First Published: Frontline, Vol. 6, No. 6, August 31, 1988.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The 24th national convention of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), held in Chicago August 13-16, was the occasion for a major alteration in the party’s assessment of the current balance of forces in the trade union movement, and of the appropriate strategy for the left’s work in labor. For many years – in fact for decades – the centerpiece of the CPUSA’s approach to work in the unions has been the concept of the left-center alliance. Now, according to the main report to the convention by CPUSA General Secretary Gus Hall, this approach is out of date. Hall argued his position, and offered a new tactical orientation, as follows:
The new fresh winds that our trade union program correctly forecast continue to blow .... Because of the fresh winds it is necessary to update our assessment of workingclass mass thought patterns. The objective developments have narrowed down the influence of the right wing. Thus, in the grassroots the right-wing influence on most questions has become rather thin .... To a large extent, the grassroots has moved to the positions that were center thought patterns in past years. Then there is the growing broad left sector in the ranks of the leadership, but even more so in the grassroots. This broader left element now encompasses much of what also were called center positions.
Because of these changing thought patterns it is more difficult – and unnecessary – to speak of a right, a center and a left. Making a distinction between the bulk of the membership and those who are center forces has largely lost its meaning. In today’s context the old center concept does not leave enough room for the broader left development ... In other words, it seems to me that the thought patterns have changed where the bulk of the trade union movement is reaching the point where it is not necessary or even correct to distinguish the great majority from a designated center section. Therefore, what is called for as the main tactical approach is the organization and mobilization of the united working class. The thought patterns have changed enough that the appeal on most questions can be made to the whole class. Thus, the concept of the united workingclass front.
If actually translated into CPUSA policy, Hall’s shift would have enormous ramifications. Categories used for years to distinguish the various center currents – social democrats, reform-oriented militants, etc. – from the communist-led left would be discarded as obstacles to accurate analysis rather than guidelines for constructing durable coalition relationships. Further, the expectation that the communists are on the verge of directly influencing millions without the necessity of an alliance with center forces would be set before the party ranks. (Hall says as much: “The united left forces can now think in terms of moving the whole trade union movement.”)
Hall’s line alteration rests on the premise that the workers’ movement is at an extremely mature stage, with self-conscious center forces exerting little or no influence on the mass of trade unionists and with leftward motion among the ranks outstripping the bonds of any left-center alliance. Yet that premise is extremely dubious; even in the 1930s, when the upsurge that built the CIO was at its height and the communists were right at the core of the battle, the CPUSA did not argue that the working class movement had reached that level of development. On the contrary, they combatted any illusions that the left-center policy could be dispensed with or that the left by itself could lead the entire trade union movement When viewed against this background, Hall’s new formulations are as questionable as they are drastic.
Under these circumstances, how (or whether) the CPUSA will actually implement Hall’s tactical reorientation is difficult to determine – especially since there was little or no discussion of the change at the Chicago convention. In this quarter, we doubt that the CPUSA is about to rush headlong into a series of ultra-left adventures. Rather, Hall’s formulation is more likely to reinforce the politically complacent assessments that the CPUSA already puts forward; that organized labor as it is politically constituted today is already at the forefront of a massive anti-monopoly upsurge; that the AFL-CIO is already engaged in independent working class political action on a massive scale; and that the class collaborationist trend, while continuing to find expression among a few reactionary union leaders, has already been defeated at the middle leadership levels and among the rank and file. These exaggerated assessments presently serve as justification for the CPUSA’s attempt to obscure the existence of two contending trends in labor – a class collaborationist wing that is trying to hang on to its old authority and a progressive wing that is just beginning to come into its own; and this in turn leads to the CPUSA’s penchant for tailing the current trade union leadership. In this context, the essential impact of Hall’s cavalier relegation of the left-center-right framework to irrelevance will likely be to formally codify these negative tendencies in the CPUSA’s line and entrench them all the more.
Given his report’s emphasis on the capacity of the left to directly influence the broad majority of U.S. workers under current conditions, Hall not surprisingly lays considerable stress on forging unity among those he considers to be on the left. He states that “we are for unity of the left forces in the peace movement ... we are for left unity with the left forces in the Afro-American community ... we are for left unity in the youth movement ... and in the women’s movement [there is] the need for a united left force.”
