Communist Party of Tarper

Communist Party of Tarper Parti Communiste de Tarper
Abbreviation	CPT
Leader	Louisa Schlösser
General Secretary	Sylvie Beckett
Secretary	Lambert Salinas
Founder	Ernesto Rivero
Founded	1860 (1860) (as the Tarperti Section of the Socialist Party) 1892 (1892) (as independent party) 1902 (1902) (renaming to Communist Party)
Preceded by	United Socialist Democratic Party (not legal successor)
Newspaper	The Vanguard
Think tank	Politburo of the CPT
Student wing	University Communists
Youth wing	Tarperti League of Young Communists
Women's wing	Communist Women's Auxiliary
LGBT wing	FALGSC Commission
Trade union	Tarperti Confederation of Labour (1892-1991) Federation of Free Tarperti Trade Unions (since 2002)
Paramilitary wing	Red Brigade (1902-1929)
Membership (2022)	54,214
Ideology	Communism Marxism Socialism
Political position	Left-wing to Far-left
International affiliation	International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties
Colors	Red (Official)   Rose (Customary)
Slogan	"Workers of the world, unite!"
Federal Council	2 / 125
Federal Assembly	28 / 733
State legislatures	82 / 1,660
Party flag
Political parties Elections

The Communist Party of Tarper, abbreviated as CPT, commonly referred to as the Communists or the Grand Old Party, is a Communist political party in Tarper. The party was founded in 1902 as a continuation of the Tarperti Section of the Socialist Party, which itself was a continuation and former regional branch of the United Socialist Democratic Party, USDP, of the Platesan Empire.

Since 2020, Louisa Schlösser has been the party's leader. In the Federal Assembly the party has 28 out of 733 seats after polling 5% of the vote in the 2021 federal elections. The poor showing in this election has resulted in the Communist Party becoming the sixth largest in Tarper.

History

The party was founded by Ernesto Rivero. Rivero originally was a member of the United Socialist Democratic Party an influential party in the Platesan Empire. After the breakup of the Empire, Rivero took the Tarperti branch of the party and created the Tarperti Section of the Socialist Party.

From 1892 to 1901, the TSSP remained largely underground, due to the absolutist government and outright banning of parties in the Kingdom of Astra. The TSSP participated in the 1900 federal election to a disappointing outcome. After the founding of the United Kingdoms of Tarper, the party planned for a public reappearance. On 1902 the party changed reorganized into the Communist Party.

Role during the United Kingdoms

The Communist party had advertised itself as the party of the common and working Tarp. The party had a key and leading role during the Red Bread Riots, which widely boosted its popularity across Tarper. In elections the party had placed third in the 1904 and 1908 elections. In the 1912 Tarperti federal election, the CPT placed in second thanks to the Winter Riot in the winter of 1911.

In the summer after the election, the Communists sealed themselves in the parliamentary palace and declared the Confederation of Tarperti Communist Republics. This action initiated the First Tarperti Civil War. Using its paramilitary and later on the actual Tarperti armed forces, the Tarperti Confederation quickly defeated the Royal and Republican forces.

Ruling party of the Tarperti Confederation

After the victory of the civil war, the party initiated a period of reconstruction in which it dealt with the "ancient regime" and other reactionary groups. During this period (1914-1920) the party operated the Tarperti Confederation under the philosophy of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". After the death of Ernesto Rivero, who was a staunch Marxist, President Yakov Menendez took over as leader of the Communist Party and Chancellor of the Confederation. Menendez believed in the advantages of an opposition party and democracy and so in the summer of 1920 Menendez met with former republican leaders, which the party chose to spare from execution, to plan democracy in the Confederation. Thought the elections were free, they would not be described as fair, opposing parties were also, by law, required to follow a tenet of socialism.

Starpin era (1960-1991)

After the the 1950 election, in which the CPT received its lowest election result within the Confederation and the political fallout after the First Covenant Wars, Tom Starpin, former President of the Confederation, was elected as leader of the party. Starpin took the free concept away from the elections and wrested power to his advantage under the pretense of defending the Commconv. Starpin was later awarded with the title of "Supreme", a title which rendered now President, Zoe Herzog, a legitimate figurehead.

