First Published: The Daily Worker, June 7, 1945.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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•This resolution is submitted as a draft for discussion and action by the National Committee and the entire membership of the Communist Political Association.
•The vote on the resolution in the National Board:
FOR: Morris Childs, Benjamin Davis, Jr., Eugene Dennis, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, James Ford, William Z. Foster, Gilbert Green, Robert Minor, William Schneiderman, Robert Thompson, John Williamson.
AGAINST: Earl Browder.
ABSTAINED: Roy Hudson.
The military defeat of Nazi Germany is a great historic victory for world democracy, for all mankind. This epochal triumph was brought about by the concerted action of the Anglo-Soviet-American coalition–by the decisive blows of the Red Army, by the American-British offensives, and by the heroic struggle of the resistance movements.
This victory opens the way for the complete destruction of fascism in Europe and weakens the forces of reaction and fascism everywhere.
It has already brought forth a new anti-Fascist unity of the peoples in Europe marked by the formation in a number of countries of democratic governments representative of the will of the people.
It has also created the prerequisites for bringing about the speedy defeat of Japanese imperialism. Thus great possibilities have been opened up for realizing a durable peace.
However, a sharp and sustained struggle must still be conducted to secure the complete destruction of fascism in Europe and throughout the world and to guarantee that the possibilities which now exist for creating an enduring peace shall be realized.
This is so because the economic and social roots of fascism in Europe have not yet been fully destroyed. This is so because the extremely powerful reactionary forces in the United States and England, which are centered in the trusts and cartels, are striving to reconstruct liberated Europe on a reactionary basis.
Moreover, this is so because the most aggressive circles of American imperialism are endeavoring to secure for themselves political and economic domination in the world.
With the ending of the war against Nazi Germany, important groupings of American capital, which were opposed to German imperialist world domination, are joining hands with the most reactionary and pro-Fascist circles of monopoly capital–with the pro-Fascist du Pont clique in the leadership of the NAM. Now that Nazi Germany has been crushed, these big Business circles which heretofore supported, though inconsistently, the war against Hitler, in order to eliminate their German imperialist rival, are today frightened by the democratic consequences of that victory.
Like their British counterparts, they are alarmed at the strengthened positions of world labor, at the democratic advances in Europe and at the upsurge of the national liberation movements in the colonial and dependent countries.
Therefore they seek to halt the march of democracy; to curb the strength of labor and the people. They want to save the remnants of fascism in Germany and in the rest of Europe.
They are trying to organize a new cordon sanitaire against the Soviet Union which bore the main brunt of the war against the Nazis, and which is the staunchest champion of national freedom, democracy and world peace.
This regrouping in the ranks of American capital, reacting to the defeat of Germany, has been reflected in many recent actions of the State Department. It is evidenced by the fact that the majority of the American delegation at San Francisco yielded on certain issues to the extreme reactionaries. In so doing they departed from Roosevelt’s foreign policy of Big Three unity as worked out at Teheran and Yalta.
This regrouping in the ranks of capital explains why, on most basic questions, Stettinius and Connally were influenced to join hands with Vandenberg–the spokesman for Hoover and the most predatory sections of American finance capital. This explains the seating of Fascist Argentina and the British-American reluctance to live up to the Yalta accord on Poland and Germany. This is the reason why the American delegation at San Francisco refused to join with the Soviet Union to pledge the right of national independence for mandated territories and colonies, and refused to give official recognition to the representatives of the World Labor Conference who spoke for sixty million organized workers.
This shift in the position of certain Big Business circles explains the reactionary intervention at Trieste and the threat of armed force against our Yugoslav Ally. This development also explains why Washington and London are pursuing the dangerous policy of preventing a strong, united and democratic China, and why they bolster up the reactionary, incompetent Chiang Kai-shek regime which is obstructing an all-out war against Japan. It accounts, too, for the new campaign of anti-Soviet slander and incitement calculated to undermine American-Soviet friendship and cooperation which was the cornerstone for victory over Hitler Germany and is the indispensable key to attain postwar peace and world security.
On the home front the camp of reaction is blocking the development of a satisfactory program to meet the human needs of reconversion with its accompanying economic dislocations and severe unemployment.
Reactionary forces–especially the NAM and their representatives in Congress–are planning a new open-shop drive to weaken or smash the trade unions. They are trying to prevent the adoption of governmental measures which must be enacted at once if our country is to avoid the most acute consequences of future economic crisis. Likewise they are vigorously preparing to win the crucial 1946 elections.
If these reactionary policies and forces are not checked and defeated, America and the world will be confronted with new aggressions and wars and the growth of reaction and fascism in the United States.
