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ee Wears 4 ¥ £ Pe et A AA 8 te obi Ue : te Brae Be . ye sor i aod vag ltas. s . awe se «Bey 4.2. Muste ote @ liberation 110 Christopher STATENENT BY OBSERVERS AT COMMUNIST PARTY CONVENTION, WEW YORK,- FEBRUARY Bap ca or ae A” at The undersigned were "observers" at the recent Communist Party convention in New York attending one or several and in the case of: some of us all sessions, The initiative for the project of having eome non-Commniar citizens who are in fundanenta] disagreement with mich of Comminigst philo- sophy and program, present at the Convention and free afterward to report in any way they wished, cane from 4.J. Mueste and others, with strong support fren Norman Thomas. The suggestion was conveyed to officers of the Communist Party and accepted by them. They issued invitations tc persons suggested by Mii, bf. et Ms, d MUDD S Since reference has been made to th@se matters in the press and elee- where, we wish to state that the sessions of the Convention were democrat=— ically conducted with vigorous discussion of all mattera brought to the floor. There were many indications that no individual or group was in a position to control the convention. All docunents coming out of convention comiittees were made available in mineographed form to delegates and ob- servers, and were made available to the press immediately after the delegates had acted upon them. ‘The votes on divisions in committees were reported to the delegates, fo far as we could tell, Roberts Rules of Order and the Fules adopted by the convention for its own conduct were ecrupulously carried out. Nominations for twenty out of 60 menders of the incoming National Connittee were nade from the floor. There were 46 noninations for the 2 positions. The votes were widely scattered, with no one receiving more than about seventy per cent of the votes and the highest votes going to others than nationally known leaders who would presumably have been unaninously elected at old style Commanist conventions. As the press reported, the former national secretary, Bugene Dennis, in his opening report rejected the proposals pf the French Communist, Jacquer— Duclos, on certain key issues such as’ the primacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Duclos has been regarded as an important channel for conveying the views of the Soviet Communist leadcra to western Parties. _ - an ee Tok Ae Chee the Tela mnnttian ese Alaniaana.