NEW YORK - The First Annual Communist Party USA National Conference, held April 16-17, reflected a potential new turning point for the CPUSA and the allied Young Communist League (YCL), its relationship to the working class and key social forces and movements and its growth in size and influence.
CPUSA National Chair Sam Webb noted in his opening remarks the new level of receptivity and respect the party has gained in the labor and other mass movements, the growth in readership of its websites and the growing numbers joining, especially online.
Webb also argued that for the labor and democratic movements to continue to develop to effectively challenge corporate power a much larger left and Communist Party are essential.
Can this turning point be realized? That is the big challenge.
The party and YCL growth is bound with the current labor and people's upsurge, in what Rev. Jesse Jackson has described a "Martin Luther King or Gandhi moment."
A number of shifts have been taking place in public opinion, creating a favorable climate for growth of left and progressive movements including the CPUSA and YCL.
There is mounting anger over the brutal economic crisis, the ultra right's assault on democracy and with the contrast of obscene wealth on Wall Street amid great suffering on Main Street.
Support among Americans for the free market system (aka capitalism) has plummeted in the last year according to a GlobeScan survey.
Meanwhile class and socialist consciousness are growing, evident to anyone involved in the mass upsurge against the right wing. Pew polls show greater receptivity to socialism, especially among the youth (45 percent think socialism is a better system than capitalism) and communism (11 percent of the public thinks it's a superior moral system to capitalism)
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