The best hopes and dreams of the U.S. people do not lie with U.S. big corporations or the extreme right-wing movements they sponsor. In fact, the ultimate interest of the majority of our people is in a more democratic, a more egalitarian, and a more peaceful USA.

While only a minority today supports the idea of a socialist USA, and many of them are skeptical and cynical after 1991, it is our firm belief that socialism is still the best way to fulfill their democratic aspirations.

Therefore, I want to make it clear from the outset: the Communist Party USA is solidly committed to the goal of a socialist USA. We firmly believe that a socialist USA is not only possible but, most importantly, it is necessary and achievable.

Having said that, let me quickly add that while we continue to learn much from 1917 Russia, 1945 China and 1959 Cuba, we are dealing with 21st century U.S. and global capitalism. The situation is much more fast-moving, and in many ways it is much more complex and challenging. The revolutionary process in our country has its own unique characteristics. And while U.S. socialism will have much in common with other socialisms, it will create its own model that will have many unique features.

If I can borrow a quote from Lenin used by CPUSA Chairman Sam Webb in an excellent interview in the January 2004 Political Affairs, “All nations will arrive at socialism – this is inevitable, but they will do so in not the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformation in the different aspects of social life. … There is nothing more primitive from the viewpoint of theory or more ridiculous from the standpoint of practice, then to paint, in the name of historical materialism, this aspect of the future in monotonous gray.”



U.S. struggles and their global impact

When you examine the role of U.S. imperialism in the world today, it’s clear that the fight for democracy and socialism in the U.S. has a big impact on the global political process. The working class, the racially oppressed, and other progressive forces in the U.S. have a huge responsibility to the rest of humanity. Our fight against the ultra-right and for democracy and socialism in the U.S. has to contribute to the global revolutionary and anti-imperialist process.



The main struggle in the U.S. today

The main struggle confronting the progressive forces in the U.S. and all of humanity really is the struggle to defeat Bush and his vast ultra-right conspiracy. That is what is mainly occupying our efforts at this time.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention this. Tens of millions in our country are now in motion to achieve a great victory for all of humankind by defeating George W. Bush and his “Republican Guards” at the polls on the Nov. 2, 2004.

As we see it, to win this great struggle means we must defeat Bush and Bushism. This will set the stage for a broader struggle for our people’s needs, for global peace and justice. We say that the best way for our people to bring an end to the war in Iraq, and to advance the struggle for peace and justice, is to defeat Bush and the Republicans in the U.S. Congress. That is our priority.



Responsibility to the world and ourselves

U.S. Communists and progressives understand that we have a tremendous responsibility to the rest of the world. But while we fight this battle, we do not see any reason to put the subject of socialism into cold storage. That is true despite, even because of, the huge setback we suffered in 1991. I do not have time to deal with it now, but Bush’s right-wing policies are actually creating a renewed interest in the ideal of socialism among U.S. masses. As one political activist told me recently, “Every day that Bush’s brand of capitalism prevails, socialism looks better and better.” Only with socialism can colossal problems of poverty, disease, inequalities, and environmental disasters be seriously tackled and solved.



The U.S. working class is exploited

The population of the U.S. is 290 million. The work force is 126 million, with about 37 million workers in manufacturing. Working people and their families are the majority of the population. They have the same negative reaction to exploitation and injustice as workers do all over the world.

While it does not compare in severity to some other parts of the world, U.S. working people suffer under capitalism.

• At least 10 million are unemployed.

• Over 43 million are without health insurance.

• Some 34.6 million live below the poverty line, one third of whom (12 million) are children.

• Four million are homeless.

• Personal bankruptcies are at an all time high.

• Millions have to work very long hours, often more then one job, and have to change jobs many times during their lifetime.

Because of the anti-union policies of 14 states, the federal government, and of U.S. corporations in general, only 13 percent of the workforce is unionized.



Racism and national oppression

The U.S. is a class society with a multiracial working class. There are over 80 million people who are classified as minorities. Racial and national oppression are a way of life in the U.S. Founded on genocide against the Native American Indians, the enslavement of the Africans, and the taking of land from the Mexicans, the “rosy dawn” of U.S. capitalism also exploited foreign indentured labor from Asia, Europe and Latin America. Today life for tens of millions of non-white and foreign-born peoples is very difficult.

While there is a middle class among racial minorities in the U.S., most non-whites in the U.S. are working-class people. Millions face discrimination based on race, nationality, and language.

