Communist States of America

“A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism.”

-Karl Marx

That specter didn’t haunt only Europe, it stretched its apparitional hands across the Atlantic Ocean and to the United States. In 1919 the Communist Party of the United States of America was founded by C.E. Ruthenberg. According to the party they have been fighting for democracy, women’s equality, racial justice and peace for one hundred years. The party is founded on the Marxism-Leninism, which is the beliefs of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. The CPUSA also follows the belief of bill of rights socialism, the belief that the United States bill of rights championed a socialist society. They fall on the far left of the political spectrum passing socialism. Many Communist belief that you must go from a capitalist society to a socialist and finally to a communist society. Lafayette junior Daniel O’Neal disagrees with this idea, “… because we’ve adopted an individualist/capitalistic society for so long. It would take a long time for the people to adjust.”

The CPUSA believes that a communist future will be one without war, the exploitation of the working class, human inequality, and poverty. They speculate that with a communist state the future will be a brighter future. One built on democracy, peace, justices, equality, cooperation and being able to meet all humans’ needs. A future in which the proletariat is able to control his own destiny and work toward building a better world and that in this new socialist society the wealth that is produced will for the first time be truly beneficial for all people. In the event that this socialist America becomes a reality, they say the democratic rights of the people will be guaranteed and expanded. They continue on to state that,

    “We, the working people of the United States, face tremendous problems today: exploitation, oppression, racism, sexism, a deteriorating environment and infrastructure, huge budget deficits, and a government dominated by the most vicious elements of big capital and its political operatives. This government, despite its rhetoric about making Americans safe, has wasted hundreds of billions on the invasion and occupation of Iraq while it cut money for maintaining the levees leading directly to the disaster that Hurricane Katrina wreaked on the people of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. Their callous disregard for African Americans, for poor people, for the elderly, and for all those unable to evacuate on their own exemplifies their inhumane disregard for the lives of all working people.”(-Taken from the CPUSA website.)

The Communist Party believes that the capitalist oppression effects everyone from African Americans to Senior citizens and everything in-between. Lafayette senior Matt Zayas revealed that he doesn’t think the United States has an “officially stated” class system, “but due to how the economy is, they are created.”  The oppression they speak of effects everyone except white people who have to act as a white savior to protect everyone who isn’t white nor Christian. The CPUSA ask white people to treat race like dances with wolves.

Let’s move onto the other half of the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Bill of Rights of Socialism. Their belief in this Bill of Rights of Socialism, as they say, would be built on a stronger foundation then the Bill of rights in the United States Constitution. Guarantying the right of freedom of speech and religion with equality for all. They support everyone’s right to have a job, health care, and an education. Finally, that the police and prison systems need to be reformed from the ground up and must be purged of racial disparity.  Daniel Downs, a US history teacher at Lafayette High School, does not believe the Bill of Rights really speaks of a socialist society. “No, not at all, I always saw them as conservative. To think them to be socialist doesn’t connect with what they wrote. Socialism usually goes with an authoritarian government, not a democratic one.”

In conclusion, the Communist Party of the United States focuses greatly on racial issues and the defeat of the far-right along with the elevation of the working class and the disbanding of all classes for a truly equal society. I see the CPUSA as a small political party with not enough power to achieve their goals, and for a lack of better word I find them ultimately irrelevant when it comes to United States politics. The word Communism has been corrupted by authoritarian dictatorships and has a negative connotation, even though there has been a spike in the younger generations calling themselves a “communist” or a “socialist.” It seems this is either merely to stand out and grab attention through use of “shocking” terms, or they have only a basic grasp on the principles of these two ideologies. Even if one truly believes in communism or socialism, we must all acknowledge that there will always be those who believe they’re above the rules, or seek to bend the rules in their favor and turn stability into chaos, thus undermining systems like these which are based, fundamentally, on an assumption of goodness on the part of humanity.