Grassroots Organizing, Club Building

Grassroots Organizing, Club Building

Report to National Committee / Conference on Clubs, CPUSA June 30, 2002 by Elena Mora, National Organization Secretary CPUSA

If ever there was a time for "no more business as usual," now would seem to me to be it. It takes only a day or two of reading headlines to know that the Bush administration is even more dangerous than we thought: on its unabashedly pro-corporate, ultra right agenda are plans for unending war and preemptive first strike; an aggressive assault on the standard of living and economic security of working people, pervasive racism, and a profits-before-people policy on the environment that boggles the mind in its recklessness.

Speaking of headlines, the one in yesterday's NY Times about the Supreme Court ruling on school vouchers sent chills down my spine. I was imagining what kind of headline about Roe v. Wade we could see if the Senate approves a Bush Supreme Court appointee.

As far as I'm concerned, that prospect alone is enough to make the November elections a matter of life and death.

But although Sam talked in his report about the dangers in the political moment, he didn't say "woe is us." Because he also talked about the fact that, as he put it, the people are regaining their voice. Our Party is thoroughly a part of that regaining of momentum, and a part of the people's movements getting back on their feet. Our vision is of Party clubs deeply involved in building the movement that is challenging the policies of the Bush administration and the ultra right.

This weekend's conference will be a success if we leave here convinced that now is the moment to give new attention to growing the Party, and that in so doing we will enhance our ability to contribute to the struggle, to growing deep roots for the labor-led coalitions that are the way to change out country's direction.

This conference will be a success if we leave thinking about how each and every one of us will contribute to this process.

WHY THIS CONFERENCE NOW? Why a national meeting on the clubs at this moment?

For some time we have been working to renew, renovate and rebuild our Party. We have placed a lot of emphasis on deepening our ties with mass movements and struggles, and we've taken steps to invigorate our structures, mainly at the national level. We have strengthened our leading collectives -- better defining their political role and responsibilities, raising the bar on practical work, setting agendas that relate to mass struggle and developments.

A number of long-absent but much-needed commissions have begun to function, most notably the Education Commission and recently the Women's Equality Commission. Three comrades attended the National Coalition of Women's Organizations conference in Washington in April, and two comrades went to the NOW convention in Minnesota last weekend, and I do not hesitate to use the word historic to describe this. Given the importance of women and the women's movement to the anti-Bush, anti-ultra right coalition, our connections to and work in this arena are critical.

We are taking a dogged approach to finding the best cadre for the Party and YCL, and have added some staff, although there are still problems, about which Joe will speak tomorrow.

We have taken a leap into the present with our internet work, using it for everything from publicizing and promoting our Party's ideas and activity, to expanding and speeding up collective input to our own political discussions, and day-to-day organizing. Some of you may have noticed Noel at the computer; we were doing a live audio streaming of the keynote last night…just one of the many ways this amazing technology can be put to use.

Political Affairs has made big improvements in its look and content, and the PWW is moving full speed ahead to put out the best working-class newspaper possible.

I'm only mentioning some of the highlights of this "renewal and renovation" process. My point is that the organizational context for our conference this weekend is one of forward motion, and what we are discussing here is the next step in that direction.

So it has been an important, exciting, even exhilarating period, but two big problems have been thrown into relief:

One is that we need a much bigger Party. Sam said last night that he didn't think he needed to convince anyone of that -- but I'm not so sure.

Two is that in order to grow, we need stronger, more vibrant, connected clubs that are political organizing centers of grassroots activity and struggle.

We need a bigger Party, because Communists make a vital contribution to the developing labor-people's coalitions -- but we simply are not big enough to make that contribution to the extent that the times require.

And by the way, we need to think more about what "the times" are. Take Sam's discussion of the economy in his report -- we need to study that. My translation was that there are some pretty big indications that there is a very rocky economic road ahead, and as the report said, we should be ready for that.

Back to the need to build the clubs: We often talk about the impact that just a few, or even one Communist can have, and that's true. But as the Ikea ad says, it's a big country.

We need a much bigger Communist Party, and in order for this to happen, our clubs must be stronger. These two facts are inextricably tied to each other: even if we bring people into the Party in other ways, and at other levels, (and we do, and should continue to do so), real growth -- growth that is reflected in organizational strength and influence, and that increases the political, ideological and organizing role that Communists play in the mass movements; such real growth requires a place for the people who join to go.

Being a member of the Party should mean being part of a Party collective, which in the first place -- and in most cases the only place -- means a club. Although of course every Communist should be politically involved and active in movements, there also has to be a place where you "hang your hat," so to speak; where our experiences in struggle are discussed, assessed, and built on; where the meaning of what we are doing comes alive in new ways, where we figure out how to play a bigger role, how to move things forward.

