The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression By Stephane Courtois, Mark Kramer (Translator), Jonathan Murphy (Translator), Karel Bartosek, Andrzej Paczkowski, Jean-Louis Panne, Jean-Louis Margolin (Contributors); Introduction to the U.S. edition by Martin Malia Published by Harvard University Press, 1999 Originally published in France, 1997

Examining the photos and reading their captions in The Black Book of Communism, you might expect the surrounding 700+ pages to contain a wail of outrage. The photos, though few, are as graphic and heart-rending as the worst from Nazi Germany.

But the text is no impassioned partisan cry. It's something more powerful than that; it's the facts. The Black Book has been called a catalog, an indictment, a prosecutorial manual against Communist crimes. It is a simply a dispassionate account - article after article - of the history of Communist power. Beginning with Leninist terror policies and concluding with the starvation produced by Afrocommunism, the historians of The Black Book list the events, tally the numbers, describe the conditions, name the names.

* USSR: 20 million deaths * China: 65 million deaths * Vietnam: 1 million deaths * North Korea: 2 million deaths * Cambodia: 2 million deaths * Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths * Latin America: 150,000 deaths * Africa: 1.7 million deaths * Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths * Communist movements or parties not in power: about 10,000 deaths

Nearly 100 million deaths. Not casualties of war, but civilian slaughter. Deaths in gulags and concentration camps. Deaths from a bullet to the head. Most of all, deaths by starvation - the result either of planned famines, meted out as punishment to internal foes (as in Stalin's USSR), or unintended consequences of central policy.

American historian R.J. Rummell has tallied similar figures in his book Death by Government. But The Black Book is different in that 1) it focuses on death and terror in Communist regimes only 2) many of its contributors were (or are still) members of the left and 3) this book touched off an international storm when it was first published in France.

Why would this scholarly book - with its "just the facts, Ma'm" approach and its extensively documented claims - ignite a firestorm?

Partly it is because many crimes of Communism have gone unexamined, due both to bias among the intelligentsia and lack of access to archives of Communist countries. As such, this book is a shock to those who haven't been paying attention.

Partly it is that in Europe, and France especially, it is still chic to identify oneself as a Communist or Socialist. This book is an embarrassment and a shame to those who have practiced "ideological self-deception."

But appallingly, the controversy arose largely because the Black Book's authors - in particular chief editor and contributor Stephane Courtois - dare to compare the horrors of Communism to the horrors of Nazism. (The title itself is reflects the famous Black Book of Nazi crimes compiled after the Nuremberg Trials.) An unbiased scholar might consider this a natural thing to do; some political partisans considered it an offense.

In the introduction, "The Crimes of Communism," (one of just three essays that analyze, rather than merely report, the century's events), Courtois writes:

Time and again the focus of the terror was less on targeted individuals than on groups of people. The purpose of the terror was to exterminate a group that had been designated as the enemy. Even though it might be only a small fraction of society, it had to be stamped out to satisfy this genocidal impulse. Thus, the techniques of segregation and exclusion employed in a "class-based totalitarianism" [Communism] closely resemble the techniques of "race-based totalitarianism." The future Nazi society was to be built upon a "pure race," and the future Communist society was to be built upon a proletarian people purified of the dregs of the bourgeoisie. The restructuring of these two societies was envisioned in the same way, even if the crackdowns were different. Therefore, it would be foolish to pretend that Communism is a form of universalism. Communism may have a worldwide purpose, but like Nazism it deems a part of humanity unworthy of existence.

That Courtois finds no moral distinction between the barbarities of right and left, between mass slaughter of races and mass slaughter of classes (the Russian bourgeoise and the kulaks, for example), led the left-leaning newspaper Le Monde to trot out the familiar charge of anti-Semitism and to damn the entire book by association.

Courtois further irritated France's intellectuals (and indeed some of the book's co-authors) by concluding that Communists actually benefitted by promoting the illusion that the Holocaust was a unique crime - thus diverting suspicion from themselves and ensuring that the " t right" always appeared more heinous than its twin on the left.

You need not agree with Courtois, or even spend time with the book's three analytical essays, to be deeply moved - and informed.

* Nicholas Werth's 15-article section, "A State against Its People: Violence, Repression, and Terror in the Soviet Union," which details Lenin's deliberate use of terror, forced collectivization, "dekulakization," Stalinist purges, the workings of the secret police and the rise and fall of the gulag system. Werth spares no Russian leader or Marxist intellectual from 1917 to the fall of the USSR. * "World Revolution, Civil War and Terror," which traces the USSR's determined efforts to export its philosophy - and its methods - throughout the world. * "The Other Europe: Victims of Communism," which details crimes in Poland, Central and Southeastern Europe. * "Communism in Asia: Between Reeducation and Massacre," in which Jean-Louis Margolin and Pierre Rigoulot examine China (with emphasis on the catastrophic Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution), North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The authors admit that, with most Asian Communist regimes still in place, access to archives is forbidden and facts remain sketchy. Yet what they report should be enough to dispel any lingering visions of fatherly Mao and grandfatherly Ho. * "The Third World," which reveals the horrors perpetrated by Communist guerrillas or regimes from Afghanistan to Cuba and Peru to Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique..

In addition, the book is fascinating for its many insights into Communism's roots. You might be surprised to learn who these French authors consider to be the real father of Communism (hint: not Marx). And most readers would certainly be surprised to learn that Soviet leaders so greatly respected one Western saint that they erected a monument to him at the Kremlin.

The Black Book's revelations are so broad and detailed that no mere review could describe them adequately. Anyone who cares about history or truth should read this book. (Fortunately its lucid prose makes it easy to follow even the most arcane or gut-wrenching events).

But with Communism in collapse nearly everywhere, and even China (so the media tells us) on the road to capitalism, why should anyone other than a historian or a crusader for justice care about any of this? Yes, it was awful, but isn't it just about over? Shouldn't we simply nod in acknowledgment, feel sincere sorrow, an appropriate degree of horror perhaps - and move on?

But of course we should care for many reasons - above all because trust in the Omnipotent State is still with us, still waiting to darken humanity again. For that is the essence of both Nazism and Communism - the belief that the state (whether claiming authority from The Culture, The Ideology, The Class, The Race, The People or some yet-to-be-concocted Authority) is supreme. This leads first to the assumption that individuals and groups who don't fit the collective ideal are irritants, then enemies - then that they should be disposed of "for the good of the whole."

If we are not careful and aware, this pervasive evil may spring in a new form. If we point fingers only at "right" or "left," depending on our own inclinations, we may fail to oppose the same phenomenon when it arises wearing a new face - a face that looks friendly, perhaps even familiar. We must study both the Nazis and the Communists, leaving aside the fundamentally meaningless distinctions of left or right, nationalist or universalist, race-hating or class-hating, and know the shared soul of the beast within.

