On the evening of Monday, July 15, 2024, the Austin, Texas chapter of the Communist Party USA was liquidated by members of the Texas district committee. The district claims this vote was unanimous, but the representative from Austin was not made aware that this meeting was taking place, nor was she allowed to defend her club or participate in the vote.

The accusations made towards Austin comrades are factionalism and refusal to follow the Party line on four issues:

• Two delegates leaving during the “Israeli” speech at the National Convention in June 2024
• Not being fully on board voting for Biden/Dems – aka Resolution 5
• In house open discussion of the petition and reasons for its creation (we urged comrades not to sign it)
• Accused of “Black Nationalism” and following the Black Panther Party playbook with our mutual aid work

Let us address these accusations individually.

Yes, two of us left during the “Israeli” speech at the convention. Is quietly walking outside against the rules? No grand walkout nor vocal statement was made. We simply disagreed with what the man was saying, and thought that inviting him to speak after the Palestinian speaker canceled was bad optics. We stand by this belief. When should comrades dissent if not at the National Convention? Rather than having a comradely discussion on this issue, one of the Party co-chairs chose to make passive aggressive statements in her closing speech, “when you walk out on an Israeli comrade, you’re walking out on the working class.”

We disagree with the validity of her statement.

Free Palestine.

Yes, we dissented on Resolution 5, as did half of the delegates present at the convention. Again, when should comrades dissent if not at the National Convention? The Party claims that this “vote against MAGA” resolution is not a “vote for Biden” demand, although several Party members quite literally stated a need to support Biden and the Democratic Party during the shortened convention discussion.

On the last day of the convention, a white Party elder from Connecticut gave a speech calling all dissenters on Resolution 5 “racist” and “chauvinist” for refusing to support a genocidal, bourgeois administration with the statement, “Black and brown comrades fought and died for the right to vote, and you don’t want to?”

It should go without saying, but Joe Biden has a long history of racism against Black Americans. He is, right now, actively contributing to the genocide of the Palestinian people. Several Black and brown comrades spoke against Resolution 5, and a white woman accusing them of racism is disgusting and unacceptable.

Many of us were sent “A Comradely Petition” the week after the CPUSA National Convention. This petition was a demand to reopen discussion around Resolution 5 before the National Committee was slated to vote on it. The Austin delegation was in agreement that the petition was silly, and not the correct path forward, but that it was important to understand why it was created. Many rank and file comrades feel that they are not represented by the National Committee. The fact that the discussion around this contentious resolution was cut short added to those feelings.

All of the Austin delegates advocated against local comrades signing the petition. We did, however, give space for discussion at our local meeting. As many comrades were talking about leaving and searching for a new organization, we also gave space for this discussion. The discussion was very respectful and productive. Some comrades shared that they were ready to leave. Most stated that they preferred to stay and struggle under the Party banner.

A rat within our organization, who was not present at the National Convention nor at the local meeting, leaked internal documents to members of the Texas district committee. They used these documents without context to frame our discussions as “factionalism.”

Comrades, if you are suspicious of someone within your organization, trust that feeling.

The most bothersome reason for liquidation is this accusation of “Black Nationalism” levied because we read from members of the Black Panther Party, and participate in mutual aid work.

First, one major problem within the local chapter is that we currently have no Black members. Austin, Texas is the only growing major city in the US with a shrinking Black population. This is mostly due to rapid gentrification thanks to the ongoing tech sector boom and rising cost of living. Historically Black neighborhoods are being demolished for “modern” developments which have caused property taxes to rise rapidly and out of control. Austin is becoming unaffordable for much of the working class, but our Black and immigrant neighbors are the most affected by the rising cost of living.

Second, we see no issue with the concept of Black Nationalism as described by Malcom X and the Black Panther Party. While this is not something we, as a majority white chapter, are openly advocating for, why does CPUSA see Black Nationalism as a threat to their working class movement? It is up to those of us who do not live the Black experience to educate ourselves as much as possible on how to support our Black neighbors, their needs, and understand their experiences. Black Nationalism is simply self determination.

Third, mutual aid is the most important work we do in our community. Period. We were told that organizing with the lumpen proletariat is against the CPUSA Party Program. During our many reads of the Program, we have yet to come across such a passage. One major flaw in the Party is the lack of education around mutual aid and community defense programs, and some of us have brought this up on appropriate occasions. We do also participate in the local electoral struggle, as commanded by the Party.

