Report given at the 14^th National Convention of the CPUSA on the organizational and ideological tasks of the Party. The convention took place from August 2-6, 1948. Can also be found in Selected Works of Henry Winston Volume 1 and can be found at newoutlookpublishers.store.

Three years have passed since the Emergency National Convention. Looking back on that Convention from the vantage point of 1948, the entire Party can more easily grasp the full historic significance of its decisions. The Emergency Convention rejected Browder’s non-existent “progressive imperialism” and utopia of “class peace”; restored to the Party its Marxist-Leninist science, the priceless heritage of working-class theory and practice; and armed it for the struggles of the real postwar world.

The fight for the reconstitution of the Party as the Marxist vanguard of the American working class was carried through under the most difficult conditions.

The most ferocious attacks against our Party have spearheaded Wall Street’s offensive against the economic and political rights of labor and the people and its drive toward war and fascism. Here as everywhere anti-Communism is the hallmark of reaction and fascism. In our country, as formerly in Hitler-Germany, anti-Communism seeks to screen the imperialist and pro-fascist aims of reaction from the people.

In these past three years the Party has been forced to defend itself on many fronts. It has been threatened by a multitude of repressive measures, in the state legislatures and city councils, as well as in Congress. Communist leaders have been subjected to persecution, court prosecution, threats of imprisonment, and imprisonment.

Truman’s “loyalty order” bars Communists from Federal employment—and this infamous blacklist is being extended to private industry, the schools and colleges.

The anti-Communist provisions of the Taft-Hartley Law handicap not only the work of Communist trade unionists but that of all progressive unionists, thereby weakening all organized labor.

Foreign-born workers, Communist and non-Communist, have been harassed, denied the right to citizenship, arrested, and threatened with deportation. Already five members of our outgoing National Committee are faced with the threat of deportation, Comrades Williamson, Stachel, Bittelman, Jones and Potash.

The House Un-American Committee, which has fomented the most vicious anti-Communist hysteria, has become one of the major instrumentalities in the attempt of reaction to impose a fascist, militarist state upon our country.

The monopoly-controlled press, radio, and movies constantly bombard the American people with anti-Communist venom. Day in and day out, they lie and slander, deliberately, when they label Communists as “red-fascists, Communazis, spies, saboteurs, and foreign agents.” They deliberately lie and slander when they charge that Communists are “advocates of force and violence to overthrow the government of the United States.”

Our Party has confronted many obstacles in its efforts to counteract these Hitlerite lies with the truth. The commercial channels of communication are being denied our Party. Storm-troop violence is increasingly being unleashed against our members, our public meetings and the canvassers of our press.

We do not minimize the extent to which anti-Communist prejudices have penetrated sections of the labor movement and the American people. But we also see that the American working class and people are resisting the unprecedented effort to stampede them into the surrender of their gains and rights in this atmosphere of anti-Communist hysteria. Our Party can take pride in the tireless work of our membership and leadership to arouse the working people in the fight to block these plans of reaction.

The appearance of Comrade Dennis before the House Un-American Committee in March, 1947, despite the Committee’s refusal to hear his testimony, did much to inspire the Party and arouse the people for action against the Sheppard-Rankin Bill.

The earlier testimony of Comrades William Z. Foster and Ben Davis before the Un-American Committee transformed the hearing into a counter-attack against the un-Americans. Comrade Davis appeared before the Committee again in February, 1948, to expose the trickery of the “registration” proposals through which the Thomas-Rankin group is seeking to outlaw the Party and nullify the Bill of Rights.

The Fight Against the Outlawing of Our Party

A high point of Party activity was reached in the Spring of 1947, at the time when the late Secretary of Labor Schwellenbach, proposed the outlawing of the Party. In answer to this attack our Party raised a fighting fund of $250,000 in less than 25 days. In fact, more than $1,000,000 was actually raised by the Districts. In the months of March and April the Party reached 10,000,000 Americans through numerous advertisements in national newspapers, including trade-union, Negro and national group papers, as well as the big metropolitan press and liberal weeklies.

At the same time, despite many refusals, the Party reached the radio audience through no broadcasts—most of them organized locally. Comrades Foster and Dennis spoke on national hook-ups, and recordings of their speeches were made available for re-broadcast in the Districts. Literally millions of leaflets were issued by clubs, sections, counties, and districts. As a result of this activity, broad sections of the people rallied to the Party’s defense, and numerous individuals and organizations issued public statements. The popular response to the Party’s call in defense of the Bill of Rights killed the Schwellenbach proposal and upset reaction’s time-table.

The Mundt-Nixon Bill, sponsored by the House un-Americans in 1948, had wider support in Congress, in Administration circles, and in various organizations. This offered a more serious threat to the democratic rights of our Party, to the labor movement, and other progressive organizations.

There were some people in trade-union and liberal circles who, overwhelmed with a sense of defeatism, felt that the fight was over and that “nothing could be done.” But the sounding of the alarm by our Party and its appeal to labor and to all democratic-minded Americans, irrespective of their stand on Communism, to enlist in an all-out fight to defeat the Mundt-Nixon Bill, evoked a wide response. This appeal, issued by Comrades Foster and Dennis, was sent to every international union and national people’s organization and was circulated locally to civic, fraternal, political, and religious groups. Despite the denial of press and radio to our Party’s statements, we were able to rally popular opposition which assumed wide proportions.

The appearance of Comrades Foster and Gates at the Senate Committee hearing resulted in the exposure of the true nature of the Bill through a brilliant defense of the position of our Party. The fight for radio time resulted in the Foster-Mundt debate which reached millions.