For anyone who wants to protect the future by knowing the past, this book is a Very Important Read.

But could such horrors ever really come to our own doorsteps? At first blush, it seems not. Reading this book I was often struck by how foreign the recounted events are. It's impossible to imagine a Pol Pot-style agrarian "utopia" imposed upon a modern U.S. or Britain. Clearly, the savageries of Peru's Shining Path guerrilla's are uniquely Peruvian. Clearly Afrocommunism arises in part from tribal roots, so unlike ours. Clearly, the ACLU would prevent the development here of conditions described by Black Book contributor Pascal Fontaine - Nicaraguan prisons so crowded that inmates had to sleep standing up, with so little water that prisoners drank their own urine to survive, with such non-existent sanitation that cells and even hallways ran thick with excrement.

No, we can assure ourselves, such third-world horrors couldn't happen here. And there's a certain amount of truth in that. Even at its height, Communism gained power almost exclusively in nations with entrenched, institutionalized class divisions or nations in extreme stress (like Cambodia caught between U.S. bombardment and threats from Vietnam).

But similar tyrannies, we already know, have risen even from the "civilized" West. At times, you read the dispassionate words of The Black Book and you feel a chill of familiarity.

Above all, there are the passages about the Communist's skillful manipulation of language for political purposes.

This manipulation took two forms, both of which are in use in American and Europe today: The first is a demonization and dehumanization of everyone unpopular with the regime. It was not people the Communists killed. It was "capitalists," "running dogs," "enemies of the people," "saboteurs," "the bourgeoise," or "wreckers." Just as Nazis didn't exterminate Jewish human beings but "maggots," "menaces to society," "parasites" "corrosive influences on Aryan culture" and "masters of the lie." Just as today government and the media do not merely disagree with, but demonize and marginalize "militia nuts," "right-wing extremists," "haters" and "religious fanatics." (And just as it might be "fags," "knee-jerk liberals" or "godless humanists" shoved to the fringes if politicians of a different viewpoint got into power.)

Of course no sane person would declare that the political manipulation of words in first world countries has reached Stalinist danger levels. Nevertheless, as Richard W. Stevens has pointed out, official or quasi-official margnialization of groups is an early stage in a deadly process. As the Black Book says:

Terror involves a double mutation. The adversary is first labeled an enemy, and then declared a criminal, which leads to his exclusion from society. Exclusion very quickly turns into extermination. [The] idea [of a purified humanity] is used to prop up a forcible unification - of the Party, of society, of the entire empire - and to weed out anyone who fails to fit into the new world. After a relatively short period, society passes from the logic of political struggle to the process of exclusion, then to the ideology of elimination, and finally to the extermination of impure elements. At the end of the line there are crimes against humanity.

The other form of language manipulation noted in the Black Book is a simple denial - putting a prettier face on ugly realities. Concentration camps become "reeducation" centers. Millions were forced from their farms and livelihoods in a process of "voluntary collectivization" (language reminiscent of the compulsory "volunteerism" forced upon many American students as a graduation requirement). Political opponents receive "therapy" for their "mental illness." (Do you suppose they take Prozac or Ritalin?) Even today, in China political inmates are called "students" in token of the fact that their punishment is designed to force them to accept the ideology of those they oppose.

Related to these forms of manipulation is the institutionalized use of terms that simply by being spoken or written perpetuate political assumptions. For instance, the word "kulak" in the USSR began as an insult; it quickly became the only acceptable word to describe the independent farmers who were fighting for their land and livelihood; thus every time they were spoken of they were implicitly damned. In our own culture we have near-universal (media-inspired) use of the term "gun violence." Simply by speaking the phrase, one perpetuates a set of suppositions: that guns, not people are responsible for crime, that guns are inherently more violent than objects such as hammers or knives; that they are in a special class that must be rigidly controlled. We talk of "hate speech," and thereby convey that the speaker has no legitimacy; he is simply motivated by incomprehensible loathsomeness; everything he believes, says or does should be disregarded or condemned. If you are a "redneck" you are no doubt the epitome of both "gun violence" and "hate speech" and nothing more needs to be said of you. Those whose "self-esteem" is so damaged by your "insensitivity" that they can't function may have to collect their "entitlements" (which is quite unlike the shame of going on welfare, accepting a handout or collecting a dole).

With such loaded terms, no debate is possible. The assumptions have been imposed in the very words.

Another aspect of language control is simply imposing certain terminology upon everyone through social or political pressure - even if the terminology itself is value neutral. One day, you may say "crippled." The next, you're insensitive: the proper term is "handicapped." The next, you're out of the intellectual loop: Everyone knows the politically correct word is "disabled" (then "differently abled," then "physically challenged"). One day your neighbors are "Negro." But the next you're a bigoted rube if you fail to say "Black." Then you can't be sure: Is it "Black" or "Afro-American" or "African-American" and what if your neighbor is from Jamaica, not Rhodesia, is she still "Afro-hyphen"? One day, even Dan Rather says "Red China." The next, suddenly everyone makes an abrupt switch to praise our friend "The People's Republic," as if the term "Red China" had never existed. I'm not speaking of the natural flow and change of language - which in English is rich, abundant and one of our great cultural treasures. I'm not speaking of the clubby, ever-changing jargon of various social groups. I am speaking of imposed language which ensures that only those "in the know" (as defined by an elite group) can ever feel confident discussing, or even thinking about, politically sensitive topics. Common people lose power over political issues because they fear they can't speak safely or astutely about them. They fear they will be ridiculed, that their views won't be taken seriously. Since they aren't sure of the acceptable terminology, they often assume they must also be lacking salient facts. They shut up. They become submissive to the intellectual dictates of interest groups - which is often exactly the intent. Note that such language is nearly always imposed when government is in the process of taking more control in a given area. It does not just happen.

In this latter case, the terms themselves are less important than the fundamental question: Who shapes the language? As Orwell observed so powerfully in more than one of his works, when you control people's language, you control how they think - and ultimately how they behave.

Another curious echo between Communism and our world arises in the concept of absolute power without even minimal responsibility. One example from The Black Book: "On March 2, 1930 all Soviet newspapers carried Stalin's famous article 'Dizzy with Success,' which condemned 'the numerous abuses of the principle of voluntary collectivization' and blamed the excesses of collectivization and dekulakization on local bosses who were 'drunk on success.'"

Of course we now know - as The Black Book explains so well - that the "abuses" of agricultural collectivization - including the millions of deaths by famine that followed - were deliberate, and were planned by Stalin himself.

Yet as Vasily Grossman details in his poignant novel, Forever Flowing, the public continued to believe Stalin's claims of innocence. If only someone could tell the great, caring leader what was really happening, they believed, he would put a stop to the horror. Thus, they put their utmost trust in the very agent of the catastrophe.

