My thoughts on the XXV convention CPUSA...
This was an unreal, a frighteningly real, an invigorating
and liberating experience.
Going to Cleveland the delegates from No. California
anticipated a battle, believed we might lose, hoped to win -
- all 64 of us together, not much distinction among us
between "seated" and "unseated" delegates. [The Party's
National Office had challenged the seating of half our
delegates because July dues payments were not received in
the National Office on time. We knew the real reason was
the political disagreements we had with the National
Office.]
We arrived: it was like an armed camp. Armed Cleveland
cops. Many, many security people. The registration was not
friendly and was slow and cumbersome. Everyone was tense.
That night we met with delegates from New York -- and some
from other areas. We talked about people to refer press to
if any of us were approached. We talked about tactics for
trying to get the agenda changed and get things onto the
floor of the convention. We had a copy of the agenda and
the rules. The rules were the most draconian I have ever
seen -- speakers put in their names in writing and the
chairperson will decide who speaks based on ethnic,
regional, blah, blah. No literature is to be distributed in
the hall -- it must be placed on a literature table in the
hall but only after having been approved by the Presiding
Committee. There will be no amendments that are contrary to
the main motion. And on and on. We worked out some tactics
and broke up. Just before we ended Charlene warned us that
we would hear reports of this meeting that had nothing to do
with what had actually gone on.
The convention was opened by Frank Lumpkin of Chicago who
greeted us. He then introduced Rick Nagin. The night
before we had talked about making some kind of scene when
Nagin was introduced. After all he is the DO in Ohio where
they voted that Charlene was not welcome in the district to
report on her trip to South Africa with Angela Davis because
of her "factional" activity. We had learned that Nagin's
job in the morning session was going to be to introduce
representatives of the City administration. (Cleveland has
an African American mayor and several African American
council people.) We figured not to make a scene in front of
the elected officials was probably a good plan. However,
Nagin did not introduce any elected officials -- they
weren't there. Or perhaps they couldn't get past the armed
guards at the door.
We were then treated to a 3+ hour report by Gus Hall. It
was amazing. Void of political content and full of
invective and lies -- all directed at discrediting the
"signers of the initiative" -- the factionalists. We then
broke for lunch. It is important to note that Gus Hall left
at this point and did not return for the rest of the day --
missing the "discussion" on his report.
During our lunch hour caucus meeting, Kendra read us the
statement from Angela. We all agreed that it was wonderful
and should be duplicated for us to get out at the
convention. For the first time we talked about the dangers
of being provoked.
After lunch we got to organization of the convention --
Billie, our hero, tried to make the motion that our
delegation be seated until the credentials committee had
ruled on the challenges. She was treated rudely and it was
voted down. [The night before when we had been discussing
strategy, Billie asked "What shall I do if they won't let me
speak? Do you want me to lie down?"]
Then the Credentials Committee was elected and I was put on
it, along with Sandy Eaton from Massachusetts. We
immediately went off to meet and discuss the challenged
delegates.
The committee was made up of about 20 people and chaired by
Mark Almberg from Chicago. The first proposal was on how
the committee should operate. Mark proposed that all
decisions be made on the basis of the written materials and
that no witnesses should be heard from. I objected most
strenuously -- this is a very important convention; there
are an unprecedented number of challenges. It was
absolutely imperative that we followed some basic rules of
due process. We had to hear from people directly involved.
I then got quite a lecture from the young woman from New
York on the difference between "bourgeois" and "working
class" legality. Very interesting. As predicted, the
committee voted for Mark's proposal 18 - 2.
Things went from bad to worse. All the appeals were turned
down. At one point I went out to breathe and stopped to
call the desk to try to find April Knutsen from Minnesota.
Elena Mora came out to see where I was and saw me on the
phone. Later Sandy told me that she returned to the room
and reported that I was on the phone and they all had fits.
Then they passed a motion that no one should report what had
gone on in the meeting. I was not in the room at the time -
- didn't care anyway.
While we were gone much convention business took place --
all the rules, the agenda, the Presiding Committee, etc.
All efforts to make changes were defeated.
After we returned to the convention floor, Mark Almberg made
his report. We argued for a no vote. I argued due process.
Kendra talked about what had happened and pointed out that
many other decisions had been made and not adhered to and
that adhering to this one was really just a way of dealing
with political differences administratively.
During the course of the "discussion" Herbert Aptheker
attempted to get recognized and was ignored by the chair who
was Joe Sims from the YCL (I think). He was standing near
our area but in front of another table. Carol Marks was
sitting at the table facing Herbert's back. She said to
Herbert something to the effect of "Sit down. Who do you
think you are?" She may have called him an old man -- I am
not sure. Herbert lost his temper completely. He turned
around to face her and slammed his fist into the table. I
don't know what he said to her but he cut his knuckles.