Our Party again appealed for a $500,000 fund to fight the Mundt Bill, and the membership responded, even though it had just carried through the Party-Press Fighting Fund Drive. This activity broke through the attempted conspiracy of silence. Local after local, as well as central trades councils, in the A. F. of L.; city C.I.O. bodies; Railroad Brotherhood unions; and many international unions, both A. F. of L. and C.I.O., came out in opposition to the Bill. Even William Green and Philip Murray sent private letters to the Committee protesting the unconstitutionality of the Bill. Church groups, such as Northern and Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, and even isolated Catholic voices, joined the anti-Mundt Bill fight. And Washington saw an inspiring demonstration of more than 6,000 representative men and women converge upon it to defend the Bill of Rights. The call of our clubs—“Every man at his post”—witnessed the greatest activity of our membership in many a year. As is known, at the regular session of Congress, the Mundt-Nixon Bill was buried in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Reaction’s time-table was again upset.

During this entire period, locally and nationally, the Party has been involved in numerous court cases requiring legal defense of the Party leaders and members. The case of Comrade Dennis, whose conviction for contempt of the Un-American Committee and one year jail sentence is now being appealed, presents a basic challenge to the constitutionality of the House Un-American Committee. The Party takes pride in the fact that Comrade Dennis, in defending his personal liberty and the democratic rights of the Party, also converted his case into a weapon for striking a blow against the national oppression of the Negro people. His firm stand that John Rankin sits in Congress in violation of the 14^th Amendment has won wide support among all sections of the Negro people.

A significant victory was won in the fight for release on bail of the five hunger strikers, held in Tom Clark’s Ellis Island concentration camp. The Party expresses special pride in the political initiative of Comrades John Williamson and Irving Potash, members of the outgoing National Board, and of the staunch German Communist leader, Gerhart Eisler.

The attacks on our Party have not ceased. Having failed so far, the enemy now resorts to new plots in its frenzy to outlaw the Communist Party. The “Special Grand Jury” which labored nearly a year and a half to prove a non-existent “foreign agent conspiracy” gave birth to the present monstrous frame-up indictments of the twelve members of the outgoing National Board. This is the most serious attempt yet to outlaw the Communist Party. Should the enemy succeed in this frame-up, it will mean more than the imprisonment of the members of the National Board. For, involved in this indictment is the democratic right to membership in, and the legal existence of, the Communist Party. With every ounce of energy we must guarantee that the monopolists shall not have their way.

Our Party has shown a capacity to fight relentlessly and has proved that it can defend the rights of the American workers and people. However, we should note and correct certain shortcomings in our defense work up to now.

It was correct to guard against submerging the Party in defense work. It was not correct to neglect, as was the case at times, the defense of the Party and to fail to give this defense a mass character. Thus, for example, the successful mass struggle around the hunger strike must be contrasted to the failure of the Party to develop a sustained mass campaign in the Dennis and ’Josephson cases, or around the deportation cases involving numerous other members.

It was correct to call for the defense of the democratic rights of Communists on the broad issue of civil liberties; but it was not correct to gloss over, as was sometimes done, the vanguard role of the Party and to fail to explain to the masses why our Party is a special target for reaction in its drive toward war and fascism. We must convince the American people that it is precisely the Communists who must be defended—because the Communists are the best fighters for the immediate interests of the workers and all the common people, precisely because we are the Party of socialism.

It is correct to put up the best legal defense of the Party and its leadership. But it is also necessary to combat legalistic illusions which still exist. We must never allow legal defense to become a substitute for mass activity.

The Need of a Policy of Industrial Concentration

In spite of many hardships and difficulties since the Emergency Convention, we were able to make some important advances in the strengthening and building of our Party.

Under Browder the entire Party was organized primarily in 800 community clubs. Now we have approximately 3,000 clubs. In addition to 1,700 community clubs we have 309 shop, 425 industrial clubs as well as 200 professional and 200 student and youth clubs.

Our Party has 300 sections organized in 32 districts, 8 of which are new. The Party is organized in 600 cities, towns, and rural communities. During the three-year period since the Emergency Convention, our Party has grown from a membership of 52,824 to over 60,000. We now have a Party in seven Southern states. Of all the Party Districts, New York, California and Connecticut have shown the most consistent growth.

We all realize that this growth is inadequate. Not only inadequate in general, but above all in the light of the big tasks and responsibilities that our Party faces. This is why we have to examine critically all our work, determine what are the weaknesses and how to overcome them. Central to this task is the thorough examination of the results of our industrial concentration policy in order to draw the necessary lessons from this phase of our work. In this connection we can make the following section of the Main Resolution the starting point for this analysis.

For the American working class to advance to leadership of the developing people’s democratic coalition, and for the coalition itself to become a power for victory, there must be a growing and influential Communist Party.

Only a Communist Party of mass strength and influence, and functioning as an organized and inseparable part of the people’s coalition, can effectively promote the struggle for working-class leadership in the nation. Without such a Communist Party, this struggle cannot be won. In the course of daily and resolute struggle for working-class leadership in the progressive movements of the American people for peace and progress, for the defense of their vital interests, a mass Communist Party of great strength and influence must and will become a reality in the United States.

We must build our Party along these lines—politically, ideologically, and organizationally. It must be built daily in the realization of the Party’s vanguard role in the working class and among the people as a whole. It must be built, in the first place, among the basic industrial workers by a consistent, unflagging policy of concentration. The Party must be built in the struggle for its Marxist-Leninist principles and policies.

In examining the composition of our Party, the following factors must be noted: In the last three years, the industrial composition of our Party has increased only slightly. At present 51 percent of our members are industrial workers, and of these, 11 percent are at present unemployed.

At the same time, our trade-union membership in the last three years shows a decline from 46 percent to 44 percent; 28 percent belong to various C.I.O. unions; 13 1/2 percent are in the A.F. of L. and 24 percent in independent unions. Approximately 7 percent of our industrial workers are not members of any unions.

We get the following picture insofar as the basic industries are concerned: Of our employed membership, 18 1/2 percent are to be found in basic industry. Over the past three years the numerical growth of our Party in basic industry has shown no fundamental change. In the main our Party membership has remained static in such industries as steel, auto, rubber, and maritime. In some industries we have shown a slight growth, even though in some case it is unstable, as in electrical, coal mining, packing, longshore, and the building trades. In certain industries we have suffered a serious loss. In some cases this was due to a decline in production, as in shipbuilding. However, this was not the reason for the decline in the railroad and textile industries.

