The course of En Lutte!’s political development prior to October, 1976, was, as explained in The Movement for the Party, “fundamentally Centrist”. In the five months since October, En Lutte! has come under new leadership, significantly altered its general political line and transformed itself from basically Centrist to overtly social-chauvinist. Completely consistent with its attempts to merge the interests of the proletariat with those of “the peoples”, i.e., the entire petty-bourgeoisie, on every fundamental question of revolutionary strategy and tactics En Lutte! has “corrected” its line on the crucial question of war and repudiated its former “complete rejection” of the “struggle to safeguard” the national interests (see Proletarian Unity #2). It has dropped its centrist social-chauvinism and, insistent declamations of its struggle against bourgeois nationalism notwithstanding, has wholeheartedly joined the camp of the brazen, overt social-chauvinists. With this alteration of its line and change of expression of its ultra-opportunism, for all the ’two-line’ banter between them, En Lutte! is distinguishable from its principal rival, the Canadian Communist League (ML), only on the question of the unity of ’Marxist-Leninists’. Only here does En Lutte! retain any semblance of its formerly predominant centrism.
The ’Marxist-Leninist’ movement En Lutte! is struggling so hard to unite – all those groups and individuals who fall within the boundaries of its general criteria outlined in Proletarian Unity #I – is composed of two main, fully consolidated petty-bourgeois nationalist trends. The first of these maintains that the Canadian people have never completed the bourgeois democratic struggle for national independence; and that, therefore, Canada stands, not as a secondary imperialist country but as a neo-colony, nationally oppressed previously by Great Britain and presently by the United States. The ’revolutionary’ strategy following from this analysis is, of course, a united front of “as many Canadians as possible” (from the Progressive Workers Movement’s Independence and Socialism in Canada p.4A ) for a people’s national liberation struggle. The current leading ideologists of this trend are Jack Scott and Hardial Bains, both of whom follow wholly in the tradition of Spector and Macdonald of the Communist Party of Canada during the 1920’s, but consider it opportune to present their crass perversion of communism under the guise of “anti-revisionism”. This trend considers nationalism a progressive ideology depending on “what source the flow” (J. Scott, Canadian Revolution #2 p.39 ). That is, if a sector of the Canadian working class has been “bitten by the national bug” (ibid) as Scott so quaintly phrases it – i.e., if it has, in contradiction to its objectively international interests, been imbued with and corrupted by the nationalist ideology of such hirelings of the Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie as Bains or Scott himself – this is regarded as ’progressive’, as the highest expression of the class interests of the proletariat. This “working class nationalism”, as Scott likes to call his theory, seeks above all to have the working class “believe in the nation” (ibid), and thereby bind itself to defense of the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie, the only possible ’national interests’ in a politically independent, imperialist country like Canada. Such a theory is not the expression of a historically progressive outlook, but that of the petty-bourgeois nationalist social props of imperialism. When Scott or Bains elaborate their chauvinist political line as “Marxism-Leninism”, it is only an attempt to legitimize their petty-bourgeois nationalism as ’revolutionary’, to disguise their servitude to the imperialist bourgeoisie as militant leadership of the working class.
According to En Lutte!’s broad boundaries of “ideological line”, this entire trend fulfills the criteria for certification as ’Marxist-Leninist as shown by it s comradely relations with Scott and its conference invitation to the Red Star Collective and Workers Unity (Edmonton), both of whom accept Scott’s ideological leadership. En Lutte! has excluded the CPC(ML) from its unity designs, not on the basis of its political line (which is in all essentials identical to Scott’s strategy of national liberation), but solely because of the CPC(ML)’s unpredictable psychotic reactions and hooliganism, and because of pressure from other anti-CPC(ML) forces. En Lutte! found nothing odd about conducting tactical unity talks with the CPC(ML) through late 1974 and early 1975, and broke off its negotiations only when it became apparent that the rest of the ’ML’ movement had long since left the CPC(ML) behind and was beginning to attack En Lutte! for its continuing compromise with, as many groups commonly expressed it, the CPC(ML)’s “counter-revolutionary practice”. En Lutte!’s rejection of the CPC(ML) in no way alters the fact that essential to and underlying its unity circus is its realization that there exists no difference in class outlook, no fundamental political differences between the petty-bourgeois nationalist trend headed by Scott and the exiled CPC(ML) and the equally petty-bourgeois trend headed by itself and the CCL(ML).
This second trend demarcates itself from Scott and the CPC(ML) by declaring Canada an imperialist country in which the principal contradiction is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and not between the Canadian nation and U.S. imperialism. Recognition of this profound truism, stumbled upon in a moment of uncharacteristic genius by En Lutte! and the League, is, however, strictly formal and purely phrase-mongering for both. For, while holding that Canada is an imperialist country, En Lutte! and the CCL(ML) proceed, just as do Scott and the CPC(ML) though in a more round-about way, to defend and champion “the national interests”, which means simply the interest s of the Canadian bourgeoisie. The circuitous route employed is an updated, ’ML’ variation of the traditional neo-colonial analysis, to wit: the anti-superpower, anti-hegemonist struggle of the second and third world countries.