When you deal with the inner-city and poor rural communities, most non-whites start off their life without decent health care and child care. Many are forced to live in poverty, and have to go to poor schools. More than half do not graduate from secondary school; they end up working in low paying, dead-end jobs. In their communities they face drugs, police brutality, unemployment, and hunger.

Drugs, poverty, prisons and war

During the height of the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s the Secretary of Health and Human Services pointed out that, statistically, a young man in Bangladesh has a longer life span then a young man in Harlem. This is the impact of the systemic racism of U.S. capitalism.

While this is true, it is also true that the largest group of poor people in the U.S. are white.

Since the 1980s, the prison population in the U.S. has tripled to 2 million. We now have the largest per capita prison population in the world. Half of all prison inmates are African American males who are treated in a racist manner by courts and police. The U.S. is a death penalty country and a disproportionate number of those on death row are Black.

These are all long-term trends of U.S. capitalist democracy. All of these critical problems go unsolved because we are spending billions for war instead of for the people’s needs.

The notion that war is good for the U.S. economy is a cruel hoax. This is the richest capitalist country in the world. We have the material resources to give a decent life to all the people and many suffering around the world. But under capitalism, profits come before people.

In a poll reported in Joe Conason’s recent book, when asked what bothered them most about the U.S. tax system, the majority said they were most troubled by the suspicion that some rich people get away with not paying their fair share. When asked about whether they preferred public spending rather than giving rich people tax cuts, well over 60 percent said they did. On issues of racial equality and women’s equality, 80 percent say they support these objectives. The Bush administration takes a totally opposite point of view.



An illegitimate president

The U.S. people are not right-wing. George W. Bush was installed in the White House by judicial decree, not popular vote. There is a solid right-wing core and a large center that is influenced by the right and the left, but the overwhelming majority of the people are not ultra-right.

Millions took to the street, held teach-ins, and protests of all types in opposition to the war in Iraq. While the incredible peace movements in the U.S. and around the world were not able to stop the war, their efforts did affect the conduct of the war, and made life very difficult for the Bush policy makers. In fact it is the continuing opposition to war that has made it possible for growing numbers in the Congress to oppose the war.



Post Sept. 11, 2001

After 9/11 and the creation of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, the attack on democratic rights, especially of foreign-born people from the Middle East and those of the Muslim faith, have reached a new and more dangerous level. The attack on labor’s right to organize and other progressive movements has been under assault. The Bush administration’s use of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack to dismember democratic rights has been called a new McCarthyism.

The U.S. administration is not in step with the majority of the U.S. people and they know it. They stay in power and maintain their dominance through the use of extreme demagogy. They are very skillful at lying and scaring people into silence. They use racism to divide and rule. The right-wing, corporate control of the U.S. media to promote the administration’s jingoism, chauvinism, racism, militarism and war is unprecedented. They lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they also constantly lie about their domestic policies.



Socialism and the fight for democracy

With all of this at stake, it is important to reconnect and underline the fact that the fight for socialism is not possible without a long-term, many-sided, and all-around struggle for democracy. For communists in the U.S., this is the most important question on the path to socialism.

The path includes the struggle for jobs, health care, and democratic rights. It includes the struggle against racism and discrimination. It is part of the struggle for the rights of women and youth. It comprises the fight against discrimination towards lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. It consists of the struggle for food, clothing and shelter. It incorporates the fight for a clean environment, for peace and the transfer of war spending to human needs.

The fight for socialism encompasses the many struggles against the great privileges of the super rich and corporations.

The class struggle sets the ground to raise consciousness and educate the people through their own experiences. The work of class-conscious people, and people with socialist consciousness, is critical in this regard.

We are not reformist, but any notion that you can win revolution without a fight for democratic reforms is folly. To advance democracy against the high privileges of the super rich, corporations and the military-industrial complex is a fight against the system. The fight for socialism cannot be victorious without the left and the Communists. At the same time the fight for socialism cannot be victorious if it’s a project of the left and Communists only. It has to be a project of millions.



The world has changed

The collapse of socialism in the USSR has changed the world. It has made the world more dangerous and the path to freedom more difficult. It has strengthened the dangerous right wing but it has also heightened pro-democracy and anti-fascist vigilance. We must continue the struggle to build Communist Parties and increase the ranks of those who have the socialist vision. With all due respect and admiration for the Soviet experience, I think the American people will not agree to a socialism of the 1917 variety. And life does not call on us to construct socialism based on that model. In fact, there are no models. U.S. socialism will take into account our own economic, political, and social conditions, democratic struggles, and history. We see a U.S. socialism based on an expansion of the Bill of Rights.

