- cross-posted to:
- communism@lemmy.ml
- cpusa@lemmygrad.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5141613
From the Tweet:
"The Communist Party USA is saddened to learn about the passing of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Our Party sends condolences to all members of the Communist Party of Vietnam and to all the people of Vietnam."
Wow, Comprador Party USA not completely flubbing a public response? Are these the weeks where decades happen?
(Who am I kidding, CPUSA is still going to be worse than useless)
CPUSA is best at multi-track drifting, they curtsy to Cuban and Chinese communist parties and stab everyone in the back with their crypto-Bidenism and endorsement of the IMCWP imperialist pyramid theory (all capitalist states = imperialist).
props to being the very first person I've ever heard use the phrase "crypto-bidenism" and having it actually make full and complete sense
The IMCWP is patronized by China and Cuba.
The CPUSA has also hosted a speaker from the CPC in the years past, but this is for the purposes of fostering internationalism it doesn't indicate they've taken this geopolitically clueless stance of ordering Russian troops "out of Ukraine". CPUSA and most of IMCWP as far as I am aware sides with the KKE on Ukraine. Articles by leadership of CPUSA with actual power describes an alliance against Trump as the #1 prerogative of this election. That's pretty duplicitous considering all of their friendly talk about the CPC they are willing to put out there are well. Our relatively impotent situation should cement to people the urgency of building power outside the uniparty of war and global debt slavery.
Actually, most of the IMCWP does not side with the KKE; the KKE is at odds with everyone else in the IMCWP.
CPUSA has a peace stance vis a vis the Ukraine war and goes by the policy of other communist parties.
What you describe is not duplicitous and you have yet to explain really why.
these three things are irreconcilable to me:
Re: "calling Russia military operation in Ukraine illegal"
You're right, a part of the party's position is that it was wrong and in violation of International Law. The suffering of the working class has escalated as a consequence of the war.
But this alone would be a surface level analysis. The party recognizes:
Thus, our "main task has to be to work to develop a peace movement and to change the Biden administration’s policy. That’s the best way and only way to support the workers of Russia and Ukraine." Not idealistically decry Russia's actions and do nothing, despite US-imperialism creating the situation in the first place. That is the core of our position, that which informs our priorities and our actions.
That's the weird part, it's easier to deal with completely clueless randoms who don't understand Ukraine's post-Maidan government has been conducting ethnic cleansing campaigns that started a civil war than it is to deal with people upholding the CPUSA's line. Here the CPUSA is telling me I need to be pragmatic and push the democrats left by siding with them in an "anti-Trump coalition", because actually Putin should have been even more idle and insensitive in the face of the ethnic cleansing. I don't really want to debate whether the party is run by Bidenists after the way they've treated people who tried to talk about the genocide, versus the way they've treated the Communist Party of Israel.
Why do they line up with the KKE in condemning the SMO for the past 2 years? Why do they blame Russia for the post-Maidan govt purging communists?
Every time I talk to CPUSA people they just say no no no we don't believe that and then my RSS feed updates with an article by Joe Sims that's even worse on an issue like AOC. What the hell is even going on in there guys?
They aren't, and either way, we never endorsed Biden.
🙄
Lo siento.
What's the full listing for parties on each side of the split? I don't mean to spread misinformation here. I call this duplicitous because the CPUSA does not have a peace stance on the war in Ukraine, when they say "Russian troops out of Ukraine" they mean the return of the territories considered to be Ukraine by the post Maidan government. This is based on the idea that NATO and Russia are both imperialist powers justifying "revolutionary defeatism". Most Marxists in the global south as far as I know have a more dependency minded view of Russia as a semi-peripheral state which has aligned with the periphery? Am I Bowlderizing this lol? Because using anti-imperialist messaging to convince people they are being represented by a party that scolds and threatens clubs into falling in line with their democrat tailism is a betrayal of the efforts of the members who end up getting purged trying to discuss a sane line on Palestine for instance.
The CPUSA doesn't believe that the Russian Federation is imperialist doh
We aren't worse than useless.