With the outbreak of the Second Covenant Wars, Starpin assumed emergency powers and abolished party elections which allowed him unlimited terms of office. Though with Apostoli and Comico capitulating during the war, Starpin became much more lenient and willingly accepted the Treaty of Shell City and excitedly attended the founding of the Covenant Council.

The aftermath of the Second Covenant Wars brought about economic downfall during the early 1980's. Starpin decided to curb popular opinion away from the economic downturn by instituting his policies of political and economic openness. Starpin's thaw culminated in the complete democratization of the Tarperti Confederation in 1986. This complete liberalization of politics resulted in the rise of the National Party of Tarper and the eventual downfall of the Conservative Democratic Party of Tarper. Starpin, now reaching the age of 90, was heavily criticized on this decision and party support turned even worse after the Communist Party placed second after the 1990 Tarperti federal election. Though the united establishment parties of the Confederation sided with the CPT and helped keep the Communists in power.

Self-exile (1991-2002)

After the death of Tom Starpin in the summer of 1991, a massive power vacuum was created. With no clear leader in government, Mans Hinder and his National Party took control of the country in September of 1991, with Hinder and his paramilitary finally wresting control on Christmas day of 1991 and declaring the Second Republic of Tarper.

Being incredibly embarrassed of this outcome, the party leadership along with a small portion of its members exiled itself to Plamyadia, which originally opposed the communist regime of Tarper, saw it as a better alternative to Hinder's Nationalist Republic. The exile was self imposed though pressure from the National Party also forced this exile.

In Plamyadia, the party operated as usual, keeping ties with its members that stayed in Tarper and providing financial support to dissident organizations. After the democratization of the Second Republic of Tarper, the party was conflicted with supporting the two socialist parties within Tarper, the Tarperti Party of Socialism and Democracy and the Republican Union of Anti-Capitalists. The communists fell into three camps, those who saw them as traitors, those supported the SD, and those who supported the RUAC.

Before the Second Tarperti Civil War, the party met with revolutionary leaders at the Plamyadian Convention. During the civil war, the party met with representatives in the Citrone Convention. The party was allowed to contest in the 2002 Tarperti federal elections, thus ending the era of exile.

Present day (2002-present)

The Communist Party placed in second and joined the rest of the parties within the Federal Assembly to create the United Coalition for the Federal Commonwealth. Disaster struck in 2004 as a large majority of the party joined a minority group from the Socialist Unity Party to create the Labour Party. This event doomed the party to become the third largest party in Tarper and then the fourth largest after the 2017 election.

The CPT has been part of three government coalitons. The Communist Party continues to poll well, despite a decrease in membership. With its status as the oldest party in Tarper, the Party uses that to legitimize its policy decisions and stances.

In order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the introduction of democracy into Tarper, the Communist Party has announced that it will "reinvent itself in order to appeal to modern values". What was meant by this statement has not been revealed, but with the election of a new party leader there has been constant reshuffling of staff at the party's offices.

Growing discontent with the direction the Communist Party was taking, the Rebirth Coalition was founded in 2020. It tasked itself to oppose any reform within the party that the coalition deemed "revisionist" or "pandering to rightist values". The continuing obstructionism got the faction in danger of being expelled in 2022. Divisions could not be mended and in January of 2024, the Rebirth Coalition split off from the party and renamed itself as the Communist Rebirth Coalition or CRC. Taking 10 Assembly Members with it and reducing the CPT's size from 38 to 28 Assembly Members. The CRC styles itself as a socially conservative communist party. Leaders of the CPT have called the Rebirth Coalition "oxymoronic" and a betrayal of the nearly two-hundred year old socialist traditions of Tarper. Secretary Lambert Salinas experienced massive backlash after his comments that the Christian Democratic and Social Federation, "was more committed to the socialist movement than that backwards coalition".

In the 2024 state elections, the Communist Rebirth Coalition outperformed the Communist Party in Astra and Outer Comico.