Mutual aid is important for many reasons. The most obvious is that we are literally helping vulnerable people. Why would a communist not want to help those in need? It is also a way to meet and work with other individuals and organizations doing similar work in our neighborhoods. This is how we build alliances. It is also how we build community trust. “Communism” can be a scary word in the USA, and when people meet us out in the streets helping each other, we begin to build trust.

So this is what happened to the Austin, Texas chapter of the Communist Party USA. We no longer exist. Comrades were given the option to reapply to the Party and begin to rebuild from scratch. Everything we built over the last three years is gone. Most of us, including local leadership, are moving on. We have already begun to rebrand as a mutual aid organization, and have set up a meeting in a few weeks. We will be okay, and the work will continue.

Stay vigilant, comrades. Take care of each other. Support your community. We are all we have.

Colonialism, Settler Colonialism, and National Liberation

Colonialism in the modern era first developed in the latter years of the 15th century, but reached maturity in the late 19th and early 20th century with the comprehensive colonization of the African continent. In their infancy, colonialism and capitalism developed hand-in-hand, with the resources and profits extracted from the colonization of the Americas and the Atlantic Slave Trade spurring rapid growth in the European economies. In turn, products manufactured in the European metropoles were utilized to further develop the grip of the European economy over the world at large. In essence, capitalism was born with the profits of colonial extraction, and the insatiable capitalist mode of production drove the expansion of the colonialist system.

In its “traditional” form, the colonial economy is primarily an extractive economy, maintained through economic, political, and military domination. The colonial power takes raw materials and other resources from the colonized territory to be shipped back to the “home” country to fuel their burgeoning economies. During the dawn of the era of imperialism (from the 1880s onwards), colonial holdings also served as a sink for the exportation of capital from the European countries, financing international corporations in their advancement of the extraction of resources from the colonial territories. For “traditional” colonialism, the Indigenous population constitutes the labor force for the international corporations. The rapid development of the urban centers in the colonial territories drove the “proletarianization” of the colonized workforce; that is, driving populations from the countryside to the urban centers to engage in the newly imposed capitalist-colonialist economy. The Indigenous people themselves in this context serve as a resource; labor to be exploited for profit, most acute under the slave system in which colonized peoples were literally exchanged as commodities themselves.

Settler colonialism is a distinct form of colonialism. Whereas in the “traditional” colonial economy, extraction of resources is the primary focus of the occupying power and indigenous labor utilized in that extraction is a central component, settler colonialism is concerned with complete control and assimilation of the land as the foundation of a new settler nation. Under settler colonialism, the Indigenous populations are eradicated, in whole or in part, by a series of deliberate policies enacted by the settlers to drive them off the land and claim it for themselves.

In its initial stages, the development of settler colonies on the American continents was driven by rivalries between the last remnants of the European monarchies, which involved religious and military expansionism. The so-called “New World” presented a crisis for the European kingdoms, essentially constituting a new battleground for existing tensions on the continent. At the time, the nascent capitalist system in the form of mercantilism was subordinate to the interests of the monarchs, driven by the need to expand control in the religious sphere, through which the kings justified their “divine right to rule”, and the need to grow the coffers through which they funded their respective armies. An as yet “undiscovered” continent made up of billions of acres of “unclaimed” land presented both an opportunity and a threat to the kingdoms. They could not afford to be left behind while their rivals expanded their power overseas.

What resulted was a mad dash for the direct control of the land, leading to a period of primitive accumulation which increased the wealth and power of the European kingdoms, but also increased the wealth and power of the nascent bourgeoisie which would go on to supplant them in the following centuries. Some of the European powers attempted to engage in “traditional” colonization schemes, but the most successful and the earliest — that of Spain — was settler colonial from its inception and would provide the model for England.

The problem for the Europeans was that this land was not “unclaimed” as they pretended, but was inhabited by millions of Indigenous people organized in thousands of complex societies across both continents. Instead of halting the ambitions of the European economies, a solution was developed, and the Europeans, especially the English, having honed their skills at warfare through centuries of struggle both inside and outside the continent, utilized those skills towards the complete supplanting of the indigenous populations for their own.