When we speak of growing the Party clubs, we don't just mean in size and number, but in how the existing clubs work, what the meetings are like.

I think it's a good guess that some comrades may feel that our conference takes away from a focus on the elections, but I would argue that it is precisely because of the elections that we need this renewed attention to the clubs; that the very nature of election work, namely, its grassroots, mobilizing character, is ready-made for club level political work and local coalition building. And that rather than "why now?" we should say, "if not now, when?"

We needed a special meeting in order to address the growth of the Party with much more urgency than we have. To be sure, there are no quick fixes or magic bullets; like money, members don't grow on trees.

Strengthening and growing our clubs will be a long-term process. But I'm confident that we can make gains, even big ones, with a bold, creative, mass approach.

NEED FOR AND ROLE OF THE PARTY AS EXPRESSED IN WORK OF THE CLUBS/ CLUB BUILDING AND MOVEMENT BUILDING

Before I get down to brass tacks, I want to argue a bit more for this shift in emphasis towards the clubs, because if we here aren't convinced of the need for that shift, it won't happen.

We agree that the Party will be built in the main in the course of participation in the class struggle battles that are taking place, so an important question is how this is understood and expressed at the club level. Do the clubs have a coalition-building orientation, style, and mindset? Do we understand what the concept of left-center unity means at the grassroots level? Are we applying our strategic concepts, and broad tactics, to our club's political work?

I would venture to guess that many clubs don't think about themselves this way, or not enough; that they don't have a clear enough understanding of what their political role is. And changing that is a central challenge for our leadership, for the National Board and Organizing Department, for the district leaderships.

The Party plays a unique role, makes a unique, important contribution, to the developing people. That role is many-sided -- political, ideological and organizational.

The Party helps to build broad unity on issues, strengthens labor's leading role in the movements, and adds to the coalitions against the right, including and especially at the grass roots and rank and file. Our commitment to and understanding of the fundamental importance of unity is a key contribution. Our concept of industrial concentration is essential to empowering the working class movement. The Party adds longer term thinking, solutions, and of course socialism, to the political dialogue.

And there are other aspects of the unique role that Communists play, worthy of a whole separate report, so I'll leave it there.

What we need to examine are the weaknesses in our understanding of how that role is played at the club level, by local Party organizations. Mass work at the club level, by the clubs, should be a bigger factor in our thinking.

For instance, we've given a lot of time and thought to the question of coalition relations and coalition building, but not enough to how that happens at the grassroots, at the club level.

How should clubs work, what should they do, on the issues of health care, jobs, unemployment insurance, racism, immigrant rights, abortion rights? Peace? Democratic rights?

At the local level, sometimes the issue most people are concerned about at a given moment is not the one we think is the most important. So making connections between issues is a special challenge at that level, different from how it works at a city or state or national coalition level.

The labor and people's movements need to sink roots among the people to have the strength and staying power that is needed, both in the short and long run. Our Party, our clubs, can make a signal contribution to this.

The shift in emphasis we're talking about is not a call to pull away from the coalition relations that we have been developing or from the movements Communists help to lead; very much to the contrary. We are saying that we must add to that contribution, extend that approach down into our clubs, and in so doing, also strengthen the roots of the mass movements we work in.

When you think about it, grassroots organizing is hard, politically challenging work -- this should convince us that we need the best of our cadre to be club chairs, and that we should pay much more attention to developing and supporting club chairs -- but more on that in a bit.

Stronger grassroots structures (clubs), connections and organizing work are indispensable to our ability to develop sound strategic and tactical approaches. For our Communist Party to, as Marx said, "in the movements of the present take care of the future of that movement," we must have strong grassroots antenna and ties.

Labor and other organizations and movements are also addressing the need to build local, grassroots structures, for mobilization, voter registration and education, voter turn-out, etc. They understand that this is vital because to change government policy will require big changes in mass sentiment. Millions will have to be mobilized in some form or another to demand that change-- to speak out on the issues, introduce resolutions in their unions and organizations, to demonstrate, march, picket, and of course to vote for candidates based on their position on the issues.

We make an even fuller contribution to building that labor-led people's alliance, when we help build it at the local level.

We also have to do more to build the Party's collective presence and weight. The Party nationally, but also at the district and club level, has to be more visible, more public. There shouldn't be any mystery around how the Communist Party functions, what we do. People have to come to know us (and like us!) not just as individuals, but as an organization.

This weekend we want to examine our experiences with an eye to how we built (or didn't build) grassroots activity, what did we contribute to struggles, and how would stronger clubs make a difference in the future.

For example, we should hear about the work in Cleveland to save the LTV mill. How were steelworkers brought into that struggle? Are they working with us still, how did they see the Party's contribution? How will we continue to work with them, are any of them closer to the Party and if they do join, how will we keep them in the Party?

