Outline Strategy for the Pre-Convention Discussion
Entry 2 of the Taqiyya Handbook
Introducing the Pre-Convention Discussion
At this point in February 2024, we are less than 4 months out from the 32nd National Convention of the CPUSA, which is booked to take place on June 7, 8, and 9 in Chicago.
The National Convention is the highest body of the party, where party delegates come together every few years to decide on changes to the party program, constitution, and national leadership over a period of a few days.
It may seem like much time remains between now and June. However, one of the most important parts of the convention is already underway: the pre-convention discussion.
It is in the period of the pre-convention discussion (let’s say “PCD” for short) that contributions from members across the country are collected and debated. It is largely in this period of a few months, not the National Convention, where ideas are raised, member opinions are shaped, debates are had, and changes are made. The National Convention could be understood, then, as a formality following the real decision-making that takes place during the PCD.
In sum: the PCD is the only period of time where the party program, constitution, and direction can be questioned and debated party-wide, in the form of proposing resolutions and revisions throughout the period.
The party has published a how-to guide as regards participating in the pre-convention discussion. Study it so you can be familiar with the basic mechanics of participating, as well as how to navigate the period discursively via dissimulation. It would also be beneficial for you to study past pre-convention discussions, which are freely available on the CPUSA website, toward the same end.1
Be also aware that the party is asking for a $20 assessment fee to pay for the convention, but more importantly, to decide the number of delegates each district will be assigned according to the number of assessments per district. If you want to be a delegate, pay this fee and alert your local club or district leaders that you have, and also be up to date on your party dues. Who would’ve thought changing history costs $20?
We gorillas can use this opportunity to strengthen our position in the party and undermine the positions of our adversaries. However, the opportunity for free speech and debate allows us NOT to advertise and agitate for our views 1:1. Our position, given the prohibition on Infrared and the party’s wariness around anything remotely close to our beliefs, is too precarious for that. Rather, we must continue our clandestine approach in these new conditions, and to use this opportunity wisely in furthering our goals.
Staying in the Shadows
It will suffice to say that we must maintain taqiyya throughout the pre-convention period and for the foreseeable future. Now is not the time to be open with our views or to reveal our ties to Infrared. We must continue doing good work for the party to gain reputation and rise through the ranks of the party. We must continue doing work that seems good to the leading clique of traitors, but in truth serves to undermine their very (mis)leadership.
Our intentions must remain obscured in the shadows until our control over the party is secured, or at least until more ideological diversity is tolerated in the party.
However, to progress toward that end, and in light of the new phase of struggle that is the PCD, we must make an addendum to this general tactic.
Before, the main target of our work was winning recognition, status, and connections from the party and its members by doing “good work” for the party. Now, a new target is brought to the fore: winning more breathing room for ideas in the party—not just our ideas, but ideas in general, and specifically those ideas that take an oppositional position against Democrat tailism.
We pursue this target by using our accumulated connections and leveraging our accumulated influence to covertly drive a wedge in the party. The ensuing division in the party sets the stage for greater freedom for us and our allies, whether they be witting or unwitting, to operate.
The Need for Breathing Room
The 2036 meme began as a good-faith desire to join the party and revitalize it by offering true-to-roots and fresh Marxist–Leninist insights, with the goal of establishing the CPUSA as a major political party by the year 2036. Instead, party leadership were misled by wreckers in their midst as to our intentions, and Infrared was placed under prohibition.
This prohibition has been the chief obstacle to our ultimate goal—the establishment of a Communist party in America. The strict taqiyya we’ve been practicing precludes us from operating freely. We have to be discreet not just with our enemies, but even with ourselves so as to maintain our covers. We cannot advocate for ideas and plans that are at all proximate to our true beliefs, lest we attract suspecting eyes. We cannot offer our insights in a direct way even to those who may be sympathetic, for the same danger. We cannot even be as openly anti-Democrat as other younger members of the party are, as we have to build trust and goodwill among older members not only for those things (trust & goodwill) in themselves but as a layer of protection against potentially losing our cover.
We cannot directly prove our ideas in the name of Infrared, so we must do so indirectly.
Of course, we can do all this through dissimulation, but other factions in the party do not have that handicap.
