JRH 1/25/19
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A Beginner’s Guide To
American Communist Parties: Part 1
By Trevor Loudon
January 24, 2019
US Democratic Representative
from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (L) speaks with Democratic
Representative from Michigan Rashida Tlaib at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on
January 16, 2019. Photo
by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s been this
author’s experience that most American journalists, politicians, police
officers, and even intelligence officers have minimal understanding of
America’s contemporary communist movement.
The average
American voter, naturally, has very few outlets available that acknowledge the
continued existence and influence of contemporary communism. Yet, communism is
currently the single most important political and cultural influence in the
country. Therefore, thumbnail sketches are provided here that outline the more
significant domestic communist organizations currently working to undermine the
Constitution and impose socialism on the American people.
A word on communism
versus socialism: Socialism is a euphemism for communism. They are two peas in
the same pod and all lead to tyranny. Communism is socialism, and those who
want you to believe otherwise are attempting to indoctrinate you. Period.
There are two
American “lefts”: Communists willing to work with and inside the
Democratic Party to achieve their goals; and communists who regard the
Democrats as a hopelessly “bourgeois” “capitalist” party.
The first group are
more organized, realistic, and dangerous. The second group, like the first,
often work with foreign communists and are more likely to engage in
street-level violence.
Part 1 of this
article will deal with the communists who work with the Democratic party,
as a matter of policy. These organizations are the most subversive and
dangerous in America.
Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA)
Despite their
public regular protestations, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a
communist organization. Many of their 55,000+ members are indoctrinated college
students, but most of their leaders are hard-core Marxist revolutionaries.
Currently the
United States’ largest Marxist organization, the DSA was formed in 1982 out of
two similar groups. The larger was the “
Democratic Socialist
Organizing Committee” that mainly consisted of older activists from
the rapidly imploding Socialist Party USA. The smaller was the “
New American Movement” that
consisted of young Vietnam War-era “Students for a Democratic Society” members
and a group of older radicals who split from the Communist Party after the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The most enduring
influence in the DSA is Antonio Gramsci. An
Italian communist theoretician, Gramsci believed in promoting socialism through
patient infiltration of all political and cultural institutions before
resorting to revolutionary violence.
Americans of all
political persuasions may be surprised to learn that the DSA was initially very
influential in the Democratic Party. The DSA helped establish the Congressional
Progressive Caucus in 1991 with long-time ally Bernie Sanders
and was successful in electing hundreds of Democratic Party officials, many
local politicians, and several congressmembers.
Currently serving
Congress members Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Danny Davis (D-IL), and Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
have all been dues-paying DSA comrades at some point. In the last election, the
DSA elected more than 20 local and state officials and two additional Congress
members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
DSA influence waned
through the early 2000s and by 2015, the organization was down to about 6,000
members, only about a third of whom were active.
Bernie Sanders
changed all that. The DSA has backed Sanders since at least 1990. When he ran
for president, the DSA became the backbone of his team. As Sanders took off, so
did the DSA. When President Donald Trump got elected, DSA membership exploded,
and is only now starting to slow, and in some places reverse.
The DSA now has
more than 200 chapters in all 50 states. DSA strongholds are Boston, New York,
Washington, DC, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, the Bay Area, and
Southern California, but almost every significant city in America — and many
small towns — now have DSA chapters. New York City’s DSA branch boasts more
than 3,000 dues-paying members; Austin, Texas, claims 700, and Portland,
Oregon, has 800. These numbers have given the DSA huge ability to penetrate the
Democratic Party in almost every state.
The DSA also
controls an organization that gives backing to hard-left candidates called “Our
Revolution,” which boasts 100,000 members working vigilantly to carry on the
Sanders movement. Our Revolution’s door-knockers and phone bankers give the DSA
the ability to elect comrades to Democratic committees and leadership posts all
over the country. In July 2018, the Washington Post reported
that the DSA “has never had more adherents or more clout.”
The DSA has a
Religious Commission featuring many pastors, church officials, theologians, and
religious academics vigilantly indoctrinating malleable minds that Christianity
and socialism go hand-in-hand.
The DSA is also
huge in the colleges. In the early days, nearly a third of DSA members were
academics. Today, the youth-wing of the DSA is known as the YDSA and is
featured on campuses across America.
For most of its
existence, the DSA was formally affiliated with the Socialist
International (SI), an alliance of more than 100 socialist and social
democratic political parties. At their annual conference in Chicago in 2017,
the DSA officially pulled out of the SI based on them being too moderate,
allying instead with several European communist-oriented parties. The DSA is
particularly close to Die Linke (The
Left), which is the direct ancestor of the old Stalinist East German Communist
Party.
In the 1980s, the
DSA worked closely with Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who eventually
became the socialist president of Brazil. “Lula” then worked with Cuban
president Fidel Castro to elect socialist governments across most of Latin
America, known broadly as the “Red Tide.”
Communist Party
USA (CPUSA)
The Communist Party
USA (CPUSA) was started in 1919 in Chicago, where it is headquartered today. In
the 1940s, the CPUSA had over 100,000 members. With only 5,000 comrades, the
CPUSA is not as large as it once was, but is still a political force with
clout.
While the CPUSA has
comrades in every state, it’s strongest in Boston, New York, Connecticut,
Philadelphia, Missouri, Chicago, Detroit, Northern and Central Texas, Arizona,
and California. The party has considerable influence in organizations such as
the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the U.S. Peace Council, Jobs with
Justice, Alliance for Retired Americans, and dozens of smaller local front
groups. The CPUSA is very active in the labor, environmental, and the “racial
justice” movements. The CPUSA has systemically worked to recruit black pastors
to cement their influence over the Democratic-voting black population.
The Democratic
Party has long-since stopped expelling communists from their ranks.