Comrades all over the country were extremely active after September 11 on peace issues and building for the April 20 demonstration.

Chicago was one. So we should hear about how the clubs participated in this work. Have we brought people closer to the Party as a result? If not, why not? Did we work in such a way that there was growth in the local peace movement? Did our work have an impact and did we grow in numbers, influence, and connections?

How do we see the clubs in the West Coast districts working to support the longshore workers?

A huge battle has been taking place in Philadelphia around the plans to privatize the public school system. How have the clubs related to that fight? How have we connected to the grassroots mobilization around it? Have we brought people closer to the Party or YCL?

Terrie will speak about the PWW in a while, and we should also look at the paper through the prism of the clubs. How can the clubs build the readership of the paper? To do this, clubs have to be vigorous, active, connected.

The People's Weekly World is our best coalition builder, public voice, and mass educator. Building its use, circulation, and promotion is absolutely necessary. We should continue what we're doing, but we should also find new ways, and there are many that the PWW editorial board has been discussing, but I won't steal Terrie's thunder.

HOW TO BEGIN CHANGING THE CLUBS: Before I get to some proposals, I want to repeat the description of the kind of clubs we want to build, because it is central to this weekend's discussion, and to how we proceed afterwards: our aim is many more strong Communist Party clubs that are vibrant, connected, political organizing centers of grassroots activity.

I think you would agree that many of our clubs don't measure up to the ideal, and certainly all can be improved in one way or another. The challenge is to figure out how to begin to move in that direction. And the fact that we are entering a very critical election period makes it very exciting, because there will be many opportunities to dig in to the fight to push back the right, and to do so by mobilizing people on the issues, at the grassroots. Clubs can really take off if we make some bold, realistic plans for this fight, if we set priorities and give the meetings more focus and life.
What can each of us do to change the situation, to improve our own clubs, and the clubs in our districts? We should resolve here to tackle this with new enthusiasm, creativity and vigor -- and that resolve is not unimportant. But we must also come up with some concrete, realistic changes we can begin to implement at the national and district level so that more of our attention, energy and resources, financial and human, are directed to the clubs.

WHAT KINDS OF CLUBS, WHAT KIND OF RECRUITING?

To say that we need a bigger Party, and that to do that we have to strengthen the clubs presupposes a number of things.

One is that we welcome all who wish to join, however they come to us, wherever we meet. Politically active, interesting clubs are necessary no matter how people join the Party. But there's more to it than that.

We also have a strategy for growing the Party. Perhaps stating the obvious, that's because we aim to grow, both in size and influence, first and foremost among workers. Our conference should call for a renewed attention to building the Party in our multi-racial, multi-national, male-female -- and embattled working class. And we need special approaches to the most organized sections of the class. Scotty will speak more about industrial concentration, what it means, and how every club can and should have an approach to working with labor as well as recruiting workers.

When we talk about strengthening the clubs as a way to grow the Party, what that boils down to is engaging the clubs in struggle, in the course of which we work with and influence many people and recruit new members.

Flexibility should be the watchword; there are a range of ways in which active clubs will come in contact with people, and that's good.

But we should be careful not to draw sweeping conclusions, not yet anyway, about who is ready to join, or why they're not.

For instance, we've talked a lot about the problems that come up with recruiting activists, because they're people who are already very busy. This is a problem, but we shouldn't exaggerate it, nor should we "solve it" by staying away from activists.

If Party clubs and club meetings aren't places that are useful and meaningful for community, union, youth and student activists, then there is probably something missing. Conversely, if we take the approach that we will bring into the Party mainly those who aren't in other organizations, we are, I think, enforcing a separation from the movements that instead, we should be trying to bridge.

Most people aren't politically active. Most workers aren't in unions. A majority of people don't vote. On the other hand there ARE millions of union members and union households. There are hundreds of thousands of social, cultural, athletic, political, religious, neighborhood and community organizations. And millions of people do vote.

What we do need to do is carefully examine what keeps people from joining, or to put it more positively, what does attract people to us, what do they get from Party membership, and what do we need to change about the way we work, and are structured, that would make it easier for new people to come in?

What we aim to tackle this weekend is how to improve our clubs, so that all kinds of people will be influenced them, come closer, join, and become active Communists.

PRACTICAL, CONCRETE STEPS, ADJUSTMENTS IN OUR WORK:

Now I'm going to get to what many of you want to hear the most, and it's probably the most difficult part of this report -- where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. What do we propose to do differently? We have some proposals, but only some, the rest is your job.

There are four areas:

1) The first has to do with what is probably the most critical factor in club functioning, and that is, leadership. How can we do more to support and encourage, to make it more rewarding and even enjoyable to be a club chair?

