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Recently got a book from 1993 titled NEW STUDIES IN THE POLITICS AND
CULTURE OF US COMMUNISM that is quite good. Mark Naison, who wrote the
excellent COMMUNISTS IN HARLEM DURING THE DEPRESSION, has a chapter called
REMAKING AMERICA: COMMUNISTS AND LIBERALS IN THE POPULAR FRONT. Naison
makes clear that the CPUSA had its greatest successes building the CIO
because they knew when to shut up and not wear their politics on their
sleeve, something that seems elusive to many people today. For all that can
said about juche, they did demonstrate they are a little flexible by
calling themselves a Workers Party.
A friend of mine pointed out recently that a political candidate running
under a Working Families Party banner would win easily. The issue at hand
is that Leftists do not know when they are failing to act politically and
instead like a religion. Politics is about compromises and coalitions with
those you do not agree with. Union organizers who want to be successful
need to be willing to work with laborers who are white supremacists, wife
beaters, and all sorts of other undesirable things. If they don't want to
include them, they are begging for those undesirable folks to be scabs or
stoolies. The recent book RECONSTRUCTING LENIN talks about how Lenin said
that Bolsheviks must not isolate and must be willing to join bourgeois
parties in a pre-revolutionary situation.
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2016 14:56:32 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com>
To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
<marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>
Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: Elena Mora resigns from the CPUSA ? Houston
Communist Party
Message-ID: <56955a70.1070...@panix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Bernie S?anders? popularity does not alter in any way the negative
connotations of the words ?communism? and ?Communist Party.? As a matter
of fact, his popularity is an argument in favor of changing our name; in
favor of trying to create an organization that reflects and represents
the values he talks about and to which people are attracted.
?I have been pushing for such big changes, first and foremost, in our
name, but more than that. I?m for an entirely new formation with
radical, democratic, egalitarian, humanistic, ecological, socialist
politics; with an organizational culture that encourages innovation and
experimentation, requires critical discussion and scrupulous realism,
and prizes collectivity and transparency.
I think we need an organization that fits how people live, work, think
and feel today, which is so profoundly different from even a decade, let
alone a century, ago.
full: http://houstoncommunistparty.com/elena-mora-resigns-from-the-cpusa/
--
Best regards,
Andrew Stewart
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