This article was reprinted from the March 16, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.
The following statement, adopted at the CPUSA's 26th National Convention, was introduced by Illinois state organizer Scott Marshall.
Unity is the great strength of our party and of our class. The Communist party USA was founded, built and flourishes today based on our steadfast and uncompromising fight for unity.
At every turn in our 77 year history, our party championed, by word and deed, the struggle against all forms of racism, chauvinism, anti-Semitism and immigrant-bashing.
Communists are many on the great honor roll of hundreds of militant working class fighters for unity - people like William Z. Foster, Claudia Jones, Jesus Colon, "Mother" Ella Reeve Bloor, Juan Chacon, W.E.B. DuBois, Carl Yoneda, Henry Winston and Gus Hall.
From the Scottsboro case to the Flint sit-down strike, from the lunch counters of Birmingham to the front lines of the Illinois war zone, our party has helped to bring the great labor slogan, "an injury to one is an injury to all" to life, into a class conscious demand for unity and equality.
Black, Brown and white, unite and fight, we thunder in response to the Contract on America.
Black, Brown and white, unite and fight, we hammer against the fascist like pronouncements of a Republican Party mired in the stench of a dying capitalist system.
Black, Brown and white, unite and fight, we chant as we march against a rising tide of police brutality, criminalization and the "blame the victim" lies of the corporate enemy.
Black, Brown and white, unite and fight - we will not be pitted against our sisters and brothers in Mexico, in Canada or against any workers in any country. The unity of African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican and other Latino, Asian Pacific and white is a unity of the majority.
We are locked arm in arm. We pledge to our class and our people: we will build a bigger, bolder mass Communist Party - we must. The thousands of new Communists of all races and nationalities who are joining our party will give voice and new militancy to the anti-racist majority.
The sound of marching feet you hear, the chorus of voices you hear, the men and women you see - it's the working class on the move.
Black, Brown and white, unite and fight - We will march down that road that goes only in one direction - toward Socialism. We pledge to continue, in our best traditions, our march down this road. This is our dream and this is our vision: the people united Black, Brown and white, living together in peace and unity.
Unity and equality is our great strength. We will overcome! This is our pledge to ourselves and our class.
CLEVELAND - The credentials report for the Communist Party USA's 26th Convention shows that out of the 516 registered delegates and guests, 203 were active trade unionists in 43 international unions. The presence of so many trade union members, many of them wearing their union caps and blazers helped create a "working class atmosphere" in the convention. You could feel the sisterhood and brotherhood in the air, especially when the convention recessed and marched to a nearby Bridgestone-Firestone Service Center for a rally against B-F unionbusting.
These delegates and guests brought with them the new fighting spirit workers are showing throughout the country, on picketlines, in union halls and in the communities where they live. Subjected to plant closings, downsizing, outsourcing, and export of their jobs, they have seen 25 percent of their wages stolen by corporate executives and Wall Street financiers who wallow in record salaries, golden parachutes and profits. Yet these convention goers were unbowed and brimming with confidence in the growing fightback.
A Saturday luncheon meeting in the middle of the convention made history as 59 trade union leaders broke bread with Communist Party national chairman, Gus Hall. Wally Kaufman, a retired painter and the officer of the Painters Union Retiree Club in Cleveland introduced Hall as a "giant of the U.S. labor movement" with strong unbreakable ties to Cleveland and the state of Ohio. The heroes welcome given to Hall last summer by leaders and members of United Steelworkers Local 1375, in Warren, Ohio was a signal of the deepgoing positive changes sweeping the labor movement, Kaufman said.
In attendance at the luncheon were 20 elected union officers, 16 union staff workers, the president of an AFL- CIO Central Labor Council, four officers of union retiree organizations, and 18 union activists. They represented the Steelworkers, Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Machinists, Building Trades, teachers, United Auto Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Service Employees, longshore, UNITE, hospital workers, Office and Professional Employees, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and Jobs With Justice. Also present were workers on strike against the Detroit News and Free Press.
"The fact that we have come together, Communist and non- Communist trade unionists is symbolic of the great changes taking place in our country, just as our convention reflects a change in our party," Hall told the gathering.
"We are getting out of the patterns and habits of being small and restricted in our relationships. With the election of a new AFL-CIO leadership, the stage is set for a totally new, totally different trade union movement."
