US Communists, ever hopeful, say they’re coming back
The Communist Party USA has a new office in trendy Chelsea in Manhattan and they say this is the start of a new era in their organizations history.
By Matt Kennard on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 - 1,420 words.
The new hip and trendy face of Communism in the U.S.: 24-year-old New Jersey-native Sam Delgado. (By Matt Kennard)
The décor inside the national headquarters of the Communist Party USA, or CPUSA, is more Macy’s than Marx. Glass walls rise up from the floor to form state-of-the-art work spaces, nontoxic linseed oil burnishes the work-surfaces, and biodegradable blue carpet is underfoot. Colorful paintings by the renowned artists Boris Taslitzky and Alejandro Romero, depicting the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and working-class struggle, dot the walls of the expansive open-plan office. Inside their transparent cubicles, the 21-strong staff tap away on Apple Macs and sip Starbucks coffee.
This is what class warfare looks like in the 21st century.
Last year, the CPUSA officially unveiled its newly refurbished office space in the trendy Chelsea district of Manhattan. The Reds went “green” for their $1 million overhaul, including various environmentally conscious features in the design. Huge windows and transparent walls were installed to take advantage of the sunlight and create greater energy efficiency. They also installed occupancy sensors so artificial lighting would not be wasted, and nontoxic building materials were used to reduce health risks to staff.
The new office is the symbol of a new era in the Communist movement and what its members hope will be the first step in a return from the political fringes.
“It’s a very exciting time for the organization,” said Sam Delgado, a 24-year-old web content developer and spokesperson for CPUSA. “When I first joined the movement in 1999, there were no young people. That’s not true any more. The offices, they were dark and dingy and depressing; now look at it!”
As the new frontman of the Communist Party, Delgado, a New Jersey-native and video production expert, bears a greater resemblance to the Rock than to Che Guevara. Like the other 20 staff member–whose roles in the office range from the finance department to national leadership–he earns a paltry but equal $26,000 per year. The Party’s income comes from a combination of donations and bequests—with enough left over for the million dollar renovation.
“We’re part of a new generation,” Delgado said. “The younger people are re-evaluating our presence and how we put ourselves forward. We renovated the national office and now we want to create a new digital space.”
With two other young converts to the revolutionary struggle, Delgado has formed a new technology buzz-team, which aims to announce a new Web site at the end of the year. The Youth Communist League already has a fully operational Myspace page, with 250 buddies with names like “Maoism” and “Socialism.” The Texas branch of CPUSA proudly displays a cartoon of Karl Marx in a cowboy hat on its Web site, and the party has even jumped on the YouTube bandwagon, with a video presentation of the new office set to tongue-in-cheek ’70s music fit for an episode of “Shaft.”
Delgado claims results. “We have turned a corner recently,” he said. “We get two or three new members every week.” And while not a recruitment rate that keeps George W. Bush up at night, it is an improvement for the party, whose current membership nationwide is roughly 3,000.
The new glass-wall offices at Communist HQ. (By Matt Kennard)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ’90s were a troubled time for the party. But Delgado doesn’t look back, and exudes more than a healthy amount of optimism. “I believe now we can achieve Communism in America within my lifetime, within the next 50 years.”
Delgado is also quick to dampen any idea of a rift between the new and old guard. “We definitely support old models of organizing,” he said. “We’re merely beefing up the Communist presence.” He admits there have been murmurs from the veterans of the party, distrust of new media. “There’s a tension,” he said. “Certain members were worried we were going to do away with the newspaper. But it’s all part of the same space.”
Sam Webb, 62, the leader of the CPUSA since 1998, is a full supporter of the youth movement and has given the political program of the party a similar overhaul in order to make it more appealing to new members. “The new office and the move into digital communications is all part of a bigger process,” said the 32-year veteran of the party. “We’ve also updated our political program, which gives us a view of the near-term as well as longer-term. We now envision a broad coalition of the people of this country as the only way we can move towards socialism.”
Webb believes it is vital to focus only on the “ultra-right” now. “Instead of fighting corporate power as whole, we made a distinction between one section of it–right-wing extremism based among energy and military industries, and other sections that weren’t quite as reactionary.” According to Webb these new alliances with more moderates have been a major factor in bringing more members to the party.
Alongside this ideological softening, the party has also embraced a new organizational principle called “democratic centralism,” a seemingly oxymoronic new admixture of Joseph Stalin and pluralism. “Most people think it means top down organizing,” said Webb. “But it’s not only that. It does have leadership bodies that make decisions, but the membership is asked to be part of those decisions. It is democratic; we don’t order anybody to do this thing or that.”
