In the "Documents of the First (Founding) Congress of the CLP(USNA), the preamble to the Party Program stated "Basing ourselves on the ‘Communist Manifesto’ and the ‘Program of the Communist International,’ the Marxist-Leninists of the USNA set out to rally the revolutionary working class around the following program.” In the program is the germ of the future analysis of the Party: "The trend toward shifting the economic base from mechanics to electronics has not only increased the reserve army of unemployed but also created a huge qualitatively new army of permanently unemployed, especially amongst national minority proletarians.”The CLP required all members to study Marxist theoretical writings at weekly study sessions.
They defined the Negro Nation as all people living in the Southern United States, including both African Americans and whites.
For several years the CLP maintained relations with Ethiopian political activists and wrote reports and articles on developments in Ethiopia and Africa.
The Peoples Tribune and the Tribuno del Pueblo continued to be published by the CLP but spoke to a broader audience.
With the economic recessions of the 1980s the CLP became active in labor union struggles against contract concessions and in aiding undocumented workers and the homeless.
The CLP also participated in the mayoral campaigns of Harold Washington in Chicago and the Jesse Jackson run for the 1988 presidential election.
The Political Report to the Fourth Congress (Nov. 1986) stated "For the first time there is a possibility of building a truly revolutionary party on the basis of the objective communist movement.
In the pamphlet, "Documents of the Fourth Congress,” the article "Explanation of the Party Program” quotes an 1890 letter written by Engels: "It is far more important that the movement should spread, proceed harmoniously, take root and embrace as much as possible the whole American proletariat than that it should start and proceed, from the beginning, on theoretically perfectly correct lines.
The great thing is to get the working class to move as a class.” The Program of the Fourth Congress states, "We agitate to politically shake up the proletariat.
Our propaganda exposes capitalist production relations as the root cause of the social destruction rampant today.
The final version was published in April 1991, retaining the title, "Entering an Epoch of Social Revolution,” and issued as the "Political Report to the Fifth Congress of the Communist Labor Party.” In the pamphlet, the CLP stated that "Today—because the economic revolution is throwing workers out of the productive process—this struggle tends not to be between worker and employer.
It is between workers and various elements of the state: the police, welfare offices, federal agencies, school boards or public hospital bureaucracies.” The "Epoch” pamphlet also pointed out the fundamental problems in the Soviet Union. "
They agreed to publish an Information Bulletin and to actively seek out other parties to participate in this exchange of information.” (from Rally, Comrades!
January 1991) The group issued a statement after the meeting which noted, "Today we are entering a qualitatively higher stage in the epoch of social revolution based on profound changes in the productive forces.
Nov. 1992) raised the question, "What is the proper organizational form for revolutionaries in this quantitative stage of the revolution?” The Call states, "… this is not a time of preparation for the seizure of power.
"An Open Letter” calling for a new organization was signed by Marian Kramer, President of the National Welfare Rights Union and General Baker, a UAW member and founder of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.
It was signed by five activists: Abdul Alkalimat, Nacho Gonzalez, Ethel Long-Scott, John Slaughter and Leona Smith.