Today, the first phase of the settler colonial project in North America is complete. What once was a land of dizzying cultural wealth and complex civilization has been completely supplanted by the US settler colonial empire and its Canadian counterpart. The millions of Indigenous people that once inhabited the continent have been subjected to outright slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and otherwise removed from the land to be corralled into reservations, making way for the fascist global hegemon to thrive. 

Some believe that because the “settlement” of the U.S. is complete, the colonial relation in the country has ceased. On the contrary, through the reservation system and the indigenous reserve labor force kept in perpetual poverty, through the continued subjugation of the Black interior semi-colony by the survival of slavery in the prison industrial complex and the continued denial of land rights in the Black Belt, and through the exploitation of immigrant labor largely consisting of indigenous South and Central Americans, the colonial relation is thriving. This relation is most clear through the antagonization of these colonized populations by the armed wing of the state — the DHS, the BIA, and the federal, state, and municipal police — which takes up its legacy as an occupying colonial military.

The imperial outpost of “israel” is the most readily apparent example of settler colonialism due to the intensity, and thus visibility, of the conflict. Through widespread media coverage of the issue, this genocidal relation is undeniable. Despite billions of dollars being funneled every year into maybe the most advanced propaganda campaign the world has ever seen, the age of social media has allowed the Palestinians to demonstrate their plight for all to see.

The colonization of Palestine is well-documented by scholars and by the zionists themselves. Following the British acquisition of Mandatory Palestine from the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, the “holy land” provided a golden opportunity for the zionist conference in Britain to begin their colonial project. Between 1917 and 1948, zionists began in earnest to claim land in Palestine through both purchase and conquest. This process culminated in the infamous Nakba of 1948, in which zionist paramilitaries excised large swaths of the land through genocidal slaughter and ethnic cleansing, killing thousands and driving many hundreds of thousands more from their homes. What resulted was almost 80% of the land of Palestine falling under control of the zionists, driving the displaced Palestinians into refugee centers that became the Gaza Strip and the West Bank territories, an act that was legitimized by the international community’s recognition of the “State of israel”.

Zionist ideology closely resembles the religious settler ideology of Manifest Destiny that drove the lion’s share of the colonization of what would become the western United States. Believing the land to be promised to them by God, settlers push the boundaries of the existing colonial borders, encroaching into land that is still controlled by the indigenous inhabitants, often in violation of the various treaties and agreements previously negotiated between the colonialists and the colonized. When the colonized naturally resist this unlawful expansion, the military forces of the colonial entity intervene on the basis that the settlers constitute civilians and they must be defended from the “violent, uncivilized natives”. Thus, the colonial borders expand and the indigenous are further removed from the land. This practice is utilized to this day in the zionist settlements in the West Bank.

We should not be surprised at the similarity; we should not be surprised that the zionists appear to be brothers in arms to the U.S. ruling class. After all, the same economic exploitation of Indigenous people is the basis for both.

So what is the resolution to the colonial contradiction? Despite settler colonialism constituting a distinct form of colonialism, the solution remains the same: national liberation. The anatomy of the colonial system consists of the economic, social, and political domination of the colonized by the colonizers. To abolish this relation, the political, economic, and social spheres must be taken hold of by the subject nation. In a “traditional” colony, this is easy to envision due to the fact that the majority of the population is Indigenous. The anti-colonial liberation movement in this context must seize control of the state from the colonizers and the bought-off compradors, nationalize the colonial enterprises, and begin the process of developing national self-determination. In the settler colonial context, control of the land is the axis upon which the Indigenous peoples are oppressed and self-determination takes the form of the reclamation of the land from the settlers.

South Africa is a particularly interesting case study on this point. Prior to the takeover of the South African apartheid government by the ANC in the 1990s, South Africa could similarly be described as a settler colonial project. After the apartheid system was overthrown and Mandela elected in 1994 as the first president of the country, a process of land reform was undertaken, but was not taken to completion as it had been in Algeria in the 1960s and in Zimbabwe and other territories that made up the former Rhodesian state in the 1980s. As a result, racial disparity and racial tensions continue to wreak havoc on the South African social and political sphere, with white settlers still owning a disproportionate amount of land relative to their population, leaving millions of indigenous South Africans in poverty. What this tells us is that the land and who controls it is the most important aspect of the settler colonial context.

CPUSA Convention Controversy

This past weekend, June 7–9, the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) held its 2024 national convention in Chicago. Two particularly important results of this conference made a significant stir among communist circles on social media regarding the Party’s position on settler colonialism.