Such a stress, however, did not result in any re-evaluation of the longstanding CPUSA position which defines the left and left unity in such a way as to exclude all other organized trends or parties. Left-wing social democracy was once again ignored completely, while contending tendencies that identify with Marxism or Marxism-Leninism are simply dismissed as “phony” and defined as being inherently “anti-working class and anti-Communist Party.” Throughout this section, Hall substituted the formulation “anti-Communist Party” for the term “anticommunist” used in other parts of his report, thus collapsing any distinction between forces who engage in anticommunist attacks and those on the left who have political or ideological differences with the CPUSA. Hall left himself a small loophole: a few individuals exist who might meet criteria (set by Hall himself) for having “honest differences” with the CPUSA. But the rest of the organized U.S. left simply consists of “enemy class forces” and “dishonest, disruptive, provocative sects.” With those opinions guiding the CPUSA, its calls to build unity among the constellation of diverse forces that actually constitutes the U.S. left today are merely self-serving phrases; they are the opposite of what would indeed be welcome-a break with the party’s stubborn sectarianism toward the rest of the left.
Regarding the next period of the fight against Reaganism, the CPUSA convention emphasized the pivotal role of the 1988 elections. The framework offered by Hall for approaching those elections centers around “all-people’s electoral unity,” which “should be geared to an all-out, coordinated effort to defeat as many ultra-right Republicans and some Democrats as possible.” The single most important task is posed as defeating the Republican presidential candidate; this will be the focus of all the CPUSA’s electoral work, including the campaign which the party plans to wage in 1988 on behalf of its own presidential ticket.
In analyzing the race for the Democratic nomination, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow effort receives more attention than in previous CPUSA assessments, with Hall stating that “the more advanced of the independent forces – inside and outside of the Democratic Party – will tend to coalesce around Jackson’s candidacy.” At the same time, Hall stresses that all the Democratic candidates will have the support to varying degrees of “key segments of the independent forces and basic sectors of the all people’s front” Under these circumstances, the overriding priority is to preserve unity for the general election battle: “The maximum unity on policy, the minimum disunity over personalities, is decisive to controlling divisions in the primaries,” Hall said.
Overall, the present period was characterized by Hall as a crucial turning point in the U.S. class struggle, especially in the battle for world peace which the CPUSA correctly sees as paramount. The 1988 elections were described as “historic” and the CPUSA membership was exhorted to sweep all hesitations aside in preparation for truly mass upheavals. Once again exaggeration prevailed, as Hall concluded his remarks on the specific role of the Communist Party as follows:
Comrades, this is a moment of big qualitative changes. This is a moment when majorities are in motion. This is a moment when millions are changing their way of thinking. This is a moment when the seventh wave is beginning to crest, when the tide is turning from ebb to flow. The challenge for our Party is to help guide and ride that wave. This is a time for less talk and more action. This is a time to take our policies and apply them, make mistakes, discuss them, correct them, and go out and do it on a higher level. This is NOT the time to sit and examine our navels. This is not the time to spend our time harping and carping about petty details, about abstract theory, whether each formulation in a resolution, article or speech is to everyone’s liking. This is not the time for subjectivity, pettiness. Our unique contribution, our Communist plus, has meaning only if we are riding the wave, only if we are involved, only if we take initiatives, only if we are in the struggles – if we are doers. Only then is thinking and talking truly revolutionary, when it leads to action. This is a time for refreshing, for renewal. So, let’s get out and mix it up!
Present at the CPUSA convention were 1,000 delegates and guests, with party clubs in 35 states represented. Roughly 60% of the delegates were workers, 33% trade union members; 21% Afro-Americans, 9% other racially and nationally oppressed minorities, and 43% women. Numerous representatives were also present from communist parties and liberation movements around the world.
Information for this column had to be based on the CPUSA’s written materials and a few individual interviews, since the Frontline correspondent assigned to cover the CPUSA convention, Bruce Sato, was denied press credentials on the grounds that Frontline is an “illegitimate newspaper.” Washington, D. C. journalist James Early, accredited to cover the convention for Pacifica radio station WPFW, was also denied credentials on the basis of his affiliation with Frontline. Reporters from the mainstream press – Newsweek, for example – were granted admission to various convention sessions.