U. S. Communists Convene
LEWIS, WALTER K.
With membership down below 10,000, the party failed to settle major policy disputes at recent sessions in New York U.S. Communists Convene By Walter K. Lewis Walter K. Lewis, an old New Leader...
...Although the Communist party is like an iceberg in that so little is exposed to public view, it appears that neither Foster nor Gates will win the ultimate struggle for power...
...Nor is Eugene Dennis a permanent fixture as Party Secretary...
...At this meeting, the composition of a caretaker committee for the party was decided...
...she fell short hv 68 votes...
...Rachlin, Migdal and other observers felt that the Party, despite its reduced numbers, still represented a threat to democratic institutions— particularly to liberal organizations...
...Later the number of states was scaled down to 25, and a breakdown by sex of the delegates (209 men, 78 women) added up to only 287 delegates...
...Roosevelt Ward Jr., himself a youth leader, and Herber Signer, another Daily Worker writer, admitted that the Labor Youth League, successor of the wartime American Youth for Democracy and the prewar Young Communist League, was being liquidated...
...The latter, Foster believed, would help reduce the preponderance of New York rebels on the new committee...
...In fact, the main issues were hammered out in secret sessions which began three days before the convention, held on the sixth and seventh floors of the National Theater Building and in special rooms at a nearby hall...
...The convention received official greetings from most of the other Communist parties around the world, with the significant exception of the Polish, Yugoslav and Hungarian parties...
...In adopting the report (drafted by educational director Max Weiss) which said the Party would "interpret and apply" Marxism-Leninism according to its own lights, the Party ignored a long letter from French Communist Jacques Duclos which stressed the leading role of the Soviet CP...
...Communists Convene By Walter K. Lewis Walter K. Lewis, an old New Leader contributor, has specialized in covering the activities of Communist, Fascist and other anti-democratic groups...
...Largely hidden from public view, the Communist Party, U.S.A., held its 16th convention (February 9-12) at Chateau Gardens, an abandoned church near New York's skid row...
...The Communists directed special emphasis to the Negro question in their declaration of principles, and Carl Rachlin reported that a major effort to infiltrate the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League should be anticipated...
...The real key to the political tone of the convention lay in a seemingly small incident which was never reported to the daily press...
...A violent debate ensued, but the matter was finally turned over to the new National Committee...
...But they also felt strongly that the Parly had lost its youth...
...When George Blake Char-ncy received 115% votes to obtain the 20th and last mandate, and Jesus Ramon received 115"1 o- Foster moved that a 21st seat be created for Ramon...
...in fact nothing was resolved by the truce which Nelson arranged...
...Frankly," Ward said, "our youth just bolted us...
...The transfer to Chicago takes the Party appa, ratus out of the reach of the New York group led by Gates, Gerson and Weiss, and at the same time will ease the organizational grip now held by Foster and Benjamin Davis...
...Compared with the estimate of 20,000-25,000 made a few years ago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the convention revealed the Party's serious losses in the post-Stalin era...
...It was amusing that both Dmitri Shepilov and the convention's resolutions committee reported simultaneously that war under imperialism was no longer to be considered inevitable...
...Rachlin has a long record of combating Communists in the labor movement, while Migdal was active in the anti-Communist fight in the American Veterans Committee several years ago...
...Since the same consideration had fed U.S...
...Witnesses also revealed that there were far fewer than 165 observers, too...
...Adopted unanimously, this decision was most popular with the New York delegation, since it relieved it of the financial obligation to support both the state and the national organization...
...The Soviet Union will continue to be the ideological beacon, with the American party free only to interpret the local implications of Soviet policy...
...From the switch of headquarters to Chicago, as well as other factors, it seems probable that Claude Lightfoot of Illinois will emerge as the new Communist leader...
...This could be confirmed by anyone standing on the streets and watching the delegates come and go...
...By "Social Democrats" the Party has in mind such progressive labor leaders as David Dubinsky and Walter Reuther, and the liberals roughly organized in Americans for Democratic Action...
...The balloting for the National Committee also witnessed a deadlock between the Foster group and its opponents...
...Despite its many expressions of sympathy for minorities, the Party, through Gerson, refused to reveal the names of those candidates who had failed of election to the new National Committee...
...More than a decade ago, it will be recalled, a similar letter from Duclos led the Party to oust its "right-deviationist" leader, Earl Browder...
...Foster may be made Honorary Chairman within the month, and Gates may well be replaced as Daily Worker editor at the same time...
...Gerson told the press at one point that there were 298 delegates, 28 alternates and 165 observers present, representing 34 states...
...Nevertheless, none of the delegates or factions felt any desire to attack the Soviet Union head-on...
...As far as policies are concerned, the "road to American socialism'' heralded by Gates seems illusory...
...Delegates close to the Morning Freiheit, Yiddish-language edition of the Daily Worker, introduced a motion to condemn the Soviet assault on Jewish culture (which included the liquidation of scores of Jewish writers as well as Jewish institutions...
...The Communists did allow the Reverend A. J. Muste of the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation to bring a group of neutral observers, among them attorneys Carl Rachlin and Lester Migdal of the New York Civil Liberties Union...
...The final conflicts were resolved at a pre-dawn meeting on February 12, in which Steve Nelson, head of the Pittsburgh Communists, brought together the chief antagonists: "Stalinist" William Z. Foster, veteran Party chairman, and "anti-Stalinist" John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker...
...It was difficult to keep close tabs on the internal struggle because the press at this "open" convention was barred from the floor and restricted to a press room...
...The decision had been made behind the platform by Party Secretary Eugene Dennis, Claude Lightfoot, George Blake Charney and Fred Fine...
...The most valid surprise of the convention was the announcement that Party headquarters would be moved from New York to Chicago in order "to be near the heartland of America's industrial centers...
...When Simon W. Gerson, the Party's propaganda minister, made the announcement, his trembling hands and voice made it evident that he, too, had been taken by surprise...
...Both Gates and Foster, after the convention, said it had resolved important issues...
...Out of weakness, then, rather than strength, the Communists are wooing American "Social Democrats" with the slogan: "We strive for their cooperation, not liquidation...
...Communists to applaud the worst horrors of the Stalin era, it is difficult to see any significant change in the Party s essence as a result of the 16th convention...
...they were middle-aged, indeed...
...In any case, from data unwittingly revealed on the floor, it was clear that the delegates represented no more than 8,500 or—at the very most—10,000 duespaying Party members...
...An even greater shock, however, was the defeat of Betty Gannett, long a worker in the minority vineyards, whom the Party had been building up as a latter-day Joan of Arc...
...These results showed that Herbert Aptheker, long considered the Party's ideologist on minority questions, fell 35 votes short of election, and Jesus Colon, its Puerto Rican organizer, fell short by 15...
...His attendance at the recent Communist convention's press briefings, study of party literature, and numerous contacts among the delegates and observers enabled him to obtain considerable material not reported elsewhere...
...In the interest of "Party unity," the motion was quashed in the resolutions committee...
Vol. 40 • February 1957 • No. 8
