Is President Barack Obama a Socialist or Communist?

Statement of the National Board of the CPUSA March 25, 2009

Our leaders and members are frequently being asked if President Barack Obama is a Socialist or Communist.

We are even being asked if President Barack Obama is a member of our Party.

Our Party has a longstanding policy of not commenting on whether or not any individual is or is not a member of the Communist Party USA.

No leader or member of our Party should be answering these questions.

These are questions for President Barack Obama to answer.

With this said we point out that President Barack Obama came under the tutelage of the great Marxist-Leninist thinker, writer, journalist and working class leader Frank Marshall Davis.

We further point out that President Barack Obama was endorsed for public office by the socialist New Party when running for public office in Illinois.

Further, our Economics Commission has pointed out the following about John Maynard Keynes:

http://groups.google.com/group/socialist-economics/web

We are interested in FACT-BASED economic analysis, research and theory because the interests and aspirations of our membership are entwined with economic outcomes of the working people of the United States. Both immediate and long term interests of workers all over the world, as well, demand an accurate understanding of real economic forces and how to manage them better to serve human ends. More than ever, even than in Marx's own time, all Communists and all Socialists should strive to become good economists! And modern economists -- when they can be persuaded to take off the dark glasses and see that the "private" label, on an ever larger domain of property, is not permanently affixed -- will be giving Marx his intellectual due and his heirs a new look.

Those heirs are found in some surprising places. We promise not to neglect, however, the contribution of the great Socialist John Maynard Keynes, and his progressive heirs in their search for the means of managing capitalism's inherent instability and tendencies toward extreme inequality. Their theory, and its consequences for policy, forms the basis of most serious reform proposals. Nor shall we discard the intellectual tradition of Vladimir Lenin which we believe will be making a comeback: as working class organizations strive to protect themselves in the economic tempest, many will conclude that they need more political independence in order to advance their interests and aspirations.

President Barack Obama is a Keynesian by his own admission as are many of his economic advisers. People can draw their own conclusions from this fact.

We must ask this question of those insisting on an answer as to whether or not President Barack Obama is a Socialist or Communist, or is or was a member of the CPUSA:

What difference does it make?

Socialist and Communist ideas are not against the law in the United States.

The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights protects freedom of thought and association; excluding neither Socialists or Communists from participation in the political life of our country, including holding the highest office in the land.

President Barack Obama was asked this question a number of times including very recently by reporters. President Barack Obama has answered this question in his own way.

Our position is that President Barack Obama is a friend of the people, a people's advocate and our ally in the struggle for a just and peaceful world.

Enough said.

National Board, Communist Party USA