Shoshana took him to the med room and took care of him. We
were all appalled and in a rage.
In the end the Credentials Committee report was adopted.
Our delegation created quite a scene -- screaming "SHAME!"
"SHAME ON YOU!" And then we left to caucus --
During the course of the day two things happened and I can't
remember the order. One was that Judith LeBlanc gave a
report on our meeting (just like Charlene had said!) and it
was, of course, unrecognizable. It included quotes that
were total fabrications. The other was that Jarvis was
given 15 or 20 minutes (it seemed like hours) to speak on
the "main report" but spent his time slandering the New York
delegation and telling lies about the New York state
convention. When Gloria tried to respond she was denied the
mike -- she and the New York delegation became very agitated
and there was a wild scene. She and Alva were never given
more than a minute to respond. And they finally left the
hall in tears.
That night the dissident caucus met again. We reported on
what had happened in the convention to those who were locked
out. We had more talk with New York and tried to figure out
what to do and where to go. During the day our locked out
delegates had workshops. It was exhilarating and fun. The
atmosphere on the convention floor was so bad -- so hostile,
so pumped up, so full of paranoia -- that our room across
the street seemed like a complete safe haven.
When we all left at midnight we walked back to the hotel
together -- 250 people walking four abreast -- quite a good
looking demonstration we thought. I spent some time in the
bar with people from LA and Florida. We drank, we laughed,
we shared stories.
The next morning began with a caucus meeting. We were told
that the Presiding Committee was going to bring in
condemnation of (a motion to censure) Franklin Alexander,
Mike Myerson and Gloria Quinones for what had happened the
previous day. We didn't know where it might end. We were
concerned the troglodytes were trying to provoke us. We
agreed to be really disciplined.
Once inside the armed camp (we noticed on the way in that
the entrance to the convention hall area had been narrowed
so that only one person at a time could enter), we were
subjected to Sam Webb giving us the bad news: Franklin had
rushed the dias during the melee the day before and had
shaken his finger in a menacing way in Jarvis' face. Mike
Myerson had been wandering the room with a towel wrapped
around his hand, holding a glass. Gloria had screamed and
yelled and on her way out of the room had passed near the
Southern California delegation and had yelled at or near
Sadie Doroshkin who is 94, a charter member of the Party and
was frightened. This kind of behavior is impermissible, bad
factionalism, bad, bad, bad -- do it again, lose your
credential.
The charged parties tried to talk -- and the chair tried to
keep them from talking. Eventually, Mike Myerson got to say
that he did not have a towel in his hand, that he did have a
glass but after all there were glasses and water in the back
of the room. He did not threaten anybody although he noted
that today (and for the rest of the convention) we had paper
cups. Franklin talked to us later in our caucus meeting.
He said that he certainly had walked up to Jarvis and put
his finger in his face and had "Shame, shame on you!" and
he'd do it again. When Gloria spoke she was calm -- kind of
controlled rage. She begged the convention to talk to us,
to listen to us. She said she had been very angry the day
before -- she said that "...when you won't let me speak, you
cut out my tongue." Others spoke but I can't remember who.
We then broke up into workshops. The night before Sandy and
I had organized our delegation to bring our district
resolutions into the workshops. Some argued that it was
pointless because there were to be no reports back to the
convention from the workshops. They were obviously just for
show. But others of us argued that it was the only place
that there might be some politics discussed; that we should
be there and we should have the resolutions from our much
maligned district there. The workshops, it was agreed later
were pretty good. Phyllis, David Bacon and I went to the
one on Building the Left in Labor. We had copies of our
district resolution. David was recognized to speak and
spoke well and mentioned our district resolution which
Phyllis handed around. Later a comrade from Chicago spoke
and said that we should not have distributed the resolution
because that was a violation of convention rules (imagine!);
and he chastised us and accused us of being factionalists.
When a comrade who is a railroad worker from Ohio spoke, he
had copies of his rank & file newsletter. The chair who had
been quite calm and good natured about the whole thing said
he couldn't pass them out until it had been approved by the
Presiding Committee. David got a little salty and they were
passed out. Too weird.
After workshops we had a break. When we reconvened the
"discussion" on Gus's report resumed. At some point, Robert
Chacanaca was recognized and said something like: "I am a
Native American and in honor of our tradition of respecting
our elders, which I am sure you understand, Judith, I would
like to cede my time to Herbert Aptheker." Judith had a
fit, although she only expressed it through facial
expressions and body language, and Tony Monteiro refused to
let Robert give up his time but indicated that Herbert would
get to speak.