We must take note at this Convention that in the main industrial concentration states, with the exception of Ohio, we show a decline in membership. This is true of Illinois, Michigan, and Western Pennsylvania.

The mere presentation of this brief picture poses two questions: What is the cause of this situation, and how shall we proceed quickly to overcome it? To avoid repetition, we shall try to answer both questions simultaneously.

The central task before the Party is the fight for shifting the main base of our Party to the working class. This cannot be done unless we turn the face of the entire Party to the workers in the factories. There is already a new awareness in our entire Party of this urgent task. Every single state convention, and scores of comrades in the pre-Convention discussion, have given major attention to this question. We must transform this new awareness into deeds.

How to Apply the Concentration Policy

What is the essence of a concentration policy?

First of all, it requires a fundamental understanding of the role of the workers in the basic industries, in relation to the working class and the life of the country as a whole. It is precisely these workers employed in the huge plants by the tens of thousands who, as Lenin pointed out, become educated to understand the need for unity, collective action and solidarity by the very process of large-scale production itself. One cannot conceive of successfully building the Progressive Party, of organizing an effective fight against the Draft, or in defense of civil liberties, a successful fight against war and fascism, unless this section of the working class is fully mobilized. And, of course, one cannot speak of winning the American workers for Socialism without winning the majority of this section of the working class. It is necessary to permeate the entire Party with this consciousness.

Secondly, such a policy requires the selection of the points of concentration where a base must be secured, if we are to set in motion the entire labor movement. This means knowing which districts must be given major national attention, which industries are key and what plants are decisive. Concretely, while we must strengthen our base in all industrial states, we must above all shift our main emphasis to such states as Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan and to Western Pennsylvania. While we must strengthen the Party in all basic industries, we must particularly select for major concentration such industries as steel, auto, mining, maritime, electrical and railroad. Within these industries we must pursue a policy of concentration in key industrial towns and key plants and departments—with special consideration to the most underpaid sections of the workers, the unskilled and semiskilled. In some districts additional industries may be selected, as for instance textile in the South and New England; in Ohio rubber, in addition to steel and mining, etc.

Thirdly, the full mobilization of the Party is required to achieve the objectives of our concentration policy. Concretely, this means that all Party clubs must have a share in the responsibility for work at the concentration points. Communists in the mass organizations, trade unions, etc., should try to convince these organizations similarly to pursue a concentration policy.

Fourthly, beginning with the national and state leaderships, the entire Party must be involved in planning, guiding, and assuming systematic control and check-up of concentration objectives. All political and organizational problems must be discussed and reviewed from the standpoint of how to realize them in concentration industries. Systematic discussion of the problems in concentration industries must be organized in the top political bodies of the Party. Our leadership must be unsparing in the allocation of capable forces, finances, literature, and other material assistance.

Have we said some of these things before? We have. In fact, at our Emergency Convention three years ago the need for applying a consistent concentration policy was placed as a central objective. Why is it that we did not realize all of the objectives set for ourselves nationally and in the states?

It is not due to the fact that we did not select the key states, industries, shops and towns. In fact, some of our most capable comrades were assigned to these key districts, national coordinators were assigned to key industries, and many leading returned veterans were sent into a number of industrial towns.

We must frankly say that the failure to secure adequate results in our concentration work in the last three years is due, in the main, to an underestimation in practice of the vanguard role of the Party. In practice we concerned ourselves much more with specific policy and tactical questions of the unions, of relationship to top bodies, rather than to questions of building a base below to insure correct policies and tactics. What was incorrect? The separation of the building of the Party from the solution of questions of policy! What must not be forgotten is that it is not enough to have a correct policy in the industries, but in addition the organized strength of the Party must be thrown into the key points of concentration. From now on a drastic change must be made. Questions of policy and tactical line must always be related to the forces required to carry out the policy. This will demand a systematic and constant political check-up of our strength in the concentration areas: first, by the political bodies of the Party; and, secondly, through greater coordination of all departments and, most important, a fusion of the work of trade-union and organizational personnel.

The realization of the objectives of our concentration policy demands:

1. Developing and testing in life a correct policy for each industry.

2. Developing the united front from below to insure the carrying through of such a policy.

3. Drawing constant lessons from the experiences of the workers in the course of their struggles, thus helping to develop their class consciousness.

4. Systematically building the Party, by bringing into its ranks the most militant and advanced workers.

In the period immediately after this Convention the national and state leadership of our Party must work out the specific tasks of concentration which are to be carried out between now and the end of the year, and which should be checked at regular intervals by leading political bodies—a procedure which must be regularized and made a permanent feature of our work. Among these tasks, in addition to those mentioned, should be the following:

1. To review and allocate additional forces to provide leadership to work in the concentration industries.

2. To convince a selected number of comrades now employed in light industries, and from among white-collar and professional workers, veterans, and students—men and women—to secure work in basic industry.

3. To seek to influence key national groups, whose members are employed in concentration points, to direct their main emphasis to these industries.

4. To ensure the more effective utilization of the Daily Worker and the Worker in the concentration industries. In this connection, we must guarantee that the Daily Worker and the Worker secure and print material reflecting problems in these industries, and that the most consistent effort be made to .increase their circulation.

5. To improve the mass propaganda work of the Party in these industries through the medium of leaflets, pamphlets, and shop gate meetings. Especially important is the use of our numerous pamphlets for mass sale and distribution.

6. To institute a consistent policy of training and developing forces at the concentration points through political discussions, lectures, study groups, and schools.

The Party Club and Concentration

If we are to achieve these objectives, our attention has to be turned first of all to the Party clubs, and particularly to the shop and industrial clubs.

These clubs constitute the link between the Party and the basic industrial workers. It is through them that we shall be able to mobilize the workers to resist the drive of monopoly capitalism against their living standards and their trade unions, to resist the drive toward war and fascism. This means that a correct policy of concentration requires that the entire leadership concern itself with the problem of improving qualitatively the work of the shop and industrial clubs in general, and of the individual members in particular.

