Theses on the Communist Parties in the West (Incomplete)
by Albert Weisbord
(From the magazine "La Parola del Popolo" August-September 1961)
1. Wherever and whenever a Communist Party is formed in any country, the government of that country must make every effort to infiltrate and control that party and establish its agents as leaders. This has been the case also in the United States.
2. In some countries, owing to the pressure of events, the Communist Party may be in a position to take power and overthrow the former government in spite of government agents in the ranks and in the leadership. In that case the agents are often exposed and executed. This happened in Russia and in China.
3. In the United States, on the other hand, the government was eminently successful in planting its agents and informers in the top echelons of the Communist Party. The Communist Party thus became a magnificent tool in the hands of the government to help destroy world communism and as such a tool under no circumstances will it be destroyed by the U.S. government.
4. As agents of the U.S. government the leaders of the Communist Party U.S.A. could do and did perform the following very important tasks:
(a) Infiltrate the ranks of the world communist forces, especially inside of Russia and report in full on all its plans and methods of operation;
(b) help destroy the effectiveness of world communism by becoming such unreliable elements that the Russians in disgust would abandon world operations through such parties;
(c) destroy the effectiveness of the Communist Party of the U.S. by seeing to it that wrong and impossible programs and policies are adopted and by tearing the party to pieces by constant and unprincipled fighting;
(d) present the Communist Party to Americans as being a mere Russian nationalist tool rather then an output of American life so that it could the more easily be controlled and when necessary attacked by the U.S. government;
(e) prevent any other communist organization from arising that might be less controlled by the government or cause unpredicted trouble;
(f) keep the government constantly informed as to all members and fellow-travelers and all their actions and policies;
g) provide the government with the necessary pretexts to insist that a huge government apparatus be constantly maintained to watch the Communist Party and their fellow-travelers so that with this government apparatus at its command certain groups could control the political life of the people even more firmly than before;
(h) aid foreign governments friendly to the U.S. to control and destroy the communist movement in those countries also;
(i) assassinate and destroy any revolutionary who would not be controlled by such government agents and informers.
5. The Russian communist secret police and the leaders of the Russian Communist Party soon understood clearly enough that practically all their communist parties in the West affiliated to them were under the control of the respective governments. Under Lenin they took the gamble that under the pressure of historic events erupting from 1917 to 1923 they would be able to wrest control of these parties from the grip of the governments controlling them and that the Communist Parties elsewhere could achieve the same victories that they had accomplished in Russia. By 1924, with the death of Lenin and the rise of Stalin, the Russians gave up this hope and realized that most of the communist parties throughout the world, especially the C.P.U.S.A. were worthless and thoroughly in the hands of such as the FBI and other government agencies.
6. Under Stalin the Russian Communist Party made what amounted to a deal with the governments that had captured the various parties in Europe and in America. Sparring for time, the Stalinists gave up their attempts at world revolution on condition Russia be recognized and brought somewhat within the family of nations. The various capitalist countries of the world could agree to this because they were divided amongst themselves on various life and death issues and because they too needed time to organize themselves after World War I in order to destroy the Soviet Union. This was the same kind of "Retreat in Depth" on the communist front that Stalin was later to make on the military front.
7. Having abandoned the communist parties as major tools, the Stalinist Russian Communists were forced to lay great stress on substitute organizations, organizations of espionage and counter-espionage emanating from their embassies and consulates. Such secret activities were far more difficult to uncover and control than the work of communist parties. It was these substitute organizations abroad that really delivered the goods for Russia and gave such a scare to the authorities, not the communist parties.
8. The U.S. government cannot afford to destroy the Communist Party even now when it has become thoroughly exposed as a tool, not of the Russians, but of government authorities. The FBI needs it. Certain politicians need it. Should the economic and political situation ever become acute the present Communist Party can do yeomen work to destroy communism in the United States and work as a powerful reactor to keep all factors under complete control. If Congress goes too far in its anti-communist legislation the Supreme Court will declare such legislation unconstitutional; if Congress does too little, the Executive Branch will remedy the defects by administrative action. The use of the Communist Party U.S.A. as a tool of the government, however, will go on.
9. The combination of Russian Stalinism and American imperialism renders the present tasks of the Marxist worker extraordinarily difficult, but not at all hopeless or impossible.
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