As part of the party’s membership in the International Meeting of Communist Workers’ Parties (IMCWP), the CPUSA invited delegates from several other participant parties to speak at the convention. Included in this group was the Communist Party of Israel (CPI), whose speech, delivered by israeli Knesset Member, Ofer Kassif, was streamed on YouTube and subsequently posted by the Party’s official account on Twitter. In this speech, Kassif began by “providing context” to the situation in the zionist entity, in which he vocally condemned the Palestinian Resistance for its acts on October 7, repeating the rigorously debunked lie that thousands of Israeli citizens were massacred by the Palestinians. Later in his speech, he rightly describes the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza as a genocide, but ultimately delivers a message that is indistinguishable from the messaging of, say, US Senator Bernie Sanders. In essence, it espouses a political position which can be described as “labor zionism”; the genocide of Palestinians is to be condemned but so are those struggling against it. It is bad to kill Palestinians, but those who are waging a national liberation struggle to overthrow the settler colonial relation are terrorists. Essentially, their position is that the state of “israel” has a right to exist and that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine between 1917 and 1948 is legitimate, but with a left-wing facade. The position of the CPI is further revealed in an article posted on their website in November of 2023, calling for an investigation of war crimes against the Palestinians for sexual crimes committed on October 7, which has since been thoroughly debunked as a conspiracy, a lie spread by the IOF to justify the genocide in Gaza.

The Twitter post of Kassif’s speech received vitriolic backlash from people criticizing the party for inviting the CPI to speak at the convention, especially during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Many CPUSA members took to social media in an effort to do damage control, justifying the invitation of the party with such excuses as CPI being a “fraternal party of the IMCWP”, as if that isn’t an indictment of the IMCWP in its own right!

During the CPUSA’s discussion of the resolutions being adopted at the convention, the question of settler colonialism in the United States was presented. Following this discussion, a CPUSA delegate who was present at the convention tweeted “After an investigation the Communist Party USA has rejected settler colonialism as the primary contradiction in the United States”. Again, backlash from communist circles on social media was responded to by hand-waving and justification by party members, calling any who criticized this decision “ultras” and “wreckers.”

The formulation of this CPUSA resolution is malformed and belies the lack of understanding on the part of the CPUSA delegates and those who rejected it. It is clear that the resolution was raised as a sop, and always designed to be defeated. There is no primary contradiction; this is a mish-mash of Marxist terms. There is, of course, in any situation, a principal contradiction, but this is a question of strategy. The principal contradiction conditions the other, secondary, contradictions, which cannot be resolved without first addressing it.

Party members on Twitter immediately began denying the need for any national liberation struggle in the US. It is clear that, where CPUSA once suffered from extreme white (imperialist) chauvinism, that chauvinism is alive and well.

Social Class and Class Struggle

Defenders of the party’s resolution on Twitter made a point of railing against Anything But Class (ABC) Marxists. While ABC as an ideological trend does constitute a liberal distortion of Marxism, the Nothing But Class (NBC) position lacks any basis in reality. Proponents of NBC argue that all oppression and oppressive institutions arise from capitalism, and thus through waging class struggle, all oppressive contradictions will be resolved. What this deviation ignores is the reality of social classes, and the particularity of the nature of class in the colonial context.

The Wretched of the Earth, written by Martiniquais revolutionary Frantz Fanon, who developed his analysis from his participation in the national liberation struggle against the French settler colonial project in Algeria, argues that in the colonial context a person’s race in part dictates a person’s class. An analysis of the colonial relation reveals this fact to be true. In colonial Africa, all of the enterprises were owned by Europeans, whereas all of the industrial and agricultural workers were African. They were workers and not owners because they were members of an oppressed nation; because of their indigeneity. As a result, class was stratified along national lines, meaning that a national liberation struggle also constitutes a class struggle.

“Identity politics” is a contentious topic among Marxists, with many taking the view that the concept of identity is a liberal distortion that only serves to obfuscate the class struggle. What this leaves out is a robust understanding of what exactly goes into determining someone’s social class. In our white-supremacist cis-hetero-patriarchal settler colony, a person’s identity plays a part in determining a person’s class. If you are a trans person, a Black person, a gay person, or any intersection of the various avenues of oppression, odds are that you are not a member of the bourgeois class. As a result, gender relations, race relations, disability relations; these things all constitute social relations with an objectively identifiable economic base. They are class relations and thus are essential to address when engaging in class struggle.