To its own surprise, the party has even found a connection to Democratic golden boy and presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama. In his autobiography, “Dreams of My Father,” Obama refers to a mentor named Frank, who was recently revealed to be Frank Marshall David, a poet and a CPUSA member. When asked about the potential president, Webb seemed unexcited. “The Communist Party doesn’t endorse a candidate at any level. We have our own particular outlook on things.” Of Marshall Davis and a potential link to the sought-after mainstream, Webb is unimpressed: “I heard the name but I know nothing about him,” he said. “I don’t even know if he is still living.”
With anti-right and antiwar sentiment riding high among the new generation, the CPUSA hopes to strike a chord among the young. And despite the public insouciance about Obama, some of the younger people in CPUSA recognize that the senator from Illinois is seen by many of their peers as a timely break from the status-quo. Lucas Gray, 19, of Knoxville, Iowa, joined the CPUSA a year ago and is a member of the new CPUSA facebook.com group. “A lot of the positions of the Democrats now, like universal healthcare, are actually the same as the Communists’,” he said.
The Fox News pundit David Horowitz, a former Communist, takes a potential resurgence seriously. “I’m concerned,” he said. “Why wouldn’t the CPUSA be having some kind of revival? The left hate the U.S. and its society and that opinion is growing in popularity.”
But away from the rah-rah spirit at headquarters and a few chatty leftist corners of the Internet, a CPUSA revival is viewed as about as likely as Fidel Castro’s coming out of retirement to win the Republican Party nomination for president. “The CPUSA is completely historical,” said John Earl Haynes, an author on domestic communism at the Library of Congress. “As a historian, I don’t usually feel comfortable about predicting the future; however, in this case, I’m confident in saying that the CPUSA has absolutely no future in the country.”
The Chinese, the global leader in Communism, are equally disparaging if more polite. “China has little contact with the Communist Party of the United States,” said Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “Communism in this country is not on the screen of my attention or that of my colleagues.”
And even through the zeal of the newly converted, there is a streak of doubt. “To be honest,” said 19-year-old Gray, “I’m not optimistic at all about the future of the Communist Party to expand or become a dominant political force in the U.S. It’s just not feasible.” Yet he remains dedicated, passing out copies of the Communist People Weekly on street corners, and attending regular meetings of his branch. “I really appreciate that the Communist Party is trying to appeal to younger people now.” As part of the Communism 2.0 outreach project, Gray been asked to get new converts on the campus of his university, Truman State in Kirksville, Mo. “I’m the only member at the whole university so it’s hard,” he said. “I’m still trying my best, although I haven’t got anyone yet.”
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Matt Kennard
26London
Matt Kennard graduated from the Journalism School at Columbia University as a Toni Stabile Investigative scholar in 2008. He now works for the Financial Times in London. He has written for the Guardian, Salon, The Comment Factory and the Chicago Tribune, amongst others. In 2006 he won the Guardian Student Feature Writer of the Year Award
mattkennard@thecommentfactory.com
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nice story. who is giving donations to the cpusa?
The red under your bed.
Realistically though…the word 'communist' in American society is imbued with so much negativity and 'marxist' is seen with so much flippancy that, unless there is a strong (and i mean 3 double espressos strong) local movement, office beyond that of an alderman may be difficult.
Well, the CPUSA should be optimistic, with a good Marxist headed for the White House, even if he is "triangulating" as best he can still to hide who he is.
I just have to ask which communist government has not been an exercise in the suppression of human rights and lives to keep the elite, those who have the guns, in comfort, as they desire? Why ever in the world will there ever be a time to celebrate the resurgence of communism?
Zimbabwe is the current poster child for the utter failure of Marx' perverse "vision", Mugabe the classic Marxist dictator hanging on to the bitter end and blaming all the problems he created on others.
If you read the history carefully, you find that the conditions Marx sought to end had largely disappeared due to the impact of free trade and labor markets by the time his works hit the street. Marxism has never been seized upon and enacted except by dictator wanna-be's, under the guise of Orwellian corruption of words and the ignorance, and basal envy, of followers.
Hitler is, in terms of body count, a minor footnote to the 20th century, compared to those who claim to "liberate the people" under the communist vision. And if Hitler is minor, what does that make the followers of Marx?
further…
Some ideas, such as Marxism and Keynsian economics, fail every time they come to pass to produce what they claim. Obama is set to imitate FDR (and the Japanese in the 80-90's) and spend his way out of the economic mess created by a soft dollar policy and race-based lending practices which were indefensible in the beginning and destined to produce huge defaults and losses. The "securitization" of bad mortgages led by government entities Fannie and Freddie (let's be clear who runs them, currently Barney Frank and Chris Dodd) spread the problem offshore.
Like me or not, let us all pray that Smoot-Hawley, in whatever form, does not recur.
further…
Many countries have problems now because they thought our political class was smart and US resources unlimited. Neither was true. But I digress, slightly.
The lesson is that the political class in the US is no better equipped to "manage" than the free market. In fact it is less equipped, because ideas like race-based lending work in politics, but not economics. Politicize the economy (which is what happens under Marx) so it serves primarily the goals of the political class, and you have neither freedom nor a vibrant economic system.
