Communist Party USA encourages members to vote for Democrats
Communist Party USA encourages members to vote for Democrats
The Communist Party USA claims they are "small d democrats"
The Communist Party USA has received criticism on social media due to a recent Tweet encouraging party members to vote for the Democratic Party this upcoming midterm election.
The Response
The Tweet resulted in the CPUSA becoming the next online viral political joke, “small d democrats” one would assume, alludes to the decades of Communist Party impotency in the United States.
Shortly after the post, Communist Party members and online critics shared memes poking fun at the Communist Party and their party platform of tailing of Democrats.
A Party of contradictions
The Communist Party wants to project a message that they are voting against fascism despite the Democratic Party and Republican Party both sharing consistent traits observed during the historical development of fascism.
Fascism can be succinctly understood as R. Palme Dutt outlines in his book: Fascism and Social Revolution
Fascism, in fact, is no peculiar, independent doctrine and system arising in opposition to existing capitalist society. Fascism, on the contrary, is the most complete and consistent working out, in certain conditions of extreme decay, of the most typical tendencies and policies of modem capitalism.
What are these characteristics which are common, subject to a difference in degree, to all modern capitalism and to Fascism?
The most outstanding of these characteristics may be summarised as follows:
The basic aim of the maintenance of capitalism in the face of the revolution which the advance of productive technique and of class antagonisms threatens.
The consequent intensification of the capitalist dictatorship.
The limitation and repression of the independent working-class movement, and buildingup of a system of organised class co-operation.
The revolt against, and increasing supersession of, parliamentary democracy.
The extending State monopolist organisation of industry and finance.
The closer concentration of each imperialist bloc into a single economic-political unit.
The advance to war as the necessary accompaniment of the increasing imperialist antagonisms.
The Communist Party Serves Imperialism
When we analyze how fascism has historically developed, it is a result of the current economic system failing, and the crisis that emerges gives rise to the traits shown above, concentration of power, escalation of imperialist war, monopolization of finance capital, and so-on.
The Democratic Party and Republican Party both, since they are ultimately servants of finance capital, meet the majority of the traits Dutt lays out in his book.
Even more concerning is that the so-called Communist Party in the United States is encouraging its members to vote for a party that only seeks to escalate conflict in the on-going Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Democratic Party has been consistent in voting to send aid to Ukraine, a country with a glaring Nazi problem.
The history of the current conflict in Ukraine must be understood in the span of decades, not months. The United States played a significant role in the historical development of nationalistic tendencies within Ukraine.
Vote Blue, No Matter Who
We heard the phrase “A vote for a third-party is a vote for Donald Trump” during the 2016 election. Now in 2022, we are already seeing the finger wagging from liberals and so-called progressives against voting for independent and third party candidates, as it is a vote for the “fascist Republicans.”
The CPUSA does not officially endorse specific candidates from other political parties, however it is disingenuous to suggest that the CPUSA is not advocating its members to vote for Democratic candidates. For instance, in a recent Peoples World article, John Bachtell, former national chair for CPUSA, gave a glowing review of the Democratic Party while harshly criticizing republics. Bachtell ended the article with:
“The choice is clear.”
The way in-which CPUSA dances around a lack of specific candidate endorsement is done through rigorous criticisms of the Republican Party.
In a special message video from co-chair Joe Sims, it is clear he is aware of the corporate control of both the Democratic and Republican Party but seems to put emphasis on criticizing Republican donors.
The Communist Party would be wise to recall how Thaelmann’s words were denounced as being “Moscow inspired” similarly to how any modern criticisms of the Democratic Party are excused away as pro-Putin Russian propaganda. Anti-imperialism is tossed aside for finance capital.
Organizational Security
The party suffers from other problems aside from tailing the Democratic Party. For instance, in a demonstration of poor operational security, an official CPUSA Zoom meeting was interrupted by online streamer Haz Al-Din from the Infrared Show, calling out co-chair Joe Sims for his alleged slander against Haz Al-Din and his followers.
Haz Al-Din is not currently a member of the Communist Party but actively encourages his followers to join the CPUSA to take over the party.
Haz Al-Din and his initiative to take over the Communist Party, while we are not covering this in-depth, we mention this incident here as a very recent example of poor organizational security.
Secure meetings between party co-chairs and party members should not be interrupted by external forces. The Democratic and Republican Party surely does not suffer from this issue.
Information Security
Another glaring issue, though often overlooked, is the Communist Party allowing chapters to use Google as an email provider that has an established track record and legislative backing to share its user data with the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Communist Party should not allow members to use insecure communications to conduct party business given the history of the United States Government infiltrating Communist organizations.
In 2012, then CIA Chief David H. Petraeus had details regarding his affair revealed as a result of using a shared Gmail account. With the ease of access to encrypted email communications, there is no excuse to allow this level of poor information security.
The Communist Party needs new leadership
We can only hope the Communist Party co-chairs Joe Sims and Rossana Cambron reevaluate the state of the party and resign from their positions as co-chairs. The demonstrated failure of the party to garner any popular support from the working class is a result of tactics. It seems our comrades have forgotten strategy & tactics from the Foundations of Leninism.
Unfortunately, self-critique does not seem to be a trait of the current party leadership. If leadership does not take these glaring issues with the party seriously, it is up to party members to use the organs of the party to oust the revisionist leadership.
The Communist Party should be the premier party of the American working class, completely separated from the finance capital monopolists that own the Democratic and Republican Party.