Harrison George
The main body of this work was originally written, under circumstances detailed in the Appendix, as a political thesis, to be submitted in accordance with normal Party procedure, to the membership for consideration in pre-convention discussion, as provided for in Article IV, Section 4, of the CPUSA Constitution, which says:
“Section 4. In pre-convention discussions, members have the unrestricted right and duty to discuss any and all Party policies and tactics, the right to criticize the work and composition of all leading committees, the right of full expression in the Party press or other organs provided for such discussion.”
However, by action of the National Committee at its meeting from June 27 to 30, 1947, the regular bi-annual National Convention (which was due to be held by July, 1947), was arbitrarily abolished, in complete disregard of the Party Constitution, which, in Article VII, Section 1, provides:
“Section 1. The highest authority of the Party is the National Convention. Regular National Conventions shall be held every two years.”
The Party Constitution thus does not allow the National Committee any choice in the matter; does not permit it to decide whether there may be, or may not be, a National Convention. It says that “regular” conventions “shall” be held every two years.
This is elementary in providing for inner-Party democracy, without which centralism becomes bureaucracy, perpetuating itself, as seen in the case of many trade union bureaucracies, to the injury of the working class. Conventions and elections in the Party are as elementary to proletarian democracy as bourgeois parliamentary elections are to bourgeois democracy.
Imagine the storm of protest our National Committee would raise if the Truman Administration, the executive committee of the American bourgeoisie, would decree that there would be no 1948 elections!
The National Committee thus having violated the Party Constitution, which, under Article VII, Section 6, it is commanded to “enforce,” and having thus abolished the 1947 National Convention, it likewise abolished any possibility for pre-convention discussion, as well as other forms of democracy for the entire membership, including the right “to participate in the making of policies and in the election of leading committees,” as specified in Article IV, Section 1.
It was, therefore, not merely my own right as one Party member to submit my views in pre-convention discussion, which was denied by the National Committee’s violation of the Constitution in abolishing the 1947 National Convention, but each and every member of the Party was similarly deprived of each and every right which is fundamental to Communist Party principles of democratic centralism.
The decision to publish this thesis, as contained in this pamphlet, on my own responsibility was, therefore, imperative, if such bureaucratic denial of elementary membership rights is not to go unchallenged; and remedial action by the membership to reclaim its rights, foregone by passivity and subservience to “official discipline” rather than “Party discipline” (see quotation from Comrade Zhdanov in Part IX), is to be taken in time to prevent further demoralization.
From the correspondence published in the Appendix, it will be seen that the Party officials were given notice, as far back as February, 1947, of my disagreement with the way the leadership was misapplying and violating the Party Program as outlined in the National Convention Resolution of July, 1945; and the fact that I was expressing such disagreement in written form.
There was also asserted, in my letter of August 27, 1947, to the California Security and Review Commission, the right – when denied the normal and constitutional right to “full expression in the Party press or other organs” by the unconstitutional abolition of “regular” conventions and pre-convention discussion – to Lenin’s classic claim of “freedom of propaganda in the lower ranks of the Party.”
The right of any and all members, when denied, in practice, the inner-Party democracy which the Party Constitution – on paper – provides them, to “freedom of propaganda in the lower ranks of the Party,” is elementary to Party democracy, and is in no way unusual; except that it is unusual that it need be resorted to, because in most Communist parties inner-Party democracy is not usually denied.
But this right to “freedom of propaganda in the lower ranks of the Party,” as claimed by Comrade Lenin when he found himself, temporarily, in sharp disagreement with the Central Committee of his own Bolshevik Party (On the Eve of October, p. 18) does not include any right to organize a faction. And I emphasize that I am not a part of any faction, have not organized any faction, and shall not organize any faction within the Party. Factions are impermissible, and this pamphlet will prove to the reader that its entire purpose and spirit is directed against factionalism, as well as against both Right Opportunism and “leftism,” which generate factionalism.
Neither am I a part of any “group,” nor am I organizing any “group” within the Party, for “groups,” when not an organic part of the Party organization, are, in essence, factions. More, I am not organizing any “committee” in the Party; for it is the function of the membership and the membership alone, acting officially through its Clubs and other basic Party units, to elect any committees or delegate bodies as may be required by these regular Party organizations to carry out their decisions.
Any assertion, charge or accusation of “factionalism” against me, is, therefore, manifestly false; although I have heard unofficially that, in the early part of October, 1947, my “expulsion” on charges of “factionalism” was announced in the County Committees of California, by order of the State Office. It is quite inconsequential that no official notice has been sent to me since I do not recognize the official validity of such “expulsion,” as the authority to speak or act for the Party now resides solely in the membership organized in the Clubs, as the basic organizations of the, Party. This is quite clear if we but consider a few most obvious facts.
