likely to succeed in toppling the ROTten leadership.

The perversion of democratic centralism that prevents clubs from forming plans for the convention and restricts all dialogue to the convention floor means that the National Committee, which has no such bar on discussing the future of the party, forms a de facto “faction” capable of organizing and marshaling its resources prior to the convention. The National Committee will not just come into the convention with an organized plan, it has organized the entire affair. The N.C. creates the slate of candidates, approves the membership at the convention, runs the convention, etc. It is not only the chiefest of “factions,” it is a faction that is running the show at every single level, where all power is concentrated. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that all appeals of discipline also go to the N.C.

As if this weren’t enough to guarantee the N.C. control of the convention floor, the very use of the slate system secures its total dominance over party affairs and the future composition of the party itself. The N.C. signs off on expulsions and disciplines, hunts down “factions,” and so forth. It also selects its own replacements on the slate. It is functionally impossible to vote for a candidate that has not been pre-approved by the N.C. Although it remains technically possible to bring up a candidate’s nomination on the convention floor, campaigning before the convention begins is explicitly prohibited by the rules against factionalism, which rules out “campaigning” at all.

Lastly, however, and most critically, the millions of dollars of resources controlled by the leadership of CPUSA isn’t owned by the party. The New York City headquarters building, recently assessed at the value of $9 million and rented out by the party (making the party itself a landlord!), isn’t owned by the party, but rather by Advanced Realty (which also isn’t owned by the party). People’s World isn’t owned by the party, but by Longview Publishing (which isn’t owned by the party). In fact, the party, as an entity, has no legal recognition in any state and is not federally registered as anything. Each state “party” is an “unincorporated club.” This means that the party is, under bourgeois law, incapable of owning any property or money. So who owns all of these things?

Individual party leaders. John Bachtell runs Longview Publishing. Advance Realty is run by Libero Della Piana, who is also the managing director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an NGO. The party launders its money through a number of NGOs, of which the Drug Policy Alliance is only one. Others include the Alliance for a Just Society, People’s Action, Race Forward, the Center for Third World Organizing. While this may seem to be a clever scheme to keep party assets from the hands of the federal authorities, in fact it is merely a way to allow federal authorities to more appropriately manage “party” assets. By maintaining them primarily in NGOs, which receive grant money, the assets are required to report directly to their federal backers and managers exactly what every penny is spent on. Even further, party leaders employ their own significant others and children in those NGOs, from which they draw a salary. John Bachtell lives from the donations of party members to People’s World, even though the party does not own, control, or manage its own newspaper.

Even if the revolutionists were capable of making use of the rules of the convention to purge the National Committee, restructure the party, and purge all of the rot from the constitution, rectify its lines, and prevent a split, to bring the party’s money under party control would require the good will of the entire rotten leadership. The best the convention could do would be to pass a resolution demanding the current leadership turn over the assets, which the convention would have absolutely no way of enforcing. The party has no bourgeois legal “right” to that money.

Worse, these putrid leaders have shown their willingness to throw away the party constitution whenever it suits them. Should an organized opposition appear at the convention, there is no doubt that party leadership, just as C.P. Canada did two years ago, will rise up in a counter-revolutionary wave and have that revolutionary opposition completely expelled from the convention, or somehow prevented from bringing their resolutions to a vote.

So What Do We Do?

Organize now. Find your allies now. Prepare a plan for the convention floor. Build up a series of resolutions and prepare to make use of every procedural trick available to you. Pass a self-denying resolution barring all current leadership from serving on the next National Committee and pass a resolution demanding an open commitment to revolution from any future N.C. member.

During the breaks and when you have free time off the convention floor, agitate among your fellow delegates. Explain the true history of the party, and the need to purge it of its rot. Go in for the fight.

Comrades, it is up to you. You cannot afford to be tepid. You cannot afford to lower your head and accept crumbs from the corrupt leadership. It is now all or nothing.

We are with you. Generations of Communists have tread this path before you, laying down life and limb. Do you intend to crumple at the first challenge, or fight for a better world?

Claim the convention!

SAMPLE RESOLUTIONS

WHEREAS the perversion of democratic centralism that prevents full discussion of proposed resolutions and limits new resolutions to those that have been pre-approved by leadership places revisionism and opportunism fully in command of the party apparatus, LET IT BE RESOLVED that the convention rules be amended to: i) permit each speaker to hold the floor for 10 minutes, ii) adopt in full Robert’s Rules of Order to govern procedure, and iii) be explicitly permitted to offer new resolutions on the convention floor.
WHEREAS the revisionist drift of the party for the past fifty years has caused it to fall away from the masses, tail the Democratic Party, and lose its character as a proletarian institution, LET IT BE RESOLVED that this convention hereby enacts a self-denying resolution which shall disbar any present members of the National Committee or anyone who has served on the National Committee in the past decade from appearing on any slate before this convention or being elected or appointed to the National Committee or its subcommittees for at least four years and LET IT FURTHER BE RESOLVED that any candidate for the National Committee shall be required to take an oath of commitment to the proletarian revolution before the convention prior to being placed on the slate.