To be certain, the prohibition and its accompanying taqiyya campaign has been a worthy and necessary trial for our own experience. For one, it exposed the true treachery of party leadership who fear strong, committed Communists eclipsing their low-energy Menshevism. For two, it has given us valuable experience in working in secrecy. Nonetheless, we go through it in order to go through it and be done with it. We are done with it once we have the party, and that is our goal.
We have to soften the party in order for it to be ready for the taking. So long as the party is hardened, united, and focused against us, taking it will be difficult. If we can sharpen the divisions within the party, so that they are hardened and focused on each other, we can thrive in the relative chaos, and then taking it will be easy.
In lieu of formal allowance of greater diversity on the question of supporting the Democratic Party, as any such move on that front would simply be vetoed by leadership, that “chaos” will be our breathing room.
Before anything, keep this in mind: we are not looking to create chaos. Such a breakdown in the party is already happening. It’s already made inevitable by virtue of the party’s Menshevik leniency with recruitment, their subsequent opportunistic dependence on Internet-bred & often mentally ill red liberals, their weak central education and discipline policy, and above all their complete incompetence in the face of the information age. It would happen with or without us. In fact, there are already other factions in the party looking to implement their own political lines or establish their own hegemony. Our role is in fact not to destroy, but to save the party from complete dissolution, in one form or another.
Drive the Wedge
Now that it’s clear why we need breathing room and that the way to get it is by exploiting divisions in the party, the question becomes what camps exist in the party, and how exactly we drive a wedge between them.
There are two main camps in the party, defined generally by how and when they joined the CPUSA: the old guard, who are either “red diaper babies” or joined the party before the death of Gus Hall in 2000; and the red liberals, who joined the party mostly after 2020. This is not to say there aren’t other factions, or even factions within these camps with sharply diverging views, or that there isn’t ideological overlap between these camps, but only to say that this is generally the generational dividing line in the party which forms the basis of an ideological dividing line.
Let us begin with the red liberals.
The Red Liberals
We are familiar with this group of “communists.” These are Millennials brought up on Hakim videos, who got caught up in the general wave of “Marxism–Leninism” as they mourned the collapse of Bernie Sanders in 2020. Their understanding of Marxism–Leninism can be summed up as “social democracy with tanks.” They are in lockstep with the imperialist bourgeoisie’s cultural agenda (i.e. finance capital’s cosmopolitan consciousness & their strategy for capital penetration and political control in the 21st century), and they embrace every anticommunist caricature of Communism in the book.
They have entered the CPUSA on account of being inspired by the CPUSA’s international connections, namely with China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Beyond that, they have no interest in Communism as it concerns American reality. Any effort to develop revolutionary theory in the American context they decry as “chauvinism,” “patriotic socialism,” or whatever other nonsense. In fact, this is the group responsible for Infrared’s blacklisting from the CPUSA in the fall of 2021, as they had entered the party and were able establish themselves before we had. In that way, they have been our main opps all this time.
For our purposes, though, many of these types have one redeeming quality: they oppose the Democratic Party. These are people who were deeply invested in the Bernie Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020, who were quickly acquainted with the corruption of the Democratic Party and, at least in their view, the decisive insufficiency of the Democratic Party as a vehicle for left-wing politics.
Of course, from our perspective, the problem with the Democrats isn’t that they “aren’t Democrat enough,” but that they are the main political arm of finance capital and thus the soil of fascism in America.
Nevertheless, their ultra-left/“ultra-Democrat” position actually makes them resistant to the CPUSA’s “all-people’s front” (pro-Democrat) policy. This resistance has exacerbated with the Biden regime’s support of the Zionists in their genocide against Gaza.
Be aware that not all young members fall into this category. Many, particularly the young members climbing up in national leadership, have fully bought Joe Sims’ faux-Leninist sophistry for supporting Democratic politicians against “the threat of MAGA fascism”—to this particular segment belongs our biggest remaining CPUSA opps on X, for example.2
More often than not, though, the only members who will have any hesitation or opposition to supporting Democrats will be young. You will be able to plainly tell which members are and aren’t hesitant about supporting Democrats on a case-by-case basis, based on, for example, if they emphasize electoral work above all else or if they prefer feel-good activism and “mutual aid.”
The old guard, meanwhile, are the dominant camp in the party, and approach their role differently.
