CPUSA to Go it Alone ?, Andrew Taylor, April 12th, 2010

I have a quotation from a CPUSA Reformist that I would like to carefully consider with my readers:

"The challenge since that time ("for the last twenty years or so") has been whether to continue following an ideological, political, and economic model based in Soviet experience or to set out on our own path to find a way of reaching socialism that is based on the problems and characteristics of contemporary life."

From:
Convention discussion: For an Organization Rooted in Our Traditional Values, Not Dogmas of the Past

For an Organization Rooted in Our Traditional Values, Not Dogmas of the Past
by C.J. Atkins
From CPUSA.org, in Political Affairs Editors
http://networkedblogs.com/2qO61

Mr Atkins leaves out a vital question in his characterization of the choices facing the Communist Party today...And that is the hermeneutic question. Who is to interpret the prescription for contemporary life? Who are the people venturing to discern the problems and characteristics of "contemporary life" and how will they interpret according to which assemblage of preconceptions ? What sort of guidebooks are the new scribes following? What is the implicit or explicit ideology of the new leadership group of the CPUSA? They bravely aver that they eschew Soviet era dogmatism. Mr C.J. Atkins is not making a serious claim.

Does any one proclaim that any dogmatism is the correct path forward? No, Mr Atkins is having a smack at the Communists in his party and everyone knows it. But there is another problem in his claim: every political tendency on earth has its own notions as to what practices and policies constitute dogma, never mind that none of the of the various self-styled arbitrators of revolutionary rectitude can agree on the list of Soviet deviations from "socialist norms".

I am afraid if the question and interpretation are to be left to Mr Atkins and
Sam Webb, to John Case and Danny Rubin and the rest, there will be an arbitrary stylization of the signs of our times rooted in the verities of middle class fancies of the zeitgiest of 21st century American possibilities. Having set sail for Atlantis they have yet to discover that only the ship of fools is launching off into the deep this year. Would any of the seasoned ratings serving in the brave little CPUSA leadership Tub know the difference between a traditional value and a dogma? The tragedy is that these 'reformers' have neither the humility before the vista of history , or the sound compass to guide them in achieving their desired haven.