Bureaucracy; CPUSA; CPSU

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Bureaucracy; CPUSA; CPSU
by Devine, James
08 April 2002 17:00 UTC



I wrote:>>But wasn't Earl Browder -- a long-term leader who was quite
popular with the CPUSA's rank and file members -- kicked out of the
leadership of the CPUSA for disagreeing with the Party Line handed down by
Moscow? <<

Charles Brown writes:>On Browder, I was going to use him as an example of
the ability to remove the very top leader in the CPUSA  . He was General
Secretary. <

In most historical interpretations, the top leader of the CPUSA wasn't the
real top leader, since the CPUSA was subordinate to the COMINTERN or
COMINFORM...

^^^^^^^^

CB: "Most" ? You mean most anti-CPUSA historical interpretations. I don't think you can claim the implication of some kind of "authority of the majority" on this issue.  " Some " do and "some" don't.

Comintern did not exist at the time of Browder's removal.


^^^^^^^



 (Note: I do not believe that the CPUSA was simply a "puppet" of
the USSR. It had to also keep its own rank and file happy and so reflected
their wishes to some extent. When they didn't as with the Hitler/Stalin pact
or the "secret speech" of 1956, they lost members in droves. Though the
organization involved bureaucracy, it was not purely so, because of the role
of the member's "exit" option, and to a lesser extent their votes and
statements of opinion.)


^^^^^^^^

CB: "Keeping the rank and file happy" is still a negative portrayl. There is an implication that the "rank and file" didn't agree with "Moscow's" position. You have no evidence of this. For all you know the rank and file agreed with "Moscow" more than the leadership did.  Leaders left too, in disagreement.  Here we are discussing Browder leaving.

Of course the positive way to portray all this is the internationalism of the CP's, the respect for a Party that had won a successful revolution. The latter is can be positive as a break with the usual American/Western supremacism and exceptionalism, by which Americans would not see themselves following anybody else's lead, particularly not a bunch of "Slavs".

This is just more of the same.  All Americans are saturated with anti-Soviet approaches to the vast majority of issues, they don't even think of the positive aspects or dimensions of things like the relationship between the Soviet and US Party.

Marx and Engels noted that the unique role of Communists is to consider the impact on the working class and its movement as a _whole_ (That holism is critical in the Levins Lewontin dialectical approach , as you point out) In this case the _whole_ working class is the world working class. The Parties are supposed to construe the interests of the Soviet and US and all other working classes in an important aspect of their approach. Once again this approach puts the US Party's attitude toward the Soviet Union in a much different light than the typical anti-CP/Soviet portrayal with total emphasis on failings, undue influence or whatever. Yes, all Communists considered the Russian Revolution their revolution, because the movement is an internationalist movement. It is positive ,not negative, that John Reed and Bill Haywood are buried in the Kremlin. It is positive, not negative, that "Moscow" and the CPUSA tried to work together and as united as possible, despite the fact that th!
e CPUSA was attacked for that from the beginning by the US state apparatus as an agent of a foreign power, deporting immigrant members and all that.

^^^^^^^^


CB:>There was a letter from a French, not Moscow, Communist , named DeClou
(sp.) criticizing Browder's proposal that the CP become an educational
organization rather than a political party. In general, that was termed
liquidationism, liquidating the party...<

Most interpret that letter as a statement of the opinion of the leadership
of the COMINTERN/FORM. That opinion had a very strong impact, indicating the
power of that international, Moscow-centered, organization.

^^^^^^^^

CB: "Most" anti-Soviet commentators.

This is a circular argument based on no evidence presented. It just assumes , as it always does, that Moscow is in control and therefore , no one in France could have that opinion independently.    There were no genuine followers of Leninism, with its experience with liquidation of the Party, in France. They were all just mouthing what they got from Moscow.  What exactly was Moscow's ability to enforce its decisions in France ?

How is it that Browder doesn't even claim that it was anyone but he who had the idea of dissolving the Party ? How is that democratic ? Sounds despotic to me ?  The top guy suddenly unilaterally, without the support of any of the other elected leaders, dissolves the Party. That's "bureaucratic" ,not democratic.