We have a Party Constitution, do we not? Yes, everyone will agree; we have a Party Constitution.
We also have a leadership of officials and leading committees, do we not? Yes, we have leading committees and officials, all will again agree.
But this leadership, these top committees and officials, were not given to us by any ”heavenly decree,” and are not, surely, elected for life, are they? No, of course not. They, these present officials of the Party, were elected under rules laid down in the Party Constitution. They are removable under the same rules.
And they, these leading committees and officials, just as much as the rank and file members, are obliged to obey the rules of the Party Constitution. Party leading committees and the officials chosen by them, are elected only for a limited time: two years. They are responsible to the membership, from which all authority is basically derived “either directly or through their elected delegates” (Article VI, Section 6), to “report regularly to the body which elected them.”
Only subsequent to such report, and a submission of their mandate to review by the lower ranks of the Party, may they individually, be re-elected or replaced by others, and only after such re-election is their authority further validated and legalized under the Party Constitution.
They are not elected for life, nor for any term of years which they, themselves, may see fit to hold office. No, that is quite absurd. They have no such privilege. When their term of office comes to an end, they retain only temporary authority, to discharge the routine Party business during a period of new Party elections and conventions, pending the installation of newly elected committees and officials. But they cannot retain such authority indefinitely by violating the Constitution and barring the election of new committees and officials by any such trick as the abolition of “regular” conventions and Party elections.
The Party Constitution very clearly says that: “Regular National Conventions shall be held every two years.” (Article VII, Section 1.) And Article VI, Section 2, with equal clarity, says that “the State Convention shall convene at least once every two years.” It adds that the State Convention shall be composed “of delegates elected by the conventions of the sub-divisions of the Party or by the Clubs in the State” And it further adds that “The State Convention shall elect, by secret ballot and majority vote, a State Committee.”
It is, thus, absolutely clear that neither National Committees nor State Committees are, once elected, authorized to go on perpetuating themselves year after year, merely because they were, once upon a time, properly elected. Party members will understand that such a situation is completely contrary to Party democracy. Comrade Stalin has said:
“Democracy does not consist only in democratic elections. Democracy in elections cannot yet be real democracy. Napoleon III was elected by universal suffrage, but who does not know that this elected emperor was one of the greatest oppressors of the people? What we are referring to is democracy in action, whereby the Party membership decides itself and acts itself.” (Cited by Betty Gannett, Director of the National Party Training School, in the Daily Worker, May 2, 1946.)
Every Party member, therefore, has the right to ask the questions:
Why did the National Committee abolish the 1947 National Convention?
Why has there been no State Convention, either, in the two years since July, 1945?
What have we here, a National Committee and some State Committees of the Communist Party, or a parcel of Louis Bonapartes, who assume that, once elected, they can go on occupying Party office forever?
It is perfectly obvious that these people are merely a body of individuals who set themselves above the laws of the Party written into its Constitution, and who, without explanation or apology, are usurping authority which does not belong to them, by posing as Party officials on the basis of a mandate which has expired, and which they have refused to submit to the membership for renewal or rejection.
One must have an exceedingly dull mind, or be endowed with an extraordinary and un-Bolshevik credulity, to forget that the present Party leaders have a history of previous bureaucratic practices, a history which should make them, if they were at all sincere in their 1945 renunciations of such practices, now willing and even eager to abide by the Party Constitution, and to disprove by deeds, and not by words, any suspicion of bureaucracy on their part.
As Comrade John Williamson said, speaking to the National Convention of July, 1945, after confessing that the leadership of which he was an important part, had “neglected (sic!) the time-tested Communist principle of democratic centralism,” and declaring that “centralization with formal democracy can never be successful”; “I think that the entire Party will watch carefully every leader to see that his future actions square with his words.”
Likewise, Comrade William Schneider-man, writing in Discussion Bulletin No. 6, in July, 1945, declared: “We have allowed to develop a bureaucratic and encrusted leadership, both national and state. . . . Our organization is supposed to function on the principle of democratic centralism, but it became very much centralism and very little genuine democracy... The recognition of errors in itself does not mean that the Party membership will accept this alone as sufficient.”