However, the conditions and forces exist to defeat this reactionary threat, and to enable our country to play a progressive role in world affairs in accord with the true national interests of the American people.
For one thing, the military defeat of Nazi Germany has changed the relationship of world forces in favor of democracy. It has enhanced the role and influence of the land of socialism. It has strengthened those forces in our country and elsewhere which seek to maintain and consolidate the friendship and cooperation of the United States and the Soviet Union–a unity which must now be extended and reenforced. This is evidenced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the American people, and in the first place labor, are opposed to reaction and fascism, support the foreign and domestic policies of President Roosevelt as embodied in the decisions of Teheran and Crimea, and in the Second Bill of Rights.
This majority must now speak out and assert its collective strength and will. The united power of labor and of all democratic forces must express itself in a decisive fashion so as to influence the course of the nation in a consistently progressive direction.
It is imperative that the American people resolutely support every effort of the Truman Administration to carry forward Roosevelt’s program for victory, peace, democracy and 60 million jobs. It is equally necessary that the people sharply criticize all hesitations to apply this policy, and vigorously oppose any concessions to the reactionaries. The camp of reaction must not be appeased–it must be isolated and routed.
Towards this end it is necessary, as never before, to decisively strengthen the democratic unity of the nation. It is essential to weld together and consolidate the broadest national coalition of all anti-Fascist and democratic forces, including all supporters of Roosevelt’s anti-Axis policies.
To forge this democratic coalition most effectively and to enable it to exercise decisive influence upon the affairs of the nation, it is essential that the working class –especially the progressive labor movement and the Communists–strengthen its independent role and activities and display far greater political and organizing initiative. It is imperative to develop the maximum unity of action between the CIO, the AFL and the Railroad Brotherhoods and to achieve their full participation in the new World Federation of Trade Unions.
While cooperating with the patriotic and democratic forces from all walks of life, labor must, in the first place, strengthen its ties with the veterans, the toiling farmers, the Negro people, the youth, the women, professionals and small business men, and with their democratic organizations.
To achieve the widest democratic coalition and the most effective anti-Fascist unity of the nation, it is vital that labor vigorously champion a program of action that will promote the complete destruction of fascism, speed victory over Japanese imperialism, curb the powers of the trusts and monopolies–advance the economic welfare of the people and protect and extend American democracy.
In the opinion of the Communist Political Association, such a program should be based on the following slogans of action:
* Rout and defeat the advocates of a compromise peace with the Japanese imperialists and war lords.
* Guarantee a free democratic Asia with the right of national independence for all colonial and dependent peoples. Curb those who seek American imperialist control in the Far East.
* Press for a united and free China based upon the unity of the Communists and all other democratic and anti-Japanese forces so as to speed victory. Full military aid to the Chinese guerrillas led by the heroic Eighth and Fourth Armies.
* Continue uninterrupted war production and uphold labor’s no-strike pledge for the duration. Stop employer provocations.
* Cement American-Soviet friendship and unity to guarantee the fulfillment of Teheran and Yalta accords for an enduring peace and a world free of fascism.
* Carry out in full the decisions made by the Big Three at Crimea.
* Punish the war guilty without further delay. Death to all Fascist war criminals. Make Germany pay full reparations in labor and in kind for the reconstruction of Europe.
* Strengthen the World Labor Congress as the backbone of the unity of the peoples and the free nations.
* Support the establishment of an effective international security organization based upon the Dumbarton Oaks plan and the Yalta agreement.
* Guarantee to all peoples the right to determine freely their own destiny and to establish their own democratic form of government. Put an end to Anglo-American intervention against the peoples, such as in Greece, Belgium and Italy.
* Grant immediate national independence to Puerto Rico.
* Break diplomatic relations with Franco Spain and Fascist Argentina.
* Remove from the State Department all pro-Fascist and reactionary officials.
* Help feed and reconstruct starving and war-torn Europe. Reject the Hoover program based on reactionary financial mortgages and political interference.
* Pass the Bretton Woods proposals and other democratic measures designed to promote international economic cooperation and expanding world trade. Grant extensive long-term loans and credits, at low interest rates, for purposes of reconstruction and industrialization.
* Make the right to work and the Roosevelt second Bill of Rights the law of the land.
* Increase purchasing power to promote maximum employment. No reduction in weekly take-home pay when overtime is eliminated.
* For an immediate 20 per cent wage Increase to meet the rise in the cost of living. Establish an adequate minimum hourly wage on a national scale.
* Establish the principle of the guaranteed annual wage.
