Thursday, October 30, 2008

Industrial Workers: 'Front Rankers in the Class Struggle'

A comrade recently said: "I agree with you that industrial workers are the front rankers in the class struggle. However, I would extend "industrial" in modern times to include the service industry."

My response: Service workers are not industrial workers. Service workers are not the same as steelworkers, autoworkers, workers in mass industry and transport, etc. Service workers are definitely part of the working class and they can be militant unionists. But Henry Winston, an African-American militant with the Communist Party USA of yesteryear, made the point that while all working class folks have a common interest in fighting against state-monopoly capitalism, they "do not all have a common place within the capitalist system from which to carry on that fight." And industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

Gus Hall, a great Marxist-Leninist and former leader of the CPUSA, raised the question sharply: "mass production workers are to the working class what monopoly is to the capitalist class. They are the sector of special importance for the working class and for the class struggle as a whole." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

Henry Winston explained that "the basic industrial sector has a common interest with the majority of wage workers but it does not have an identical place with them in the system of capitalist exploitation and the struggle against it." Industrial workers are "the greatest direct producers of surplus value, the source of capitalist profit." Industrial workers occupy the central position within the capitalist system. (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)


(Henry Winston: Industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle.")

Jobs in the service industry are flourishing as industrial plants have been closing. "The working class is changing," Gus Hall declared in 1987, but "none of the changes in the profile of the working class diminishes the role of the industrial core." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers) A core that includes, as Henry Winston noted, many Black "front rankers."

"It is these 'front rankers'," remarked Winston, "who will provide the most consistent leadership in raising the struggle to higher levels." Workers in the industrial sector are "decisive in forging the unity of all the diverse segments of wage workers and in forming an alliance between the workers of hand and brain with all the exploited and oppressed." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

"The (Communist) Party," Winston continues, "places its industrial concentration policy at the center of its strategy. Merging theory with practice, it recruits into its ranks the best fighters among the 'front rankers.' At the same time, it also recruits the most devoted fighters from all other segments of the working class. In this way, the Party plays its role in uniting all detachments of the working class, in representing the interests of the entire class. 'This struggle,' stated Lenin, 'places [leads] the working-class movement onto the high road, and is the certain guarantee of its future success.'" (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

Monday, October 27, 2008

The Proletariat Alone is a Really Revolutionary Class

Brothers and Sisters, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the basic classes of capitalist society. The proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class whose mission it is to abolish capitalism and build a classless communist society.

William Z. Foster, the former leader of the Communist Party USA and a great Marxist-Leninist, once said that "The bourgeois contention that there are no classes and no class struggle in the United States is, of course, silly. Here, as in other capitalist countries, are well-defined social classes and a constant struggle is going on between them over the division of the toiler's products and for political control. The class struggle is just as American as Plymouth Rock." (William Z. Foster, Twilight of World Capitalism, 1949)

Years after William Z. Foster penned these words, ideologists from both the right and the left pick up the bludgeon of capitalist ideology to deny the existence of the class struggle and to snort with derision at the working class of the United States. In the 1987 book, Working Class USA, Gus Hall, the leader of the CPUSA after William Z. Foster, penned that "one of the basic theoretical concepts that has of late come under question and suspicion, and is in fact being openly challenged, is the Marxist concept that the working class is the only consistent progressive and revolutionary class in our society." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels made no bones about the working class' role. "Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today," Marx and Engels declared, "the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class." (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848)

So, who is the working class? Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in a footnote to the Communist Manifesto that the proletariat is "the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live." The proletariat (the working class) is defined not by it's income but by it's relation to the means of production. The exploited class, with it's various income levels, doesn't own the means of production so it is forced to sell their labor-power to a capitalist. And the laboring class isn't the hackneyed stereotypes assigned to it by ideologists of both the right and the "left". Gus Hall pointed out that the working class includes both unionized and unorganized workers, Black folks, women and unemployed people and those on welfare, among others. The American working class is multi-racial, multinational, male-female and young and old but it is united as a class.