If these clubs are to be able to play their rightful role, the entire level of our theoretical and political work has to be raised. If these clubs are to reflect in the shops and industries the vanguard role of the Party, we must assist them to become the policy-making bodies within the shops and industries, firmly grounded in the knowledge of Marxism-Leninism. It is only in the struggle to realize such an objective that the clubs and individual members will be able to play the leading role in the development of the united front on a de­partmental, shop and industry level. Through such methods these clubs will be able to work with, and give leadership to, broad sections o£ the workers in the struggle for the defense of their economic needs and to spur the workers to independent political action and class consciousness. More and more workers will thus come to realize the class nature and role of the state, the crisis in the two-party system, the harmful role of Social-Democracy and the reformist trade-union bureaucrats, the need for becoming fully involved in the development of the Progressive Party, etc.

Our Party must take full advantage of every opportunity in the day-to-day struggles to champion and advance the fundamental interests of our class, thus demonstrating that:

“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”[1]

Current developments in the labor movement indicate the readiness of the workers for political as well as economic struggle. For example, there is the recent gathering of 500 activists, including presidents and members of Executive Boards of UA.W. locals, which endorsed Wallace and the Progressive Party. Despite the position of the John L. Lewis leadership, important groups of the miners are rallying to Wallace. In the steel industry significant changes are already taking place as the steel workers help to put the new party on the ballot. In Gary, thousands of steel workers turned out to hear Wallace.

Our Party must help to develop further this new initiative, and boldly promote united struggles to speed all positive developments which can bring about a new relationship of forces among the workers; we must build our Party as a force that can help bring about this change in the shortest time.

While we must struggle for this Marxist-Leninist concept of the role of the Party shop club, unfortunately only 25 percent of our industrial members are in shop and industrial clubs. While we have successfully established shop clubs in many of the large plants, there are still too many decisive plants where we have no shop clubs. Even in some of the large plants where we have established shop clubs, we find that in some of the key departments we are still isolated from the workers. The industrial clubs, which were established in most places to serve as a form of organization transitional to the establishment of shop clubs, have instead become a frozen form of organization. There is a reluctance in too many places to release comrades who are now attached to community clubs, but who rightfully belong in shop branches, the argument being given that this would weaken the community club. While we appreci­ate the needs of, and the problems faced by, our community clubs, once our basic concentration policy becomes clear; we should overcome all hesitations to shifting every comrade who should be in it to a shop club. At the same time, we must find the methods whereby the comrades in the shop clubs can play an important role in the struggles of the communities in which they live.

Unfortunately, due to unclarity on the role of the shop clubs and inadequate attention to them, we find that many have a tendency to concern themselves almost exclusively with trade union questions—and this, on a trade-union level—failing to grasp their role of vanguard political organization. Under such conditions, harmful tendencies develop; expressed in a reliance on the spontaneity of the workers, a failure to promote the class consciousness of the workers, and an inadequate building of our press. All this results in a situation in which our Party in many instances tail-ends behind the workers.

An Example of Correct Work

Let me give an example of the correct work of an individual Communist and his club, whose very fruitful experiences are worthy of study by this Convention:

I want to relate the experiences of Nick Migas, a steel worker from Indiana Harbor, a member of the National Committee of our Party.

Nick works in a plant employing 10,000 workers. Because of his role and leadership in the fight for the defense of the workers’ needs in his department, he was elected as the Department Grievance Committeeman, in spite of the most vicious Red-baiting threats, and intimidation by the leadership of this Right-wing union.

Comrade Nick accepted the challenge in true Communist fashion. He attends his Party club meetings, he discusses his problems at the club meetings, and the entire club works out collectively how he and other members can conduct a more effective struggle in the interests of the workers. Through his effort, together with that of other progressives in his local union, and despite many obstacles and difficulties, thirteen out of fifteen progressives, including Nick, were elected to the local’s Executive Committee. Nick and other progressives while defending the economic interests of the workers, helped also to create a Wallace Committee which hundreds of workers from the plant joined.

During the recent round of wage struggles the international leadership of the steelworkers’ union said that it was impossible to obtain wage increases in 1948. But Nick Migas, by applying a correct policy of the united front from below, raised this issue in his local and was elected with other progressives to his international union convention. You all know what happened at that convention and of the brave and honorable role that Nick played. After the convention, the workers in basic steel were granted wage increases. In all modesty we can say that Nick and his colleagues played no small role in winning an increase in wages of $450,000 a day for the workers in basic steel. This means an annual increase of $135,000,000. No wonder that the big trusts hate the Communists! Just imagine what it would mean for the American working class and our Party if in one hundred key plants in the country, we could train our shop clubs and individual members to become Nick Migases. This can be done! It must be done! Therefore, we must undertake in all seriousness to strengthen existing shop clubs and build new ones in the light of this example. There are undoubtedly other examples, and I hope that the comrades will relate them in the discussion.

The Community Club

I am sure that our entire Party will greet this emphasis on developing a concentration policy for the building up of our shop and industrial clubs. This in no way detracts from the urgent need to strengthen and build our community clubs. The objectives we set in concentration can be realized only if we successfully assist the community clubs in orienting their work toward the shops. The vital role of the community clubs is not lessened but becomes of even greater importance in the light of the industrial concentration approach we are attempting to establish.

We have innumerable examples of the splendid mass work of our clubs in developing struggles around such issues as high prices and rents, Negro discrimination, in defense of Israel, to repeal the draft, and a score of other local and national issues. These clubs in the main have been the builders of our press and distributors of our literature. These types of activity must be strengthened in every way. But now it must be pointed in the first place to the big shops and working-class communities. The example of these clubs could be multiplied manifold. Other comrades will give other examples. But what is missing is the fact that such splendid activity is not directed toward united action with workers in the plants and shops. The fight to solve this problem is the fight for a policy of working-class leadership of the entire people.