* For a shorter work week without wage reductions, except where this would hamper war production.
* Support Truman’s proposals for emergency federal legislation to extend and supplement present unemployment insurance benefits. Start unemployment insurance payments promptly upon loss of job and continue until new employment is found. Provide adequate severance pay for laid-off workers. Insure the retraining, education and reemployment of the young workers.
* Prevent growing unemployment during the reconversion and postwar period by starting large-scale federal, state and municipal public works programs – slum clearance, low rental housing developments, rural electrification, the building of new schools, hospitals, roads, etc.
* No scrapping of government-owned industrial plants. If private industry cannot operate these at full capacity for peacetime purposes the government must.
* Maintain and rigidly enforce rent and price control and rationing. Strengthen the law enforcement powers of the OPA. Smash the black market.
* Utilize the Labor-Management Charter to press for the organization of the unorganized, to strengthen collective bargaining, to defend the trade unions from all attacks by the open-shoppers, to raise living standards, and to promote the fight for 60 million jobs.
* Prosecute the war profiteers. No reduction in corporate, excess profit and income taxes for the millionaires.
* Pass the Wagner-Murray-Dingell social security bill.
* Maintain equitable farm prices and assure adequate federal and state aid to all needy farmers.
* Guarantee jobs and security for all returning veterans regardless of race, creed or color.
* Extend the scope and benefits of the GI Bill of Rights and eliminate all red tape from the Veterans’ Administration. Guarantee medical care to every veteran.
* Press for the speedy enactment of legislation providing for substantial demobilization pay, based on length and character of service, and financed by taxes on higher personal and corporate incomes.
* Insure full benefits of all veterans’ legislation to Negro veterans.
* Enforce equal rights for every American citizen regardless of race, color, creed, political affiliation or national origin.
* End Jimcrow. Outlaw anti-Semitism. Eliminate all anti-Communist legislation. Pass a national FEPC. Abolish the poll tax and the white primary. End every form of discrimination in the armed forces.
* Protect labor’s rights, especially the right to organize and bargain collectively.
* Outlaw and prohibit all Fascist organizations and activities.
* Curb the powers and policies of the monopolies and trusts which jeopardize the national welfare and world peace. Prosecute all violations of the anti-trust laws, and all moves and acts to restore or continue the Anglo-German-American cartel system and practices. Protect and extend federal aid to small business.
This program represents the most urgent interests of the American people and the nation. It is not a program for socialism which alone can completely abolish insecurity, exploitation, oppression and war.
This is an immediate program of action around which all progressive Americans can unite today. It is a program of action which will advance the destruction of fascism, help realize a more stable peace, and greater economic security and democracy.
This is a program that can unite the majority of the people for victory in the 1945 municipal elections and in the fateful 1946 congressional elections which must be organized and prepared for now. This is a program which must be championed in every factory and industry, in every community and state, through the medium of labor’s political action; through broad shop steward conferences and united community movements, and through other means and forms.
The foregoing program will not be easy to win.
The reactionaries will seek desperately to divide the ranks of the people, to pit one group against the other–veterans and farmers against labor, Gentile against Jew, white against Negro, Protestant against Catholic, AFL against CIO. They will strive to break the Anglo-Soviet-American coalition and foment bitter class, racial, partisan and sectional strife.
For these purposes they will use Hitler’s secret weapon of anti-communism, and make maximum use of the David Dubinsky and Norman Thomas social-democrats, the Trotskyites, as well as the John L. Lewises and Matthew Wolls.
To meet this situation the people need progressive organizations and particularly the organizations of labor – the trade unions.
They need loyal, courageous and honest leadership; men and women who combine clarity of vision with the qualities of firmness in principle and flexibility in tactics.
Above all, they require a larger, stronger, more influential and more effective mass organization of Communists.
The Communists have a greater responsibility to labor and the nation than at any other time in their history. And these greater responsibilities can be fulfilled by us with honor because of our long record of devotion and service to the cause of the working class and the people, and because of our adherence to the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism.
The Communist Political Association confidently faces the future.
We are proud of our consistent and heroic struggle against reaction and fascism over the years. We draw strength from and are particularly proud of our efforts to promote victory over Nazi barbarism and Japanese Imperialism. On the field of battle and on the home front, we Communists have been in the forefront of the fight to defend our country and our people. In the struggle for the establishment of the anti-Hitlerite coalition, for the opening of the second front, for national unity, for the reelection of Roosevelt, for the rights of the Negro people, for building a strong and progressive labor movement and for the attainment of international trade union unity–the contributions of the Communists have been second to none.
