Structure and Organization Committee

Speech given at the 27th National Convention of the CPUSA

The Structure and Organization Convention Committee included Marc Brodine (WA), Bill Davis (NY), Rosita Johnson (E. PA), Steve Noffke (MI), Brian Steinberg CT), Shelby Richardson (Ill) and Mark Almberg (ILL).

After having met six times, we submitted our proposals to the National Board and then National Committee. The National Committee agreed with the direction of proposals in the report and then it was submitted for pre-Convention discussion. This report was placed on our Web site, not only available to our members but the public at large. It was also printed in a special Convention bulletin, which included all reports to the last National Committee. This was sent to all clubs and Districts. In addition, the report was printed as a separate discussion document on its own, which was also sent to the entire Party for discussion.

The Committee met an additional two times after the NC meeting to continue to discuss clubs. I will make a proposal based on that as part of this report.

In five minutes it is not possible to summarize the original 16-page report. What I will do is to present a few goals of the report and then make proposals.

The transition of leadership over the last year and a half launched a process of improving our organization and structure, adopting innovations to improve the work.

The call for wiring every club on the Internet has created a new and faster method of communication and exchange between the Party and the base of the Party. National phone conferencing, which was never more used than in preparing for this Convention, allowed for the first time for representation from the whole country from coast to coast in political and organizational preparations for every aspect of this Convention. Literally hundreds of people in and out of the Party participated in lively pre-Convention discussion on the Internet. The working groups on a wide range of subjects, while not accomplishing all that we had hoped, really laid the groundwork for broadening our discussion on questions that we had not given enough attention to, like gay and lesbian rights and our work in the religious community. These changes have revolutionized our ability to connect with the whole Party. The ability to draw from the experience and thinking of the Party base across the country on a quick and regular basis, is one of the main reasons for the success and unity of this Convention.

Our Committee discussion and proposals are part of a process which will continue after this Convention because it is clear that we could not take up all questions. And many questions require more thought, more exchange, than the time that we had to consider them.

Our goal was to make proposals that would help us to be better organized, more streamlined to allow for more connection to the upsurge of the labor and people's movement, more action based, more responsive in a timely way, more results oriented, more based on our Party reality, more transparent, more democratic, but at the same time collective and responsible.

We discussed that democratic centralism should not be seen as a static set of structures, but as a flexible concept that communist parties have applied in ways that fit their specific circumstances.

Our Committee concluded that generally we have been overbalanced on the centralism side. So we made proposals for democratizing the structure and organization. At the same time, we think that as we move to democratize the Party we should try to be balanced, not swinging too far, especially related to "internal processing" versus action orientation. We also made proposals related to check up and accountability.

A number of our Committee proposals were put into action by the National Board and National Committee as we worked towards this Convention. That included the idea for a national pool of comrades to be proposed from the Districts for consideration to the National Committee and other national bodies. We proposed that timely exchange between the Districts and the national center on proposals for the National Committee was crucial.

By and large the response to the proposals in this report have been extremely positive. That which received the most enthusiasm were the conclusions about how our National Committee needs to be more collective and deliberative and open for debate and disagreement as part of the process of arriving at conclusion. That opened up the question of how to be structured to have more genuine exchange at every level of the Party.

The report also emphasized that our national decisions should be based on genuine consultation with the entire base of the Party. That means much better organization and preparation at the national level to insure District and club input and experience before arriving at decisions. It also means our national bodies need to be more District- and club-conscious overall.

There was also a welcoming to the proposal that NC members have to be more responsible in terms of attendance of NC meetings and the implementing of decisions in their given Districts. In general, there was a positive response to the whole idea of review and improvement at every level.

Because time is short, I now want to focus on what our Committee proposes for adoption by the Convention without going into all the thinking that was in the 16-page report.

Our Committee's proposals focused on the national bodies of the Party, especially the functioning of the National Committee.

1. The National Committee should be more established as the highest decision making body of the Party by meeting a minimum of three times a year.
2. The size of the NC should be reduced to fit our reality and to allow for more deliberation. This was taken into account in the proposal for the new National Committee. Our past National Committee had some 154 members. A proposal for 120 was made to the Convention. Although this didn't meet all the concerns of the Committee, especially those related to the ability to have real exchange, we understood that the reality of a transition of leadership would make the reduction of size a matter of process over time.

3. We made several proposals related to structuring our NC meetings and preparation for the meeting to allow for more deliberation.

   Emphasis was placed on better preparation for our NC meetings with the focus on inviting input of the Party prior to the NC before we make decisions. That means that ideas and proposals should be shared with the NC members, Districts and clubs before the meeting to allow for input. We propose using the Internet as well as the PartyBuilder for this, and attendance by national leaders in district and club meetings for exchange.

   We also propose that our NC meetings be organized differently to allow for more exchange and debate. That included more reports on specific questions with resolutions. This proposal was implemented at the last NC on several questions. It was a major improvement and opened up a refreshing atmosphere in the NC.

   We propose that more consideration be given to how NC decisions are going to be implemented and who is going to do it before arriving at decisions. There should also be check up of NC decisions at the following NC.

4. More geographic balance should be established in the membership of the NC so that our decisions reflect the whole nation and not be overbalanced on the East Coast.

5. If resolutions to the National Convention could not be discussed at the Convention, the incoming NC should insure that each one is addressed, and that they be handled seriously, not like in the past.

6. The Convention should agree with the direction of the proposals related to the National Board, National Organization Committee, National Commissions, but the specifics should be referred to the incoming National Committee to be considered within the overall new structure which the NC will have to adopt.

7. The incoming National Committee should establish an Education Department. We also propose that a committee related to media be established.

8. Building regional centers of the Party based in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles should be a priority with a view towards establishing similar centers in the South and New England as soon as possible. That means building up strong collectives and providing resources, which would include full-time organizers. It doesn't mean separate political bodies. This proposal relates to helping make our Party more of a national Party.

9. The sections on the Districts and clubs should be referred to the incoming National Committee, as well, with the idea that the Convention agrees on the direction of the report but we want to add this specific proposal related to clubs for adoption by the Convention:

   Our committee had three discussions about the status of clubs and club building but there was not enough time to arrive at a conclusion, nor to allow for full Party-wide discussion to take place prior to the Convention. We have different experiences and proposals for solutions, but we are all agreed that the question of club building deserves priority consideration from our incoming National Committee and needs a process that involves the whole party in discussing how to strengthen clubs.

   We are all challenged to build modern 21st century clubs which are centered on organizing the all peoples' front against the extreme right, clubs which are focused on participation in mass work on mass issues, clubs which are building labor/community coalition in communities, neighborhoods, shops and workplaces, clubs which build the Party, YCL and press as an integral part of that work, and that build as many shop and neighborhood clubs as is possible.

   That challenge requires a big change in our approach to the base of our Party organization. We need to frontload our organizational agenda with helping the clubs. The membership review was a good start but only a start. Now we have to follow up with exchange of club experience, conclusions and decisions that help us restructure to allow for increased support to clubs from our national center, state and District organization.

   We propose that the incoming NC adopt a process by which the whole Party can work to improve our clubs and club leadership to meet this challenge over the coming year. Needless to say, strong District involvement in the process is a must. The time is riper than before to make club changes following our inspiring National Convention.

   Our Committee has some ideas for how the process should take place. We will pass that on to the incoming National Committee.

I move that we adopt these proposals as a whole. This is a package proposal. Each part relates to the whole. It only works if adopted in sync with one another.

Thank you.