Still more, Comrade Max Weiss, in his Foreword to the 1945 Convention pamphlet Marxism-Leninism vs Revisionism, having admitted that the previous revisionist period was “not confined to one or another individual question, but represented a whole system of ideas,” identified one of the principal ideas of that revisionist system as the ”violation of the principles of democratic centralism and the establishment of bureaucracy.” Most aptly, Comrade Weiss added:
”But the complete rejection of Browderism does not relegate the struggle against revisionism, or its profound lessons, to the category of an interesting phenomenon to be reviewed academically as a matter of history. The struggle to root out all remnants of Browder’s revisionism, the struggle against all forms of opportunism, is a continuing one.”
Finally, our 1945 National Convention Resolution, for which every one of our national and state officials voted, declared (Part II, Section 6) that:
”The source of our past revisionist errors must be traced to the ever active pressure of bourgeois ideology and influences upon the working class. . . . One of the most harmful consequences of this bourgeois influence upon our organization was the development over a period of years of a system of bureaucratic practices and methods of leadership...
”The growth of revisionism was helped by bureaucracy. While the main responsibility for the bureaucratic regime rests upon Browder in the first place, the former National Board and National Committee must assume a heavy responsibility for the bureaucratic system of work which prevailed in all Party organizations. The former National Board, in accepting the Browder system of leadership, set a bureaucratic example and did not carry on a struggle to establish genuine democracy in the organization. This was also reflected by the former Board’s inadequate self-criticism during the pre-convention period.
”The incoming National Committee and Board, by example, and with the active assistance of the membership, must undertake an ideological and organizational struggle to root out all vestiges of bureaucracy, and be constantly on guard against relapses to old bureaucratic methods of work and opportunist practices, which could only obstruct the most rapid and complete correction of our revisionist errors.”
Now then, that being the situation when the overwhelming majority of the old National Committee and Board members retained, with some slight shifting of chairs, responsible positions in the new National Committee and Board, the question arises: How has this command of the National Convention Resolution, that they set “an example” by deeds, not words, in the struggle against bureaucracy, been carried out by the National Committee and Board?
One is forcibly reminded of the old saying: “The devil was sick, – the devil a saint would be; the devil was well,– the devil a saint was he.”
The 1945 National Convention ordered the “incoming” National Committee and Board to “undertake an ideological and organizational struggle to root out all vestiges of bureaucracy.” Has the National Committee and Board done any such thing? The answer, obviously, is – No.
Has anybody, anywhere, seen any “ideological” struggle against bureaucracy? Any articles, speeches or official resolutions against bureaucracy? There simply hasn’t been any.
And what about the National Convention instruction to these officials to carry on, also, an “organizational” struggle against bureaucracy? Remembering that these officials themselves were the foremost bureaucrats, previously, as they themselves confessed, did they, thereafter, watch themselves, apprehend any bureaucrats among themselves, and demote or expel from the Party even one of themselves, or even one of any of the lesser officials? Never!
But, perhaps bureaucracy disappeared completely and without trace from our Party, by the mere magic of the “encrusted bureaucratic leadership” having admitted its former crime in this respect? The evidence, unfortunately, is all to the contrary. Bureaucracy not only has grown, it is growing.
When, as the National Convention Resolution authorized, “the active assistance of the membership” was given by individual members in a great many instances to these leaders who were commanded to struggle against bureaucracy, such helpful members were promptly expelled by these leaders. And the National Committee, which is “responsible for the enforcement of the Constitution and the execution of the general policies adopted by the National Convention” (Article VII, Section 6), has approved of such expulsions without a single exception. Is this the way to “struggle” against bureaucracy?
More, even in the manner of expelling such comrades, who took the National Convention Resolution against bureaucracy seriously, and tried to carry out its command by pointing out concrete instances of bureaucracy, there were still more bureaucratic methods used to accomplish such expulsions. Perhaps, in some instances, the rules of disciplinary procedure laid down in the Party Constitution, were followed. But if so, I have been unable to learn of it.
Distrusting the membership, the Bureaucracy has never, to my knowledge, fully followed the rules set forth in Article IX, particularly that rule in Section 5, which says: “Clubs shall act upon charges directed against anyone holding membership in that Club.” In some cases, the bureaucracy has expelled comrades itself, first, and afterward gone to their Club; but only to demand that the decision already taken by the higher body be approved.
And often, new and wholly different charges have been made, verbally, by the officials demanding such approval from the Club members, than were made originally against the comrade when called before the higher body for what is ironically called ”a hearing.” This, in violation of Article IX, Section 5, of the Constitution, which requires that ”charges be made in writing to the Club.” Again, after expulsion, still different, and often fantastically false charges, such as that the expelled comrade is “an enemy of the working class,” never even charged in any hearing, and never proven by any evidence, are given wide and libelous publicity.