I drifted in and out of consciousness but at some point
Herbert Aptheker was recognized to speak. Sheila was with
him at the mike. He had a prepared statement, hand written.
He spoke about the causes of the collapse of socialism. It
was theoretical, complex, articulate and real politics -- in
less than 10 minutes. Most remarkable -- it was literally
the only time during the entire convention when the hall was
completely silent, everyone listening intently. Tony
Monteiro interrupted him at least twice. It was outrageous.
But Herbert persisted. When he finished, we all (dissidents
from across the room) went crazy. We screamed and cheered
and clapped and clapped. For the first time since the
convention had opened -- near the end of the second day --
someone had injected real political discussion into our
deliberations.
Dinner -- I had dinner with Willis, Sheila, and David R. We
had a wonderful time. We met Edgar from NY who was one of
NY's challenged delegates. (This I knew from the credentials
committee.) The challenge against him was that he hadn't
been in the Party for 1 year prior to being elected
convention delegate. He said it was true but also pointed
out the that National Office had violated this rule many
times before -- for instance at the last convention when Joe
Sims from the YCL had been a convention delegate and had
been in the Party less than a year.
That night we had District caucuses. We were to provide the
Presiding Committee with a list of "suggestions" for the
"preferred slate" for the National Committee and the
National Council. We discussed long and hard and decided
that we would not make any such nominations. We wrote to
the presiding committee and said that we did not like this
process and would not be a party to it. If we wanted to
make nominations we would do it from the floor.
More discussion with NY and others on where to go. People's
nerves were getting frayed. People were getting jumpy.
Some people left because the discussion was making them too
nervous -- not ready to talk about another party, another
center, etc. We had to clear the hall at midnight and just
before midnight two remarkable things happened. First,
Herbert Aptheker spoke -- he talked about history and
movement in the direction of making people's lives better;
and he referred to the present epoch as a time when reaction
is on the ascendancy and that these times had existed
before. He said that when you looked at history as a
continuum, these times were very short but when you had to
live through one of them, they seemed very long indeed.
Then he referred to people's pain and anguish, with which he
identified; but he said make no mistake. The group of
people meeting across the street on the 6th floor of the
Sheraton Hotel are "not a communist party." He received
wild and thunderous applause, a standing ovation. He was
followed immediately by a group of 10 or so YCL'ers who read
a statement disavowing the YCL national leadership group's
denunciation of the "signers of the Initiative" and calling
for unity based on an honest expression of differences.
More thunderous applause. Then we had to get out of the
room. As I said several times during the weekend, it was a
good thing that we had to leave that room by midnight or we
would never have gotten any sleep at all.
During the discussion I had typed up Herbert's notes and he
proofed them. Afterward, Kim typed up the YCL statement and
she and I set off to find an all night copy shop in
Cleveland. Actually Kim had done all the work by calling
copy shops and finding that only one stayed open all night.
It was located near Case Western University. So we got a
cab and went there. First of all the cab driver did not
know where he was going. So we traveled around a lot
unnecessarily but we got to see Cleveland. And it is a very
pretty city. We found the shop, astonished the clerk by the
volume of our projects and made copies for Alice of her
final (we assume) pay checks from the PWW. Home by 2:30 and
straight to bed.
The next morning we had a very tense District caucus in the
hotel lobby. During the night the Presiding Committee had
met and had discussed "room 211" and the disrupters. At one
point there was a break. Gloria Quinones from NY had left
her notebook on the table. When she returned, she asked for
it. No one knew where it was. Shortly the discussion
became a witch trial with someone referring to Gloria's
notes and demanding that she 1) identify them and 2) defend
them. After some kind of angry exchange, Jim Jackson told
them all to go to hell and had left the meeting. Then
someone talked about placing the Northern California and New
York Districts in receivership. At that point Gloria Q and
Scott Douglas (of Alabama) had been asked to leave. That
was all we knew. Except that Sunday morning would start
with a report from the Presiding Committee. We discussed
the matter very seriously. We agreed that the National
Center was trying to provoke us. That they were dying for a
confrontation, for an excuse to call in the police. We
agreed that we would stay in, be calm, keep our seats and
play it by ear. Everyone agreed. And we went to the
convention.