From the point of view of improving the content and quality of our concentration work, the group system deserves major attention. The groups must become a basic link in our work among the masses. The groups provide a medium which not only gives us greater mobility but a form through which we can give greater attention to the individual problems of our members—their education and personal development, their adjustment to Party life, so that they may grow as Communists and enhance their contribution. Sometimes we overlook the shy and retiring members and take little interest in their personal problems—and the result is that many become inactive. The group, in addition to its educational and political mass work, must become the creator of warmth, understanding, and comradeship among our members. Such an approach will help increase attendance and establish closer ties with our members, increase dues payments, increase the circulation of the Daily Worker and the Worker, bring higher sales of our literature, and involve more of our members in Party activities.

What Kind of Party are we Building?

In the coming days we shall witness an increase in the enemy attacks against our Party, but we shall also witness an ascending wave of mass struggles. Our Party must take all the necessary steps to strengthen itself speedily in order to be able to help lead these struggles. We should therefore, while taking a realistic view of the situation, act with the firm conviction that we can win this fight.

Some comrades conclude that under conditions of monopoly’s offensive and the defensive battles of the working class “we must retrench” and “wait for more favorable times” for Party building, or that “we need to limit the Party membership to the most militant activists within the vanguard Party.” In the light of the tasks facing us as Communists, can we accept this “theory”? Obviously not! Those who advance this “theory” fail to see that the “more favorable times” of tomorrow are being determined, and can be determined only by what we do in today’s struggles. In a period of reactionary offensive, favorable opportunities cannot be created by a “wait and see” policy, by “retrenchment” or by “limiting the Party membership to the most militant activists.”

The concept of “retrenchment” is not a line of struggle; it is a retreat. This concept flows from a one-sided estimate of the situation in the country. Comrades who defend such concepts fail to see the emerging struggles and the militant cadres they will bring to the fore. The place of many of these cadres should be in the Communist Party. Our day-to-day struggles must be designed to reach and win them and the Leftward moving masses.

Their one-sided estimate of the situation leads these comrades to overestimate the strength of the enemy and underestimate the fighting moods of the masses, as well as the ability of our Party to influence the course of the developing struggles. This “theory” denies the vanguard role of our Party and is in essence a form of liquidationism. The present offensive of monopoly is not an argument against, but an argument for building the Communist Party. We must reject all counsels of retreat and retrenchment.

Other comrades conclude that the best way to meet reaction’s offensive is by submerging the Party in the mass movement. In practice this concept would lead to a state of affairs in which the Party becomes identical with the trade union or mass organization. These comrades see the need for work among the masses, but they do not clearly see the need for the vanguard Party of the working class. In reverse form they express a certain timidity and a fear of the masses. Moreover, their conception tends to create a tailist policy, and not a policy of leadership which aims to instill class consciousness, pride in, and direction to, the working-class and people’s movement. Instead of following a conscious and consistent policy of leadership, these comrades tend to rely on spontaneity. Here again we have an overestimation of the strength of the enemy and an underestimation of the ability of the masses to fight back effectively under the leadership of the Party. This conception likewise denies the vanguard role of the Party.

Nor is the problem resolved by establishing two types of Communists—one doing “mass” work and submerging the Party among the masses, and the other doing “Communist” work and moving independently of the masses. This division is fundamentally wrong and solves nothing. This combination of Leftist-sectarianism and Right opportunism stands in opposition to the Marxist-Leninist principle of Party organization. Comrades given to such thinking fail to see that the starting point of all Communist work is mass work that the Party can be built only through such activity.

Nor will the “go it alone” “theory,” which draws sectarian conclusions from the independent role of the Party, solve anything. Clearly, strengthening the Party to play its vanguard role in the working-class and people’s movement requires a clear understanding of what we mean by its vanguard role. The vanguard Party is not separated, from the masses. It is integrally linked with them, leading and helping them to move forward. We ourselves have the task of making clear to the masses our Party’s oneness with them. We must show them that the Party is the most advanced section of the most progressive and advanced class. We cannot convince the people of our vanguard role just by talking about it. We can convince them only by helping to increase the fighting capacity of the people at all levels of struggle. This we can do only by increasing our own fighting capacity, and by improving the quality of leadership we give to the mass movement on the basis of our scientific understanding. Our task is to grasp all opportunities to help build the united front of struggle in the shops, in the working-class neighborhoods, to build the Progressive Party and every democratic movement, and thus to fight to build our Party as the indispensable instrument for beating back the offensive of reaction, fascism and war.

In the further building of our Party, we must also pay considerable attention to the need of substantially lowering the age level of the Party by recruiting large numbers of young people. Here it is worth noting that in the past several years we have made some progress in this direction. We have more than doubled our membership among World War II veterans. We have established a foothold among students on 95 campuses. We have recruited young people generally through the existing youth clubs. But we cannot be satisfied with these results. In fact, we must state that we are seriously lagging on this front.

There is a great stirring among the youth, who are the first to be hit by Wall Street’s drive toward war and fascism. Reaction is leaving no stone unturned to win the youth for its reactionary program. There are numerous instances indicating that reactionary forces have been able to misdirect the youth (as, for instance, in some unions, in inspiring hoodlum acts, etc.), because of the absence of decisive leadership in the fight for the youth. Hence, our Party must not only considerably intensify its activity among the youth, particularly among the young workers in industry and among the youth in the Negro communities, but we must place as a central task the recruiting of substantial numbers of young Americans into our ranks in the coming months.

Our Party in the Struggle for Negro Rights

In challenging monopoly oppression, the working class finds a powerful ally in the Negro people who, by the very nature of their position in American life, are rallying to the banners of the struggle against Wall Street. Success in the struggle against monopoly requires the forging of the alliance of labor and the Negro people, the building of the Negro people’s unity and the building of our Party, the consistent champion of the Negro people’s struggle. For without our Party such an alliance cannot grow and permanently exist. In this connection, we should take note of the following passage from the Draft Resolution:

“The intensified attacks upon the Negro people demonstrate clearly the growth of imperialist reaction and national oppression in the United States. The Negro people are experiencing the most extreme, the most brutal manifestations of the growing fascist danger, especially in the South.”