The Old Guard
While the red liberals are our most apparent opps due to their online proximity to, and intense hatred of, us, the “seasoned veterans” of the party are those who hold the reins of the party. From the most important local clubs up to the National Board (i.e. the Politburo), they are in charge. These I dub the “old guard,” those members whose parents joined the party in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and those who joined themselves in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Specifically, the core leadership of this group is the remnant of the clique surrounding the “hardliner” leadership of Gus Hall. They supported him and his orthodox Marxism–Leninism against the split of the reformers (e.g. Angela Davis) in 1991 through to his death in 2000, and they have maintained the party’s purported Marxism–Leninism after the brazen revisionist tendency of the 2000s and 2010s. Joe Sims, for example, comes from this group, when he was a young theorist for the party in the 1980s, and even Sam Webb was a core member of this faction in the 80s and 90s. The core of this camp could also be called the “Ohio clique.”3
The faces of this camp are the leaders of the party, Joe Sims and Rossana Cambron. Both co-chairs enjoy much popularity and command immense respect from the rest of the veteran old guard, especially Joe Sims.
Being party leaders, they occupy that which we target—leadership of the CPUSA. The red liberals are our competitors to succeed the old guard for party leadership.
Contrary to (what may be) popular belief, the CPUSA’s alignment with the Democratic Party predates the era of Sam Webb. What set Sam Webb’s leadership apart was interest in explicit liquidationism, not simply being pro-Democrat. It was under Gus Hall that the party theorized the Reagan Revolution as a proto-fascist movement, and it was under Gus Hall that the party ceased their tradition of running presidential campaigns.4
This is to say, the “small-d” Democrat character of the Communist Party is not new, which means there would be much resistance to reversing the policy. The old members of the party are true believers in the Democratic Party alignment—some more than others5—with few exceptions.
However, with the Gazan genocide exposing Biden and the Democratic Party’s “lesser-of-two-evils” canard, the old guard has had difficulty in walking the tightrope between the Communist duty to internationalism & anti-imperialism, and their attachment to the Democratic Party. This is evidenced by the fact they address the discrepancy directly: the ‘complexity’ of ‘fighting fascism at home’ (translated: voting Democrat against Trump) and ‘fighting imperialism abroad.’
The influx of the red liberals via online recruitment and sign-ups at first made the old guard dizzy with excitement after years of stagnation and decline. Now some of the charm has worn off, as sign-ups have died down and the problems of the red liberals have shown themselves, from not buying the party line on the Democrats to being generally weird and anti-social, and a tension now underlies the relationship of the camps.
As was said about the red liberals, not all members of the old guard are the same. There are many older members who hesitate supporting the Democrats, and there are some who are outright against it. These must be identified on a case-by-case basis, and connections must be made with such members toward effecting our goal.
Before getting into the details of our dividing strategy, we need to get an idea of the actual theory behind the CPUSA’s support of the Democrats. Let us go over this briefly.
The “All-People’s Front”
Though I referenced the “lesser-of-two-evils” argument above, that is not an accurate descriptor of how the party approaches their relationship with the Democratic Party. In fact, their understanding is actually probably even worse.
They understand the Democratic Party as a constituent-member of what they call the “all-people’s front,” the coalition of “people’s movements” which holds, incubates, and directs popular energy that is aimed at anti-democratic and “extreme right” forces in the country. The Democratic Party is a partner that, in the harshest language they’ll use, ‘unfortunately must be worked with.’
So it’s not simply that the Democratic Party is not up-to-snuff morally, which is the main qualm of the red liberals. The CPUSA takes their alignment as a matter of strategic inevitability—they have no choice but to work with the Democrats, as they believe the Democrats are the main force positioned against Republican anti-democratic ‘MAGA fascism,’ which poses the greatest threat to ‘people’s movements’ and democratic rights, and thus takes up the highest priority to combat.
Further still, the CPUSA sees the alignment of ‘people’s movements’ (NGOs), unions, etc. with the Democrats as proof that collaborating with the Democrats is unavoidable, because ‘that’s where the people are.’6
Within the program of the CPUSA, they outline their understanding of the general phases of struggle. Right now we are in the “unite against the extreme right” phase, so as to ‘save and deepen American democracy’ from the ‘fascist threat.’ Once this is accomplished, the next phase is the anti-monopoly phase, wherein movement begins for the formation of a “labor-led people’s party.”7
Understanding the CPUSA’s theory of the matters at hand is key to developing language in order NOT to combat the theory directly, but in the manner of taqiyya, to weaponize the theory against itself. Lawyers may not believe in the law, but they will use it to win a case.