More, in violation of Section 6 of Article IX, when Clubs were asked to approve the expulsion of such comrades under these conditions, the comrades themselves were barred from appearing before their own Club to contest the charges. This Section 6 says: “All persons concerned in disciplinary cases shall have the fullest right to appear, to bring witnesses and testify.” Bureaucracy has cancelled all these rights when it so wished, rights which belong not only to the accused comrades, but also to the Club members who are supposed to pass judgment upon them.
And in all cases I know of, any such Club member who dared to question the authority of the officials to thrust their decision down the throat of the Club in this bureaucratic manner, was himself listed as suspicious, and, unless he gave up any opposition to such bureaucracy, also expelled.
Is this the way to carry out the command of the 1945 National Convention to “undertake an ideological and organizational struggle” against bureaucracy?
To top all this off, when the right of expelled comrades to appeal to state and national conventions is abolished by the simple device of abolishing such state and national conventions it might be called clever factional diplomacy, but it certainly is not democratic centralism.
Never, in any Communist Party, has there been a more brazen case of bureaucracy than this decision of the National Committee to violate the Party Constitution and abolish the 1947 National Convention, under the excuse of “postponing” it, for no valid reason whatever, and without even giving the membership any explanation.
The furtive underhanded way of doing this, itself cries aloud that those who did it have guilty consciences; as well they might.
Firstly, the decision to abolish the 1947 “regular” bi-annual National Convention, taken in the last days of June, 1947, was kept secret from the membership as long as possible and as much as possible. An anonymous report on the National Committee meeting of June 27 to 30, 1947, at which that decision was made, was printed in The Worker of July 13 – that is to say, two weeks later.
But in that report there was not one word about the 1947 regular National Convention being postponed. All that was said about, any convention whatever, was printed in the last paragraph of that report, which merely stated:
“The National Committee, at this united and democratic (sic!) meeting, decided to call a National Party Convention in 1948, so that the Communist Party can make its final decisions concerning the 1948 elections at the time when other political parties will be making theirs.”
Here, we find not a word about the regular 1947 National Convention, due to be held, by mandatory rule of the Party Constitution, by July, 1947. Merely that a special convention, some time in 1948, would be held, although the word “special” was not used. Now, the calling of a “special” convention in 1948, or any other year, is within the authority of the National Committee under Article VII, Section 1, of the Party Constitution, although it is most strange and unreasonable that a National Committee meeting in June, 1947, should be so thoughtfully far-sighted as to provide for a special convention in some un-named month of the next year; and at the same time so completely “forgetful” of the regular convention due the very next month; so weirdly and amazingly forgetful that they even forgot to “postpone” it.
And yet, we learned later that it was “postponed.” But why, then, was not that “postponement” spoken of publicly and at the time it was done? Obviously, because, although the National Committee members had not forgotten that a regular National Convention was due, they wished the membership to forget that fact; and thus escape the membership protest at such violation of the Constitution. Therefore, the bureaucratic leadership, at this so-called and self-styled “democratic” meeting, kept that “postponement” secret, and attempted to divert attention from this by informing the membership only of the glad, good tidings that there would be a convention next year. That is, if the same National Committee, when next year comes, so pleases.
It was not until still another month went by, that the “postponement” was even cautiously mentioned. Then, on August 8, 1947, the Daily Worker reported that:
“The New York State Committee of the Communist Party, at its meeting of July 26 and 27, unanimously approved the decision of the National Committee to postpone the National Convention to 1948, in order to enable the Party to take the necessary actions on the vital 1948 elections.” It was added that: “Letters have gone out to all counties, sections and clubs in New York, calling for endorsement of this decision of the New York State Committee.”
From then on, nothing official has appeared mentioning in any way any National Convention, or even whether the “counties, sections and clubs” in New York State “endorsed” or failed to endorse, such decision. There have, however, been some strange “explanations” offered by individual leaders.
One, given publicity through the capitalist press by National Committeeman, the late Peter V. Cacchione, in Los Angeles on July 14, 1947, was that the Party was unable to hire a hall for its National Convention anywhere in the United States! That the Party had hired a hall; the Embassy Auditorium in Los Angeles, for Cacchione to speak that very night, never impressed him with a sense of the absurdity of his own statement. That our Party, in its darkest days of illegality and poverty, was always able to “hire a hall” somewhere, or that the National Convention could have met in 1947, if need be, in the same place that the National Committee met, when it decided to abolish that Convention, were also facts too embarrassing to be mentioned by Comrade Cacchione.