It would be a most fatal error on the part of labor if it failed to see that this attack is an attempt to tear asunder the growing alliance of the workers and the Negro people, and thus to destroy the labor movement itself. Participation in the fight for the equal rights of the Negro people is an indispensable duty for the American working class, and essential to the maintenance and extension of democracy. Hence the necessity for unfolding an energetic struggle for the equal rights of the Negro people; for the outlawing of Jim Crow and the passage of the anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation for the abolition of all forms of discrimination against the Negro people in army and civilian life; for democratic agrarian reforms in the South, satisfying the needs of the Negro people for land, freedom, and equality; for the right to self-determination of the Negro people in the Black Belt.

The Draft Resolution calls upon the Party to make the demand for full economic, political and social equality, a demand which corresponds to the class interests of the workers, a demand which should become the battle cry of the entire labor movement.

Thus, our Party must keep in view the aim of making a radical turn in the direction of unleashing the full potential of the Negro liberation movement and building our Party as the proven leader of the Negro workers and the Negro people. This is an undertaking that we accept with honor.

Our Party since the Emergency Convention has conducted many significant struggles for Negro rights: anti-lynch, anti-poll tax, for F.E.P.C. legislation, against restrictive covenants, against discrimination in the armed services, in defense of the Ingrams, etc. Nevertheless, these struggles have developed unevenly, and in many cases sporadically.

The basic weakness in the fight for the rights of the Negro people is the failure to tackle the basic problem of which the other issues are but a reflection. I have in mind the fight on the job against discriminatory firings and layoffs of Negro workers, against the refusal of many companies, including many in the basic industries, to hire Negro workers; and against the refusal of many plants to upgrade Negro workers, and of unions to promote them as shop stewards, committeemen and leaders. Only here and there can we record notable exceptions.

While we re-established our Party in the South, we do not yet have an operative policy of attacking the very basis of Negro oppression on the land. What does this mean? It means that while we must continue to strengthen and further develop in every way the struggles already begun, we must likewise direct our attention to the solution of the fundamental economic and social problems which will give basic substance to the fight of our class, and real equality to the Negro people.

The failure of the labor movement to conduct a consistent struggle for the vital interests of the Negro people is due to the fact that it still lacks an understanding of the Negro question. This means at the same time that, in failing to forge an effective labor-Negro alliance, the working class is failing to defend its own class interests. In such a situation, enormous obligations are placed upon the working-class vanguard.

The Negro workers in the trade-union movement are in revolt against the Social-Democratic do-nothing policy on the issue of job inequality. But the majority of the white workers, due to the influence of bourgeois ideology in the labor movement, have not yet come forward in solidarity with the Negro workers on this vital issue. In many cases, even among progressives in the trade unions, there is a negative approach to this burning issue of Negro job inequality. The result is that the white workers are not helped to understand what this revolt means to labor as a whole. Neither are the Negro workers helped to appreciate more fully the need for class solidarity.

Meanwhile, the bourgeoisie asserts itself as never before, trying to head off class solidarity and win the Negro workers to its banners. The monopolists make full use of Social-Democratic labor leaders, as well as of some Negro leaders who spread the slogan: “Neither Jim Crow nor Communism.” Left-progressive unionists will unwittingly help those who seek to weaken and undermine the unions, unless they overcome existing weaknesses in their fight for full equality.

It is important for us to understand that, as the offensive of the monopolists increases against labor, the class-collaborationist moves away from the defense of labor’s interests in general and those of the Negro workers in particular.

The problem of discrimination against Negro people in the basic industries is not limited to Negro industrial workers. One of the worst forms of discrimination is to be found in the general offices. The general offices of the steel, auto, mining, maritime, electrical, railroad, public utilities and a host of other trusts, refuse to hire Negro men and women. These offices remain “lily white.” Clearly, we cannot ignore this situation any longer. It is another example of the attempt to split the working class from the Negro people and create divisions also within the Negro people themselves.

We must recognize the fact that weaknesses on this front of struggle are due to the existence of white chauvinism, expressed in policy and practice. The phrase, “We’re all equal,” equates formalistically the problems of Negro workers with those of all exploited and oppressed. Supporting F.E.P.C. by resolution alone is a means of avoiding the concrete fight against inequality in the departments, shops and plants. This we all know. The failure effectively to combat this kind of hidden white chauvinism, expresses a lack of faith in the white workers. The white workers will rally, if convinced that their own interests are at stake in the fight for Negro rights.

The Party must unfold an energetic struggle against white chauvinism, not only in the realm of ideology, but also in a practical fight for equality on every level. The result will be that greater numbers of white workers will enlist in the fight and Negro workers will become more active participants and builders of the union. In addition, they will become a leading force in the Negro communities, and our Party will grow more rapidly among Negro and white workers.

I do not propose to deal with the problems of the South, since they will be dealt with in a special report before this Convention. I want, however, to deal briefly with several problems of the Negro community itself.

The Negro communities are highly organized and progressive and have, in the last decade or so, always been found in their majority in the progressive column on all the basic issues. However, one of the major weaknesses from which the Negro communities still suffer is to be found in the totally inadequate position of leadership that the Negro workers have won and assumed within the Negro community. Until basic progress is made in this respect, the Negro community cannot play its full role in the struggle for the interests of the Negro people and within the general people’s coalition for peace, democracy, and progress. But progress in the solution of this question is to a large degree dependent on the unfolding of the struggle for full and equal rights of the Negro workers in each factory, in each industry, and in each trade union. Thus, the fight by our Party forces, and by the progressive forces in general within the labor movement, for equality for the Negro workers is the key to the solution of almost all questions within the Negro community.

Undoubtedly, our Party generally enjoys greater influence and support among the Negro people than among any other group. This has been shown on innumerable occasions when the Negro workers rallied to the support, not only of Negro Communist leaders but of our Party as a whole. But it is also true that there exists a very wide gap between this general support and influence and the numerical growth and stability of our Party in the Negro community. Why is this so? To answer this question we must take note of some of the basic weaknesses in the work of our Party, which contribute to this situation.

