Re: CP stuff

[Michael Hoover <HooverM@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 9/16/2004 8:58:11 AM >>>
CB: This is just to dissent from the claim that the CP tied itself to
the Democratic Party in 1936. Or that "puppet" is the accurate way to
describe CPUSA relationship to the Comintern.
Of course, the CP, like anybody had made mistakes, (since nobody is
infallable :>) ), but to call the CP relationship to the DP the most
serious political error in US history is an error of exaggeration and
leftwing infantilist slander.  We can just as easily say that the CP
made fewer and lesser mistakes than all other left trends and parties in
the U.S.
On relationship to the DP, the CPUSA has run a number of candidates for
President and other offices since 1936. During McCarthyism it was not
practical to run candidates, though in 1948 CP members played a big part
in the Wallace campaign. The relationship to the DP has been more like
Manning
Marable's proposal in 2000 that the C of C have an "inside/outside"
strategy in relation to the DP.
Also, this criticism of the CP fails to take account of the fascist
attacks of McCarthyism , which make it incumbant upon a Communist Party
in the U.S. to retain sort of exaggerated legality and legitimacy, to
protect itself. In
other words, the CP has to have a certain strategy of wrapping itself
in American "political culture and custom",so as not to be characterized
as UNAmerican.
<<<<>>>>

cp mistakes?
dissolving itself in '44, although decision had certain logic given
that party's chief form of electoral activity had become supporting
candidates from other parties (believe browder - always an easy foil -
said something to effect that it made no sense for cp to pretend to be a
party contesting for power in its own right), perhaps this was
'consequence' of party having entered political mainstream in late
'30s/early '40s...

flip-flops in '39 (hitler-stalin pact) and '45 (eugene dennis' 'five
minutes to midnite' line describing foster's left sectarianism that
precluded 'conventional' politics), eroded most of whatever 'liberal
good will' party had developed...

'48 decision to form independent party that drove away some still
important allies in left-wing of dem party and certain unions...

'49 decision to have smith act defendants rely on marxist theory rather
than constitutional/civil libertarian arguments...

interestingly, cp might have survived had it been sect along lines of
most other 'marxist-socialist' groups, repeating comment i made in
previous post, post-ww2 anti-left attacks probably *doomed* party no
matter political direction it might have taken...   michael hoover


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