Does the CPUSA advocate the violent overthrow of the government? Don t all communists advocate violence?
The actual sentence referring to “violent revolution” in the Communist Manifesto says: “In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” This is more a description than a prescription. We are for peace, for peaceful solutions to both international and intra-national problems, and for a peaceful transition to socialism, wherever possible. This has become ever more essential in the nuclear age. While some governments run by people calling themselves Communists have been responsible for horrible acts of violence and repression, notably the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, much if not most of the violence often blamed on revolutionary governments and parties is actually the responsibility of the conservative, reactionary, capi