Stalin's denial of responsibility was no isolated case. Later, in his 1956 "Secret Speech" openly discussing Stalin's evils for the first time, Nikita Kruschev very carefully failed to mention that he himself, as head of the Communist Party in the Ukraine (the focus of the famine), played a role in implementing Stalin's policies of collectivization and deliberate starvation.

Today, in U.S. politics, we have "leaders" who demand ever greater power, while at the same time taking less and less responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is true on both a policy level and a personal one.

They are not accountable for bombings of Sudanese pharmaceutical factories or Balkan hospitals. Likewise, they cannot even consider that their intervention could be a cause, not the cure, of "crises" in health care, education or poverty. Every act of official violence or overkill is dismissed as the doing of some low-level functionary on the scene - and even that person usually escapes punishment (ala Lon Horiuchi) due to his status as a government employee. Even when an authority figure "takes full responsibility" - as Janet Reno did for the Waco debacle - she can do so safely, knowing there are no consequences.

On the personal level, when caught in wrongdoing, politicians at most admit they "made mistakes," "gave the appearance of wrongdoing," or were helpless to know right from wrong in the absence of "controlling legal authority." But actually accept moral or legal responsibility and act accordingly? Not they. You may go to prison for committing similar acts. They are exempt.

Again, nothing that has occurred in modern America even begins to approach the devastation or the sheer cruelty described in The Black Book. But we must question the intentions of politicians who demand ever more power with less accountability. Down that road - the road of complacency or downright State Worship - lies ruthlessness for leaders and helplessness for ordinary people.

To justify their harshest measures, Lenin and Trotsky early on developed the concept of perpetual war. That is, anyone who opposed them was not merely an opponent, but an enemy - of the state, of the proletariat, of Communism, therefore of all that was good and progressive and desirable. Thus it was necessary not only to argue against opponents, but to crush them utterly. Trotsky wrote:

The question about who will rule the country - that is, about the life or death of the bourgeoisie - will be decided on either side not by reference to the paragraphs of the constitution, but by the employment of all forms of violence.

The enemy is the great justification for terror, and the totalitarian state needs enemies to survive. If it lacks them, it invents them. Once they have been identified, they are treated without mercy. Belonging to the [enemy] class is enough; there is no need actually to have done anything at all.

It is important to read The Black Book to get the full impact of what it means to wage perpetual war against one's own fellow citizens. But we're already seeing the beginnings of it in America today.

Is it any coincidence that we now not only have such things as Wars on Poverty, Wars on Illegal Immigration, Wars on Crime and a perpetual War on Drugs but - irony of ironies - that we set up "czars" to conduct them?

And no one should imagine that "war" is merely a catchy metaphor. In this case, when politicians use a word, they mean it. Because our nation is at "war" with drugs, we see increasing use of military equipment and militaristic tactics in law enforcement. Instead of two uniformed officers knocking at a door to present a non-violent suspect with a warrant, we now send a 20-strong, ninja-clad SWAT team armed with German MP5s to kick down his door in the middle of the night, screaming, hurling flash-bang grenades, and shooting his children, his parents or himself if, in the confusion, they either move when ordered to halt or fail to move fast enough when ordered to move. We have roadblocks with random, warrantless searches of automobiles. We have courts that send people accused of drug trafficking to prison on the word of criminal informants - without even requiring hard evidence of drugs or drug transactions. We have Supreme Court decisions that discard the Constitution in favor of "overriding government considerations." Increasingly, we are approaching conditions like the one The Black Book describes prevailing in Cuba:

In 1978 a law was adopted to prevent criminality before it actually happened. What this meant in practice was that any Cuban could be arrested on any pretext if the authorities believed that he presented a danger to state security even if he had not committed any illegal act. In effect the law criminalized any thought that did not accord with the ideas of the regime, turning every Cuban into a potential suspect.

Even in America, we have nearly reached a point where certain suspects - usually in drug, weapon or political crimes - are simply enemies to be expunged, not citizens with rights.

In other areas we can also see echoes of Communist-style mega-state power. U.S. officials today:

* Encourage children to inform on their parents; encourage teachers, neighbors and friends to inform on others based on barest suspicions of wrongdoing * Promulgate laws criminalizing everyday activities, and even discussion of certain outlawed activities * Decree ever-harsher punishments for non-violent crimes (and harsher punishments yet when those laws fail to end the problem) * Allow secret trials in some cases (involving non-citizens suspected of political crimes) * Encourage widespread dependence on the state, with concomitant disconnection from family and community * Belong to a professional political class rather than a citizen government * Extend control over the basics of life (such as education, the food supply and health care), * Increase their control over industry (in our case, via regulation and subsidy, rather than outright ownership) * Promote constant "crises" as an excuse for seizing more power * Foster a belief (now almost universally held) that no problem can be solved without federal intervention

The Black Book of Communism begins to show us that totalitarianism is totalitarianism, whether we call it t, Communist or some other name. Totalitarianism's central feature is a state that desires total control and assumes the right to impose that control at any cost. If you already know the nature of tyranny, read this book to vindicate your wisdom and provide yourself with intellectual ammo against those who believe that a little statism is a harmless thing. If you don't already know, read and be glad that these authors speak so dispassionately; otherwise your heart would break.

We should never forget that we, too, are vulnerable to this danger - and are perhaps most vulnerable when we believe "it can't happen here." in the end, Courtois reminds us, terror can (and does) grow out of even the most heartfelt idealism:

Why should maintaining power have been so important that it justified all means and led to the abandonment of the most elementary moral principles? The answer must be that it was the only way for Lenin to put his ideas into practice and "build socialism." The real motivation for the terror thus becomes apparent: it stemmed from Leninist ideology and the utopian will to apply to society a doctrine totally out of step with reality. ... In a desperate attempt to hold onto power, the Bolsheviks made terror an everyday part of their policies, seeking to remodel society in the image of their theory, and to silence those who, either through their actions or by their very social, economic, or intellectual existence, pointed to the gaping holes in the theory. Once in power, the Bolsheviks made Utopia an extremely bloody business.

Altouh this article is a bit dated, I still think its central thesis is dead on...however, Im not sure I agree with ISWRs assessment of Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

Inside Story: World Report
September, 1995

Soviet Communism--Alive and Deadly

Has Soviet Communism actually died?

The answer seems obvious to most Americans, who receive their information through the major news media. The television screen has conveyed dramatic and colorful images of protests in the streets of Moscow, tanks outside the Soviet Parliament, and the substitution of the traditional Russian flag for the Soviet hammer-and-sickle red flag.

