“The Communist Party: A Work in Progress in a Changing World” first appeared on PoliticalAffairs.net on July 31, 2009. Read it on PoliticalAffairs.net.

Editor’s note: This is an excerpted version of a speech delivered to the Chautauqua Conference, New York, July 21, 2009. Sam Webb chairs the Communist Party USA.

No organization or institution can long exist in a condition of stasis; organizations in general and political parties and social movements in particular have to adjust to new conditions.

And the reason is simple: change is constant and organizations and institutions must, if they want to remain relevant, change in the face of changing conditions.

“Socialism Revisited: The Day After” first appeared on PoliticalAffairs.net on April 22, 2005. Read it on PoliticalAffairs.net.

Paper presented at the panel entitled ‘Imaginings of Socialism’ at the Left Forum sponsored by Global Left Dialogue, New York City, April 17, 2005. The moderator of the panel was Manning Marable; the other panelists were Robin Kelley, Amiri Baraka, and Michael Albert.

Thank you Manning. I appreciate the opportunity to participate on this panel with you, Robin, Amiri, and Michael. I have admired scholarship, poetry, and activism of each of you from afar. I enjoyed Robin and Michael’s presentations. My remarks are along a different line and more near term.