U.S. REDS CONFESS PARTY MISTAKES; DRAFT REFORMS; Convention Resolution Would Assail Left Wing and Urge Labor and Negro Ties
By Peter Kihss
Issues 23,000-word Natl Com Sept 13 Draft of Pol Resolution, which will be submitted to '57 natl conv, confessing post errors and proposing extensive party const reforms; key points seen aimed at sidetracking Left-wing front groups and stressing efforts to work through labor, Negro groups and Dem party; statement finds Communist party leaders since '51 'tended to accept status of illegality'; terms party 'dangerously isolated'; Dennis puts natl membership at 20,000-25,000; says membership lists have not been kept for yrs because of persecutions; peak membership claimed by party was 80,000 in '45; vote on draft resolution by Natl Com: Foster, B J Davis Jr voted for it with reservations; others, Dennis, F Fine, J Gates, J E Jackson, C Lightfoot, W Schneiderman, J Stachel, S Stein, M Stone, E Strong, C Winter approved; other Com members were abroad or in prison; Browder seen still excluded because resolution rejects proposals to liquidate party or make it into educ league or pol action assn; Gerson on conv plans; resolution affirms party is not subject to external allegiance or discipline; errors of 'left sectarian' approach acknowledged to be support of left-wing orgns and disregard of role by other orgns in main currents, disregard of labor and people's forces, overexaggeration of war danger, overestimatlon of Fascist menace in US, forecasts of US econ decline, unrealistic view of labor movement and Negroes struggle, failure to criticize USSR and Internatl communism, reliance on Progressive party, oversimplification of Marxist theories; gives program for peaceful and const transition to socialism
