The Communist Party USA is conducting pre-convention discussion to engage members, allies, and friends in a process of review and improvement of party policy, politics, and the issues of the day leading up to the National Convention in Chicago, June 7–9, 2024. The discussion opens Feb. 1st and runs through May 31.

To submit a contribution:

There are four ways you can submit contributions to the discussion:

1. Send an email to discussion@cpusa.org with your contribution in the text,
2. Send an email with an attached file (Microsoft Word, Open Office, or video format),
3. Send an email with a link to a Google document, or
4. Use the submission form at the cpusa.org pre-convention discussion page.

• You can submit a written piece or send us a link to a video or audio recording of your contribution. We welcome contributions from a paragraph up to 1,000 words, videos up to three minutes long.
• Written submissions under 200 words may be combined into a single article for posting, however, each author will be identified and credited separately. Sorry, we are not able to accept text messages.
• Video submission may be made using YouTube, Vimeo or another online video platform. We cannot edit or prepare video or text files for you.
• Contributions in English or Spanish are welcome. We are not able to translate all materials.
• The name, city, club, and district of the author(s) must be included with all submissions by members if appropriate.
• We encourage clubs and members to solicit contributions from allies and friends who are not members. Contributions from non-members should include name, city and state.
• Please edit and proofread your submission so it is ready for posting.
• The deadline for submissions is May 15, to allow time to process and post material before the end of May.

We do not guarantee to post everything submitted. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will be returned to the author for revision or rejected, at the discretion of the 2024 Pre-Convention Discussion Committee.

The pre-convention discussion period is an opportunity to participate in the democratic functioning of the party, gathering input from around the country and open to all members. The discussion will help formulate the best policies to be adopted by the National Convention, exhibiting the democratic centralist functioning of our party. The widest discussion will help deepen the commitment of our membership to carry out the decisions of the National Convention.

The framework for the discussion is the main discussion document. We urge all contributors to read and review it before writing their submissions. There will be documents forthcoming on international issues and on the party. Any topic or issue is open for discussion. The discussion’s main aim is to assess the party, its work, and the state of the working-class and people’s movements.

How to participate:

• We encourage discussions in groups, teleconferences, and webinars organized by party clubs, districts, commissions, the national office, and the Pre-Convention Discussion Committee. We encourage club and district leaders to initiate such discussions.
• All collectives are encouraged to submit contributions based on their discussions.
• Check the pre-convention discussion pages frequently to read submissions.
• There will be four national webinars, one per month. The first will be held on February 4th.
• Any member can send in a contribution to the discussion, by following the procedure detailed below.

Some questions to help with your contributions:

1. Do any ideas in the main discussion document have special relevance to your work? Are there any areas where the analysis doesn’t match your experience?
2. What are the biggest obstacles to getting people involved in urgent struggles? How can we best respond to them?
3. Have you gotten questions about our party (our organization, our strategy and tactics, our vision of socialism) that were hard to answer? How did you approach answering them?
4. Is there an important issue or proposition missing in the discussion documents?

Some suggestions to help with your contributions

Keep it real: We encourage you to include personal experiences from movements you’ve been involved in. You don’t have to write formally to share your experiences and opinions.

Keep it focused and accessible: Address a specific point and make your argument as directly as possible. If you want to address more than one topic, you are welcome to send more than one submission. Keep your language straightforward. Explain special terminology or historical references.

Keep it collective: We encourage you to include personal and club experiences from movements you’ve been involved in. Our expectation is that comrades will discuss the topics and issues they would like to address with the party collectives of which they are a part before making a submission. Using this approach is likely to strengthen your contributions; using party channels will make sure your contributions are part of our collective work and decision process. We discourage discussions on social media, since they are not available to all members and are not part of our collective process.

Keep it comradely: This is a discussion of ideas, not individuals. Personal attacks are not allowed. We will not accept contributions that are offensive, profane, defamatory, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-working class, anti-communist, or that violate the principles of the CPUSA Constitution, including the prohibition against factional activity.

Image: Philly YCL club conference by Philly YCL (Twitter/X)

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