But Henry Winston, an African-American militant with the Communist Party USA of yesteryear, made the point that the while all toilers have a common interest in fighting against state-monopoly capitalism, they "do not all have a common place within the capitalist system from which to carry on that fight." Industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle." He declared that "the basic industrial sector has a common interest with the majority of wage workers but it does not have an identical place with them in the system of capitalist exploitation and the struggle against it." Industrial workers, "the greatest direct producers of surplus value, the source of capitalist profit," occupy the central position within the system. Winston taught that "it is these 'front rankers' who will provide the most consistent leadership in raising the struggle to higher levels." Workers in the industrial sector are "decisive in forging the unity of all the diverse segments of wage workers and in forming an alliance between the workers of hand and brain with all the exploited and oppressed." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)


(Henry Winston: Industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle.")

Afanasyev, a Soviet philosopher, put it correctly said in his book Marxist Philosophy:"the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the basic classes of capitalist society. The bourgeoisie, in quest of profit, exploits the proletariat and this exploitation is intensified as capitalism develops. The worker's labor is increasingly speeded up and he is reduced to a mere appendage of the machine. The proletariat especially suffers from such intrinsic features of capitalism as economic crises, unemployment and predatory wars.

"The working class naturally cannot reconcile itself to all this. The nature of capitalism which robs the worker of the fruits of his labor and the workers position in society impel him to fight the bourgeoisie. The history of capitalist society is therefore the history of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This struggle is law-governed and is the primary source of capitalist development. The struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie grows especially keen in the epoch of imperialism when the economic and political contradictions of capitalism become extremely acute.

"It is the proletariat's mission to abolish capitalism and build a classless communist society, for no other class is consistently revolutionary.

"The bourgeoisie was only revolutionary when it fought the fuedal lords for domination in society. But having captured power, it became more and more reactionary, and now its sole aim is to perpetuate exploitation.

"The middle sections, in particular the peasants and artisans who are quite numerous under capitalism, are not revolutionary to the end. They hold no independent position in society and, with the development of capitalism, they become stratified. The majority...are ruined and join the ranks of the proletariat; only a negligible number breaks its way into the capitalist class...

"The intelligentsia (engineers and technicians, doctors, teachers, scientists and others) cannot be consistently revolutionary either. The overwhelming majority of intellectuals are compelled to serve the exploiting classes.

"The proletariat is the only consistently revolutionary class in capitalist society. It is connected with the most progressive form of production, machine industry, and is constantly growing and developing. The very nature of capitalist production helps unite, organize and educate the working class. The workers are deprived of property and have nothing to lose in the struggle. In fighting for its liberation, the proletariat is capable of organizing and leading all other working people who share its hatred for the capitalist system. By emancipating itself, it emancipates all other working people and abolishes forever exploitation of man by man. On gaining victory, it returns to the working people everything they produce, eliminating the greatest social injustice--a social system in which a handful of oppressors appropriate the fruits of labor of the millions." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

Monday, October 20, 2008

Marxism-Leninism Has Not Grown Old and Never Will!

Some folks wrongly say that Marxism-Leninism is "outdated." Boris N. Ponomarev says in the book Marxism-Leninism: A Flourishing Science that:

"Scientific socialism, Marxism-Leninism, is the only basis on which the present deep crisis of capitalist society can be analyzed, and the ways out of the impasse into which imperialism and its ruling element has driven its countries, can be determined...

"Those who maintain that Marxism-Leninism is 'outdated' and that the fundamental ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin are 'incompetent' may be asked: whose teaching is it that provided and continues to provide solutions to all the agonizing problems facing millions upon millions of people in the capitalist world...

"Why are capitalist countries continually gripped by economic crises, who do the poor there grow poorer and the rich grow richer, why is there unemployment, with millions of people deprived of jobs? Why is ruin the lot of millions of farmers? What are the causes of the first and second world wars? Why are militarization and the arms race being intensified in capitalist countries, and preparations are under way for new wars?

