the contribution of the communist party

[Charles Brown]

Thanks to Louis Pro for his long essay on CP
history with some balance between negative
and postive criticism. There are historians
of that tale other than Draper who have a different take
on the level of control by or independence from
Moscow and Stalin, role and rank and file
support for Lovestone, and the other issues.
For example, William Foster,
Carl Winter, Roger Keeran and others. 
An example of a factual difference is
that the CP differentiated itself from the Socialist
Party from the beginning in its split from
the SP (portrayed in the movie Reds) on
the status of Black workers. The SP dissolved
the race question into the class question. Negro
workers are just workers. The CP from the beginning
analyzed Negro workers as specially nationally 
oppressed. A group the Black Blood  Brotherhood joined
the CP en masse, as a group at its founding 
because of this difference. Also, the Comintern
and the CPUSA considered the Negro People
to have the right to national self-determination, i.e.
the right to secede and form a separate nation. 

The tough issue here, which Louis' summary of
the horrendous and wellknown 
crimes of Stalin and Stalinism rightfully helps
pose, is that those crimes do not mean
that every position or idea that Stalin or
Stalinists had on other issues 
was incorrect because of
the specific crimes and criminal ideas 
listed. This is morally repugnant, but 
logically true, a very difficult paradox.

 An example is the right of self-determination
of the Negro People ( which is a very
dialectical application of the principles
of the national question )or even the issues, Popular
Front or Browder's expulsion ,that Louis discusses.

I don't know whether this thread will
continue. If it does, I don't know whether

 what today's Left needs from CP history
is more debate and discussion of the issues
Louis raises, although he does suggest we
learn from the history. I guess the list "collective"
will decide this. If the decision is to examine
it further, I will go get some other sources on
the history, not because I say they are all
right and Louis' all wrong, but because 
they are not just nothings on this issue. They
cannot just be dismissed as works of 
Moscow hacks. I am sure most don't want
to argue who really had the majoirty in
1925 in the CP. On the otherhand, whether
Browder's proposal to dissolve the CP as
a political party and become an educational
association was correct might 
have some pertinence today.
For example, I would say the CPUSA has
become a museum or college in fact at
this point, ironically fulfilling Browder's
goal. That is only half a joke. It also
gets back to the same tough issue that
a lot of non-Party Lefts , especially academic
Lefts think they can just
dismiss the CP as brainless or anti-intellectual. 
This is a big error by the intellectual Left, if 
only because the CP has a lot of the books.
But even more because practice is critical
to Marxist epistemology, academic Marxism 
is fundamentally handicapped.

Certainly, if the Left is to become an activist
and not mostly discussion sector, the trials
and errors of the CP practice must educate us.

Charles Brown


>>> Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> 08/06 11:29 AM >>>
"Our Party alone knows where to direct the cause; and it is leading it
forward successfully. To what does our Party owe its superiority? To the
fact that is a Marxian Party, a Leninist Party. It owes it to the fact that
it is guided in its work by the tenets of Marx, Engels and Lenin. There
cannot be any doubt that as long as we remain true to these tenets, as long
as we have this compass, we will achieve success in our work."

What could this be, words from a Maoist sect's leaflet vintage 1967?
Actually, the words are by Joseph Stalin, from "Foundations to Leninism".
That Stalin could represent himself as the foremost Marxist thinker in the
world from the late 1920's to the 1950's does more to explain the current
crisis in socialism today than anything else. Not only did this hogwash
pass for Marxism during this period, if anybody attempted to present a
political alternative they would end up with broken teeth or a bullet to
the head.

etc. etc. etc. at length