Those who pay closer attention to Soviet events, or who travel to Moscow or certain other major Russian cities, find evidence of democratic elections with vigorous opposition movements, a relaxation of moral standards on Russian television, and busy capitalists in the streets of Moscow. Even the borders have been declared open, allowing citizens to leave, and a couple of old concentration camps have been shut down. The KGB is releasing some of its files. Former political prisoners now speak out openly. And Boris Yeltsin declares he is no longer a Communist. Could events be any more dramatic?

Americans, however, tend to forget how much absolute control a Communist regime exercises over its captive nation. For decades, our television cameras and gullible travelers were led on carefully prepared tours of the Soviet Union, bringing back stories of "happy" Soviet citizens working enthusiastically on building socialism. A few Americans truly believed such colorful nonsense, while most others gradually came to accept the idea that the Soviet dictatorship was mellowing.

The "collapse" of Soviet Communism, orchestrated as an alleged "coup" against dictator Gorbachev in 1991, gave our television cameras and tourists the most spectacular show yet. The changes seemed more genuine than ever before, and thus more convincing. But is it possible that we are merely witnessing a larger-scale deception than before, a quiet prelude to a new hot war? Startling new evidence says we are.

The police state and genocide

The greatly hyped-up news coverage of the "changes" in the Soviet Union has exaggerated their importance. Whether in Spain during the 1930s, Hungary during the 1950s, or Indonesia during the 1960s, Communist regimes have never been overthrown without significant violence and bloodshed. Cosmetic reforms cannot bring down such a dictatorship, especially a long-established one.

The Soviet regime has had 77 years to destroy all opposition and crush the morale of the population. In the most thorough study of its kind, political scientist R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii estimated that the Kremlin mass-murdered some 62 million Soviet citizens between 1917 and 1987; the number could be as high as 127 million.1 This genocide has been carried out in thousands of Soviet concentration camps, as well as through mass trials and shootings and even by enforced famine in whole regions of the Soviet Union.

The purpose has been to create mass terror. To frighten the entire population, the killing had to be random and widespread. As dictator Vladimir Lenin commanded, "The courts must not ban terror... but must formulate the motives underlying it, legalize it as a principle, plainly, without any make-believe or embellishment. It must be formulated in the broadest possible manner...".2

Acting on his orders, the government set quotas for the number of civilians to be rounded up and imprisoned-or executed-in each area of the Soviet Union. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, for example, described "the assignment of quotas, the norms set, the planned allocations. Every city, every district, every military unit was assigned a specific quota of arrests to be carried out by a stipulated time. From then on everything else depended on the ingenuity of the Security operations personnel."3 Soviet defector Vladimir Petrov, who had worked in the secret police until 1954, also described the process:

I handled hundreds of signals to all parts of the Soviet Union which were couched in the following form:

"To N.K.V.D., Frunze. You are charged with the task of exterminating 10,000 enemies of the people. Report results by signal.-Yezhov."

And in due course the reply would come back:

"In reply to yours of such-and-such date, the following enemies of the Soviet people have been shot."4

Millions of citizens have been sent each year to the concentration camps to die more slowly-while performing economically useful slave labor. Genuine criminals were treated better and put in charge of the other inmates:

The world of the camps was grotesque as well as lethal. The ancient criminal element, accounting for about 5% of the prisoners, terrorised the "politicals," with the connivance of the authorities. They looted their possessions and clothes, beat them, murdered them: even worse, they took the lion's share of the rations already calculated to give the barest minimum on which a prisoner might survive for a while.5

One major wing of the state terror was carried out as a war against the Jewish population of the Soviet Union. Beginning under Lenin, the Communist Party banned Jewish schools and charities, raided Jewish celebrations during Yom Kippur and other holy days, and tortured, killed, or exiled to concentration camps untold numbers of religious Jews.6 During World War II, nearly half a million Jewish refugees from Poland were seized during the Soviet invasion of Lithuania; these were immediately deported to Soviet concentration camps, religious leaders being sent first.7 Menachem Begin, the future prime minister of Israel, was one of these, but later escaped the Soviet Union.8 In 1945 the Soviets even seized most of the Jewish inmates of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, transferring these hapless prisoners to Soviet camps to help finish the Nazi Holocaust.9

Common myth today holds that this genocidal terror ended with the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. But professor Rummel estimates that some 7 million citizens were murdered by the Soviet government between Stalin's death and 1987, and possibly as many as 12 million. The terror pattern is as arbitrary as before: people are arrested for "economic crimes," meaning participation in the underground economy, an activity carried out by virtually all Soviet citizens. In the mid-1960s, for example, even "the illegal manufacture of such fripperies as hair ribbons and lipstick brought certain offenders before the firing squad...". Based on an analysis of names, Jews are apparently 20 times as likely as other Russians to be targeted for arrest.10

Concentration camp survivor Avraham Shifrin was able to leave the Soviet Union in 1970 and move to Israel, where he established the Research Center for Prisons, Psychprisons and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the USSR. He published his comprehensive research on Soviet camps in 1980, indicating more than 2,000 concentration camps were active-including 119 camps for women and children and at least 41 death camps.11 By 1990, Shifrin reported that some 2,500 camps were now holding an expanded population of 7 million inmates under Mikhail Gorbachev's regime.12

But more chillingly, Shifrin has recently discovered that the "former" Soviet Union under Boris Yeltsin is rapidly building many new camps throughout the country, in addition to the thousands of ongoing camps. These still-empty camps could serve to hold vast numbers of Western Europeans once the Red Army moves into Germany, Italy, France, and England.

Since the "collapse" of Soviet Communism in 1991, Moscow has opened to the public a tiny handful of old camps, mostly in Siberia. But the other 2,500 camps remain in full operation, exterminating large numbers of citizens under a continuing regime of terror. The Soviet propaganda works only because most Americans never understood the severity of Communist oppression in the first place.

The Communist Party machine

In the "collapse" of the Soviet Union, Communist Party members did not even lose their collective hold on power. A few Party members were shuffled around between powerful government positions, while most declared themselves "former" Communists. Boris Yeltsin has himself been a Communist since 1961, although he now claims to be a "former" Party member; his administration is thoroughly staffed with such longtime Communists as Yuri Petrov, Oleg Lobov, and Viktor Ilyushin.13 His leading opponent, the tough-talking Vladimir Zhirinovsky, openly boasts of his own KGB backing.14

As of mid-1993, 11 of the 15 Soviet republics were openly under the control of "former" Communists, including Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia, Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, and Leonid Kravchuk of the Ukraine.15 Shevardnadze, in fact, previously worked for the KGB as the head of several detention centers. Eyewitnesses report Shevardnadze's legendary cruelty at his Tbilisi prison:

In room 45 Agdomelashvili (an agent) beat Mikhelashvili (a Jew) on assignment from Panfilov (chief of operations); in room 44, agents... beat and cut with a razor the object Datusani; in room 37 agent Usipyan on assignment from Panfilov and Svimonishvili beat the object Valeri Kukhianidze, whose internal organs got so beat up he spit blood, after which he died in the Central Prison Hospital and was "written off"... in a word, beating went on in all the rooms, and the groaning and howling of the objects was heard all over the building... It was a slaughterhouse.16