"No bourgeois or petty-bourgeois theory has been able to answer these vital and burning questions. Marxism-Leninism is the only teaching that gives substantiated scientific answers to these and other problems of our time, and shows the ways and means of resolving them." (Boris N. Ponomarev, Marxism-Leninism: A Flourishing Science, 1979, International Publishers)


(Stalin: ’Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. Leninism is the further development of Marxism.’)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Protest to Save Main Street Not Wall Street!

Protest to Save Main Street Not Wall Street!

Saturday, October 25 at 3:00 p.m.

Federal Reserve Bank, Minneapolis, 90 Hennepin Ave. downtown (by corner of Hennepin Avenue and N. 1st St.--Near South Side of Hennepin Ave. Bridge)


Initiated by Gus Hall Action Club, a Marxist-Leninist Communist club, but you don’t need to be a Communist to attend!!

Life becomes worse for the working class as capitalists intensify their drive against our living standards. But the U.S. government's given more than $700 billion dollars to bail out billionaires and bankers!! This swindle gives almost unlimited authority for doling out billions to Wall Street fat cats. This bailout bill is not geared to help working-class homeowners, workers in debt or our entire working class. Instead, it shifts the burden of the capitalist’s financial crisis unto the backs of the working class. The bailout of the banks is a bailout of the crisis-ridden system of capitalism. William Z. Foster of the Communist Party USA of yesteryear pointed out that capitalism is "legalized robbery of the working class." Financial crisis and the bailing out of billionaires and bankers is not capitalism "gone wrong." Bailing out bankers is not "socialism." It is the fullest expression of what capitalism really is.

The history of capitalism shows that the capitalist ruling class always tries to throw the burden of economic crisis unto the shoulders of the working class. We need a class struggle program to wage an organized fight to save Main Street not Wall Street. The demands of our protest on October 25 are: Bail Out Main Street Not Wall Street! Finance Projects Needed by the Working Class! Tax the Rich! For a Moratorium on Home Foreclosures and Evictions! Protect Workers’ Pensions and Savings! For a Law Against Plant Shutdowns! Nationalize Industry to Prevent Job Loss! Freeze all Workplace Closings and Job Layoffs! Stop Cuts in the Budgets of Social Programs! Slash the Military Budget!

Please feel free to make a sign with some of these slogans and bring it to the rally at 3:00 on Saturday, Oct. 25 at the Federal Reserve Bank, Minneapolis, 90 Hennepin Ave. downtown (by corner of Hennepin Avenue and N. 1st St.)!

Socialism is the final answer to the exploitation, terrors and hardship of rotting capitalism, breeder of crises and war. See our blog post: FAQ: What is Socialism?


(Karl Marx: 'In crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity--the epidemic of overproduction.')

Monday, October 13, 2008

FAQ: Socialism and Crime

Some preliminary words by the Marxist-Leninists Gus Hall and Henry Winston, former militants with the Communist Party USA, followed by a a picture by a prisoner of Black heroes behind bars, and then thoughts on crime and capitalism and socialism by William Z. Foster:

Our working class communities are all too often torn apart by anti-social crime. William Z. Foster once said that "capitalism, by its very nature, is a prolific breeder of crime." And Gus Hall, the former leader of the Communist Party USA, said that "Street crime--assaults on the property and persons of working and poor people--is a serious crime...

"Crime cannot be excused or justified. However, most street crime has its roots in poverty, hunger, frustration, anger and generations of unemployment...