I mean, the more and more I read about the CPUSA the more I consider your upper leadership irredeemable and a leech on the local branches.
https://clarion.unity-struggle-unity.org/2024-02-22-cpusa-hypocrisy/
Hell if I was American, the FRSO would look much more appealing to me, partly because they have an actual stinkin' programme.
Then join the FRSO.
Also, we have a Party Program.
Not to be insulting but please read better. I'm not American. I'm Polish.
I know.
In what way is CPUSA better than useless?
Didn't the leadership just dissolve an active chapter for, in part, dissenting at the convention over Bidenism?
https://clarion.unity-struggle-unity.org/2024-07-16-austin-moving-on/
There is no Bidenism.
Also lol Austin Club and Red Clarion, they're kinda a laughing stock
Y'all are to the right of DSA on this election lmao
LOL I was thinking of this blog in particular thank you
This is resolution 5, which did not pass at the National Convention, nor has a version of it yet passed from the National Committee. A big part of the disagreement was the lack of mention of the Democratic party and its role in allowing our descent into fascism.
I largely agree with the resolution, but it is a fine line that has to be walked between building a People's Front against fascism, and subordination and class collaboration.
Thank you for an actual response. Your party has a god-awful reputation and stuff like this looks disgustingly unprincipled on its face
I ask again however, as I did elsewhere in this thread, who exactly is in this "People's Front" against fascism aside from CPUSA itself? The Democratic Party, itself a fascist organization, surely cannot be included
Definitely true in some digital circles like Hexbear. This hasn't been my experience on the ground, however.
It seems to me that, in cases like this, the discussions are initially framed from either a place of misunderstanding or malintent. It's a pretty fundamental fact that this resolution was not passed.
We define a "People's Front" or "Popular Front" as an alliance on specific issues, and the alliance is not necessarily based on class character. This is opposed to a "United Front," which is a more stable and permanent coalition of united working class orgs. It can be other communists, labor activists, liberals, Democrats, and other progressive groups.
Locally we have worked with progressive democrats, student orgs, housing activists, and even Catholic orgs on things like specific housing issues (e.g. property millage for funding local housing insecurity services) and forcing our city and county officials to call for a ceasefire in Palestine.
If we committed to blocking a Trump presidency, it should be a strategic one off, not subordination to a party that enforces the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Finally, we do not see the Democratic Party as a fascist organization. We define fascism using the comintern's definition as presented by Georgi Dmitrov: "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital".
This is not an excuse for the imperialist, settler-colonial, bourgeois-subservient Democratic Party, but there is a material difference between fascism and neoliberal orthodoxy. The conditions for organizing the masses becomes much more difficult when there is a ramp up in censorship, imprisonment, and outright executions of communists. This philosophy of "Social Fascism," where modern social democracy and fascism are equated, in part caused the communists to remove themselves from the masses and underestimate fascism. It led to a failure to prevent fascism in Bulgaria, Poland, Finland, and Germany pre-1935, hence the comintern's analysis.
I fail to see the distinction, particularly, when the Democratic Party is in full support of the genocide in Gaza.
Are we equating the Democratic Party with social democracy now?
It is oft said that "fascism is imperialism turned inwards," no? Again, it is a material difference of the conditions in which we mobilize the masses and build a revolution.
The Communist Party of Poland also didn't see the difference, they saw Pilsudiki's coup of 1926 as a simple bourgeois vs bourgeois conflict. When the new regime curtailed the powers of parliament, and pursued policies of censorship and suppression of leftist activities, the party changed its tune. But it was far too late - the ability to mobilize and communicate had been crushed.
Well, in pre-1935 Europe it was indeed the Social Democrats. But in terms of this specific function, the difference between the material conditions under a class-collaborationist party and an outright fascist party, yes I think the comparison is apt.
