Editor’s note: Presented to the CPUSA National Committee by Joe Sims on July 13, 2024. The report was unanimously adopted at the meeting’s close.

First, congratulations on a successful convention and on your election to the National Committee! And thank you once again for the confidence you’ve placed in Rossana and myself in re-electing us as officers of the National Committee. We hope to continue to earn your trust by fighting for the continued growth and strength of our working-class revolutionary party.

I think everyone – well maybe not everyone but most – agree that the 32nd convention was an outstanding success. It crowned five years of working to rebuild our party from the bottom up and to turn it into the fighting force our class and people so desperately need.  It brought together over 300 delegates, guests and party workers from all over the country for 3 days of discussion, debate and planning for how to take the struggle forward. It affirmed our fighting unity, our fidelity to Marxist-Leninist science, and our commitment to defeat the fascist right while working to enhance working-class and people’s power. And most importantly it continued the process of bringing forward new generations of party leadership as represented by all of us gathered here today.

Today’s meeting has the task of taking the next initial steps in this process. We have to complete what the convention left undone:  give voice to and resolve the electoral policy resolution referred to us by the convention, elect a new National Board, and get involved in the election campaign. But we also have to think about what happens beyond the fall, what happens next year and the year after and how to make real the plans and proposals put forward in the convention’s Main Report, the plenary workshops and in the convention’s many resolutions.

But before doing that, let’s talk for a few minutes about what’s happened since we left each other in Chicago. At the top of the list is the Supreme Court’s recent decisions and that debacle of a presidential debate that took place in Atlanta. Both in different ways underlie the crisis moment the country is facing.

The court’s majority are not only remaking law, they’re remaking the rules by which law is made.

If anyone has any doubts about the ongoing danger we’re facing they need to look at the Court’s most recent decisions. The court’s majority are not only remaking law, they’re remaking the rules by which law is made. Gone now are even paying lip service to precedent and taking into account the impact of the Court’s decisions. Instead, the Court’s MAGA majority is reshaping the legal landscape and the very way that landscape is surveyed as they push the court even further in a hard right direction the impact of which will be felt for decades to come. This was already evident in the Dobbs decision and is now reaffirmed by the three regulatory rulings along with the one on presidential immunity.

The goal of the regulatory ruling on Chevron and the two other decisions  is to cripple the ability of agencies like the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration to make rules protecting the environment and public health. They’re trying to destroy what the far right calls the “administrative state.” The aim is basically to allow corporations to do whatever they please in pursuit of maximum profits. The goal of granting presidential immunity is even clearer: it places the president above the law for any act while in office including apparently encouraging the overthrow of the government. In these circumstances, with a character like Trump on the verge of winning the White House, to say that the crisis of bourgeois democracy has suddenly become acute seems like a huge understatement. But that’s where we are.

For us, it’s not about the man or woman or the person but the plan and platform, and the issues presented in them.

Which brings us to the recent presidential debate and its aftermath. It’s clear that the Democratic presidential campaign is in a state of profound crisis — one egged on by the mass media’s incessant focus on Mr. Biden’s performance while giving Mr. Trump’s hour and a half of lying an almost free pass. How it will be resolved remains unclear. What is clear is that the stakes are extremely high and grow higher by the day: stakes that are made even more dramatic by the advanced age and declining acuity of both candidates and their party’s inability so far to address it.

However that said, for us, it’s not about the man or woman or the person but the plan. It’s not about the personality but the platform or program and the bread-and-butter life-and-death issues before the country and the world.  Without engaging in ageism one can have an opinion about a candidate’s ability to govern and hold office.  And that’s okay. But as a political party we don’t take positions on who other parties choose to represent them. As we’ve said repeatedly, we don’t endorse candidates from other political parties. We do take positions on the issues. And what are they? Gaza, the military budget, healthcare, global warming, abortion rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, police murder, LGBTQ rights, housing, passing the PROACT. We do continue our work in neighborhoods,  workplaces and mass organizations in which we are centered. We do stay engaged. Our task is to stay focused on the issues at stake, on organizing and building on the ground for what’s coming.

There was unity at the convention on how we handled the fascist threat, the all-peoples front and the necessity of fighting for working-class leadership of it.

And if you think about it, these were the issues that were at the center of the debate during the preconvention period and at the convention that expressed themselves most sharply in the Resolution Number 5 on the election. Here I want to point out that we had robust conversations about our electoral policy during the preconvention period. It occurred in national town hall meetings, club discussions, in state and district conventions and in written form in the main documents that guided the preconvention discussion.

This conversation also was reflected in the over 90 published contributions from party members much of which was responded to in the Main Report and the draft resolutions.  By and large, while there were shades of differences on our strategic policy and its tactical expression in this election, there was unity on how we handled the fascist threat, the all-peoples front and the necessity of fighting for working-class leadership of it, political independence and the ongoing need for party candidates. These issues were generally handled in a balanced way and objectively taking into account the debate and comrade’s points of view.  As a result, the Main Report and Rossana’s summary were adopted unanimously at the convention’s close.

Unity of action in the party requires a very high level of agreement: simple majorities or even majorities of two-thirds are not enough.