"While deploring crime in the streets, we have to point the finger at the source of most big city crime--the big landlords and bankers (and) runaway corporations." Gus Hall also said that cuts in social and economic programs goes hand in hand with street crime. "Jobs, education, recreation and cultural centers are the only realistic, effective crime fighters." (Gus Hall, Fighting Racism, 1985, International Publishers)

We must also have an anti-racist approach to abolishing crime. American capitalism's criminal injustice system, with it's prison warehouses for the working class, is permeated by racism. Almost one million African-Americans are behind bars. In the U.S, black people comprise 13% of the population, but constitute half of the country’s prisoners. A tenth of all black men between 20 and 35 are in jail or prison; black workers are incarcerated at over eight times the white rate. We must, to use Henry Winston's words, "challenge the inhuman, racist character of the prison (and policing) system." (Henry Winston, Strategy for a Black Agenda, 1973, International Publishers)


(Picture by Charles Tatum from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota of fighters for Black Liberation.)

William Z. Foster, a Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party USA, rightly said that:

"Capitalism, by its very nature, is a prolific breeder of crime. It is a system of legalized robbery of the working class. The whole process of capitalist business is a swindle and an armed hold-up. In capitalist society what constitutes crime and what does not is a purely arbitrary distinction. The capitalists do not recognize any line of demarcation for themselves. They do whatever they can 'get away with.' The record of every large fortune and big corporation in this country is smeared with brutal robbery of the workers...

"In a society where each grabs what he can at the expense of the rest, naturally the government offers a wide field of corruption...Such corruption is not a special condition, but of the very tissue of capitalism.

"It is not surprising that in a society where the aim is to get rich by any means, crime of every kind should flourish. Faced by low wages and other impossible economic conditions on the one hand and by the corrupt example of capitalism generally on the other, many naturally take the lives of open crime and try to seize at the point of the gun what the capitalist 'big shots' steal through exploiting the workers, by a corner on the stock exchange, or by corrupting the government. The main difference between their operations is primarily one of dimension. Al Capone is an altogether legitimate child of American capitalism, and it it no accident that he is an object of such widespread admiration...

"Socialism, by putting an end to capitalist exploitation, deals a mortal blow at crime of every description. The economic base of crime is destroyed. The worker is enabled to live and work under the best possible conditions. There is no place for human sharks to prey upon their fellow men. Not only does the abolition of capitalism destroy the basis of the so-called crimes against property, but the revolutionized economic and social conditions, involving an intelligent moral code and effective educational system, also greatly diminishes the 'crimes of passion'...

"Capitalism blames crime upon the individual, instead of upon the bad social conditions which produce it. Hence its treatment of crime is essentially one of punishment." And "capitalist prisons are actually schools of crime...

"Socialist criminology, on the other hand, attacks the bad social conditions. While the American (socialist) government will ruthlessly break up up the...gangs that brazenly infest all American cities and will also give short shrift to grafting politicians, its prison system will be essentially educational in character." (William Z. Foster, Towards Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Soviet Union: Where Workers Had Power

Written especially for the Central Valley Communists blog:

Gus Hall, the former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, said that the former Soviet Union was a society where workers had power. Gus Hall considered the Soviet Union as "the most powerful, successful and influential socialist society." He explained the Russian Socialist Revolution in a few words. "In 1917," Hall writes, "the working class of the Soviet Union decided they didn't need the owners who were getting richer while the people got poorer. In fact it was just this class of leeches that held back all social advances for working people. So the working people took over." (Gus Hall, "Where Workers Have Power," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

William Z. Foster, the Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA preceding Hall, pointed out that "the Communist Party (was) the brain and heart and nerves of the Russian Revolution, and so it must be in any proletarian revolution." (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

And the ruling capitalist classes of the world freaked out! V.I. Lenin, great Communist leader of the Russian 1917 Socialist Revolution, answered their capitalist slanders of the Soviet Union eloquently. V.I. Lenin said: "for every hundred mistakes which we commit and which the bourgeoisie and their lackeys are dinning into the ears of the world, ten thousand great and heroic deeds are performed." (Lenin, Letter to American Workers, 1918)