Ideology

Since its founding in 1902, the party has followed the principles of communism meanwhile being fundamentally opposed to authoritarian regimes, the communist party was the first of its kind to allow democratic elections in a communist country in 1920.

The party currently embraces the ideas of democracy in order to allow a communist society to follow. The former inter-party faction the "Rebirth Coalition", had criticized this strategy as a rightward shift and "vote chasing".

Organization

The party operates with a central committee that decides all policy stances. Once a year the party gathers and elects its agenda for the year. Every ten years, an extraordinary convention is called and takes on the task of electing a new leader.

Symbols

In its early days the party used a maroon cockade, which was customary for parties of the late 18th through early 20th centuries. Since the first civil war the party has used the hammer and sickle, first only appearing in the party's flag and then being used by its contemporary logo.

The party makes use of a march titled,"The Red Banner" as its primary anthem. It used to use a modified version of the State Anthem of the Tarperti Confederation but halted use of it do to its purported "soiling" by the Second Republic of Tarper.

Factions, affiliates, and sub-organizations

Factions within the CPT are:

• Alliance for Libertarian Communism (ALCO): Caucus created to drive the party towards a non-authoritarian form of Communism.
• The Left Party (LEFT): Coalition of democratic socialists and moderate communists.
• Project for a Socialist Society (SoSo): Formerly, the 2020 Project. Left-wing Populist faction currently tasked to "renovate" the party.

Sub-organizations of the CPT

• Communist Women's Auxiliary (CWA): The women's wing of the CPT is also the oldest in all of Tarper having been around since 1920.
• FALGSC Commission: FALGSC, an initialism for "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism", is the founding principle of the CPT's LGBTQIA+ wing.
• Tarperti League of Young Communists (TLYC): Youth and Student group of the party.

Affiliated organizations of the CPT

• Federation of Free Tarperti Trade Unions (FFTTUU): Founded on 2002 after the TCL affiliated with the Socialist Unity Party. Quickly became the second largest trade union center in Tarper.
• Revisionist Busters: Group created as a reaction to the breakaway Communist Rebirth Coalition. Barnstorms areas where the CRC plans to campaign.
• University Communists (UComm): Federation of University Communist Parties and clubs, works in tandem with the TLYC.
• The Vanguard Publications House: Simply known as just "The Vanguard", is and has been the official newspaper of the CPT and was the national newspaper from 1912-1991.

Former factions

The Party has been called as the "Root of Tarperti Politics", as many factions have been spun off into separate, distinct Parties. In the 2019 paper, "A Survey of Tarperti Politics", political scientists found that the five largest parties in the public sphere, excluding the CPT, had political lineage that could be traced to a faction of the Communist Party, whether that faction was forcefully or willingly separated differs from party to party.

Some former factions of the CPT, include;

• Earthly Society of Socialists (Marienists): Coalition of religious communists, founded in 1909 by Margaret Whitehall. Organized poorer religious adherents into the Communist fold. Allowed to split into its own party in 1925.
• Free Radicals: Remnant communist-sympathizing members of the Radical Party of Tarper. They were expelled/split-off into the Free Liberal Party of Tarper thus beginning the first democratic period of the Tarperti Confederation.
• Gallists: Far-right group founded in 1923. The group advocated a directorate government in a similar vein that existed in neighboring Plamyadia. The faction was purged and persecuted within the next year. Remaining members fled to Plamyadia.
• Hinderists: Far-right group founded by Mans Hinder in 1979, in the vein of the Gallists from the 1920's. They were expelled into the Conservative Democratic Party for "counterrevolutionary ideals". The faction was placed into Federal watch lists, but no legal action was under taken due to its quarantine in the ConDems.
• New Communist Union (NeoComms): A moderate group of Party members consisting of socialists and social democrats. The group came about in the early 80's as the party liberalized under the Starpin leadership. The split from the main party came about in the early 90's as the main core of the party went through self imposed exile, the NeoComms criticized this as cowardice. Not long after the split, the "Rust Split" occurred as Democratic socialists and Social Democrats could not maintain their coalition resulting in the founding of the Tarperti Party of Socialism and Democracy (SD), a social democratic majority party, and the Republican Union of Anti-Capitalists (RUAC), a democratic socialist and communist majority party.
• Paternalists: Right-wing remnants of the Tarperti People's Party, these members were sympathetic to the anti-capitalist rhetoric. They were allowed to split-off into the Conservative Democratic Party of Tarper in 1920, directly after the Free Radicals.
• Peasant & Agrarian Movement (Pagram): Farmer-oriented and early environmentally focused movement that sprung up in 1930 after the beginning of the Great Depression. Party policy did not consider peasants as part of the working class and the faction was allowed to split-off into the Popular Social Union.
• Rebirth Coalition (RC): Now the Communist Rebirth Coalition. They wished to follow a more authoritarian communist policy and stop chasing after the Socialist Party. They now espouse social conservatism and left-wing economic policy.
• Reform & Labour: Wing of moderate communists, democratic socialists, and orthodox marxists. The "rightmost" wing of the modern Communist party. It split off in 2004 and joined the leftmost wing of the United Marxists faction of the Socialist Unity Party, creating the Union of True and Angered Socialists. They later renamed themselves into the Labour Party