Those Soviet republics not under obvious Communist control have been ruled by figureheads on behalf of the Communists. For example, former Georgian "President" Zviad Gamsakhurdia-though often portrayed in the Western news media as a democratically elected anti-Communist-actually worked closely with the KGB and was allowed to run Georgia through a completely Communist-controlled bureaucracy, as he openly admitted. He also protected the socialist infrastructure by blocking free-enterprise reforms.17

Not only do Communists and their "former" comrades thoroughly permeate the political leadership and bureaucracy of the entire Soviet Union, but they have kept its socialist power completely intact. Virtually the entire economy remains in government hands; only tiny zones in Moscow and certain other major cities allow a few private businesses, such as street vendors. New Soviet laws guarantee the restrictions on private property and business activity, and Communist apparatchiks still hold the reins of economic power. "Permission to take part in large-scale enterprise is only granted through these aqpparatchiks, and only if it is in their interests," writes one former Soviet citizen of the current situation. "All the property of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union-its billions in funds and billions in real estate, all of its sanatoriums, publishing houses, and fleets of cars, and the cooperative enterprises created under its aegis, everything-has been handed over for allocation by the very same new Russian administration that is led by the old secretaries of oblast Party committees." The handful of entrepreneurs are further squeezed with heavy taxation.18

Why doesn't the newly "free" press of Russia report this? Because there is no free press. In Moscow, for example, all printing presses, all delivery trucks, and all newsstands are owned by the government, which also controls prices on all publications.19

Not that it matters, since no "opposition" movement would care to tell the truth anyway. KGB General Oleg Kalugin has openly boasted that KGB personnel include "even figures in our democratic movement. There are many people in the movement-in fact, famous people-who have been cooperating with the KGB for twenty to twenty-five years."20

Already by 1984, top KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn warned that the Communists had created artificial, controlled opposition for many years: "There can be no reasonable doubt that the dissident movement as a whole is a KGB-controlled false opposition movement... and that many of its leading members are active and willing collaborators with the Central Committee and the KGB."21 Naturally, such phony dissident movements are playing along with the Soviet deception.

The real picture outside Moscow

The moment one leaves the major Russian cities, the continuing rule of Communism becomes immediately obvious. World Report has received testimony, from Americans and others working inside the "former" Soviet Union, that now confirms this. The identities of most of these people will remain undisclosed for their protection, although any traveler to the Soviet Union will be able to verify these facts.

Absolute socialism still rules the entire Soviet Union, including Russia and the other Soviet states. No citizen believes life has improved; indeed, government controls are creating worse poverty than ever before. There is no middle class, and an annual inflation rate of over 1,000 percent is coupled with persistent shortages of most goods. Those products that are available are often useless. Salaries are typically as low as three dollars per month, and overwhelming red tape blocks any task from getting accomplished.

The citizen remains a slave. By the fifth grade, the government chooses each person's life career, from which there is no escape. People are forcibly crowded into massive apartment buildings containing some 20,000 residents each. Few cars are seen on the streets of any city because only Party members and taxi drivers can own them, and daily gasoline shortages limit all transportation. Health and life expectancy are low; suicide is common.

"Democracy" is ignored as a cruel joke. Voters may only choose between Communist-approved candidates (many of them "former" Communists), and thus elections occur quickly and quietly, generating little public interest.

Nor has the police state diminished. In all Soviet republics, citizens are constantly terrified by the ever-present KGB. Since 1990, both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin have expanded the KGB,22 and the agency's budget has even doubled in some Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan. Each foreigner visiting the Soviet Union is assigned a KGB officer, usually without the visitor's knowledge, and the movement of foreigners is controlled by forcing them to use taxis or public transportation. Citizens and foreigners alike may not travel between cities without permission and the proper papers-including internal passports and visas. These papers are rigorously checked upon entry into, and exit from, any city, and are even checked constantly during the first week a foreigner is in a new city. Computerized systems are beginning to replace the old methods, and citizens are being required to carry magnetized ID cards

Prisons and concentration camps are more ubiquitous than naive foreigners realize. Prisons often look like ordinary factories on the outside, though slave labor fuels the work on the inside. Unscheduled searches of people and cars at every street corner, conducted by police or militia units, are common. And people guilty of "economic crimes" tend to disappear or are subject to summary execution; bank tellers who come up short on transactions, for example, are speedily shot-unless the customer was shortchanged.

Yeltsin's declaration of open borders is a hollow one for Soviet citizens, who still cannot leave their country. Even travel outside the Soviet Union is heavily restricted, regardless of the Soviet republic. An invitation must be initiated by someone in a foreign country, who accepts full financial resonsibility for the trip, and the Soviet citizen's boss must approve. The citizen must then visit the appropriate consulate to be interrogated by the Soviet authorities (in addition to the foreign representatives), who run a complete background check on the person. The person must usually agree to leave family members behind, to prevent defection. Several weeks may pass before the KGB returns a verdict on the travel request; in the Ukraine, this decision is not rendered for two years, and the hapless citizen must physically check in with the Soviet authorities every day during the final six months of the waiting period-at which time the request may still be denied.

To prevent Soviet air force pilots from defecting, pilots are not allowed to know their flight patterns or destinations until after they are airborne. Further insurance is provided by laser-guided surface-to-air missile batteries, which track every plane during flight and are fired if the pilot deviates from his designated route.

Russian control over the Soviet republics remains painfully obvious. Russian troops are stationed in several of the republics, and the Russian military runs all missile sites and all military facilities. Even military training remains in Russian hands, as all soldiers from the republics are sent to Russia for boot camp. Phone calls between cities are routed through Moscow, and phone tapping by the KGB is routine-poorly hidden by sudden changes in phone transmission quality. "We have grown used to the fact of constantly being bugged, of always being watched," says Russian author Lev Timofeyev, who also points out that eavesdropping devices remain installed in Soviet apartments.23 Of course, only a tiny fraction of citizens can have phones at all. Foreign companies and investors, moreover, have discovered that even though the various Soviet cities and republics seem to initiate projects, all contracts are actually negotiated in Moscow under Russian authority. And key political positions in the republics are filled by Russian Communists, not locals.