One of the Detroit News strikers asked Hall about the CPUSA's policy on the 1996 Presidential and Congressional elections. Hall reiterated that the Party is focusing on the urgent task of defeating the right-wing extremists including the "Gang of 73" freshmen Republicans. These extremists, he said, are viciously hostile to labor and entitlement programs that benefit the people and are serving the interests of the corporate profiteers. Hall also stressed that the policy is a specific tactic for this election.
Many of the luncheon guests stayed on to attend a convention workshop on "Class Struggle Trade Unionism" chaired by George Meyers, who is the chair of the Party's Labor Commission and the former president of the Maryland-D.C. CIO. In opening the workshop, Meyers said the immediate focus of the Party's trade union work is "maximum mobilization of organized labor in conjunction with its community allies" to defeat of the ultra-right "in the 1996 elections. "The long range thrust of our work is to strengthen and expand left-center coalitions at all levels of the trade union movement," he said.
The emphasis now, said Meyers, is building grassroots coalitions on issues in the local unions and central labor councils as well as coalitions between labor and community organizations on both political and economic issues. He listed the demand for an $8 per hour minimum wage, affirmative action, welfare rights, and defense of the environment as well as the fight for the jobs bills introduced by representatives. Matthew Martinez and Ron Dellums.
The policies advanced by the new AFL-CIO leadership, Meyers said, "has opened opportunities for every Party member to contribute to the advancement of class struggle trade unionism whether one is a shop worker, white collar worker or involved in community work" The AFL-CIO is committing one-third of its budget to organizing the unorganized and is training organizers for "Union Summer."
The labor federation plans to put at least 100 trade union canvassers into each of the 435 Congressional districts as part of the drive to oust right-wing extremists from Congress. "Left trade unionists should fully participate in the political and economic structures being set up within the AFL-CIO framework," Meyers said.
The 26th Convention of the Communist Party USA meeting in Cleveland March 1-3 faced a big dilemma. At every convention since 1986, the Party has awarded a bright red satin banner to the district that recruited the most new members and added the most new People's Weekly World readers to its sub list.
Choosing the winner in conventions past was easy. At a midterm conference in July 1986, Michigan was declared the first winner. It kept the banner. with the districts name neatly embroidered into the cloth, at the Party's office in Detroit until the 24th Convention in 1987 when Connecticut was named the winner. In 1991 at the Party's 25th Convention, Southern California won.
But this 26th Convention was different. Lee Dlugin, a member of the Party's National Committee assigned to work with new recruits told the convention, "This is not an easy task to choose. So many Districts have accomplished so much."
"Just look at our convention, comrades," she said, gesturing toward the 600 delegates and guests who filled the Cleveland Sheraton's Grand Ballroom. It was a gorgeous mosaic of Black, Brown, and white, men and women, young and old, many of them wearing their union caps and jackets.
A radical solution was needed, Dlugin said: namely three banner districts! And so they were - Connecticut, New York and Southern California. She asked the delegations from those states to come up to the stage.
Connecticut opened up the mass recruiting in 1991-92, spearheading legislative struggles to save welfare, to organize the homeless, and to mobilize labor and community solidarity with workers on strike.
"You did it at the workplace, at tables, in community parades and festivals. You led the way in building new clubs," Dlugin said as the crowd applauded.
"New York," she continued, " two years ago you electrified the Party. You threw open the doors to the Party and in marched a couple of thousand new members. You tabled and you tabled and you moved the office of the Party onto the streets, all over the city, all over the state. You recruited hospital workers, garment workers, at rallies signing petitions for jobs. You have built new Party clubs. You have given new meaning to the words, 'Mass Party.'"
Southern California, she said, won the Banner in 1991 "and you have done it again." She praised the district for establishing close working ties and coalitions with the trade union movement. "Your work in the struggle for jobs and for the Martinez bill is winning the widest recognition across the country as is your work against fascist-like Proposition 187. This has resulted in 300 new recruits and new shop clubs and the mass growth of the People's Weekly World."
She presented the banner to Joelle Fishman, chair of the Connecticut district, and Evelina Alarcon, chair of the Southern California district, who held it aloft as the crowd cheered. John Bachtell, chair of the New York District, looked on.
The platform was packed with the three delegations, perhaps one third of them new members of the Party, African American, Latino, and white. Most of them are trade union and community activists. The banner goes first to L.A.; next year it will travel to Connecticut, and from there to New York.
"A number of speakers have said that it is a beautiful thing to look from this platform and see this convention," Dlugin said. "Now you can see from where you are sitting the beauty of our party."
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