The fight for socialism is more urgent today then ever. At the same time, to ignore the new political realities after 1991, is to fail to adjust and update. When objective circumstances change but Communists don’t, we can lose our effectiveness and ability to achieve the historic mission of the socialist transformation of society.

Before our party are some major battles. Communists believe that the people of the U.S. can be won to the struggle for revolutionary change. The fact is that the best aspirations and hopes of the U.S. people are the best features of socialism. Our ranks are small now. But we are struggling hard and we are not in retreat. We are pushing forward and we will win, because history is still on our side.

Jarvis Tyner is the executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA. He can be reached at jtyner@cpusa.org.

This article is excerpted from a presentation he gave to the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, Jan. 16-20.



Originally published by the People’s Weekly World

You want proof?

"With all due respect and admiration for the Soviet experience..."

nonanarchist

You have to be a complete idiot to still believe in Communism.

I just can't uderstand how someone can be so stupid and still be able to use a keypboard.

My cat is a bit stupid but even he can see that millions of people were killed by communist governments and those who survived had no human rights. That's EVERY single communist government.

How can people be so STUPID ** shakes head sadly**.

then capitalism must be good!

Welcome to Mayberry!

"..dictatorship of the proletariat.."

_not much more to talkbowt, fucku.

Do you trust that smiling caucasian in the cartoon?

more rational: would it make any diff if that cartoon character was a black, injun, arab,..?

i think you're extending racism into capitalism v. communism, based on the success of whites under capitalism.

The apparent lies(bush&co.) your link refers to are only apparent, imo, to ultraskeptical, ready to hang, politcorrect shitkickers. not a problem. but eventually or sooner if you don't come up with anything concrete, then...?

It's a joke, ant.

I wouldn't be making that joke if it weren't a white guy in the cartoon. The whole point is that white people have lost a lot of trust, especially if they're coming at you with a big grin and a simple message.

Besides, there's ample proof that capitalism encourages racism. Have you been to a factory lately? It's not just that "Whites do well" under capitalism. Whites also create a lot of rules and laws that benefit white people. These were made illegal in 1955 (more or less), but for the previous 175+ years in the country, whites wrote laws to help themselves to the wealth that *all* people created, and worked real hard to disenfranchise, and disempower everyone else.

The legacy of this was "success" for whites, and poverty for everyone else, not just in America, but globally.

Today, we have "multiculturalism", and that's just a way to defuse accusations of American racism. Integration, ranging from tokenism to full integration (like in the military), is used as a cover for the racism that's created to support the expansion of empire.

If you want to know how racism is connected to capitalism and imperialism, go to Iraq or Afghanistan and interview a prostitute who "entertains" our troops.

It's pretty obvious to all but the dumbest observers.

Capitalism is good - excellent in fact.

Communism (Socialism) is bad -- terrible in fact.

That's not an opinion but a simple observation of relative performance of the two systems over many years in many countries.

Compare the USA and the Soviet Union.

Compare Chile and Cuba.

It's a no brainer - Capitalism wins goiing away.

> The whole point is that white people have lost a lot of trust,

Did "black guys" loose alot of trust during the OJ case?

Or will they loose more trust now that MJ is up for molestation charges?

Did "yellow guys" loose a lot of trust when fujimori was messing around in peru?

And if they did was it a legitimate loss of trust or was it just plain racism? reflect for a minute.

> especially if they're coming at you with a big grin and a simple message.

frowns and complex messages from now on then.

> Besides, there's ample proof that capitalism encourages racism. Have you been to a factory lately?

yup there was no racism back in the good old days. and ethnic minorities get treated real bad in the most capitalist countries in the world like singapore and hong kong and switzerland much better to be a minority over in vietnam eh where you have no fear of exploitation by those evil employers.

> The legacy of this was "success" for whites, and poverty for everyone else, not just in America, but globally.

oh for the old days when even the poorest countries in the world had average life expectancies of about 60 years of age.. wait that was never true until now? you mean that its true it has increased by about 20 years in the poorest countries since they got all that evil capitalism? must be a fluke aye.

>Integration, ranging from tokenism to full integration (like in the military), is used as a cover for the racism that's created to support the expansion of empire.

-its all a cover I tell you! just like afirmative action! its just a secret trick to fool us all ! and giving us equal rights its just a trick to make us not see their devious plan to turn us into hummus.

