Turmoil in U. S. Communism

...There would also be "guarantees of real inner-party democracy...

...The result had been "doctrinaire forms of party organization, bureaucratic methods of leadership, failure to develop inner-party democracy...

...During the past four months, these foreign-policy polemics have been paralleled by a less spectacular but equally significant debate on party organization, ideology and tactics...

...Alan Max accused Dennis of seeming "to impugn the socialist integrity of Daily II orker editors and writers," and Lannon of "only carrying to its logical extreme the method" previously employed by Foster...

...Foster voted against the statement, while Dennis and former New York City Councilman Benjamin J. Davis Jr...

...At the same time, the Resolution provided a revealing glimpse of the state of party morale by coming out four-square against all "proposals to liquidate our party" or transform it into an "educational league" or "political-action association...

...This was still not good enough for Foster, who voted against the second statement as he had the first...

...Gates, replying in the November Political Affairs, held his ground and went still further...

...Whether the convention will end in a forensic slugfest and the mass walkout of Foster, Dennis, Davis and other members of the party's Old Guard is for the future to reveal...

...This is, primarily, a people's upheaval...

...On June 6, they berated Stalin's "monstrous perversion of socialist principles," "brutal rule," "crimes against socialism and humanity," and "terror control," and demanded more information "on the role of the other [Soviet] Communist leaders...

...It is probably premature to expect the CP to resolve itself into an American version of the Fabian Society...

...not too late to rally around Comrade Foster and rid out party of all the manifestations of this vicious sell-out...

...Another presented a blunt ultimatum which spoke volumes for the state of intra-party democracy: Print this letter or else forfeit "my usual yearly $50 to $100 contribution...

...They were] primarily mass democratic upsurges...

...and James W. Ford, Communist candidate for Vice President in 1932 and 1936...

...But another wondered if "Khrushchev and the others" had been "part of the [Stalin] terror apparatus" and had held "a secret trial and murder of Beria because they needed a scapegoat...

...The Hungarian people have now had 11 years in which to test parties and leaders...

...approved it "with reservations...

...The successive blows of Khrushchev's revelations and the brutal Soviet intervention in Hungary have shaken the rank-and-file as nothing before, and the leadership split is probably the worst since that which preceded the Trotskyite defection in the late 1920s...

...Before long, however, it had trailed off into a long catalogue of errors committed by the party over the past decade...

...Others, however, hastened to note that Khrushchev was no more infallible than Stalin and asked why Beria had never received an open trial...

...Another denounced the Worker and compared the Soviet troops in Hungary to "a mother watching her young ones.' But the majority of correspondents used the Worker's new outspokenness as a springboard for even wilder leaps into the ideological unknown: "If a nation chooses to retrogress from socialism to capitalism, it should have that right...

...The main danger, he made very clear, was not "left - sectarianism" but "right - inspired liquidationism...

...Then, coming about as close as any American Communist ever had to calling an official representative of the Kremlin a barefaced liar, the editorial writer declared: "Soviet [UN] delegate Sobolev flew in the face of facts when he described the Hungarian upsurge as the work of a pro-fascist underground...

...A1 Lannon...

...the common people in Russia are our friends, but the Communist party must sever all connections with the Russian leaders...

...freedom of discussion, dissent and criticism...

...The Worker's letters column was by now little less than a bloody ideological battleground...

...an old party wheelhorse, announced the discovery of "ideological corruption" not only in the Daily Worker but in the National Committee itself...

...In the October issue of Political Affairs, Foster sailed in with a gargantuan 31-page rebuttal...

...The speech arrived in the party's 16th Street offices in New York with the force of a blockbuster...

...What is being done to guarantee against repetition ?" When Pravda reprinted an article by Party Secretary Dennis but omitted his reference to "snuffing out the lives of more than a score of Jewish cultural figures," Worker Foreign Editor Joseph Clark commented acidly: "They can't be brought back to life by snuffing out a clause in an article...

...Three days after Max's article, Foster conceded that Stalin had made "errors," but declared they "had an objective basis in the severe trials and struggles of the Soviet people" which "required strong discipline...

...What was unforgivable and inexcusable was the manner in which we passed judgment ¦—harsh and sometimes vindictive in tone—on many of our fellow Americans based solely on their criticism of the Stalin rule...

