Supplement to La Vie Réelle in English; September 1st, 2011

Committee for a Leninist CPUSA

Socialism, USA and the Emperors

By Daniel Paquet

T

he top priority for mankind is the reproduction of the human species; this is the reason why economy is so decisive.  But, there is a sharp contradiction: millions of workers in USA, for instance, use their mental and physical energy –on a daily basis-, to create the national wealth while a few people monopolize the profits; in France and elsewhere, they are known as the “bourgeois”.

“For many decades now the history of industry and commerce has been but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule.”  (Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The Communist Manifesto, Washington Square Press, New York, 1977, p. 67)

In the United States of America, the mass media refer often to “American Exception” which allows the working class to by-pass the crisis endured by the working people all around the world.  However, this is not an exception; it is rather a lucky situation; chiefly due to the fact that North America is a very rich continent.  You can find everything there:  oil, gas, forests, water, gold, iron…  Name it, you got it! (Photo Internet:  Gus Hall, late General Secretary of the Communist Party USA).

Further, the climate is wonderful and diverse. One can grow fruits and vegetables (for example in California and Florida); one can raise cattle on a vast territory (in the Mid-West); there are vast prairies to harvest cereals and grains; immigration brought in quite regularly wise and gifted people; and, though regrettably WW1 and WW2 took their toll in human lives, no material damages occurred in America; on the contrary, as a result new and significant markets opened up for US industries.   In addition, USA has a northern “appendage”, Canada, which is a reservoir of natural resources; let us just mention energy (electricity, oil and gas).

The country is ready, from a material and objective viewpoint, to embark on the road to socialism.  Nevertheless, there is a major obstacle:  the absence of a “General Staff” for the working class, in relation with the drift to the right of the leadership of the CPUSA, under Sam Webb and Co.

This is temporary.  It has not been always the case, whatsoever were the hysterical anti-communist campaigns of the capitalist class and its mass-media; we should not forget the role of the US State (government and amalgamated institutions: schools, universities, publishing houses…), and other supports, including the stand of corrupted trade-union leaders.

But, we remember the late General Secretary, Gus Hall, who led the party and contributed to the development of communist ideas in his homeland.  His successor did not follow suit.

At the time of the Russian revolution in October 1917, the communist leader, Vladimir Lenin, wrote to the US workers:   “We know that help from you will probably not come soon, comrade American workers, for the revolution is developing in different countries in different forms and at different tempos (and it cannot be otherwise). […] We are banking on the inevitability of the world revolution, but this does not mean that we are fools as to bank on the revolution inevitably coming on a definite and early date.” (V.I. Lenin, Letter To American Workers, Collected Works, vol. 28, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, pp. 62-75)

On the other hand, Big Capital has the financial capacity to bribe some strata of the working class, aka as the “labor aristocracy”.  It is not surprising that the current leadership of the Communist Party USA flirts with reformism and even worse with right-wing opportunism (just read their web page on Internet, named People’s World).   Of course, there is a growing opposition within this party, especially among the rank-and-file members and several communist parties in other parts of the world, also opposed to the practical liquidation of the US party.

Stalin and America

For many people, communism equates to Stalin.  Right or wrong?  Right!  Once the general objectives of socialism are known:  political power to the workers (the dictatorship of the proletariat), planned economy, prosperity for the people, freedom and general well-being in all aspects of life; we then understand why Big Capital is so afraid of Stalin.   On the other hand, since our childhood, we were taught the so-called practices of Stalin:  genocide, totalitarianism and terror against the whole of the Soviet people.

Today, with partial access to Russian Archives and the testimonies of contemporary Soviet citizens, we learn that it was a terrible and fantastic mystification.  “The image of Stalin as “mass murderer” originated, for all practical purposes, during Khrushchev’s time.  The very first such accusations, those that laid the foundation for the myth –and it is precisely a myth with which we are concerned here- are in the ‘Secret Speech.’  […]  After the ‘Secret Speech’ the quantity of ‘crimes’ attributed to Stalin continued to grow.  For example, not long afterwards Stalin began to be blamed for the executions on false charges of prominent Soviet military leaders.  While Khrushchev remained in power a pleiade of semi-official writers continued to work indefatigably on adding to the list of victims of supposedly unjust sentences, and many of those persons were ‘rehabilitated’-declared to have been guilty of nothing.” (Furr, Grover, Khrushchev Lied, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering-Ohio, 2011, p. 148)

There are allegations that Stalin was murdered; with his death, the construction of socialism in Soviet Union was stopped; it is naturally a temporary setback. 

USA is a beautiful and rich country; its greatest wealth is the youth, to be more specific:  the young workers. They are intelligent and they want to learn and to know; they are even more ready to combat their ignorance.

Events and upheavals show that people do not want to be led the old way; let us recall the struggles in Wisconsin.  As Stalin said in his time, “ the new period is one of open class collisions, of revolutionary action by the proletariat, of proletarian revolution, a period when forces are being directly mustered for the overthrow of imperialism and the seizure of power by the proletariat (more or less the case in Tunisia and Egypt, Ed.) In this period the proletariat is confronted with new tasks, the tasks of reorganizing all party work on new, revolutionary lines; of educating the workers in the spirit of revolutionary struggle for power; of preparing and moving up reserves; of establishing an alliance with proletarians of neighboring countries…” (Stalin, Joseph, The Foundations of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975, p. 95)

Time to struggle

In the maple leaf country, the working people are generally informed about the situation in USA, at least from the economic point of view.  The prevailing feeling is admiration for the US people (though there is a strong rejection of wars and the arrogant attitude of domination by the corporate elite).  In Canada, they know Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz and Jim Carrey as if these artists were members of the family.

Those personalities are promoted by the mass media; but where is the medium of the workers?  “The role of a newspaper, however, is not limited solely to the dissemination of ideas, to political education, and the enlistment of political allies.  A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator; it is also a collective organizer.  […]  With the aid of the newspaper, and through it, a permanent organization will naturally take shape that will engage, not only in local activities, but in regular general work, and will train its members to follow political events carefully, appraise their significance and their effect on the various strata of the population, and develop effective means for the revolutionary party to influence those events.”  (Lenin, On the organizational principles of a proletarian party, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1972, p. 74).

We hear often:  God Bless America!  This America is not the America of the pundits, the well-to-do and the merciless tycoons - the modern Emperors-; it is the America of the ordinary workers, Believers or not.  We can say to them, like the movie:  “Good Night and Good Luck!”

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