To fool outsiders, the KGB has learned to disguise many of its activities through the "Russian mafia." Former KGB officer Golitsyn has revealed that the KGB's Economic Department and the Interior Ministry's OBKhS have penetrated-and even partly created-the black market underworld during the past 70 years.24 Taxation, for example, can now be portrayed as common crime. Timofeyev reports that "according to some reports, anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of produce is regularly stolen from district warehouses. Farmer's markets are under the control of criminal elements, who extract a commission from each seller and force sellers to keep their prices above a certain level."25

Even arms shipments to other Communist regimes are now disguised as business ventures under "mafia" control, giving Yeltsin his excuse for not being able to stop such activities. In 1990, for example, the Soviet business ANT was discovered to have been set up by dozens of KGB officers and Communist Party members, and was shipping tanks out of the country under the guise of selling tractors.26

In short, the Soviet Communist state remains intact, and is quietly accelerating its war against the West. As a part of these activities, the Soviet military is rapidly expanding and preparing for a hot war-a topic to be covered in future issues of World Report.

The real collapse of the Soviet Union will be marked by violent overthrow, by the execution of millions of Communist Party members and KGB personnel, by the shutting down of thousands of concentration camps and the opening of the borders, by the rapid conversion of the whole economy to free enterprise, and by the universal ownership of guns amongst the population. But if Americans do not wake up soon enough to the Soviet danger, we may first witness our own national surrender to the growing Communist empire.

How can we destabilize the Soviet Union while there is still time? Future issues of World Report will document how the Soviet military-industrial complex has been entirely built with Western aid and technology, and how the interruption of this flow will bring the Kremlin to its knees-for real.

1 Rummel, RJ, Lethal Politics, New Brunswich, New Jersey, 1990.
2 Lenin, VI, Collected Works, as quoted in Methvin, EH, The Rise of Radicalism, Arlington House, New Rochelle, NY, 1973, p. 321.
3 Solzhenitsyn, AI, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, Harper & Row, NY, 1973, pp. 69-70.
4 Petrov, V. & Petrov, E., Empre of Fear, Praeger, NY, 1956, pp. 73-74.
5 Conquest, R., Introduction, in Rossi, Jacques, The Gulag Handbook, Paragon House, NY, 1989.
6 Gottlieb, Rabbi NZ, In the Shadow of the Kremlin, Mesorah Publications, NY, 1985, pp. 11-18, passim.
7 Kranzler, David, Thy Brother's Blood, Mesorah Publications, NY, 1987, p. 131.
8 Begin, M., White Nights, Harper & Row, NY, 1977.
9 Rummel, Op cit., p. 163.
10 Ibid., chapter 9, esp. p. 219.
11 Shifrin, A., First Guidebook to Prisons and Concentration Camps of the Soviet Union, Bantam Books, NY, 1982, esp. pp. 10, 19-21, 31-35.
12 Shifrin, A., "A Performance: Glasnost and Perestroika," an open letter, Jan. 1990.
13 McAlvany, DS, McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, Jan. 1994, p. 12; Timofeyev, L., Russia's Secret Rulers, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1992, p. 85.
14 Orth, M., "Nightmare on Red Square," Vanity Fair, Sept. 1994, pp. 83-84.
15 Timofeyev, Op cit., p. 13.
16 Testimony of Yuri Tsirekidze in Story, C., Soviet Analyst, vol. 21, no. 6, June-Aug. 1992, p. 11.
17 Interview with Gamsakhurdia in Timofeyev, Op cit., pp. 46-51.
18 Timofeyev, Op cit., pp. 44, 86, 143, 144.
19 McAlvany, Op cit., p. 5.
20 Timofeyev, Op cit., p. 90.
21 Golitsyn, A., New Lies for Old, Dodd, Mead, & Co., NY, 1984, pp. 229-230.
22 McAlvany, DS, McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, Sep/Oct 1991, p. 21; Associated Press, "Yeltsin gives more mandate, more staff to retooled KGB," SF Chronicle, 11-24-94, p. C8.
23 Timofeyev, Op cit., p. 4.
24 Golitsyn, A., Memorandum to the CIA, 9-27-93, excerpted in Story, C., Soviet Analyst, Oct 1994, 23:1, p. 3.
25 Timofeyev, Op cit., p. 117.
26 Ibid., pp. 121-126.

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American Reform Party
http://www.americanreform.org
E-Mail: webmaster@reformparty.org
10 Aida Ct.
Lodi, NJ 07644
Phone: 973-777-3838
"To renew democracy, our mission is to stimulate citizen participation in
the political process, break the two-party monopoly, and guarantee free
elections."
(http://www.reformparty.org/platnat.html)

Communist Party U.S.A.
http://www.cpusa.org
E-Mail: cpusa@cpusa.org
235 W. 23rd St.
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212-989-4994
Fax: 212 229-1713
"The Communist Party USA is an organization of activists in labor and
all the people's movements with three main political aims: Defeating the
right-wing agenda of the Bush Administration. Winning a wide-ranging
program of reforms that put the well being of the people before private
profits. Eventually replacing big business with labor and its allies as the
dominant power so as to insure that the rights, economic security and
expanding needs of the people become the overriding concern of
society."
(http://www.cpusa.org/article/archive/11/)

Constitution Action Party
http://www2.ari.net/home/CAP
E-Mail: fcreel@crosslink.net
PO Box 5705
Arlington, VA 22205-5705
"CAP intends to become the new majority party in this country by uniting
traditional values with a well-thought-out program of economic
populism."
(http://www2.ari.net/home/CAP/)

Constitution Party
http://www.constitutionparty.com
E-Mail: info@constitutionparty.com
450 Maple Ave. E
Vienna, VA 22180
Phone: 800-2-VETO-IRS
"The mission of the Constitution Party is to secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity through the election, at all levels of
government, of Constitution Party candidates who will uphold the
principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the
United States. It is our goal to limit the federal government to its
delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore
American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations."
(http://www.constitutionparty.com --> Mission Statement)

Democratic National Committee
http://www.democrats.org/
E-Mail: feedback form
430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Phone: 202-863-8000
"The Democratic National Committee plans the Party's quadrennial
presidential nominating convention; promotes the election of Party
candidates with both technical and financial support; and works with
national, state, and local party organizations, elected officials,
candidates, and constituencies to respond to the needs and views of the
Democratic electorate and the nation."
(http://www.democrats.org/about/function.html)

Democratic Socialists of America
http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html
E-Mail: dsa@dsausa.org
198 Broadway, Suite 700
New York, NY 10038
Phone: 212-727-8610
Fax: 202-608-6955
"The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist
organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the
Socialist International. DSA's members are building progressive
movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist
presence in American communities and politics."
(http://www.dsausa.org/about/)

Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org/
E-Mail: info@greenpartyus.org
PO Box 57065
Washington, D.C. 20037
Phone: 202-319-7191, 888-414-7336
Fax: 202-319-7193
"The Green Party of the United States is a confederation of state Green
Parties. Committed to environmentalism, non-violence, social justice and
grassroots organizing, Greens are renewing democracy without the
support of corporate donors. Greens provide real solutions for real
problems. Whether the issue is universal health care, corporate
globalization, alternative energy, election reform or decent wages for
workers, Greens have the courage and independence necessary to take
on the powerful corporate interests."
(http://www.gp.org/partyinfo.html)