> If you want to know how racism is connected to capitalism and imperialism, go to Iraq or Afghanistan and interview a prostitute who "entertains" our troops.

ahah we can start with "shall we make it illegal for US soldiers to use afgani prostitutes?"

Blarney: "I just can't uderstand how someone can be so stupid and still be able to use a keypboard. "

I don't see what is so udderly difficult for you to uderstand....you seem to be doing just fine...

...unless that's just you stupid cats udders draggin' over the keyboard...

Same old 'rat droppings' from KPC

.....oooooh...you are a SAVAGE...

...but in a non-Islamic kind of way....huh, shitpile?

before all, im sorry for my english, maybe its not so good but its hard for me to express my ideas in another language.

about the example given by the GD, you cannot simplify like that, either chile is an island or the us or cuba or soviet union ...all those countries where connected to other countries in a very specific context.

You cannot achieve "pure capitalism" or "pure comunism" unless the hole world is envolved. So you "dumb observer" need to see that chile is near a lot of countries that are being controled by de us, and chile its your finest student but there are many poor chileans that are not happy with their economy because its to hard for them to get a job or an educaton or even food because they cannot afford it. So i would like you to ask one of those chilenas if Capitalism is bad.

I dont deny that comunism isn´t good enough but saying that capitalism is good????? i mean take a look around...see southamerica...see asia(vietnam, malasia) people work for like half a dollar a day for twelve hours so you can buy your precious nike snickers......

if anyone would like to discuss any of my ideas be happy to send my an email....

Scotty, if you would construct a coherent statement with some kind of theme, I'd answer in kind.

I ask you only this: development is, on the average, good, because it does increase life expectancies, but, at what cost do we achieve this? There's a cost in human happiness, and a cost in environmental degredation.

It's within our reach to prioritize these two very important priorities. After all, our original Declaration of Independence, we had "happiness" as a right. Is it right that our happiness should come at the cost of others' misery?

> I ask you only this: development is, on the average, good -- at what cost do we achieve this? There's a cost in human happiness, and a cost in environmental degredation.

In what ways have "we" (whoever that is) achieved happiness at the expense of others?

I accept the point on environmental degradation but I also note that sometimes the environmentalists seem to get all excited over issues that are not really significant compared to other issues that are. In their attempts to mutually support eachother they forget that they are competing for the attention of people.

> Is it right that our happiness should come at the cost of others' misery?

- of course not. the dispute I presume is A) over the extent to which that has occured

and

B) the degree to which it could have been prevented (for example would redistribution have worked.)

anyway how do you redistribute "happiness" ?

The easiest way is to ask people if they're happy.

Another way is to assume that people would be happy in the same way we'd be happy. This isn't completely reasonable, because we lack a lot of rights common in other countries, but, it's pretty good.

For example, if we trade with another country, they should have real freedom of speech. They should also not be brutalized if they try to form a labor union.

At a larger scale, if they want to raise a tarrif, let them. Right now, we force their markets open by getting them into IMF debt. It's a real challenge to their sovereignty.

That would be a start.

> For example, if we trade with another country, they should have real freedom of speech. They should also not be brutalized if they try to form a labor union.

so you advocate sanctions based on freedom of speach - hmm ok do it.. please get the other major countries on board too otherwise you will find it gets very expensive to try to buy the freedom of the world all by yourself.

>>At a larger scale, if they want to raise a tarrif, let them. Right now, we force their markets open by getting them into IMF debt. It's a real challenge to their sovereignty.

The IMF are wrong generally speaking from a practical point of view but right from a moral one (as strange as it might sound)

There is no difference on a philosophical level from the sanctions the US put on Iraq and any barriers to trade a less developed country might put on US goods. To say one is ok and the other is not leaves you with no logical ground to stand on

For example didnt the allies "exert their soverignty" by putting infinite tarrifs on the goods of those reigemes that they are not friendly with?

The IMF also is a bank that has no collection powers. they work like this

Imagine me as the IMF and you as the country being helped

1) You do somthing stupid and get into financial trouble

2) I give you 10,000 dollars because Im a nice guy - I suggest that you pay me back and give some advice on how to do so I threaten that if you dont do what I suggest I wont give you 10,000 dollars next time.

3) you do some of what I want and not the rest of it

4) I give you another 10,000 dollars anyway because the threats were idle.

Now your running around saying the IMF is evil? they may be misguided but they are more like a church at a disaster than how you guys might paint them.

ohhhhh nooo

you're always right hehe