In his book, Working Class USA, the American Communist Gus Hall exposes the capitalist lies about the Soviet Union. The former USSR was a society where, Gus Hall stated, "workers (had) power." John Eaton, in Political Economy, notes that: "Socialism is planned production for use on the basis of public ownership of the means of production." Leontyev said that "the building of socialism begins only after state power passes from the hands of the bourgeoisie into the hands of the working class." And socialism in the former USSR, Gus Hall wrote in an essay entitled "Where Workers (Had) Power," brought free education, medical and dental care. Employment was guaranteed and workers were the majority on all government bodies. The socialist economy guaranteed that there was no economic crisis or corporate capitalist profit. Racism and discrimination were outlawed as criminal offenses. Unions were a valued part of socialist society. There had been no unemployment in the Soviet Union since 1930. And all profits from production went to funds to provide for the mass welfare, paid vacations and housing for the Soviet people. (Gus Hall, "Where Workers Have Power," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)



(V.I. Lenin: 'for every hundred mistakes which we commit and which the bourgeoisie and their lackeys are dinning into the ears of the world, ten thousand great and heroic deeds are performed.')

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels taught that communist society had two phases. Socialism, which Karl Marx referred to as "the first phase of communist society" is a transitional stage to highly developed communism, "a higher phase of communist society," where there is a classless social system and full social equality of all members of society. (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875)

And socialism, "the first phase of communist society," in the former Soviet Union brought enormous gains to the working class. Gus Hall explained that the working class and unions, not the capitalists, called the shots in the former Soviet Union and socialist countries. "In the socialist countries," Gus Hall said, "workers are their own bosses. They are the real economic and political power. There is no drive for maximum private profits, there are no privately-owned corporations, and no tax shelters inducing companies to close plants and move to more profitable locations leaving human devastation in their wake...

"The basic truth is that it is only in a socialist society that trade unions acquire real political and economic power because they work, speak and act for the class in power--the working class...Under socialism people come first and profits are made to serve them." (Gus Hall, "Where Workers Have Power," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

William Z. Foster correctly said that "In a world thrown into deepening disorder and demoralization caused by the growing general crisis (of capitalism), the superiority of the system of planned socialist economy stands out like a great mountain!" (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

And V.I. Lenin was absolutely right that, with the birth of the Soviet Union, "a new era in world history has begun!" (Lenin, The Third International and It's Place In History, 1919)

Superb Books:

Daily Worker Labor Editor and Moscow Correspondent, George Morris, wrote Where Human Rights are Real.

Victor Perlo's excellent text Dynamic Stability: the Soviet Economy Today cited the 1977 Soviet Constitution.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Revolt with a Vote! Communist Candidates are a Must, Says Gus Hall.

Written especially for the Communist Party Discussion blog:

William Z. Foster, former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA and Communist presidential candidate, said that "The Republican party is the party of finance capital, of the great bankers and industrialists of Wall Street....From the Republican party no relief, but only a worsening of existing conditions may be expected." On the other hand, "the Democratic party is no less the party of the big capitalists." It is "the second party of capitalism" which has "a flood of demogogy to delude the masses and to prevent their taking steps against the capitalists by keeping them fettered with the two party capitalist system." (William Z. Foster, Towards Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

Nevertheless, Gus Hall, a later leader of the Communist Party USA and Communist presidential candidate, noted that Marxist-Leninists support "the defeat of the most reactionary anti-labor, racist and pro-war candidates." But he makes the point that "class collaboration in the field of politics is a sell out." (Gus Hall, Capitalism on the Skids to Oblivion, 1972, New Outlook Publishers)

Both Foster and Hall fought for a broad coalition against monopoly capitalism and looked forward to working-class political independence from the two parties of capitalism.


(Gus Hall: ’Communist candidates’ are ’a must.’)