...while a third demanded to know "what led American Communists to parrot every new line emanating from the Soviet Union...

...perhaps two parties, one Titoist, the other still tightly bound to the Soviet war chariot...

...abstained...

...Its membership, last estimated at 20,000 to 25,000, is steadily dwindling...

...The Resolution started out conventionally enough with a blast at American "giant corporations" which are "trying to extend their domination to the rest of the world...

...All in all, "our rigid attitude that we alone had all the answers repelled actual and potential allies...

...Some contributors to the Worker's correspondence column were less polite: One charged Dennis with "justifying the mass slaughter of workers and youth...

...Confronted with complex problems of an unprecedented nature," it confessed, "we have differences of opinion...

...One incensed reader wrote in: "You have joined the wolfpack in the bushes, snarling and sniping at the CPSU [Soviet Communist party] along with the Dulleses and their like...

...A week later, he explained that "the antifascist and pro-peace intervention of the Soviet Army units" was necessary "to safeguard the Democratic Republic of Hungary" and "the vital security of all the people's democracies anil the USSR...

...The Worker's editorial writers, however, pulled out all the stops...

...The next day, they flung themselves into an orgy of breast-beating and flesh-mortifying surely unparalleled in the history of the Communist movement: "We were wrong, terribly wrong...

...One thing, however, is certain: The CPUSA, 1957 model, will bear little resemblance to its old self, with its "monolithic unity" and its readiness to follow every switch in the Moscow line at the first stutter of a news ticker...

...The party had overestimated the danger of war...

...Of the 13 members of the National Committee, only Party Chairman Foster voted against the Draft Resolution, though Benjamin J. Davis Jr...

...All this, needless to say, was proving a rather heady brew for some of the party rank-and-file...

...and that has seen Foster and Dennis charged in the Worker's letter-to-the-editor column with "an outright lie...

...A week later, after Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy had taken non-Communists into his government in the face of a nationwide uprising, the Worker praised his "steps . . to end the fighting, broaden [the Government's] base and insure an end to a Stalin-type repression...

...and it had systematically alienated labor, the Negroes, and every other segment of the population...

...Last September 13, the National Committee adopted a Draft Resolution for the February convention—a somewhat turgid document which runs to 60-odd pages in pamphlet form...

...State Department and reprinted in the Worker...

...Half the time, these lines, were so hard to swallow that we didn't even dare mention them to our own friends and relatives...

...The Committee still blamed Hungarian Communist "repression" and the original Soviet intervention in October ("a tragic error") for the uprising...

...In an article on March 13, he confessed that the news had "jolted" him and added: "We went overboard in defending the idea of Stalin as infallible, in opposing any suggestion that civil liberties were not being fully respected in the Soviet Union...

...They sought to turn the party "into some sort of an educational organization," or even to "abandon altogether the idea of the Left having a party of its own...

...The recipients of these verbal brickbats gave as good as they got...

...On November 5, the day after the final Soviet assault on Budapest, the Worker editorialized: "The action does not advance but retards the development of socialism, because socialism cannot be imposed on a country by force...

...Foster made no secret about whom his strictures were aimed at...

...Henceforth, the National Committee promised, the party would "be bolder in re-examining certain Marxist-Leninist theories which . .. may have become outdated," and would demand "the equality and independence of Marxist parties .. . the right and duty of the Communists of all countries to engage in comradely criticism...

...The events in Poland and Hungary,' it declared, "cannot be explained as the result of reactionary, pro-fascist plots...

...On November 29, Dennis solemnly discerned "a growing concern among many readers and friends of the Daily Worker regarding its editorial position on certain vital questions...

...Stalin's "many mistakes," he added soon after, were merely "deviations" from an "essentially correct line...

...By June, the complete text of Khrushchev's report had been published by the U.S...

...We are in no position to give final judgment...

...However, the faction which favors greater freedom of expression within the party, a less doctrinaire approach to the facts of American life, and greater independence of the shifting Moscow line seems firmly in the saddle...

...Lines of battle were soon clearly forming over Khrushchev's speech and all its implications...

...Writing in a like vein in the December issue of the party theoretical organ, Political Affairs, Benjamin J. Davis Jr...