Politburo of the CPT

Originally the main law drafting organ of the Tarperti Confederation, the politburo continues to exist and draft up legislation for use in the Federal Assembly. Other tasks include, the education of communist theory and thought along with the financial support of associated communist organizations in Tarper.

Controversies

On 2005 and 2009, the party was investigated by the Federal Constitutional Court for purported support of a paramilitary group. Both times the court found the party innocent of all charges.

The Communist Party has also been accused of scheming against the government for the purpose of reinstalling the Tarperti Confederation, though these claims have, naturally, been dismissed by the Party and declared as frivolous by the Court.

Election results, (1904-present)

The party has been active since 1892 but did not partake in elections until the 1900 Tarperti federal election. Due to the fact that from 1890-1900 the Tarperti kingdoms outlawed elections, the Tarperti Section of the Socialist Party remained in secret.

During the Second Republic of Tarper, the Communist Party underwent a forced self-exile and did not partake in elections.

Election	Seats won	±	Position	Leader	Government
1900	0 / 397	0	—	Ernesto Rivero	Extra-parliamentary
1904	81 / 397	81	3rd	Ernesto Rivero	In opposition
1908	54 / 397	27	3rd	Ernesto Rivero	In opposition
1912	110 / 397	56	2nd	Ernesto Rivero	In opposition
1920	257 / 423	147	1st	Yakov Menendez	Vanguard Coalition
1930	391 / 577	126	1st	Ludovic Leone	Vanguard Coalition
1940	408 / 647	17	1st	Zoe Tapia	War & Reconstruction Assembly
1950	196 / 402	212	1st	Alois Benini	People's Front
1960	318 / 521	122	1st	Tom Starpin	People's Front
1970	268 / 518	50	1st	Tom Starpin	People's Front
1980	228 / 519	40	1st	Tom Starpin	People's Front
1990	239 / 662	11	2nd	Tom Starpin	CPT – Anti-Fascist Front
1992	Did not contest. Party underwent forced self-exile from elections.
March 1996	Did not contest. Party underwent forced self-exile from elections.
September 1996	Did not contest. Party underwent forced self-exile from elections.
2002	248 / 603	9	2nd	Harper Paszek	United Coalition for the Federal Commonwealth
2005	61 / 614	187	3rd	Harper Paszek	In opposition
2009	93 / 622	32	3rd	Harper Paszek	LP – CPT – GPT
2013	64 / 630	29	3rd	Raul Gomez	In opposition
2017	80 / 709	16	4th	Raul Gomez	SP – GLU/ULV – CPT
2021	39 / 735	41	6th	Louisa Schlösser	In opposition

Leaders of the Communist Party, 1902-present

Leader	Period
Ernesto Rivero	1902-1920
Yakov Menendez	1920-1930
Ludovic Leone	1930-1940
Zoe Herzog	1940-1950
Alois Benini	1950-1960
Tom Starpin	1960-1991
Finley Stringer	1991-2000
Harper Paszek	2000-2010
Raul Gomez	2010-2020
Louisa Schlösser	2020-present