Consequently, in some parts of the country—Connecticut; West and South Chicago;
Northeast Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; Tucson, Arizona; Houston, Texas — the
CPUSA controls some Democratic precincts.
In Connecticut, the
CPUSA has relationships with the governor, both senators, all five Congress
members, and multiple state, county, and city elected officials. In Texas,
one CPUSA member, Sema Hernandez,
ran on the Democratic ticket for
the U.S. Senate and got 250,000 votes.
For decades, the
CPUSA was a wholly-owned and subsidized Moscow franchise. Today, the CPUSA owes
allegiance to China, but also maintains close ties to the communist parties of
Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, Great Britain, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Canada, and
Brazil.
The party still
participates in all the still-existing Soviet-era international communist front
organizations: World Peace Council, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women’s
International Democratic Federation, and the World Federation of Democratic
Youth (WFDY). In 2017, the CPUSA sent a youth delegation to a WFDY festival in
Sochi, Russia, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally secured the venue and then addressed the
estimated 30,000 attendees.
Prominent modern
CPUSA members include Party Chairman John Bachtell (once the precinct captain for
then-Senate candidate Barack Obama), Judith LeBlanc, a Native-American activist who trained the
protesters at the 2015 Dakota Access Pipeline stand-off, and perennial
Cleveland Democratic Party candidate Rick Nagin.
The CPUSA also has
some cross-membership with the DSA.
Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)
The CCDS began in
1991 when approximately one-third of the CPUSA’s then 3,000 members split from
the party to form a new organization. The ex-communists were quickly joined by
dissident Maoists, Trotskyists, anarchists, and “democratic socialists.”
In 2000, the
Committees of Correspondence (CoC or CofC) became the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).
The organization
quickly grew to 2,000 members and was poised to become what the DSA is today —
a mass-based, multi-tendency socialist organization. However, in recent years
the CCDS has dwindled to about 400 mainly older members.
The CCDS is
headquartered in the Bay Area, and is strongest in Chicago, New York, Boston,
Western Pennsylvania, Louisville, Kentucky, the Carolinas, and Mississippi. The
organization has some electoral influence through its close work with the DSA.
The CCDS very
strongly supports China and Vietnam, as well as Cuba and Venezuela.
The CCDS has some
cross-membership with both the DSA and CPUSA.
Freedom Road
Socialist Organization (FRSO)/LeftRoots
The Freedom Road
Socialist Organization (FRSO) grew out of the Maoist student movements of the
1960s, ’70s and early ’80s.
Formed in 1985, the
FRSO drew together the
Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, and later
the Organization for Revolutionary Unity, Amilcar Cabral-Paul Robeson
Collective, and the Socialist Organizing Network. In 2000, the anarchist group
Fire by Night joined. The FRSO also picked up members from the long-defunct
Communist Workers’ Party, League of Revolutionary Struggle, Line of March, and
Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist).
In 1999, the FRSO split
in large part over the main faction’s willingness to work with the Democratic
Party. The group that broke away — the Freedom Road Socialist
Organization/Fight Back! division will be covered in part 2 of this series.
The FRSO doesn’t
openly affiliate with China any longer, but many members work or live in China,
or do solidarity work with Chinese organizations. Some members also work with
pro-North Korean groups, or support Cuba, Venezuela, officially
designated terrorist groups, the Communist Party of the Philippines, or
the popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The FRSO is
extremely secretive about membership, but this author estimates that it has
2,000 to 3,000 active members. The FRSO is concentrated in the Bay Area and New
York City, with significant centers in Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; Seattle;
Boston; Philadelphia; Ohio; Missouri; Tennessee; North Carolina; Atlanta,
Georgia; Austin, Texas; New Orleans; Southern Florida; and New Mexico.
The FRSO has some
cross-membership with the DSA and CCDS.
Like all
Maoist-derived groups, the FRSO delves heavily into racial and gender politics.
The organization is comprised predominantly of “people of color,” at least 50
percent female, heavily gay, and comparatively young.
Black Lives Matter and the Marxist concept of “white
privilege” comes from the FRSO orbit, along with the leftist fetish for using
gender “neutral” pronouns.
The FRSO has
deliberately targeted Southern states and areas with high black and Latino
populations.
The FRSO also runs
a plethora of well-funded front groups around the country including the Chinese Progressive
Association (San Francisco), Chinese Progressive
Association (Boston), Highlander Research and
Education Center (Tennessee), Miami Workers Center, Right to the City (New
York City, with affiliates nationwide), Showing Up for Racial Justice (chapters
nationwide), Southerners On New
Ground (Atlanta/Birmingham), Asian Pacific Environmental
Network, Causa Justa: Just Cause (Bay
Area), and Strategic Concepts in
Organizing and Policy Education (Los Angeles).
LeftRoots was
formed in 2014 by
Steve Williams,
a former member of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement
(STORM), and
N’Tanya Lee, an
FRSO affiliate. In essence, LeftRoots is an adjunct to the FRSO with a little
bit of DSA input.
LeftRoots has about
500 members with branches in Miami, Philadelphia, the Bay Area, Los Angeles,
Boston, and New York.
Left
Inside/Outside Project
All of the above
groups work together in the Left Inside/Outside Project, which was established
in early 2017 to coordinate infiltration and eventual takeover of
the Democratic Party.
Many of these
groups receive significant funding from the Ford Foundation, Open Societies
Foundations, Tides Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and similar groups.
Taxpayer funding additionally is often given to the front groups of socialist
organizations in the form of grants and tax-exempt status. Unions often prop up
front groups financially, and with logistics and training as well.
__________________
Trevor Loudon is an author,
filmmaker and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has
researched radical left, Marxist and terrorist movements and their covert
influence on mainstream politics.