We recognize that the future of the labor and progressive movements and therefore the role of the United States in world affairs will depend to no small extent upon the correctness of our Communist policy, our independent role and influence, our mass activities and organized strength.
This is why today we Communists must not only learn from our achievements in the struggle against fascism, but also from our weaknesses and errors.
In the recent period, especially since January, 1944, these mistakes consisted in drawing a number of erroneous conclusions from the historic significance of the Teheran accord. Among these false conclusions was the concept that after the military defeat of Germany, the decisive sections of big capital would participate in the struggle to complete the destruction of fascism and would cooperate with the working people in the maintenance of postwar national unity.
This illusion had no foundation in life, either in the class nature of finance capital, or in the postwar aims of the trusts and cartels which seek imperialist aggrandizement and huge profits at the expense of the people. This has been amply demonstrated by recent events.
This revision of Marxist-Leninist theory regarding the role of monopoly capital, especially after military victory, led to other erroneous conclusions, such as to Utopian economic perspectives and the possibility of achieving the national liberation of the colonial and dependent countries through arrangements between the great powers. It also led to tendencies to obscure the class nature of bourgeois democracy, to false concepts of social evolution and to minimizing the independent and leading role of the working class.
Furthermore, the changes we made in our form of Communist organization, coming when they did and coupled with the above revisionist errors, could not but strengthen certain dangerous tendencies towards liquidating the independent and vanguard role of the Communist movement. Nor was the act of dissolution of the party required to carry out our correct election policy of support for President Roosevelt.
While the change from CP to CPA did not result in a decline in membership (the 1945 membership enrollment of the CPA showed a more than 25 per cent increase as compared with the 1944 enrollment figures of the CP), it is nonetheless true that the growth of the Communist movement among the industrial workers was undoubtedly retarded.
While a change in form or name of our Marxist organization is not in itself a question of principle, it is a matter of principle, however, that the character of our Communist organization, whether its electoral status, must be that of the independent, Marxist party of the working class. And this we must now fully guarantee in the program, policies and activities of the Communist Political Association.
While concentrating on our main wartime objective; namely, that of subordinating everything to win the war, to smash Nazi Germany and militarist Japan, these mistakes were abetted by an over-simplified and one-sided approach.
These errors were facilitated by non-labor, bourgeois influences which unconsciously affected some of our policies as we participated and functioned ever more actively in the broad Camp of national unity.
And these opportunist deviations were accentuated by our reluctance to constantly analyze and re-examine our policies and mass work in the spirit of Marxist self-criticism, especially the failure to draw our full membership into the discussion and determination of basic policy.
The opportunist errors which we were committing did not dominate our wartime policies. Nonetheless they adversely influenced our work during the war, limited the effectiveness of our anti-Fascist activities, and were tending to disorient the Communist and the progressive labor movement for the postwar period.
While we Communists were beginning to re-examine the postwar perspective and to correctly react to some of the new international developments, we were, however, readjusting ourselves too slowly to the new world developments, because we failed to understand the basic opportunist errors that had crept into our policies.
In this connection, therefore, we must recognize the important contributions which Comrade Foster made in the struggle against opportunism. Likewise, we can appreciate the basic correctness of the sound fraternal, Marxist opinions expressed in the recent article of Jacques Duclos, one of the foremost leaders of the Communist Party of France.
Clearly, the single, most essential precondition to enable us to effectively perform our Communist duties in the postwar period as the more far-sighted and able defender of the interests of the working class and the nation, is to quickly and decisively overcome our errors and mistakes, especially to eradicate all vestiges of opportunism in our policies and mass work.
Towards this end all members and organizations of the Communist Political Association must immediately make a thorough and self-critical examination of our policies and leadership.
We must establish genuine inner-democracy and self-criticism throughout our organization.
We must refresh and strengthen the personnel of all responsible leading committees in the Association.
In doing this we must combat all tendencies towards factionalism, towards distortions and towards weakening the basic unity of our Communist organization.
At the same time, we Communist must avoid all sectarian tendencies and boldly and energetically expand our own anti-Fascist mass activities and our most active participation in the broad labor and democratic movements. We must resolutely strengthen our independent Communist role and mass activities. We must build our Communist Association, especially amongst the industrial workers.
We must wage a resolute ideological struggle on the theoretical front, enhancing the Marxist understanding of our entire organization and leadership.
We Communists renew our pledge to do everything to destroy fascism and reaction, to advance the cause of American and world democracy, the cause of national freedom and social progress. We are determined to cooperate with all anti-Fascists and all democratic forces to achieve these great objectives.