Labor Party
http://www.thelaborparty.org/
E-Mail: info@thelaborparty.org
PO Box 53177
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202-234-5190
Fax: 202-234-5266
"The Labor Party is a new political
party of, by and for working people.
It was founded in June 1996 at a
convention of 1,400 delegates from
hundreds of local and international
unions as well as individual activists.
We believe that on issues most
important to working people – trade,
health care, and the rights to
organize, bargain and strike – both
the Democrats and Republicans have
failed working people."
(http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_index.html)

National Libertarian Party
http://www.lp.org
2600 Virginia Ave. NW, Suite 100
Washington, DC 20037
Phone: 202-333-0008, 800-353-2887
"Libertarians believe the answer to America's political problems is the
same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a
free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a
dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom that marks this country
above all others; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and
free trade as prescribed by America's founders."
(http://www.lp.org/organization/history/)

Natural Law Party
http://www.natural-law.org
E-Mail: info@natural-law.org
see: state by state contact
information
"The Natural Law Party—America’s leading voice for prevention-oriented
government—offers voters forward-looking, scientifically proven solutions
to the nation's problems..." (http://www.natural-law.org)

New Party
http://www.newparty.org
E-Mail: inforequest@newparty.org
88 Third Ave., Suite 313
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone: 800-200-1294
"The New Party is a progressive political organization taking root around
the U.S. By starting small and thinking long-term, we're building a
multi-racial, lively and creative political organization that can, over time,
break the stranglehold that corporate money and corporate media have
over our political process."
(http://www.newparty.org)

Reform Party USA
http://www.reformparty.org
E-Mail: info@reformparty.org
420 1/2 S 22nd Ave.
Hattiesburg, MS 39401
Phone: 877-467-3367
Fax: 601-544-1424
"We, the members of the Reform Party, commit ourselves to reform our
political system. Together we will work to re-establish trust in our
government by electing ethical officials, dedicated to fiscal responsibility
and political accountability."
(http://www.reformparty.org/)

Republican National Committee
http://www.gop.com
E-Mail: info@gop.com
310 First St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Phone: 202-863-8500
Fax: 202-863-8820
Editor's note: A specific statement about the RNC's purpose is not
available on the organization's website. The RNC is the organizational
arm of the Republican party. Their purpose is to organize, fundraise,
and campaign to increase representation of Republicans in government.
Issues important to the party are articulated here.

Socialist Labor Party of America
http://www.slp.org
E-Mail: socialists@slp.org
PO Box 218
Mountain View, CA 94042-0218
Phone: 650-938-8359
Fax: 650-938-8392
"The core of the SLP program points up the need for classwide political
and economic organizations. A primary role of the political organization
is to challenge the political apparatus of the capitalist class and its
monopoly of state power, while promoting worker classconsciousness and
emphasizing the need for organizing working-class strength on the
economic field. The objective of economic organization is to unite the
workers at the point of production so as to render them capable of
taking control of the entire productive process and democratically
administering and operating it in society's collective interests."
(http://www.slp.org/facts.htm)

Socialist Party USA
http://sp-usa.org
E-Mail: natsec@sp-usa.org
339 LaFayette St., No. 303
New York, NY 10012
Phone/Fax: 212-982-4586
"The Socialist Party has been the voice of democratic socialism in the
US for over 100 years."
(http://sp-usa.org/about/)

Workers World Party
http://www.workers.org
E-Mail: ww@workers.org
55 W 17th St.
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212-627-2994
Fax: 212-675-7869
"What is our basic view? We're for socialism. We think that ownership of
the tremendous productive wealth built up by hundreds of millions of
workers can't remain in the hands of a privileged few."
(http://www.workers.org/wwp.php)

Newspaper Citations

Rating Members of Congress

10th Percentile, 1000+
citations

The group rates the performance of Congressional
members

40th Percentile, 245-999 citations

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Last updated May 18, 2004

Have you seen this one?

Support for kerry and a call for the drive for new members of the communist party.

Found at: http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleprint/544/

Party Builder #4

Author: National Organizing Department
First published: 04/17/2003 12:20 by {article_topic_desc}

We need a bigger Communist Party USA

The following is a summary of the plans for our upcoming drive to win new members to the Communist Party. The
drive, which kicks off May 1, includes increasing the circulation of the People's Weekly World and raising money for the
Party's fund drive. These are all interrelated and one builds on the others.

We Communists have to be deeply involved in the struggle for peace, in the huge spontaneous growth of the peace
movement, in the many rapidly expanding coalitions. This is the meaning today of building a united people's front
against the ultraright.

This will set the stage for the 2004 elections, a struggle to wrest control of the presidency and both houses of
Congress away from the Republican ultraright.

But we can't lose our party in the mass movements, no matter how important they are. We have to build the Party,
build our independent base, and recruit. This is necessary so that we can speak to many more people in our own
name, build unity between coalitions and movements, and step up our fight for socialism, for the future, in the
movements of today.

Most Communist parties in major capitalist countries, and even many in the developing world, are similarly engaged in
this rebuilding process.

We need to recognize that quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes; we can't just work a little harder and
expect huge breakthroughs all at once. We have to start with realizable goals and then build on them.

Party building means . . .

Party building means asking people to join. It means setting and meeting recruiting goals. But it also means increasing
subscriptions and distribution of the People's Weekly World (PWW).

It means building the group of activists around us who work with the Party. It means planning educational work to
support the drive and consolidate the new members.

Our goal is more new members, but we're not only interested in increasing our numbers. We want to build the Party
among workers, trade unionists, people of color, youth and women, activists and leaders.

We must recognize that each club and district is different, in size, history, experience, makeup. Therefore, decisions
must grow out of clubs and districts setting their own priorities.

We propose to offer a menu of choices, a list of possible ways to participate in the recruiting drive. Each club can then
pick from those possibilities the two or three tasks that will be realistic and also move it to a higher level of recruiting
and outreach work.

Each potential new member is different and they join for their own reasons, not for our reasons. We want people to
join in order to share our work, but they may join because they need help in strategizing in the work they are already
doing.

We want people to join who are committed communists, but they may join before they have a clear idea of what a
communist does. We want people to join in order to increase our size so we can have a bigger impact in our mass
work, but they may join in order to find out what Marxism has to teach them.

Some people are ready to join as a radical form of protest against the Bush administration and the multinational
corporations. We want to encourage all people ready to be active to join, whatever their previous level of political
activity or organizational experience.

We have to learn to pay attention to how to move people closer, how to bring more people around the Party, and
how to translate the political capital we have built up into a larger Party.