...After declaring that not even Marx and Lenin should be regarded as "the fountainhead of all wisdom," he proposed that the name "Communist" be dropped from the party and that "we change our party form to one of a political-action association...

...The Daily Worker, backed by the New York State Communist party (with about half the total national membership) and a substantial segment of the National Committee, spearheaded the drive to "re-evaluate" the party's old policy of slavish obedience to every whim of the Kremlin...

...Nevertheless, the statement wound up lamely: "We do not seek to justify the use of Soviet troops on November 4. Neither do we join in condemnation of these actions...

...The party's Old Guard was by now directing a concerted campaign of viewing-with-alarm at the Daily Worker and similar centers of infection...

...One reader vituperated: "The Daily Worker no longer speaks for American Communists...

...In the meantime, new revelations set off by Khrushchev's original speech were peppering the harried CP leaders from every side...

...Long-suppressed grievances of some party faithful came bubbling to the surface in curious forms...

...popularly-supported Hungarian government, though "it may even adopt a neutral course between the East and the West," would be "far better than the forced continuance of a regime faithful to the Soviet Union but estranged from its people...

...They alone have the right to decide whether to change or retain them...

...With the full text not yet available but details of Khrushchev's revelations steadily trickling in, Worker Managing Editor Alan Max was the first to take the icy plunge...

...It is a year that has seen Party Chairman William Z. Foster cast unavailing "no" votes against adoption of a "Draft Resolution" for the coming convention and against two major foreign-policy statements by the party's National Committee...

...These, it appeared, had been almost entirely errors of the "left-sectarian" variety...

...The past year has witnessed an intramural free-for-all unprecedented in party annals...

...One reader accused Max and his colleagues of following Soviet policy "flipdops with amazing jolt-proof gymnastic dexterity" over the years, and commented savagely: "You might make it a policy to read your old editorials before writing new ones...

...One statement, though, can safely be made: If the current convulsions in world Communism should finally produce an open break between Moscow and the "national Communism" of Warsaw, Belgrade and elsewhere, there is no longer much question where the American Communist party will take a stand...

...will climax the wildest twelve months in its 38-year history by holding its first national convention in more than six years...

...Some, enraged at the assault on their idol, denounced Stalin's critics as "ungrateful sons of a great father" or tried to saddle "that creature Beria" with everything that had gone awry...

...With this 26,000-word tale of infamy staring him in the face, Foster was at last reluctantly obliged to upgrade Stalin's misbehavior from the category of "errors" and "excesses" to that of "crimes" and "barbarities"— though striving valiantly to explain them in terms of "a hostile capitalist encirclement," "the previous absence of democracy in Russian history,' etc...

...Relations [between Communist parties] require absolutely no interference in the internal affairs of other parties and countries...

...perhaps a loosely organized "political-action association" which, at least in name, is neither Communist nor a party...

...accused the Worker of taking "one-sided positions which leave doubt as to who the real enemy of peace, progress and national liberation is—world imperialism or the Soviet Union...

...Going boldly on, he demanded: "Where were the present [Soviet] leaders during the period when they say that collective leadership was lacking...

...The Worker voiced its "indignation, anger and grief," as well as "our strong dissatisfaction that the Soviet leaders have not offered any explanation of what took place...

...On November 19, the National Committee issued a second, post-Budapest statement...

...In the same issue of the Worker which published the statement, Dennis explained his abstention on the grounds that "the NC statement does not adequately express and affirm the vital principles of international working-class and socialist solidarity"—a dialectical way of saying that all good Communists should stick together in a crisis regardless of the rights and wrongs involved...

...The fateful Warsaw confrontation between Wladyslaw Gomulka and Ni-kita Khrushchev had scarcely ended when the Worker made its position perfectly clear...

...All this left the split wider than ever...

...The split in the Communist party leadership was now out in the open...

...it had continually predicted major economic crises which never developed...

...On October 22, with Soviet tanks still moving menacingly toward Warsaw and armed Polish workers keeping grim vigil in their factories, an editorial declared: "The Polish Government, the Polish Communists and the indomitable Polish working class are advancing the democratization and independence of their socialist regime...

...At the same time, the effort to hold the party in line behind Moscow's new bosses, and even salvage what little was possible of Stalin's battered reputation, was led by Party Chairman Foster, hand-picked for his present job by the dead dictator in 1929...

