Toward a mass party - Communist Party's 26th National Convention calls for 'bigger, bolder' CPUSA

by Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the March 9, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

CLEVELAND, Ohio - In a mood of joyful celebration, 500 delegates and guests to the Communist Party USA's 26th Convention, gathered here Mar. 1-3 to chart a path for building a "mass party of socialism."

It was an especially sweet occasion. Four years ago the Party had met in the same hotel, the Cleveland Sheraton, and defeated an attempt by factionalists to take over the Party. "What a difference between then and now," declared George Meyers, chair of the labor commission and former president of the Maryland-D.C. CIO who opened the convention.

"In a little more than four years since that convention, events have moved with the speed of light.. Under Gus Hall's outstanding leadership, we have a strong, united party, rapidly becoming a mass party." He related it to other dramatic changes such as the election of new leadership by the AFL-CIO and the NAACP.

The crowd bore out Meyer's contention. It was a rainbow of races and nationalities - Black, Brown and white, activists in the labor movement, on campuses and in communities. Scores were new members, most of them young men and women, recruited at street fairs and on picket lines in the past three years by the Party and Young Communist League.

In the main report, CPUSA Chair, Gus Hall, said, "We are a much bigger party. We are a party with a much wider influence ... As a mass party, we will have to develop a more popular style of leadership ..."

The immediate task, Hall said, is defeat of the "fascist- tinged" Republican extremists in next fall's elections. He accused the Republican-majority House and Senate, led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), of waging an "open, brazen attack" on the people's living standards, scheming to destroy Medicare, Medicaid welfare, environmental health and safety regulations, affirmative action and trade union rights - -all in the interests of maximum profits for the giant banks and corporations. Racist violence and police brutality is on the rise, he said, together with attacks on immigrant workers and increasing anti-Semitism.

The extremist danger, he added, is not limited to Congress. "Just a whiff of Patrick Buchanan is a whiff of fascism," he said. "The takeover of our country by the ultra-right is not imminent or inevitable. But we must not underestimate this new danger. The '96 elections can be a historic victory over the right wing and other pro-fascist forces ..." Hall said the Party will join and work with any coalition to "root out of Congress these public enemies" and will not run or support candidates who divide the united front against the right-wing extremists.

In his summary, Hall stressed that defeat of the ultra right is "only for the 1996 election, a specific tactic for a specific election ... If you see fascism as a serious threat, then you see the correctness of this tactic ... We cannot go forward as a people and a class without doing that." The movement, he said, is not dropping its long term goal of an anti-monopoly people's party. "The coalitions and alliances and united front formations we build to defeat the Republican extremists can be transformed into permanent formations to work toward" an anti-monopoly, people's party, he said.

A bitter wind and snow blew off Lake Erie but inside the hall it was like a festival. There was a "Boot Newt Talent Review" which included Emmy award-winning actor John Randolph and featuring a chorus organized by folk singer Anne Feeney. The chorus, made up of delegates and guests, sang complex harmonies improvised on the spot. A standup comic who teaches school for a living kept the crowd in stitches. A dance lasted into the wee hours Saturday night.

The convention corridors were a hubbub. Booths were set up by progressive organizations - the Ohio Green Party, unions representing the striking Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, Women Speak Out For Peace and Justice and others. There was an exhibition of original sculpture by Jane Bunge Noffke and retired steelworker, George Edwards.

Much commented on was the extensive, positive coverage of the convention in the Ohio news media including three prominent articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as well as articles in the Columbus Dispatch and Youngstown Vindicator. A rally at a Bridgestone-Firestone service center to protest union-busting was broadcast on three local TV news programs.

A high point of the convention was a ceremony honoring CPUSA veterans. Delegates read excerpts from the writings of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Eugene V. Debs, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Juan Chacon. YCL National Coordinator Terrie Albano then called the honor roll of 80 Party heroes.

Adopted by acclamation was a Unity Declaration, rededicating the Party to the struggle against all forms of racism and chauvinism. The convention also approved unanimously a resolution denouncing the stepped up, warlike. blockade of Cuba. The convention elected a 145-member National Committee which in turn re-elected Hall as national chair.

The convention greeted with a thunderous standing ovation a speech by fraternal delegate Pham Van Tho, a member of the Central Committee, Communist Party of Vietnam. He told the crowd that this was the first ever delegation from his Party to attend a CPUSA convention - or any other American political convention.

He reminded the crowd that Ho Chi Minh, father of Vietnamese independence, had visited the United States in his youth. Ho, he said, used the first line of the American Declaration of Independence in Vietnam's Declaration of Independence. He presented to Gus Hall a silk banner embroidered with the image of Ho's birthplace.