This theory you must utilize, or appear to utilize, as you engage in all work in the party. Our job is not to critique this theory directly, but to use it in order to destroy it. Of course, the PCD offers an opportunity formally to directly critique this and all theories of the CPUSA, but informally, that may, and likely will, endanger the relationships and trust you need in order to get into the positions we need to win. There may, and likely will, come a time when we are free to bring the direct ideological fight to the inside of the party itself. But now is not the time, as we are not strong or secure enough for that.
What we can do now, and in any instance, is minimize our weaknesses and their strengths while maximizing our strengths and their weaknesses. In practical terms: use the connections, trust, and reputation we’ve built up to influence the actions and directions of our local clubs, push on where our enemies are sensitive and can be frayed, while avoiding getting in hostile confrontations ourselves, and in fact aim to get good credit for it all.
Push on Palestine
There is one issue that both camps are sensitive to and that thus can be used to drive a wedge between them, to divide the pro-Democrat from the anti-Democrat, and to get a chance at securing breathing room for us in the party: the Biden regime’s support of Israel in the wake of October 7.
On February 13, the Senate passed a $95 billion emergency military aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Every Democrat voted for the bill, including Bernie Sanders, and 22 Republicans joined them, despite Trump’s call on them to oppose the bill on grounds that the aid should take the form of loans that need to be paid back rather than direct aid.
Thanks to Trump’s pressure and the obstinance of the House GOP, this particular bill may be held up in the House before it reaches the White House. Regardless, when the inevitable imperialist aid bill passes through Congress, we can expect Joe Biden to salivate with a combination of bloodlust and senility as he signs it into law.
When that happens, it will only further lay bare what has already been known: the opportunism of CPUSA leadership in attempting to separate “fascism at home” and “imperialism abroad” to justify their support for the Democratic Party. A basic understanding of just the history of fascism would demonstrate that fascism and imperialism are necessarily tied at the hip, from the the experience of historic fascism in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, through to the integration of the fascist war-machines into the US security state in the Cold War to today.
It is this truth that CPUSA leadership must be forced to confront, because it is where they are weakest. Already they struggle to answer the concerns of young members, and even some older members, regarding the party’s support of the Democrat genocidaires in our government. Already they anticipate a difficult and tense convention period as they attempt to persuade the young members to accept their position. The CPUSA can either side with the people of the world and of America, or they can side with the Democratic Party, American unipolar imperialism, and its lackeys, but it cannot do both. The issue is simply a circle they and their revisionism and their opportunism cannot square, and therefore it is the target we take aim at.
Practically, what this means is the following:
Focus local work on Palestinian solidarity. Discuss the events in Palestine. Exemplify the aspects of the Palestine question in local party education as warranted. Bring up Palestinian solidarity in party meetings. The greater the focus on Palestine, the more the contradiction between supporting the Democrats and supporting the people of Palestine comes to the fore, especially as the November election approaches. Plus, it’s good work in the eyes the party—party leadership has encouraged such work, without grasping the potential it has to undermine them.
In doing so, get as many members as possible active on Palestine work, but especially the red liberals and the sympathetic old-guarders. Create ground to get more friends and minimal enemies on this effort. Force the stubborn old guard to continually explain themselves and the impossible fence they’re trying to ride. Get the red liberals frustrated with the old guard, and vice versa.
Exhausting the patience of the red liberals will get them to quit the party, leaving only us to vie for succession. Exhausting the patience of the old guard (a much taller order) means to get them to budge on their support of the Democratic Party, and perhaps more importantly, show that they can budge at all. For us, a win-win in either event.
Overall: make the line between supporting Biden and supporting anti-imperialism draw itself, reveal itself, from the work.
In some cases, it may be good for you to take charge on these efforts. However, I imagine it will be better in most cases to act more as a puppeteer and encourage others to take the lead on such work, to set the heightening of this contradiction into motion independent of yourself. Again, you must evaluate this on your level.
Further, this does NOT (necessarily) mean you do the work and then directly point out the contradiction yourself, as that may compromise your cover. Perhaps there is space to do this in a non-antagonistic way—again, you will have to evaluate whether such an opportunity exists on a case-by-case basis, based on the conditions you face.
But in general, our modus operandi is, to reiterate, working from the shadows to bring the latent contradictions in the party to the fore and let the results follow.
