Have you ever been to the Website of the Communist Party USA? It's worth studying, if only to compare the policy positions taken by the Communists with your own. Are you a fellow traveler? Are you a friend or ally of the left? Perhaps, up until now, you have been following the party line unwittingly. And what, pray tell, is the party line? "A better world is possible," says the Communist Party USA, "a world where people come before profits. That's socialism. That's our vision." The Communists also want us to support the elimination of America's nuclear arsenal through the observance of "Nuclear Abolition Day." They want to end the travel ban to Communist Cuba. They condemn Israel's brutality on the high seas, and support oppressed people everywhere. They are concerned about global warming, and hate the wicked machinations of finance capital.
Communists aren't likely to support the oppressed of Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam, or Zimbabwe. Understandably, the American Communist does not dwell upon the brutalities of Communist rule in other countries. He wants to establish a positive image in order to win new "friends and allies." As it happens, the Communists in America have countless friends and allies: in schools and universities, on newspapers and on television, even in government.
The leader of the Communist Party USA, Sam Webb, offered the following "verbal remarks" to the 29th National Convention of the Communist Party USA last month: He congratulated Communism's "friends and allies" on recent achievements. "What a difference between now and five years ago when we convened in Chicago!" he exclaimed. "At that time a Puerto Rican woman raised in the South Bronx didn't sit on the Supreme Court. Then the president didn't call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Millions had no health care and no promise of it in the near future.... We weren't in a position to fight for a progressive agenda, but on the defensive. The pendulum of power didn't yet tilt in favor of working people, people of color, women and their allies. And, an African American wasn't president."
According to Webb, Obama's election ended "the long night of rule" when the country's most reactionary groups were in power. The Communists, with help from their allies and friends, had pushed back the reactionaries. But, he warned, "Corporate negligence is killing miners and oil workers" while a "racist and anti-immigrant offensive is thick in the air, the planet's temperature is rising, debt is piling up, and the right wing and finance capital ... are regrouping and trying their damnedest to reconstitute their power." The key to thwarting rightwing extremism, lectured Webb, is to keep following the applied strategy that "deepened our mass connections" contributing to the "historic victory in 2008...." It is vital, Webb explained, "that we further build and unite the working class based coalition that came together to elect President Obama." This coalition must grow stronger, in order to "consolidate the victory against rightwing extremism and, in doing so, weaken the capitalist class as a whole."
The Communists, says Webb, know that they cannot "skin the rightwing cat" by themselves. They need a popular movement up front, a broad "people's coalition" that extends far outside the political left. The Communist Party also needs "good sense in its strategic orientation, flexibility in its tactics, and freshness and imagination in its analysis." In that event, says Webb, Communism's best days "are ahead of us!" It is also important to realize, he explained, that "we are part of an international movement." Yes, that's right. Part of something much larger.
A decisive victory over the right is possible, noted the Communist leader. "Thus, the struggle against the right, as some suggest, doesn't submerge or bypass or postpone the class struggle; on the contrary, it is evident that it brings to the surface, clears the ground, and creates a more favorable terrain for a more open struggle against finance capital, corporate power, neo-liberalism, and imperial rule. For now we are in a transitional stage."
The language is familiar to those who have studied the long range strategy of the Communist movement globally. It is also the language of Soviet strategy. "In short," said Webb, "people's anger is growing, the popular mood is changing, and the coalition that elected the president is moving forward again. Yes we can!"
And yes, the Communists can. How is this possible? Lenin provided an answer many years ago when he wrote a famous little aside, which reads as follows: "As a result of my observations," noted Lenin, "I have concluded that the so-called cultured classes of Western Europe and America are incapable of comprehending the current situation and the real balance of forces; these classes should be regarded as deaf and dumb and treated accordingly."
In light of this, Lenin conceived of a special maneuver. He proposed that Communism might appear to lose control of the Soviet government, and Russia might swerve toward capitalism. "The deaf and dumb will believe it," he emphasized. "Telling the truth is a bourgeois superstition. On the contrary, it is the end that sanctifies the lie. While chasing profits in the Soviet market, the world's capitalists will close their eyes to reality and thus change into deaf and dumb blind men. They will give us credits that will help us to maintain Communist Parties in their countries and, by supplying us with essential materials, will rebuild the war industry we need for our future victorious attacks on our suppliers. In other words, they will be working toward their own suicide."
So the leader of the Communist Party USA can say openly, in plain view, what his party is doing. The deaf and dumb will not realize what is happening. The top Communist leadership is calling for "an incredible grassroots effort" by labor, women, youth immigrants and "racially oppressed people." These will be mobilized to "turn back rightwing extremism and increase the Democratic majority in both chambers in Congress." Nobody believes that the Communist Party USA is behind anything. It is hardly understood, at the same time, why it is Russia's "democratic" leaders haven't buried Lenin. "What is the moral of the story?" asks Webb. "It isn't that socialism is around the corner; it isn't." But a new era is upon us, "defined by an intensification of class and people's struggles..." As Fredrick Engels once wrote: "With this successful utilization of universal suffrage ... an entirely new method of proletarian struggle came into operation..."
This is the game of hate, as played today.
