First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 15, August 9, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
After more than two decades of open support for Democratic Party presidential candidates, the revisionist Communist Party (CPUSA) is running its largest “independent” campaign. But despite the new format, the essence of the CP’s program remains the same–communist in word, imperialist in deed. It is still a program of defense of capitalism and support for bourgeois “democracy.”
The independent campaign of the CP to elect its general secretary Gus Hall to the U.S. presidency follows the revisionists’ open support for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and a half-hearted effort to run an independent in 1972. The ’72 effort, the CP admitted, resulted in more than half of the revisionist party members voting for McGovern. Hall himself bragged at the time: “We actually won more votes for McGovern than Shriver (McGovern’s running mate) did.”
The rank and file of the CP have been long schooled in the art of Democratic Party politics, and for them this new tactic of independent elections has been traumatic. It is no longer adequate for the CP to confine itself to influencing the Democratic Party from within. The new policy, while still directed at influencing the Democrats, is based on work from both within and without.
The continuing attempt to ride both the Democratic Party and independent horses was also seen in recent Daily World editorials, one of which reads: “The stronger the independent political forces, the greater will be their impact upon the two-party system and upon the reordering of priorities to put the people’s needs ahead of big-business profits.”
Alongside this view, the CP has backed various Democratic campaigns, such as Tom Hayden’s in the California senate race and the congressional campaigns of Shirley Chisholm and Herman Badilla in New York.
The CP’s new tactics have been determined by the rapidly growing war preparations of the two superpowers and the hegemonism of the Soviet Union in particular. These conditions have pushed the pro-Soviet parties to take a more aggressive posture throughout the world. As the U.S. bourgeoisie has grown weaker in its contention with the USSR, the revisionist parties throughout the world have increasingly begun to stress independent action. It is a sign of their growing strength.
Following the example of the Italian, French and Portuguese revisionists, the CP is trying to pump new life into the tired old shell of the revisionist movement. The Gus Hall clique is also maneuvering to keep in touch with the growing disillusionment of the masses of people with both ruling class parties.
To the revisionists, “detente” is the magic word in the campaign. Dropping nearly all pretenses of a communist program, Hall and his running mate Jarvis Tyner are doing everything possible to cover up the role of Soviet expansionism. They are promoting trade with the Soviet Union as the answer to all society’s problems. “Revolution” is a never-to-be-mentioned word in the campaign.
In one radio interview, for example, Hall went so far as to divert a question about the dictatorship of the proletariat (which the CPUSA long ago abandoned). His response to the question was that “this is not an issue in the present election.” Instead, the CP’s candidates have used what Hall termed “propaganda and agitation on a scale without precedent in our Party’s history” to sell “detente” to the American people – and most importantly, to the U.S. ruling class.
Hall’s tactic has been to link “detente” to the party’s line of “reordering priorities,” especially in terms of military spending. The revisionist line has long been to save capitalism by “restricting the power of monopoly.” This reformist strategy–what their program calls “radical reforms”–is the CP’s alternative to the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. For example, CP theoretician Victor Perlo writes in the March 20 Daily World: “Isn’t it urgent that real mass pressure develop to change the minds of members of Congress to set a real reduction in the military budget.. .and to help provide funds for people’s needs?”
This propaganda barrage for “detente” is aimed mainly at trying to convince the U.S. ruling circles that “detente” with the Soviet Union is in their class interest.
Says Hall: “We must expose the fact that detente has not been a one-way street (meaning that the USSR has gotten the best of the deal).. .Some circles of monopoly capital, in spite of this, are willing to bite off their nose of trade to spite their ideological faces.” Hall is begging the U.S. ruling class to drop their contention with the USSR in exchange for profit from trade.
The CP claims that trade with the Soviet Union is the answer to unemployment. A Daily World article goes so far as to say that if the U.S. would only disarm, 844,000 extra jobs could be provided for with the defense budget money. Is this the reasoning of Marxists?
Lenin showed that imperialism was a “system of war.” Neither U.S. nor Soviet imperialism is capable of disarming itself. The reality which the myth of “detente” is trying to hide is that both superpowers are arming and will continue to arm on a massive scale.
Furthermore, unemployment is a direct result of the capitalist mode of production. In order to maximize profits and increase competition among workers, a reserve army of unemployed must be kept on call by the capitalists. The CP’s attempt to attribute unemployment to the defense budget or to lack of Soviet trade covers up the essence of capitalism.
“A vote for the two old parties,” says Hall, “is a vote for more of the same. It is a wasted vote.” He then adds, “If you want the establishment to take notice, vote Communist.”
The establishment is indeed “taking notice.” To them, the revisionists are an ace in the hole for pacifying the rebelliousness of the rank-and-file movement as well as the growing resistance of the minorities. Hall, Tyner and revisionists like Angela Davis are appearing almost daily on radio and TV shows to spread their phony “communism.” On a recent “Tomorrow” show, Hall even placed himself at the service of the Zionist lobby, telling host Tom Snyder that he has and could continue to act as a liaison to the Soviet Union to council them towards more “humane” treatment for Russian Jews. Like Democrat Jimmy Carter, the Hall campaign is trying to be all things to all people.
While the Hall-Tyner campaign isn’t likely to get a significant number of votes (the various Trotskyist sects have in the past out-polled the revisionists in election campaigns), their campaign should be taken seriously. The revisionist party is one more voice in the service of capitalism. It is one more voice covering up the growing war danger and its source, the two superpowers in general and the USSR in particular. Revisionism is even more dangerous because it has state power in a number of countries and is playing the role of a “fifth column” in the U.S. for Soviet social-imperialism.
But the campaign also lets the people see the true face of the CPUSA. Throughout the campaign, they are forced to drop their communist mask and expose themselves as the agents of imperialism.