Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net>
Charles: A problem with replying to what you say below is that you are mixing the CPUSA with the CPSU or CPRF or CPBelarus
Are you saying that leaders of the CPUSA gave a platform to anti-Semites ? Are you saying that leaders of the CPUSA were, unlike the rank and file of the party, not nice, not open hearted, not passionate ? That this gap between the rank and file and the leaders is typical of Stalinism ? But not found in social democratic parties ?
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Chris (and CB) Alot of the nicest leftists I've known and met have been CPUSA or ex-CPUSA. Mostly rank and file Jimmy Higgins types (a few leaders like the recently deceased William "Bill" Sennett who fought the fascists in Spain), either Jewish or Slavic, Polish, Italian, etc. in the open hearted, passionate way I remember from East Coast cities. Folks that walked many a picket line and endured much, to build what elements there are of racial, social and economic justice in this country and give some breathing room to the Vietnamese, Nicaraguans, South Africans, etc. A cliche (which doesn't make this one false) heard by many, "tourists of the revolution, " as Hans Magnus Enzenberger termed it, is to distinguish between the people and the USG.I distinguish bwteen that nice elderly couple that gave you the use of their couch to sleep on for 2 months, and leaders of their Party that give a platform to such anti-semites as Anpilov http://www.communist-party.ca/english/spark/html/ANPILOV.html
http://www.panorama.ru/works/patr/bp/1eng.html NATIONALISM, EXTREMISM AND XENOPHOBIA Extremism and xenophobia in electoral campaigns in 1999 and 2000 Vladimir Pribylovsky NATIONAL PATRIOTS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE ELECTION FOR THE THIRD STATE DUMA
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/317/cprf.html Michael Malkin examines the Great Russian chauvinism and anti-semitism of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
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