In the first place, we quite often raise slogans and develop movements on such issues as the fight against high prices, for rent control, more adequate recreational, health and hospital facilities, against police brutality, and against discrimination and inequality in whatever forms they are expressed. The Negro people readily join with us in this fight. But it is also true that we do not always carry on a consistent and sustained fight on these issues and that we allow various reformist and Social-Democratic groups to take advantage of this inconsistency and thus take over leadership of such movements. Such a situation is also made possible by the fact that we do not always expose those petty-bourgeois and reformist leaders who are out to mislead and behead the Negro people’s movement and because we do not give sufficient attention to showing the Negro people in practice, through struggle and through consistent education, the difference between a reformist class-collaboration policy and a policy of struggle. In a certain sense it might almost be said that, because of the readiness of the Negro people to struggle and the ease with which they can be led into struggle, we often, instead of utilizing these very positive factors, tend to rely on spontaneity and thus tend to lag behind the masses. Here again, the assumption by the Negro workers of leadership in the Negro community is essential to overcome this weakness and to guarantee a consistent and persistent development of the struggle.

Finally, we must say that any weakening of the fight against white-chauvinist tendencies within the ranks of the Party, whether manifested in the Negro community, in the Party as a whole, or in the labor and people’s movement generally, is one of the greatest obstacles to the steady, advancement and consolidation of the Negro people’s movement within the Negro community and to the building of our Party into a mass Party in the Negro community. The very influence and respect that the Party has won among the Negro people makes them most sensitive to any failures on our part. They rightly demand of us more than of anyone else. They use a different yardstick in measuring us than in measuring anyone else.

By fighting for equal rights for the Negro workers within the labor movement, by a consistent policy of struggle for the rights of the Negro people in the community, by advancing resolutely the leadership of the Negro workers in the Negro community, by an effective exposure of the reformist and Social-Democratic misleaders, by an uncompromising struggle against every manifestation of white chauvinism, our Party can quickly overcome the gap between its general influence and its organizational weaknesses and establish itself as a major force among the Negro people.

For a Consistent Cadre Policy

We Communists are fully conscious of our tasks; and, in all modesty recognize that on us devolves the political leadership to the working class for shaping the future of our country. Our Party needs men and women from the ranks of the working class capable of accomplishing great tasks. For, as Stalin says: “Once the political line has been established, cadres decide everything.” To reach our objectives, we need to develop a consistent cadre policy. This means, not only the training and development of cadres as full-time functionaries, but, in the first place, a wide corps of non-full time activists with daily ties among the masses in the shops and working-class communities. Such a Communist cadre policy should strive to develop workers with indigenous ties, whether in the shop, plant, community, or mass organizations. This guide applies to clubs, sections and counties, as well as to the districts. In the present political situation, the qualities of our cadres will in great part decide the issue of the struggle. An undertaking of such importance cannot be solved by any particular department. It must become the task of the entire Party.

The essence of a correct cadre policy is the training and development of men and women who have faith and confidence in their class, have love for, and pride in, their class; are militant fighters, enjoying the confidence of the workers and our membership, and unreservedly accept the policies and principles of our Marxist-Leninist program.

They must be men and women who are not only known inside the Party but who have live contact with non-Party masses. They must be men and women who, having fullest confidence in our Party’s policies, fight for their realization among the masses in general and the workers in particular.

What kind of cadres does the vanguard party need and how should we select cadres? Comrade Dimitrov gives the answer in his celebrated report to the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, in 1935:

“First, absolute devotion to the cause of the working class, loyalty to the Party, tested in face of the enemy—in battle, in prison, in court.

“Second, the closest possible contact with the masses. The comrades concerned must be wholly absorbed in the interests of the masses, feel the life pulse of the masses, know their sentiments and requirements. The prestige of the leaders of our Party organization should be based, first of all, on the fact that the masses regard them as their leaders and are convinced through their own experience of their ability as leaders, and of their determination and self-sacrifice in struggle.

“Third, ability independently to find one’s bearings and not to be afraid of assuming responsibility in making decisions. He who fears to take responsibility is not a leader. He who is unable to display initiative, who says: ‘I will do only what I am told,’ is not a Bolshevik. Only he is a real Bolshevik leader who does not lose his head at moments of defeat, who does not get a swelled head at moments of success, who displays indomitable firmness in carrying out decisions. Cadres develop and grow best when they are placed in the position of having to solve concrete problems of the struggle independently and are aware that they are fully responsible for their decisions.

“Fourth, discipline and Bolshevik hardening in the struggle against the class enemy as well as in their irreconcilable opposition to all deviations from the Bolshevik line.”[2]

As can be seen, the ability to speak well and write well, while important elements in the struggle, are not the main criteria for the selection and bold promotion of working-class cadres in the Communist Party.

In fighting for such a cadre policy, our Party, in working out the solution to this decisive question, must take into account the fact that our cadres entered the Party at different periods—some, during the unemployed struggles; others, during the period of the democratic front; many, during the revisionist period; while many are joining today. In many cases the imprint of the period in which they joined remains with them. What does this mean? This means that our cadre policy must be designed to educate and re-educate our membership to understand the policies of our Party in the past, its history, but really to master our present-day policies and tactics.

On the other hand, the fight for a correct cadre policy also means that we take into account the fact that a few comrades who were outstanding Party leaders in the past now feel that the intensity of the struggle is too great, that they can take a back seat. There are a few who strive to move away from their proletarian base and origin and seek satisfaction in business outlets. There are some who balk at leaving the “comfort” of the big metropolitan cities for work among the masses in other industrial towns. There are some who have lost perspective under conditions of monopoly’s offensive, lack faith in the working class and consequently in the ability of the Party to rally the masses for a successful struggle. There are a few comrades in this category who also sit on the side lines. They are waiting for the leadership to make mistakes. They do not contribute to the struggle. But in all such cases history passes such comrades by. Is it not clear that such comrades cannot inspire confidence among the masses? Is it not clear that these comrades must either change their outlook or become sympathizers of the working-class struggles? It is equally clear that what the working class needs is more than sympathizers in those to whom it has a right to look for leadership. To the extent that our Party tackles this question, to that extent will it more rapidly embrace in its ranks such militant Communist leaders. This approach will enable us to put up an effective fight for the political line of our Party.