Gus Hall said that Communist electoral candidates are a must and ran for president on the Communist Party USA ticket many times. He said, in Labor Up-Front, that Communist electoral candidates "stimulate" movements for political independence. They are "an indispensable element of the people’s anti-monopoly struggle." (Gus Hall, Labor Up-Front, 1979)

"Communist candidates, " Gus Hall said, are "a must." And he noted that "a presidential campaign presents a unique opportunity to speak to millions of our people." Hall continued: "It is an opportunity to influence--and yes, to change--the thought patterns of great numbers. It is an opportunity to present our (Communist) Party, our program and positions to the majority of our people. It is an opportunity to take on the ideological challenge of Big Lie anti-Communism." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

Drawing from experience, Gus Hall said that Communist electoral candidates have an opportunity to "struggle against racism, " "to speak to millions about socialism, about nationalization and public takeover" and "expose state monopoly capitalism in every area of life." And "without Communist participation as candidates many issues will never be discussed, debated or even raised, such as: the crisis of capitalism...corporate profits (and) socialism." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

But, arguing against Communists who minimize the importance of Communist electoral candidates, Hall boldly states that "abandoning the electoral arena is liquidationism." "Some may argue, " Gus Hall said, "that we can be a factor in the election campaign from the sidelines, without fielding (Communist electoral) candidates. That is not a serious argument. During election campaigns people listen to candidates--their positions, platform, statements, promises, etc." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

And Hall exposes the content of the arguments from other Communists against Communist electoral candidates. "For some reason, " he said, "the necessity of running Communist candidates in election campaigns is not self-evident in our Party...In essence, the questions raised are very similar to the ones raised against the concept of a Communist public presence, or the arguments one hears against the Party being an action-oriented organization. They are also very similar to arguments against integrating the Communist essence into our mass work. All the arguments have a familiar liquidationist ring." Gus Hall brings down the liquidationist line when he boldly declares that "to give up the Party’s electoral activity is to retreat before the class enemy’s political pressures and the legal obstacles they place." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

Saturday, October 4, 2008

FAQ: On Socialism and Personal Property

Please also see previous post: FAQ: What is Socialism?

Will socialism take away your toothbrush (or home and VCR)? No. Will socialism seize the means of production--the land, factories, mills, mines, transport--from the capitalists? Yes.

Both Karl Marx and Gus Hall had things to say about this.

Marx and Engels said, in the Communist Manifesto, that: "Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation." (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848)

Gus Hall, the former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, explained Marx and Engels' thinking when he answered this question in 1977: "I worked hard to buy a home. If socialism comes to this country would I lose it? Would it become the property of the state?"

Hall answered: "What is good for the people is socialism. Socialism is the most people oriented society in all of history. What is good for the people is the basic guideline to all questions about socialism.

"This year the handful of major stockholders and the banks who own General Motors are going to pocket the hog's share of about $4 or $5 billion dollars of what is referred to as profits. And the president of G.M. will take almost $1 million in what is called a salary. Grand larceny is a more accurate description!

"This is done by picking the pockets of GM workers. That is not good for the GM workers or the people. What happens in GM is what happens in all of the big industries throughout our country. That is the very essence of capitalism. That is why socialism will turn the GM complex into public property. That is why socialism will transfer all of the privately owned industrial properties, the railroads, bus lines, utilities, mines, TV and radio networks, the banks, telephone and the big agri-businesses into socially owned and operated complexes...

"Socialism will not permit anyone to get rich by exploiting other people.

"The propagandists of big business have always tried to frighten people with the falsehood that socialism will take away our homes, our cars and our babies. Socialism will do nothing of the kind. There will be some exceptions, however. For example there are a few mansions around Tarrytown, N.Y., one of which is the Rockefeller’s. That will be taken over because it is not in the interests of the people to permit a few to waste all that potential housing space.

"The land and the operation of the big agri-corporations will be turned into state-owned and people-operated agri-complexes. The people who have small farms and lots will continue to operate them as long as they want to.

"So, my friends, enjoy your homes and cars. Join in the movement for socialism and be assured you will not have to give these things up, because what is good for the people is socialism." (Gus Hall, Basics, 1980, International Publishers)