The pre-convention discussion period is precisely the time to implement this strategy because it is the precise time that people can open up and voice their opinions and propose changes.
Keep such work and such talk grounded in the practical day-to-day work of the party, don’t go overboard with it and don’t become overzealous, and as always, remember taqiyya.
However, it is not enough to “push the snowball,” and then sit back and expect it to roll down the hill by itself. As Communists we understand the necessity of intervening in processes, or else we wouldn’t be Communists. We also have to consider the need for contingencies, and to plan ahead in general. We must get a good picture of the forces in the party and where they line up on not only the question of supporting the Democratic Party, but on the question of reforming the party in general.
Identify the Reformers & the Hardliners
Beyond the camps we’ve identified, the red liberals and the old guard, there are two tendencies that define any organization: those who are soft and willing, wittingly or unwittingly, to bend the organization in the face of opposition, or those who are strong and intent on steeling the organization in the face of opposition.
In other words: reformers, and hardliners.
In the case of the CPUSA, the hardliners are our enemies and the reformers are either our allies, or our opportunity.
To be a CPUSA hardliner means to be Rossana’s strongest soldier, to be a Red Guard shock-trooper for the Democratic Party, to stubbornly defend the theory of the all-people’s front, and to uphold Joe Sims Thought.
To be a CPUSA reformer means to be open to change on these fronts, to question the correctness of these positions, to be open to other ideas, and to strive to “update” the party, on any level.
Our task is to undermine the hardliners, isolate them, lift the reformers over them, and claim hegemony in a period of reform.
To this end, we need accurate information of the balance of these forces in the party. We need to have accurate and specific data on the numbers and influence of the hardliners, as well as the reformers. We need to have this data on the local, regional, and national level. We need to know potential friends, and we need to know potential enemies.
If you are practicing taqiyya in the CPUSA, I am asking you to keep your eye out for this information and to take note of it yourself.
The question of specifically communicating and centralizing this intelligence comes later, as a matter of logistics, besides the established precedent practice of communicating CPUSA 2036 intel to Haz and the showrunners.
In the meantime, if we intend to take over the party, we need to understand the party, which means we must investigate the nature and character of the body of the party.
Who is active, and who isn’t? Who leads and who follows? Who voices their opinions, and who doesn’t? Where do their positions stand on the hardliner-reformer continuum? Where do local, regional, and national leaders stand? What rivalries exist? How is this borne out in the party’s national commissions? What is the makeup of clubs, districts, commissions, and party organizations in general along these lines? Who is stronger and who is weaker? Where are we weak, and where are we strong? What factions exist, and what are being formed? What are sensitive points to press on, and bastions to avoid? These are some of the questions to think about and find answers to.
Such intelligence will be essential by the time of the National Convention this summer, and it will be even more important afterward.
We do not win by waiting. We win by acting. Only after the action and after the victories are racked up does it appear that they came “naturally.”
Now is the time to push.
For example, these documents and contributions from the pre-convention discussion for the 29th Convention in 2010. These from the 31st Convention will perhaps be most relevant and important to study, since this was the convention that elevated Joe Sims et al. to leadership.
Let us keep in mind, too, many of these red liberals may be practicing their own kind of taqiyya—pretending to be supportive of the pro-Democrat policy so as to get in good with current leadership as they vie for their own secure path to succeeding leadership.
It must also be said that despite being the historical inheritors of Gus Hall’s legacy, new leadership has taken moves to accommodate the ‘91 splitters. In the past few years, many members of the CCDS have returned to the party and been welcomed back, sometimes being promoted to national leadership in the case of Anita Waters. In this way, the current leadership is a middle-ground of the two formerly-opposed camps. Or rather, the compromise of the Soviet hardliner camp in the favor of the reformer democratic socialist camp.
Rosenberg, “From Crisis to Split: The Communist Party USA, 1989–1991”. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14743892.2019.1599627
For reference, Joe Sims might be more of a moderate on this issue of supporting Democrats. Other members and leaders are much more enthusiastic about tailing the Democrats.
Of course, this betrays a vulgar understanding of the significance of “the people” or “the masses” as a political category, and reduces it to a bad kind of literalism: “there are persons there, and Communist goes where persons are.” Ridiculous, but this is their theory.
“CPUSA Program: Road to Socialism USA.” https://cpusa.org/party_info/party-program/
Good writing