...that has seen the Daily Worker, official party organ, accused by Party General Secretary Eugene Dennis of finding "everything the USSR does . . . suspect or mistaken...

...The whole affair, he commented, "no doubt will be clarified by the Soviet leaders...

...Foster explained his vote by calling the Soviet intervention "a case of supreme political necessity...

...We did not want to believe these crimes could occur in a socialist state, and so we refused to believe...

...As the American Communist party enters its 16th national convention, its morale, in the words of one leader, "is at an all-time low...

...It is...

...Another wrote that Dennis's and Foster's defense of the second Soviet intervention in Hungary was based "upon an outright lie" (that the Kadar regime in Budapest had "requested" it...

...The Soviet intervention, it went on, "cannot be justified . . because [it] was not in accord with the wishes of the Hungarian people...

...The Worker, he charged, now "insists that everything the USSR does is suspect or mistaken," and added: "Strange things have been happening in the pages of the Daily Worker, where letters advocating 'the right to overthrow socialism' go unchallenged by the editors...

...The root cause of these melancholy events, the Resolution confessed, was "dogmatic application of Marxist theory to the American scene" and a tendency to "view uncritically developments in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries...

...What will emerge is anyone's guess: perhaps a "national Communist" party on Ti-toist lines...

...One reason offered for the proposed changes: to "stem the losses in the party and thereby halt the trend to liquidation...

...What is more, the National Committee had failed to combat this movement, and the Draft Resolution "takes an incorrect position in this whole vital matter...

...Such was the state of turmoil within the CPUSA when, late in October, the Polish and Hungarian revolutions struck with shattering force...

...The next day, it went even further: "The facts indicate that this was not a counterrevolutionary plot...

...termed the Worker "strongly anti-Soviet...

...On November 5, the party's National Committee issued a statement on Poland and Hungary (adopted before the previous day's attack on Budapest) which in effect endorsed the Daily Worker position...

...What has been done to punish all those responsible...

...Late in March, it was revealed that former Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk, executed in 1949 as a "Titoist" and "imperialist agent," had actually been the victim of a judicial frame-up...

...On December 8, the party's New York State Committee, by a vote of 25-6, adopted a statement fully backing both these suggestions...

...A month later, he stated flatly: "When all of Stalin's shortcomings and leadership excesses have been exposed and explained, he will stand as a fighter who performed great services in the building of Soviet and world socialism...

...But now something new had been added: "Reactionary elements within Hungary were bolstered by an influx of exiled fascists, interventionists and agents of Project X. . . The Nagy Government, retreating before reactionary pressures, lost its capacity to govern...

...We [were guilty of] stupid and arrogant condemnation of those who told the truth about the violations of justice in the Soviet Union...

...The Worker expressed its "profound indignation and protest" —though with a sidelong crack at the "frame-up" of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, by way of evening the scores...

...Like most Communist parties, the American CP was propelled into its present time of troubles by Soviet Party boss Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" on Stalin's crimes at the 20th Soviet Party Congress last February...

...Joseph Clark commented sarcastically that "Dennis evidently does not object to the DW criticizing anything said or done by Soviet Communists, but only after the Soviet Communists have themselves made such criticism...

...The votaries of this new heresy, it seemed, were launching "bitter attacks upon the Soviet Union, upon our party, and upon its whole leadership...

...I do not want to belong to an organization whose members feel socialism should be imposed on the ends of bayonets...

...The readers, it soon developed, thought plenty...

...The "developing right tendency," he said, "entrenched itself in the Daily Worker and in the New York State Committee," and "one of [its] outstanding spokesmen" was John Gates, Editor of the Worker...

...What about their own mistakes . ?" "What," he concluded, "do our readers think about the matter...

...Ten days later came an even cruder blow: A Polish Communist newspaper revealed that Jewish culture had been virtually wiped out in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and a number of leading Jewish writers executed...

...But George Blake Charnev, New York State Chairman of the party, countered with the startling statement that a new...

...it had overestimated "the scope, level and tempo of the process of fascization'' in America and underestimated "the strength of American democratic traditions among the people...

...They were also guilty of "feeble party discipline," "abandonment of Marxism-Leninism in theory and practice," "abandonment of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat,'' and "a big underplay of the aggressive foreign role of American imperialism...