This piece is a contribution to the Pre-Convention Discussion for our 32nd National Convention. During Pre-Convention Discussion, all aspects of the party’s program, strategy, and tactics are up for consideration and debate. The ideas presented here are those of the author or authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Communist Party USA, its membership, or their elected leadership bodies. — Editors

When it comes to international issues, the CPUSA maintains the importance of deferring to the opinions of our fraternal parties for their analysis of their domestic issues. Comrades in the CPUSA should understand this as an example of guarding against American chauvinism. American chauvinism erases the entire world and assumes that an individual American’s opinion is more astute than the lived reality of everyday local struggle. The working class in each part of the world experiences local conditions that bring them into the struggle towards socialism as a form of self determination. It is our role to follow through where our comrades have called on us, and to take action where we have power. It is not our role to comment idealistically on what we believe should be done, when we are not in the local conditions of struggle.

Listening to our fraternal parties for their analyses is step one of respecting the right to self determination for our working class comrades whose struggles are represented by other parties than the CPUSA . However, this stance has not been clear to many onlookers of the party. Recently, as curious individuals scour the CPUSA website for answers, some have found wording under the Jewish and Peace sections of our Party Program that discuss the two state solution, and concluded that the two state solution itself is our party line. From here, some determine that the party is out of touch with the reality in Palestine.

These individuals need look no further than the party website to read the CPUSA’s call to: stop annexation, stop the war, stop U.S. support and funding of war crimes. Our fraternal parties, the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) (Maki)–a member of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash)–and the Palestinian People’s Party have a sole focus on the issues of justice for all in Israel and occupied Palestine. Their parties are best suited to present analysis on the issues on the ground. Not only are they best suited, it is their right to self determination to lead the struggle, and it is our job as comrades to follow their lead.

Since the most recent war broke out in October, we have done just that. On the CPUSA website we have published statements uplifted by our fraternal parties– both of Maki and the PPP and the coalitions they struggle within. We have heard directly from our comrades in both parties at our National Peace Conference. We have heeded their call to action to call for a ceasefire, and have engaged in the struggle in cities across the country- in Long Island, D.C., North Carolina, San Diego, Arizona and countless other clubs across the countries. The CPUSA’s engagement in the struggle for ceasefire was ignited by the call from our fraternal parties, and has been documented in our weekly ceasefire bulletin.

It is irresponsible for the party to refer to specific policy in Israel and Palestine underneath the Jewish, Peace, and Muslims and Middle Eastern People section of our Party Program. Firstly, it redirects the conversation to debate of the two state solution, rather than to the necessary understanding that it is not up to us to debate, it is up to us to listen to our fraternal parties for their leadership on their domestic issues. If the party’s line on Palestine is a two state solution individuals may determine that we as CPUSA members must take action to change this. However, this reaction assumes that our party line itself emerges from a US perspective, which is inaccurate. In addition, while quoting that “Most U.S. Jews favor a two-state solution and an end to the occupation of the Palestinian lands,” seems to portray an intention of disproving the association that unequivocal support for Israeli expansion is a tenet of Judaism, to me this appears that we have couched our policy stance within the Jewish question, thus defining the Jewish struggle once again by Israel. Our statement on this issue belongs only in the “The International Front for Peace and Progress” section and should certainly not name the two state solution. Instead, it should explain the importance of countering American chauvinism and following our fraternal parties’ lines on their domestic issues.

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