The tension was palpable. Jarvis opened with a report from
the Presiding Committee. He expressed shock and outrage at
"Room 211." He described it as a counter convention,
another center of leadership, more than a faction, a clear
split in the Party, etc., etc. Then he talked about how
they "found" a notebook in the Presiding Committee and in
attempting to figure out who it belonged to read the most
horrifying and upsetting things. Like the people in Room
211 had a press committee and had made plans for how to act
in the convention, etc. They had determined that the
notebook belonged to Gloria from NY and they had asked her
about it. She had "admitted" that it was hers and had not
been able to explain away the terrible "factional" things
that were in it. He again attacked the leadership of the
New York District and named names -- several from the 1199
club, both first and last names. It was disgusting. And
then he ended by asking that the convention vote to send his
"report" out to the entire party.
Bobbie Wood was chairing and managed to stave off those
hotheads who just wanted to vote on Jarvis' report without
discussion. She said that in order to be completely fair,
we would have five speakers for and five against -- two
minutes each. Once again Jarvis had been given 20-30
minutes for attack and those attacked would be given two
minutes to respond. Several did respond. Charlene (I
think) talked about how 211 was rented. Others spoke as
well.
And then we moved into the final report of the credentials
committee. Someone needs to fill in the figures for me
since I didn't take notes. I do remember that the age
breakdown given was those under 45 and those over 45 -- a
new high in statistical manipulation.
And finally now to the elections procedure. First of all,
the doors were locked -- no one could come or go. Then we
heard all about the security of the ballot and balloting
process. Security people would hand out and collect the
ballots. We would have to stay in our chairs. And on and
on. As if a real election with some meaning were about to
take place. The convention had already, I think, adopted
the idea that the Presiding Committee would put forward a
list of names and we would have to vote for a minimum
number. So here it was: because of the factional situation
in the Party we would have to be very disciplined.
The new National Committee was to have 125 people. The
Presiding Committee had presented a list of 125 perfect
people, perfectly balanced, etc., etc. It was noted that
not one of them was a signer of the Initiative (bye bye 40%
of the organization). Then we have to vote for at least 115
(and not more than 125). However, for convenience sake
there is a little box at the top of the ballot which could
just be checked in order to vote for the preferred 125.
After the ballots had been distributed, before voting, there
would be an opportunity for nominations from the floor.
The ballots were distributed and then Judith read us the
list of names on the ballot. No information about each one,
just read the names and district. There were many questions
about the ballot and balloting process. Some of them were
political. Like Robert C who pointed out the credentials
report identified 9 Native American delegates but only one,
Judith LeBlanc, was proposed for the NC. "Isn't there room
for more than one?" he asked.
Then at last the floor was open for nominations. It wasn't
planned and we hadn't really talked about what we were going
to do, but this really amazing spontaneous thing began to
happen. People started nominating those not on the
Presiding Committee's list -- Jim Jackson, Herbert Aptheker,
Charlene Mitchell, Angela Davis, Barry Cohen, Carl Bloice,
Kendra Alexander, Gloria Quinones, Alva Buxenbaum, Danny
Rubin, Jay Schaffner, and so on. It became a riveting
political expression. Robert C was nominated and when asked
by Judith, as each candidate was, whether they were willing
to run, he said "Only if there's room, Judith, only if
there's room." Just as Jon Fromer was pointing out that
there were no Asians on the list, nominations were closed.
In the end, many of us spoiled our ballots. I wrote on mine
that I believe a party of our size should only have a 50
member NC and so I voted for 50. Even though there were
about 15 nominations from the floor, I still had a very hard
time actually finding 50 to vote for.
Once the ballots were collected, there was a break and then
we learned that Gus was going to make his summary. Many of
us left. We learned from those who had stayed that the
reports from the Constitution Committee, the Appeals
Committee and the Review Commission were all referred to the
incoming NC, as were resolutions. The two resolutions
presented to the convention were adopted.
We returned to room 211 where we continued our discussion
about the future. We agreed to have committees of
correspondence. We agreed to function on many levels, some
inside and some outside the organization. We agreed to set
up a steering committee, and to plan on a national meeting
in about 6 months. We laughed, we sang, we were kind and
loving to each other.
In the end we parted -- new friendships born, old ones
revived. Some old friendships lost forever in the fray.
We thanked Phyllis for her mailing list -- truly a mother of
our movement;and Charlene for her patient, intelligent, all
encompassing leadership. I would like to thank Kendra and
Alva for their leadership and for knowing that tears and
laughter are as much a part of it as saying the right thing
at the right time.
The future that lies ahead is as much an unchartered course
for us as for the rest of the world. I am profoundly
saddened that the CPUSA has come to this dismal end. I hope
we will be able to sort it out and figure out how it
happened. I for one want to cleanse myself of my
culpability in it all and at the same time be part of
building something new.
Onward to the future. Margy 12/21/91