We must know our people, their qualities, difficulties and weaknesses, attitudes and tastes. Such knowledge will come from the course of the struggle itself; for struggles form and mold cadres. Schools and classes, which are also a form of struggle for cadres, constitute a basic auxiliary to the realization of the full potential of every individual. I repeat, we must pursue a bold policy of promotion of leading and active workers in every phase of activity.

We must be ever vigilant to the attempts of the class enemy to penetrate our ranks. This requires opening up a constant and consistent struggle against enemy influences and practices. In one district a stoolpigeon was a member of the District Committee for several years and was discovered only by accident. Is it not worth pondering over the question that too few of the enemy elements have been exposed in recent years?

Our Party has made the beginnings since the Emergency Convention in raising the theoretical level of the membership—through schools and classes, lectures and study circles, and an increase in the publication of the classics of our movement. Comrade Foster is leading the fight on this front. But what has been done is far from adequate in the light of the tasks we face. Thus, the all-around improvement of all our theoretical work is indispensable in the training and development of cadres. The importance of this entire question can be fully appreciated if we look at the composition of our leadership in the districts, counties and sections. The weaknesses that exist in terms of boldly promoting workers to operative leadership are due in the main to the fact that we are not fully conscious in our everyday work of the imperative need of tackling this problem. There exists in too many places a certain lack of patience in developing workers who are not so articulate. We promote them only when they are the full-fledged, finished product. This is obviously wrong. Our Party, to realize its aims, needs forces for basic industrial towns. America is a big country—and between Chicago and California there exists practically virgin territory for our Party’s work. We must build our Party here.

But in the quest for forces to solve this problem, the answer is often given that we have no forces. To this I give the reply of Lenin who in a similar situation replied:

“There are plenty of people, and yet we are short of people—this contradictory formula has long defined the contradictions in the organizational life and organizational requirements of Social-Democracy. And now this contradiction stands out with particular force; from all sides we often hear passionate appeals for new forces, complaints of the shortage of people in the organizations, and equally often and everywhere we have enormous offers of service, a growth of young forces, particularly in the working class. The practical organizer who complains of a shortage of people under such circumstances becomes the victim of the illusion from which Madame Roland suffered, during the period of the highest stage of development of the Great French Revolution, when she said in 1793: there are no men in France, we are surrounded by pigmies. Those who talk like this fail to see the wood for the trees; they confess that they are blinded by events; that it is not they, the revolutionaries, who control events in mind and activity, but that events control them and have overwhelmed them. Such organizers had better retire and leave the field clear for younger forces whose zeal may often compensate for lack of experience.”

There is no doubt that we will tackle this problem in the spirit that is required. Our Party is capable of accomplishing great things. We can do this because our Party’s policies are based on the science of Marxism-Leninism. Our Party will accomplish its objectives because in the fight to realize its line among the masses it will develop as a system in its work the Bolshevik weapon of criticism and self-criticism. And if we are able to lay bare our major weaknesses for discussion, it is due to the fact that we have every confidence that we can overcome them and strengthen every positive aspect in our Party’s work. The weapon of criticism and self-criticism is the sign of strength of a growing and maturing Communist Party under conditions of the sharpening monopoly offensive. We can look back with pride to our Emergency Convention’s action in rejecting Browder’s revisionism, which action restored to the Party at the same time the Leninist concept of democratic centralism. This Leninist principle of democratic centralism combines two concepts, which enables us to verify our policies and tactics among the masses and to strengthen the authority of Party leadership which resolutely defends the interests of the working class.

It was the application of this principle which enabled our Party to cleanse itself of such anti-Party and anti-working class elements as Browder, Darcy, Harrison George, Dunne, Vern Smith, and Franklin. The continued and energetic application of the principle is indispensable to a Communist Party fighting resolutely against bourgeois influences and practices which are alien to the spirit of working-class struggles. But to achieve this means to root out all petty-bourgeois concepts regarding Party democracy. We should once again return to the classics and refresh our understanding of democratic centralism, its need in the creation of a unified, monolithic Party which is so vital to our class today.

I should like to conclude with the closing section of the Draft Resolution:

“We live in stirring times, fraught with the most terrible dangers, but pregnant with unprecedented opportunities to advance toward the realization of mankind’s highest aspirations.

“As the vanguard Party of the American working class, we Communists have a heavy responsibility to our own people and to all the peace-loving peoples of the world.

“Only if our Party fulfills its vanguard obligations will the American working class succeed in leading the American people’s struggle to repel the dangers of war and fascism, and realize the objectives of peace, democracy, and social progress.

“We have confidence that our Communist Party will build itself, bigger and stronger, to measure up to the needs of our class and our country. We have confidence that the very fury of the coming storms will convince the best of the American workers to struggle with us, in our ranks.

“We will fight unflinchingly for the legality and constitutional rights of our Party. We do not shrink from the hammer blows of reaction. Under them we will steel our Party in Communist discipline, loyalty, and unity, develop its Marxist-Leninist understanding, and temper our cadres and leadership. Sharing the hardships and struggles of America’s working people; we will root our Party ever deeper in the American working-class soil from which it sprang. “As the vanguard Party of the American working class we take our place in the front line of battle, conscious of our responsibility to all Americans who struggle for peace, democracy, economic security, and social progress. We hold aloft the banner of our conviction that the American working people have the capacity, means, and allies to curb and defeat the fascists and warmongers, and, eventually, to advance toward the Socialist reorganization of society, which will forever end the dangers of fascism, crises, and war—the misery of exploitation and oppression. We face the oncoming struggles with confidence in our people, our class, and our Party.”

[1] Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick, The Communist Manifesto; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2022, p. 53.

[2] Dimitrov, Georgi, The United Front: The Struggle Against Fascism and War; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2023, pp. 134-135.