11-19-07, 9:58 am
Editor's note: Sam Webb chairs the Communist Party USA and recently authored a report titled 'On the Road Again' in which he details the issues discussed in this interview.
PA: I’d like to talk to you about the Communist Party's recent National Committee meeting and the concept of a new political conjuncture. Could you talk about what that means and what the necessary conditions are for achieving it?
Sam Webb: Maybe I should start with the last question first. The immediate, necessary condition is to defeat the Right in the coming elections in 2008. That is the gateway to a new political conjuncture, to a new stage of struggle. If the labor-led movement is not successful in doing that, it is going to present a major barrier to any hopes that we can make new, substantial gains and radical reforms in the period ahead of us, after 2009.
Getting back to the first question, I think we are now moving into – albeit we are still in the early moments of it – a new stage of struggle, where the relationship of class and the political forces is very different from what it has been over the past nearly 3 decades. From 1980 onward the most reactionary section of transnational capital has dominated political life in this country. We are now moving into a potentially new period, where the old relationship of forces has ended, and the working class and the broader people’s movement have considerably more leverage than they have had before. We will still be fighting corporate power, but it will be under new conditions and on a new terrain.
PA: It is pretty clear that this new stage of struggle cannot be arrived at if a Republican administration is reelected in 2008. To what extent do you see the possibility of change as being independent of the particular personalities and programs currently being offered by the Democratic candidates?
SW: Let me first say that if the Republicans do manage to to maintain full domination of Washington – say, for example, if Rudy Giuliani wins the presidency – then that is going to make it very, very difficult going forward. If, on the other hand, a Democratic President is elected and if the majorities in Congress increase, it does create new ground on which the labor and people’s movement can operate. As you know, much is said about who the best Democratic presidential candidate is, and I would say that there are differences in program and outlook, and it may be – we don’t really know yet – that each of them would react differently from pressures from below. Probably that would be the case. Nevertheless, I believe that no matter which Democratic candidate is elected President, there are good grounds to think that we could make substantial gains in the aftermath of the 2008 elections. In regard to Congress, I think it is imperative to increase the Democratic Party majorities and, as a part of that, to increase the progressive component of those majorities. I think that is extremely critical going forward. Some of the progressives in Congress are more members and leaders of the people’s movement than they are loyal members of the Democratic Party. So getting more progressives elected to Congress is very important. But overall, if a Democrat wins the White House, and if the movement and the people of our country go to the polls and pile up big Democratic majorities in the Senate and House, then I think we are going to be on good grounds to go forward.
PA: Which leads to my last question: What are the implications of this way of thinking about the 2008 elections for the labor and people’s movement and for the Communist Party, both in terms of winning the election and in the post-election period?
SW: Between now and November 2008, between now and Election Day, the immediate, pressing implication is that the labor-led people’s movement, Communists, and those sections of the Left that are part of that movement, have to turn our energies to all the varied aspects of the election process, beginning with the primaries that are nearly upon us. That includes the fight over the political program and the content of the debate and discussions that are going on now. It includes all the efforts to register new voters and especially getting out the vote on Election Day. In the end that is the critical task, I think. In the post-election period, the fight will be, as always, over what the mandate of the election outcome is. That is always a contested process. By that I mean the Republicans will try to give their spin, Wall Street will try to give its spin, the Democratic Party leadership will put their spin on it. So the labor-led people’s movement will have to be a part of that ideological free-for-all and be ready with its own interpretation of the meaning of the outcome of the election. Of course, in addition to that, we have to begin to organize for the post-election period in a practical sense. If there is a sweep, a landslide victory, on the first day of 2009 the movement has to be ready to go to work to help set the agenda and set the terms of the debate and discussions that in the new Congress.
I also would like to remind people about the elections of 1936 and 1964, where the division was clear, with the Republicans on one side, representing the most reactionary sections of capital, and the Democrats on the other side representing more moderate and realistic elements. In both elections, it was a landslide victory for the Democrats, and that set the stage for the Labor-led people's movement to enter the struggle and shape the significant reforms and struggles that took in place in the post-election period in 1936 and 1964. As everybody knows, those were periods of quite substantial economic, political and social reforms. I think we are in a similar moment. Of course, every moment is different, but we are in a similar moment now, I believe, as we look ahead to 2008 So we can’t sit on the sidelines – there is too much at stake between now and 2008, and then in the aftermath of 2008 – about the kind of agenda and the kinds of changes and reforms we must be ready to fight for.