We need to engender a Party-building spirit in our work - we are not just hard workers for the mass movements, we
are also revolutionaries building the party of socialism.

A big part of this is increasing the circulation of the PWW. That is why the circulation drive of the PWW is running
concurrently with our recruiting drive.

Our club lists of potential recruits are also lists of people who should be getting the PWW, and winning them to
subscribe is a big step on their path to membership.

Distributing the PWW and getting subscriptions are essential aspects of Party building.

Fundraising, asking others for financial contributions for the work of the Party, is another crucial aspect of enlisting
those we work with to help guarantee that the Party thrives. We can't function, we can't grow, without increasing the
amount of money we raise.

While many Party members are extremely generous with donations from their own pockets, raising money from those
we work with builds our base, gets people to commit to supporting our work and to working more closely with us and
identifying with our program.

Personal visits, letters, requesting advance gifts and bequests, selling buttons, bumper stickers and T-shirts, all lay
the basis for expanding our work. Political Affairs (PA) and the YCL are also having building drives at the same time. PA
has a goal of 1,000 new subs (they already have 200!) and the YCL has a goal of 250 new members.

We want to have widespread discussion of what it means to be a communist today, what the Party has to offer that is
unique, what things we do better than other organizations, what special contributions we make to the trade union
movement, the civil rights movement, the peace movement, and many others.

Part of our goal is to produce and distribute to districts materials which will help after the drive, materials that we
should start to have on hand everywhere all the time - brochures, items for sale (T-shirts, mugs, caps, buttons,
bumper stickers, posters, etc. - not to have all of this immediately, but to start building up our inventory of such
materials), videos, new members classes and discussions.

These are some aspects of building a culture of recruiting.

The Party-building drive committee will soon issue a plan, complete with a calendar of events and a menu of options
for clubs and districts.

Included will be a document to stimulate discussion, experimentation and initiative in all bodies of the Party. Our clubs
and districts vary widely in size, composition, history and in the challenges they face.

Each collective of the Party needs to pick from the menu of options those that best fit their circumstances, that are
realistic and have the potential to advance our struggle to build our working class revolutionary party to a higher level.

1. Schedule a discussion in your club, district or other collective about the drive, your goals and potential.

2. Develop a list of friends and contacts who can be asked to subscribe to the PWW or PA, asked to contribute
financially to the work of the Party, and asked to join.

3. Set a realiztice numerical goal and let us know what it is.

4. Schedule an event about the Party's approach to the struggle for peace, with a national or district speaker.

This drive has to help us build our clubs in neighborhoods and workplaces. We need to grow, but we also need to
focus our growth in our clubs' concentrations.

Revitalizing clubs and focusing our work on specific concentration areas must be part of our long-term strategy for
reaching specific groups of workers, building recognition of our consistent struggle for defeating the ultraright, and
developing an independent base of supporters and friends for each club.

We also ask commissions to make any additional suggestions or proposals to this menu that can help recruit workers
and the nationally oppressed.

Calendar

April:

* Bill Davis to chair drive committee, Jarvis Tyner, Scott Marshall (Labor Commission), Marc Brodine (Washington State),
Gail Ryall (Northern Calif.), Joe Bernick (Ariz.), A.J. for the YCL and Jen Barnett (PWW) as well as possible additional
people from Southern Calif. and Ohio.

* The job of the committee is to stimulate discussion throughout the Party, produce the necessary materials, plan
tours, coordinate with the PWW Circulation Drive, PA, the YCL, and the Party Fund Drive, and to evaluate this drive
and plan next year's drive.

* Start visits to districts & clubs to discuss and plan drives.

* Issue materials for the recruiting piece of the drive.

* Build mailing and recruiting lists.

* Revised environmental program.

May-June:

* The drives - fund, recruiting, and PWW circulation.

* Big Tour - national chairman, CPUSA staff, PWW staff? Focus on issues of peace and human survival.

* May Day events by some clubs or districts - extra attention to planning the first week of the drive.

* Fund appeal letter to arrive May 1.

* Tour to North Carolina and Tennessee.

* Public meetings, house meetings, Internet follow-up, advertising campaign in the PWW and PA, articles on the drive
in PWW, articles on redefining what it means to be a communist in PA, issue brochure on the importance of finances
for the Party and movement - dues, members, sustainers, wills & bequests, contributing work and tools, spreading the
word.

* Issue brochure on socialism.

* Run "What the CPUSA means to me" ads in the PWW & PA (other possible ideas: "I'm a card-carrying member," "I
joined, why don't you" - all with photo of one member and short quotes from that individual on why they joined, what
it means to them, why others should join, too).

* Explore other ad possibilities - subway signs being one example, and national publications or student newspapers

July and August

* July 4 rally in at least one city; possible theme: "Celebrate the Next American Revolution."

* Series of new members/prospective members classes/discussion groups.

* Evaluation meetings in national and state boards, Organizing Department, Finance Department, PWW Editorial
Board, with the goal of using results and proposals from the evaluations to design 2004 drives, design several
additional pilot projects to run before the 2004 drives.

What's new on PWW website?

Over the past few months many changes have taken place on the PWW website. Online viewers can now subscribe,
via pay pal with a credit card, and order "No War for Oil" bumper stickers, also, via pay pal.

Two new features have been added to the left-and sidebar of the website. The first is a navigation feature - the
"Sections" category. The “Sections" category breaks the weekly paper down into five subsections - International,
National, Labor, Peace and Analysis - making navigation easier for our viewers who are specifically interested in those
topics.

The second is an interactive feature - the "Headlines" category. This category enables viewers to submit their email
address, enabling us to contact them about updates and changes to the website.

The PWW website has also continued to make available PDF versions of the lead stories each week. The website can
now be reached by typing either www.pww.org or www.peoplesweeklyworld.org into your web browser.

- Tony Pecinovsky

National conference to examine health care issue

We will be hosting a national party conference on "The Crisis in Health Care and the Fightback" at our center May
17-18 in New York City.

In order for the conference to be effective in moving the Party into action we need the full participation of all districts.
We will be calling each district to discuss with you conference preparations, your ideas, and who should be attending
from you district.

While, of course, we want to put emphasis on health-care activists and professionals, we also want to guarantee the
participation of district leaders and trade unionists.

Comrades already involved in health-care fights, from seniors fighting for prescription drug benefits, to industrial
workers and their families whose health-care plans are being torn up, to activists fighting for comprehensive, universal
health care, will all bring especially valuable experience to the conference.

In addition we also want to think about close friends and coalition partners that we would like to invite. Hopefully, the
conference can help us build new relations and consolidate old ones.

We urge as many districts as possible to put the conference on your district board agendas as soon as possible so we
can get the best possible mobilization.

See you in New York,

Scott Marshall,
CPUSA Labor Commission secretary

PDF version of Party Builder #4

END OF PARTY BUILDER

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