These are fundamentally not questions of identity. Identity is a social question; the relations that produce these social identities are economic questions.

In the US settler colonial system, Black and Indigenous people are corralled into reservations and ghettos, flushed into the prison system to work as money-printing slaves, and are oppressed along national lines. As a result, a national liberation struggle must be waged as PART of the class struggle. National liberation IS class struggle, and must be taken up and supported by Communists.

When CPUSA and its membership reject an in-depth analysis and discussion of settler colonialism, reject the principles of national liberation, and embrace only a simplified analysis of class, they are, in effect, abandoning the class struggle. 

Do not mistake their behavior. The CPUSA has abandoned the class struggle. At best, they represent a dam holding back a reservoir of committed Communists, straining to fight in the class war. At worst, they represent an active barrier to the advancement of the very movement they claim to lead, and thus serve as an objective pillar of U.S. capitalist-imperialism.

A source within the party shared a section of one of the resolutions to be adopted at the convention with regards to the national sovereignty for Indigenous peoples of the Americas which read:

Therefore be it resolved that the CPUSA fully supports the struggles of the Native American people for full social, economic, and political equality and national sovereignty over Native lands. We demand expansion of federal and state funds and services for all the reservations. We oppose schemes to nullify tribal treaty rights.

While paying lip service to national sovereignty for indigenous nations, this resolution reveals deep issues within the party’s understanding of settler colonialism. In their message of support for the struggles of the Indigenous people of the Americas, CPUSA takes care to specify that this only extends to the borders of so-called “Native land”, a distinction that legitimizes the settler control of land not specified as “Native”. The resolution also calls for the expansion of federal and state funds with regards to the existing reservation system. Instead of calling to abolish this violent colonial institution, the CPUSA takes the position that the system should be expanded! Funneling funds into the existing genocidal reservation system can do nothing but strengthen it in its purpose: exercising control over the indigenous populations held captive inside of them. Additionally, this resolution calls for the upholding of existing treaties between indigenous nations and the US government, with no mention at all as to the nature of those treaties as documents forged through coercion that legitimize the settler control over already-stolen Native lands.

This position is indistinguishable from the “labor zionist” position of the Communist Party of “Israel,” which pays lip service to the plight of the Indigenous Palestinians while at the same time upholding the existing colonial borders taken through wholesale slaughter and ethnic cleansing in 1948 and today. By refusing to acknowledge the nature through which this land was claimed and the illegitimacy of the settler control over it, the CPI and its brethren in the CPUSA effectively condone the genocidal actions taken by the settler system.

Settler colonialism and national liberation are not buzzwords. They are not empty platitudes to be tossed out and then ignored, nor are they secondary issues to be subordinated to an ill-defined “class struggle”. They are class struggle, and any party which seeks to overthrow the settler colonial relation must engage with this from the outset. Settler colonialism is a material relation concerned with control of the land. A communist party in a settler-colony must contend with the question of the land and who controls it. They must take the stance that the reclamation of the land through a national liberation struggle is the issue at hand. Otherwise, they are giving in to settler chauvinism as willful idiots of empire.

What is to be Done?

A problem of this magnitude requires extensive education of general party membership, but the capacity to carry out that education would require a party leadership which has this understanding and is capable of imparting it to others. Many members of the CPUSA, especially the younger ones, have a better understanding of these issues than the old party bureaucrats, but the undemocratic nature of the party —  through measures such as the slate system — prevents that leadership from being replaced. Instead, membership at large is forced to table any attempts at eliciting structural change until the party convention, which is only held every four years, and even then resolutions are laundered through the National Committee before being put to a vote.

With the CPUSA’s rejection of settler colonialism as the principal contradiction, they willingly reveal the settler chauvinism that is eating away at the party’s structure, nullifies its revolutionary capability, and condemns it to serve the forces of reaction. 

We have no Communist party in the United States. Once we accept this, we can then begin the process of building one. National liberation and gender liberation are essential aspects of the class struggle, and we must begin to organize a resolute political structure that understands this fact. In order to engage in class struggle, in order to destroy all existing oppressive relations, we must come together to build a political formation capable of taking on this challenge and building a better world for all people.

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.