In the early morning of Tuesday, November 12, 1996, prompted by a telephone tip suggesting child abuse, police officials raided three adjacent brownstones in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Once inside, the officials discovered a maze of secret tunnels linking the houses, extensive supplies, large barrels and freezers stocked with food, and a small arsenal of weapons. Police arrested close to 30 members of the Communist Party USA/Provisional (CPUSA/P), commonly referred to as the Provisional Party of Communists, which was formerly led by the now-deceased Eugenio Parente-Ramos.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has prepared the following background on CPUSA/P:

The CPUSA/P which has been described as a cult, attracts idealistic young followers with "progressive" volunteer opportunities, but soon allegedly attempts to brainwash supporters, turning them into soldiers ready for a revolution aimed at overthrowing the United States Government. The recent raid netted law enforcement officials 16 pistols, 26 rifles, 5 shotguns, 2 working replicas of Thompson submachine guns, and 5 canisters of black powder thought to be an explosive substance.

According to Professor Harvey Klehr of Emory University, author of Far Left of Center, ex-members claim that the group has a military wing, trains its members in guerilla tactics and speaks of armed revolution. Others contend that while inflammatory talk took place in the past, such rhetoric has since been abandoned. Dr. Klehr contends that CPUSA/P has its members live communally, work continuously and give their money to the organization, prompting charges that they are "political Moonies."

Mr. Parente, whose real name was Gerald William Doeden and was actually of Norwegian descent, reportedly took on the imagined Mexican name and persona to enhance his credibility in his supposed struggles as a radical labor organizer and leader of the Eastern Farm Worker's Association (EFW). The EFW is just one of many front organizations led by Mr. Parente to mask recruitment for his cult-like group. Mr. Parente, who had a history of involvement with left-wing revolutionary groups, was a former disc jockey and one-time owner of a left-wing bookstore in San Francisco in the 1960's. He founded the CPUSA/P on Long Island in 1972. The group, an offshoot of the Progressive Labor Party, (which in turn is split off from the Communist Party USA), seems to follow Communist ideology closely, structuring the hierarchy of their own group after the former Soviet Union's Politburo. Mr. Parente died in March of 1995 at the age of 59.

History of CPUSA/P

The CPUSA/P was formed in the 1970's from the remnants of a revolutionary group called Venceremos. The Bay Area Revolutionary Union had split in the early 1970's, with one faction evolving into the Maoist Revolutionary Union and another, led by Bruce Franklin, forming Venceremos and supporting armed revolutionary struggle. Within a few years, Venceremos collapsed with most of its members in jail or disillusioned. What was left apparently formed the core of the CPUSA/P.

The CPUSA/P once had 800 members, but membership is now down to 150-400 members in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, and Texas. The group has a reported half dozen offices around New York City, including one in Bellport.

In February 1984, the CPUSA/P's headquarters in both Manhattan and Brooklyn were raided by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force. Although no arrests were made, it was reported that various documents from the group were seized during the raids. An FBI statement about the raids claimed that the raids were "based on information received by the FBI in August 1983, which alleges that the Provisional Party of Communists had planned a series of violent acts to be committed within the United States." The FBI states that their goal was to "interdict a terrorist action prior to violence and destruction of property."

Eugenio Parente

Mr. Parente claimed to be a close friend of United Farm Workers' late leader Cesar Chavez. Although Mr. Chavez claimed to have never heard of Mr. Parente-Ramos (New York Post Nov. 13, 1996), Mr. Parente was reportedly a UFW organizer, and was fired by Chavez when he would not submit to UFW discipline after he had advocated violence.

It has been reported that Mr. Parente has had ties to Lyndon Larouche's National Caucus of Labor Committees, another cult-like group that made a transition from the far left to the far right. Links between Mr. Parente and Fred Newman and the International Workers Party (IWP) have also been suggested (The Public Eye, Vol.1, No. 1 [1977]). According to the Public Eye in 1977, Mr. Parente's National Federation of Labor (Natlfed) and Newman's IWP had a "continuing collaboration." Newman is known for his leadership, along with Lenora Fulani, of the cult-like New Alliance Party.

Prior to forming the CPUSA/P, Mr. Parente was a member of the National Liberation Front Continental Armed Services Division of the Liberation Army Revolutionary Group Organization (LARGO). At one point in the early 1970's, the group declared their intent to stage "revolutionary" attacks on government installations in Northern California. The group, numbering perhaps 6, never carried through with their threats.

Recruitment

The CPUSA/P operates by recruiting young idealistic people for what they believe are progressive social services including medical clinics for the poor, organizing farm workers, and producing a feminist pro-choice newsletter. The recruits are then allegedly brainwashed, forced to listen to endless propaganda speeches, and forced to undertake endless bureaucratic formalities. Group propaganda suggests that the real aim of the recruiting efforts is to attract followers for the eventual overthrow of the U.S. government. One tool of the recruitment process for the CPUSA/P was listing its front groups, reportedly up to forty of them, in the Commission on Voluntary Service and Action's (CVSA) guidebook. The guidebook, a source of volunteer opportunities, is used by some churches to help its members find volunteer opportunities. According to Dr. Harvey Klehr, after the CVSA discovered the actions of the National Federation of Labor, and tried to remedy the situation, they also discovered that the National Federation of Labor had begun publishing the book on its own.

Examples of the innocuous-sounding front groups for CPUSA/P include The Women's Press Collective, California Homemakers Association, Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, and the above-mentioned Eastern Farm Workers Association.

Ron Kuby Represents Group

Two recently arrested members of the group are being defended by Ron Kuby, a longtime partner of the late lawyer William Kunstler. Among others, Mr. Kuby defended Ibrahim El-Gabrowny and Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, two of the accused in the World Trade Center Terrorism bombing trial and LIRR gunman Colin Ferguson. Mr. Kuby is known for taking on unpopular and radical political cases.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.