We are still too top heavy in our structure, at the national and district levels We should look at this again, with an eye to assigning as much as possible our strongest people to lead clubs. More leading comrades should have this as their main work.

More specifically, we should think about what we can do to invest in our club leaderships. A few ideas in this regard: I think we should consider instituting an annual club leadership retreat, perhaps organized by region. These should be special events, with agendas that include political education and discussions, but also relaxation and, perhaps most important, "brainstorming" about the problems and experiences of the clubs.

We should consider establishing a club leadership education fund, which would pay for these retreats, and other things. For example, how about arranging for club chairs to receive subscriptions to 3 or 4 publications, including perhaps PA, the Nation, Dollars & Sense, America @ work, The Crisis, etc. You get the idea.

Perhaps we could have a club chairs book club where every 3 or 4 months the comrades would get to pick a book from among a couple we provide.

A club leadership education fund might have a line item for club chairs who want to enroll in classes that unions or other organizations conduct, on organizing, public speaking, writing, Spanish, English, etc.

And there are probably other things like this that we can do. The kind of organizational shift we're talking about has to have a material reflection. We should look at our budget, national and district, and consider both how to shift spending priorities as well devote time to raising funds for such a purpose.

The next idea relates to both the issue of club chairs' responsibilities and club life, and that is that if we can get a real working exec then perhaps we should consider changing to a monthly meeting schedule, with the exec meeting on the alternate week. The idea here is to give the club leaderships more time both to prepare club meetings and to do the other work that they should do, including organizing use of the PWW, attendance at mass events, communication with other organizations, building relationships with activists, media work, etc.

I suggest this because at least part of the reason for comrades' reluctance to serve as club chairs has to do with how much time is expected of them, and although we shouldn't say that being a club chair is easy, this might make it more realistic for a lot of people who have children, two jobs, mass work responsibilities, etc.

2) After the question of club chairs, club educational life is most important, yet, I think we'd agree, a big weakness. We have to change this.

Being in the Party should be interesting. It should mean that you learn, that you change. It should give people something they don't get from other organizations. It should be a mind-opening, horizon-expanding experience.

But it's safe to say that many clubs do not have a stimulating, challenging educational life. And that is of primary concern to us all. It is a task of the National Education Commission, and they are tackling it, but the commission can't solve it alone. The district leaderships and club leaderships also have to view this as a very important part of Party life. There are many different forms through which education can take place, many new forms, which we should explore.

Our Party has to have a rich political and ideological life and atmosphere, starting in the clubs. This is a very big challenge, which we're finally in a position to tackle with our functioning Ed. Commission.

3) More proposals: Tools: We need some tools including a Party newsletter geared to the grassroots, and we are planning to launch one soon. Marc Brodine will be joining the staff of the Organizing Department (part time, based in Washington state), working on the newsletter and on literature.

We should ask the Internet Department to look at what it can do to facilitate club level work, for example, moving us towards the goal of every club having an internet connection, to use email and have the ability to download documents, sample flyers, literature, etc., from our web site.

4) Last but not least: There are changes we can make in how our leadership bodies function, which would put the clubs higher up on our agenda.

We have to make a concerted effort to examine most if not all questions and developments from the point of view of, what does this mean for the work of the Party at the district and club level? Most importantly, we have to work against a strong tendency to go around the club structures when it comes to mass tasks, and only rely on the clubs for more internal matters, like fund drives, membership follow-up, etc. That tendency -- to utilize national, district or ad-hoc structures whenever there is an important mass campaign or issue -- is, very damaging to the notion that we need to build clubs that are political organizing centers.

And there are other changes at the district and national level we can implement, for example, making sure that club chairs are members of the district leadership bodies, and, perhaps more important, that those bodies discuss club work, experience, problems, on a regular basis. Where possible, we might want to consider regular meetings just of the club chairs with the district organizer, perhaps using the conference call system so already busy people can participate from home.

We should also make it a regular part of the work of the National Board to ask that every district prepare a report once a year on the status of its organization, starting with club status.

And, we should re-institute annual club conferences. Let's think about how these will fit the times, however, and not necessarily model them on the past.

Given the importance of the November elections, we should propose that every club have a special meeting as soon as possible to map out plans for the elections, to which friends and contacts could be invited.

I haven't spoken at all about the YCL, and I won't except to say that building the YCL is as important as building the Party, in a certain sense maybe even more important, because they are the future, of our organization, and of the movements as well.

Back in February, when we decided to hold this conference, I don't think we appreciated its importance -- I don't think I did. But I do now. These past five months of preparation have been thought provoking and challenging. I'm sure the discussion today and tomorrow will put us in a good position to build a much bigger Party and YCL, so we can play an even bigger role in the struggles ahead.