The history of Hong Kong is instructive. So, too, of Estonia, after the Soviets left.
It's dull, and the rush of idealism, that "things are different this time" (ego squared). but read the history. We can do better, absolutely, but the key ingredient is maximising individual freedom, which includes letting someone who offends you buy his damn SUV (purely for example).
further…
There was a hilarious rant in the LA Times about a wealthy man in Los Angeles who inherited through marriage a car dealership which was very successful and had a very distinct logo which I can remember seeing about 50 years ago. A local citizen's committee had declared the neon sign with this logo to be historical, which means it has to be maintained in good condition as is,unless the committee changes its mind. They control his property.
Well, with palpable outrage but no sense of of irony, he thought this very unfair. He had done his bit to preserve the old feeling of his neighborhood in Los Angeles (a very expensive and exclusive neighborhoood) and didn't appreciate this "taking" of his commercial property in what has become a grotty part of the city. I got a good laugh out of it…what he did to his neighbors in forcing them to maintain their houses as they were, whatever the consequences, didn't feel so good when it was "his" property.
further…
Therein lies a basic failure of Marxism as practiced. When you happily screw that fat cat out of his factory or home or investments, you set the precedent that sometime down the road somebody can screw you the same way. All that has to happen is for the political winds to change slightly.
Pelosi, in 2004, deeply praised the rules in the House for the minority party to challenge the majority. Now, she has eliminated them. Why now a change, if there is supposed to be something other than a one-party state in the US?
If all this be just a game of power and money, why lie about it? Don't "the people" deserve honesty and "ethics"?
Some form of democratic socialism is the only way out of the impasses – environmental and in terms of social justice – capitalism has led us to. There is just no way to solve the most pressing problems we have within capitalism. We need a form of economic democracy in which the public, and working people, actually have a say in the economic decisions that affect us. Whether this democratic socialism comes about through a communist party leadership or some other socialist party is secondary. What we need is real economic democracy and as far as I know, democratic socialism – not Stalinist or State Socialism – is the only possibility. Reading some of the other comments on this post, however, makes me pessimistic.
Well, you are right in a way, a socialist government with all the guns and the power to do whatever is "necessary" may get "the trains to run on time", which is the kind of organization that caught FDR's attention and admiration and led to some of the poorer ideas of the New Deal. Suffice it to say FDR would have had some problems getting re-elected without a war. That is not a great recommendation to imitate his policies as the Great One wants to.
You imagine that capitalism has brought us to our current state. You should do your homework.
The subprime mess begins with government policy. The enabling feature of spreading this disease is not a free-market decision to lend based on ecomomics, but a political imperative (which provided Obama most of his tiny experience of employment when he was not supping at the public trough, filing lawsuits for ACORN to force banks to lend based on race, not creditworthiness).
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Securitization of "toxic debt" was led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government entities in all but appearance. Polticians provided cover for those institutions when there was an Enron-scale accounting fraud to enable multi-million dollar bonuses to people like Frederick Raines, who was canned but kept about $90M in bonuses and works for Obama as an economic advisor.
The facts are that free markets did not produce the subprime mess or the "soft dollar" policy…these came from government. Solons like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank actively shielded Fannie and Freddie from any restraint, and for all their "experience" (decades on their respective Senate and House banking/finance committees, in addition to chairing the committes from 06 onward, made no effort to head off the disaster, warn of its approach or otherwise by any action that they remotely knew it was coming.
Dodd and Frank are either incredibly stupid or very evil men. And this is why your plaintive conclusion free markets and capitalism is faulty compared to socialism, which empowers people like Dodd and Frank, is simply inane.
Free markets decentralize political and economic power. Some people get wealthier than others, maybe it is envy of them that animates you, since you have no capacity or interest to compete, just enough self-esteem to think your lifestyle should be the baseline for "good people" Is this the case?
In that regard, socialism ensures that only the poltical elites get wealthy. They are the kings and rulers Marx claimed to dislike, but wished to emulate. That is the hoax of Marxism and socialism, proven time and again but ever fresh in some minds
When I say capitalism has created most of our serious, pressing problems, I wasn't thinking simply of the current financial collapse and taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. I was thinking of the obscene inequality in the world, both within and between nations, the inexcusable poverty, malnourishment and disease that can't be understood without looking at capitalism as a global system. It is an inherently expanisionist, imperialist system. Communist Russia was expansionist too, but that's not inherently part of democratic ownership and control of production – which is what real socialism would look like. Also, you can't understand the environmental problems we face without understanding the capitalist system, which has never been free market. I recommend David Schweickart's AFTER CAPITALISM for anyone who wants to know what a democratic, market socialist system would look like, and what the real nature of of the capitalits sytem is – not the fairy-tales you get in economics textbooks and on television.