There is a further wholly unofficial report that Comrade Max Weiss, who wrote so beautifully against bureaucracy back in 1945, “explained” to membership meetings in New York, that the Party couldn’t hold any National Convention in 1947, because of lack of funds. It appears that, although this doleful financial deficit exists in 1947, our National Committee is quite sure of ample funds for a convention in 1948. Or that Comrade Weiss thinks that the membership forgets that, at every convention period, a “convention assessment” is levied on each member, to cover convention expenses.
It is evident that such silly and unofficial “explanations” are given out because there is no sensible explanation. It is a fact, of course, that Communist parties have, on occasions where conditions made it necessary, postponed their conventions. But never under such circumstances as these in our Party in June, 1947.
To begin with, no other Communist Party ever had a leadership of such self-admitted bureaucrats, who confessed, also, that the membership had good reason to suspect them of further bureaucratic behavior, and who wrote their own commands to carry on a struggle against their bureaucracy into a National Convention Resolution – and then so utterly ignored that mandate.
No other Communist Party leadership ever enjoyed, under capitalism, such a sufficiency of funds, or such freedom of movement and possibility of assembly for convention delegates, as our Party had in June, 1947.
True, there was, there is and will be any amount of anti-Communist howling by reactionaries. But that does not equal illegality for the Party. And even if there were such a situation, since when has any Communist Party given up holding conventions for such a reason?
Is there any pretense that no National Convention was held in 1947 because of possible police suppression? That, again, is quite ridiculous. If 53 members of the National Committee could meet, and unconstitutionally decide that they would permit no 1947 convention, so also could more persons gather, and hold a convention as delegates. If it were “too dangerous” to hold a convention, how then was it that the Daily Worker of October 20, 1947, reported a “regional conference” of 600 Party leaders had been held? More, if it were “too dangerous” to hold a National Convention in 1947, what reason could the National Committee have that it would not be equally dangerous in 1948?
No, any way you figure it, there is bureaucratic fraud. The fact is that the leadership, which maintained itself in office by trickery, deceit, fraud, and factional manipulation in 1945, intends to keep on maintaining itself in office. And, fearing the deep under-currents of membership revolt growing over the past two years, it dared not call a convention and submit itself to the membership for reelection.
So they have usurped Party authority which does not belong to them, are no longer “elected” committees or officials, and everything they do under such usurped authority is illegal and need not be recognized by the Party membership and the basic organizations of the Party, the Party Clubs. Party authority now reverts, wholly, to the Party membership organized in the Clubs or individual membership units, as “the basic organizations of the Party.” (Article VI, Section 1, of the Party Constitution.)
It is now entirely the right, the duty and the authority of these basic organizations of the Party to provide, by their own resolutions, their own decisions and their own actions, and the resolutions, decisions and actions of any delegate bodies which these Clubs may now elect, for whatever leadership the Party now legally has, and whatever current policies the Party may now constitutionally initiate. They may boycott the state and national officers, refuse to pay over per-capita dues, and, having elected new officers and new committees under rules provided by the Party Constitution, may legally and physically eject the old ones from Party premises.
The Party membership, acting through its organizations, the Clubs, has the right to do this, and to re-establish the authority of the CPUSA Constitution in practice, and effectively subordinate all committees and officials to the terms of the Constitution that are now ignored and violated by the present committees and officials.
More, the Party Clubs, which are the only organizations of the Party now holding constitutional power, not only may do this, but they must do it, or allow the party, in the words of Stalin’s warning against conciliation of Right Opportunism, to fall into ”paralysis and chronic infirmity,” and ”to deprive the proletariat of its stoutest weapon in the fight against imperialism.” Already, matters have gone too far in that dangerous direction.
(The “postscripts” inserted within parentheses in the body of the thesis, were written in after the original copy was finished in April, 1947, and are inserted as new material made necessary in the light of developments subsequent to that date.
(It is my contention that what is said is more important than who says it. However, for those insistent on a “biography,” let it be said that I have been a wage worker since the age of 14, joined the Socialist Party in 1910, the Industrial Workers of the World in 1914, and, as a political prisoner for opposing imperialist war in 1917, joined the Communist Party from Leavenworth Penitentiary in September, 1919, as a Charter Member; helped start the Daily Worker in 1924, and for over eight years was Editor-in-Chief of the Daily People’s World in San Francisco, resigning from Associate Editorship on July 1, 1946, because of heart trouble, which incapacitates me for full-time Party activity, a fact which contradicts any assertion or assumption that I seek any Party office out of “political ambition.” My sole political ambition is for the United States proletariat to have a Communist Party that is a Communist Party.)