Still we acknowledge that there were misgivings that were exacerbated by the the Gaza genocide and the Biden administration’s support for the Israeli government that came to a head in the workshop on the election when some, a faction in fact, decided that the resolution was the most important issue before the convention. Here honest misgivings coincided with an intervention from outside of the party to influence our proceedings. And so as the plenary began a few dozen people lined up to address the resolution even before it was presented to the convention. You’ve got to ask, how did that happen? Was it spontaneous or was it organized? After all, there was no outcry against some of the same propositions placed in the Main Report. And, of course, we must also mention the chauvinistic and disrespectful manner in which some comrades expressed themselves that was addressed so ably by comrade Joelle and Rossana.  Now after the panelists concluded their contributions, was the remaining time allotted an issue? Sure, but we reject that notion that somehow we deliberately orchestrated a closing off of debate.

We also reject the notion that the means by which the issue was referred to the NC was undemocratic and unconstitutional. In the first place, constitutionally the convention is the highest body of the party and has the ability to take decisions either by consensus or majority vote. In this case, the rules by which the convention was governed were adopted by an overwhelming majority vote. There was no objection to the vote until after it was taken. A motion for reconsideration then hit the floor but failed to secure a second – that’s what happened.

However, as important as the democratic manner in which the rules were adopted was the idea behind them. Namely, that our experience over many years has taught us that unity of action in the party requires a very high level of agreement: simple majorities or even majorities of two-thirds are not enough to move us forward particularly in cases of severe contention. Sometimes they’re necessary to move forward but the cost can be very high. Hence the need for more discussion and the search for greater unity. Unity of action requires conviction. And so here we are as mandated by the convention. Let us strive to be convinced.Now, before closing, I want to address the factional ripples that occurred after the convention’s close and the attempt to call a special convention.

The party’s membership, clubs and leadership have overwhelmingly rejected the attempt by the petition’s organizers to bypass the newly elected National Committee, District Committees and club leaderships. We should be proud and take confidence in that.

In that regard, first it’s clear that these efforts have failed miserably, gaining traction in only a few clubs and among literally a handful of members. The party’s membership, clubs and leadership have overwhelmingly rejected the attempt by the petition’s organizers to bypass the newly elected National Committee, District Committees and club leaderships. We should be proud and take confidence in that.

As we said at last summer’s NC meeting, attempts to organize outside of elected party bodies to change party policy is the very definition of factionalism as is taking direction from outside forces, both of which have occurred since the convention.  We have been informed, for example, that certain individuals were making plans to focus on resolution five even before the convention began. We were told by the security team that they were approached by a delegate and told that one individual was actively texting with a well known provocateur during the convention debate. We’ve learned since the convention that even the idea of this petition was launched by an outside website in a conversation with a club chair.

What we are addressing was an attempt to make an end run around the main propositions of the Party Program and its treatment of the popular and united front.

And you’ve got to wonder what was the goal here?  I think the purpose went beyond challenging that resolution. If you think about it, what we are addressing was an attempt to make an end run around the main propositions of the Party Program and its treatment of the popular and united front. It wasn’t just about what is actually a caricature of our relationship with the Democratic Party. Something else is happening. Think about it: many of these forces are actually pro-MAGA and pro-Trump. There’s a pseudo-Marxist, right populist in left clothing tendency expressing itself.

Using the excuse of wooing white workers influenced by Trump, there’s a petty bourgeois,  privileged, chauvinist – both male and national chauvinist –  thing at work here. They’ve been at it for several years now: first with that “patriotic” socialist nonsense, then with this MAGA communist oxymoronic abomination and now with some left nationalist variations.  Apparently it has some expressions in Philly,  New Mexico and Kansas some of which are organized by ex-communists.

We’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize. And the prize is building broad unity of our class and people around the basic issues before the country in this election.

Anyway, while recognizing it, let’s not get diverted by it.  We’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize. And the prize is building broad unity of our class and people around the basic issues before the country in this election.

The National Committee must give leadership over the next weeks and months in directing our districts and clubs to get involved in whatever ways are possible in the upcoming election campaigns by doing voter registration, voter engagement and get-out-the-vote efforts. We should focus on the battleground states and work to counter the Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and AIPAC attempts to defeat progressive members of Congress and other elected officials. There are many opportunities: with the Squad, the efforts to recall Mayor Johnson, the ballot initiatives around abortion rights in several states, etc etc.

Finally, you know, we don’t know today how this election will turn out.  After the debate, it’s gotten a lot more complicated. And the fascist danger has increased. However, we should be careful how to handle it. We’ve got to maintain measure and balance so as not to inadvertently prompt panic or demoralization.

It will be the struggle over Project 2025’s implementation that will determine the shape of things to come.

As we said in the Main Report, even with  a Trump victory, we will not have fascism in November, or December or January.  Project 2025 will not by itself usher in fascism. It will be the struggle over Project 2025’s implementation that will determine the shape of things to come. The anti-MAGA majority has not disappeared – we got to remember that.  It won almost every election last year. There are great democratic reserves among our class and people that full expression will be given to in the next weeks and months.  A setback is not inevitable.  Everything depends on what we do. And victory remains within our grasp. But you’ve got to be in it to win it. And that’s what we’ve got to be committed to – struggling within the broad popular front to defeat the fascist right.

Images: Juneteenth (Creative Commons); International Day of Peace celebrated in Gaza City (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License); People voting(Free to use and share);

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