It is a failure of solidarity to ally, even tactically, with a genocidal regime, simply on the assumption that domestic conditions will be better for organizing. Moreover, yes, the Democratic Party has shown time and again that they are willing and eager to use the full, repressive force of state terror on the left. The numerous links between the military, the police, the intelligence apparatus and the genocidal regime in Israel are exactly the fascism coming home from the frontier and it is happening under the merely class collaborationist Democrats
Agreed. I'm not arguing that electing democrats stops fascism. The Democratic Party is complicit in the rise of fascism. What I am arguing, is blocking a Trump presidency as the resolution proposed helps mitigate an existential threat to building a revolution, an all powerful unitary executive, and an increasingly radical right-wing legislature that dismantles civil rights.
And it doesn't and shouldn't be done through a public advocation for the Democratic Party. For example, engaging in something like voter registration canvassing, and advocating for pro-worker ballot proposals, diminishes the likelihood of a Trump presidency, and more importantly, builds connections with other groups and the workers themselves.
Not an assumption, an observation that fits a historical pattern. And not just organizing - it is existential. The president now being legally completely above the law will only embolden capital, and the consolidation and expansion of the executive's powers will make it all the easier to escalate suppression against us and our comrades.
But, those are my thoughts as to the positives of such a resolution. It didn't pass, and if the National Committee does pass a revised version, I'll be very interested to see the changes.
How?
You mean the thing that is done under both parties, including right now?
What is the 'historical pattern'?
We are not.
I don't see any Bidenism and I don't even know what you mean by Bidenism.
We never even endorsed Biden.
Never! Btw LOVED how one of your justifications for calling for a ceasefire was that it helped Biden’s chances of winning against Trump! Let’s all “vote for democracy”!!
Sure.
Sure what?
From the CPUSA.org article “Not One Step Back — Vote Against Fascism 2024”:
But while we can forget the Joe Sims quote (he may have been misheard!), what we cannot forget is Lenin’s On Militant Materialism, where he very explicitly states that the CPSU did not have hyper strict standards for who/what they published, and that therefore not everything published represented the official stance of the party! Maybe CPUSA is simply following in Lenin‘s footsteps!
Everything is great until we look at this CPUSA-authored article, “the main report to the 32nd National Convention of the Communist Party USA, presented by Joe Sims, Co-Chair,” which “was unanimously adopted”:
Again, we don't endorse other candidates and even had a schism over it. And yes, we do subscribe to Lenin here. People's World, for example, is not the party voice officially. Notice how we don't do so in any of the articles cited.
…why would you reply “sure” to what I said? You effectively endorse Biden, but great you don’t officially do so. Why couldn’t you reply to my original comment with that empty nonsense?
Frankly, I was short on time and I didn't know how else to reply to what you were saying. It's hard when everyone's arguing with you and I was thinking to myself "Well, I'm not going to convince you." At least at the time, idk.
The party is here committing itself to electoralism on behalf of the Democrats with the thinnest figleaf of a self-declared "broad front" (who else is a member of this front exactly, btw?). Let's see here, who exactly is at the top of the ticket, and would be elected upon the defeat of Trump, and Trumpism. It's noted war criminal, Genocide Joe Biden! Guess you didn't endorse him, just fully committed yourselves to electing him.
They are not.
The party works with Dems and third-parties alike and only endorses its own candidates.
Okay I'm convinced
I don't know what to tell you. We see the same thing, and see a different picture, ig...
Well your commitment to democratic centralism is commendable at least
I mean, I have my disagreements with Nat'l, but I ain't just back-talking anyone because I disagree with a line here and there, if that's what you mean.
(Idk, I'm not smug rn, I just felt like posting an emoji, idk)
I got nothing new to contribute aside from the pretty rainbows on the side of my screen.
Rainbow Expansion, reporting for duty
noice
No. Many other districts (and by proxy, clubs) also dissented over resolution 5. Not only was there no "reprisal," but we have been asked for feedback on it.
We have not, however, broken democratic centralism.
Didn't you recently liquidate a chapter for 'black nationalism'?
EDIT: while also invoking MLK in your statement about your commitment to non-violence in response to the assassination attempt
We didn't. I'm in the organization. There was a lot more to that and with a big lead-up to it too.
Yes, we don't actively call for political violence and warn against it due to obvious reasons.
https://www.comradebirb.com/why-i-left-the-cpusa/
I respect their decision!