The CCL(ML) has found expression and legitimacy for its own social-chauvinism through the wholesale adoption of the social-chauvinist line of the Chinese Communist Party (for a detailed polemic against the ultra-opportunism of the international line of the CCP and its counterpart the Party of Labour of Albania, see Forward #2, Jan 1977, political organ of the Communist Workers Group of the U.S., with which we are in full accord). From its inception the League has staunchly upheld the CCP’s line on the growing danger of world war, not arising from the imperialist system as a whole, but solely from the hegemonistic superpowers, and more recently primarily from the USSR; has eagerly joined in with the CCP’s effusive encouragement of “growing unity of Second and Third world countries” in a world united front against hegemonism (monopoly) and for a “New Economic Order”, a ’democratic transformation’ of imperialism without proletarian revolution; and, following from the above, has consistently echoed the CCP’s glowing praise for every effort at strengthening the national defense of the countries of the “anti-superpower united front”, which includes such nations as France, Canada and Iran. Hence the League’s long-standing and open defense of multi-class unity to defend the national interests in event of the “inevitable” superpower attack on Canada; its vow to formally renounce class struggle and devote all its energies to national defense the moment foreign troops cross the border, the moment it can safely announce the “change of the principal contradiction”; its support for the “positive aspects” of Canadian imperialist foreign policy; its criticisms of the bourgeoisie for a weak and capitulationist defense policy and applause for any armament beef-up by the bourgeoisie; and its comradely ’attack’ on En Lutte! for, as En Lutte! puts it, not being “patriotic enough for the League’s liking” (Proletarian Unity #2 p.35). But in time, even the CCL(ML) became self-conscious and embarrassed by its own brazen support for the militarism of the Canadian bourgeoisie and has had to learn some of the basics of subterfuge and sophistry from En Lutte!’s bag of theoretical tricks. While maintaining its full allegiance to international social-chauvinism, the League has also offered ’self-criticism’ for its open support of strengthening of the Canadian armed forces. That is, in the tradition of every other ’self-criticism’ it has ever made, the League apologized for the stupidity of being so frank in its opportunism while maintaining that its positions “...on the Canadian bourgeoisie, its state and army have always been in the main correct.” (The Forge 1-20-77 p.10)
For its part, En Lutte! is quick to deny the League’s charges of a lack of patriotism by bringing in its own peculiar theory of open social-chauvinism; i.e., “...it (En Lutte!’s being “not patriotic enough”) can only be this from the moment when the struggle for the defense of national sovereignty is, in practice, separated from the struggle for proletarian revolution. ..”(Proletarian Unity #2, p.35). En Lutte!, you see, does not at all reject national defense of an imperialist country like Canada. Its ’fundamental disagreement’ with the League, J. Scott, or any other too open ’ML’ national defencist, lies only in “...the manner to wage the struggle for national independence in the capitalist and imperialist countries. ..”(ibid p. 33) That is, precisely how to rally the proletariat behind the bourgeoisie to “Save The Nation”, as E.F. Hill and the Communist Party of Australia (ML) social-chauvinists put it. En Lutte! throws its ’sharpest’ comradely criticism at the League and Scott, not on the Marxist-Leninist grounds that the proletariat has no national tasks in an imperialist country, but rather, that in imperialist countries like Canada, the national struggle is not for political independence, that already having been obtained, but “...to maintain and consolidate it...” (ibid p.30). And, following from this, not that defense of the national interests in an imperialist country is the defense of the class interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie, but rather that “...this struggle to preserve and consolidate our national independence is neither a stage nor a task apart, but in fact, constitutes one of the tasks of the socialist revolution. The difference is fundamental...” (ibid). What En Lutte! finds ’fundamental’ is, from the point of view of Marxist-Leninist principle, merely a difference in boldness of expression of ultra-opportunism. It is a difference in the sophistry employed by the contending social props of the imperialist bourgeoisie in their competition to drag the working class behind defense of the ’national’ interests.
Every other aspect of En Lutte!’s line, and its ’differences’ and “firm criticism” of the League and/or Scott, are peripheral to this fundamental defense of national interests in an imperialist country. Regardless of how often or vociferously En Lutte! quacks on ’against’ the CCL about there being “...no question of uniting with the bourgeoisie internally or externally...” (En Lutte! 3-17-77, p.12); or “firmly criticizes” the “undesirable influence” of the Progressive Workers Movement’s (i.e., J. Scott’s) “brazenly opportunist line of “national liberation struggle in Canada” (Proletarian Unity 63 p. lit); or brags about how it long ago “.. .broke fundamentally with bourgeois nationalism...” (ibid p.33); – so long as En Lutte! maintains the legitimacy of any defense of national interests in Canada, it maintains the same forthright opportunist social-chauvinism as its comrade ’opponents’. This is the essential point in grasping En Lutte!’s ultra-opportunism.
The nation is a historical concept. “...At the moment of struggle for the overthrow of national oppression...” (Lenin, Letter to Inessa Armand Vol 35, p.246), that is, in a genuine national struggle for political independence, the proletariat shares common national-democratic tasks with the bourgeoisie against political autocracy and national oppression. But even at this moment the common task is approached absolutely differently by the two irreconcilable classes. Where the bourgeoisie fights national oppression in the process of emerging from feudalism, it does so only to secure control of the domestic market for itself and provide a conducive environment for the continued growth and expansion of capitalist commodity production. The class-conscious proletariat, on the other hand, fights only to obtain the widest field of development for its class struggle, to clear the ground of all patriarchal and feudal obstacles for the decisive struggle between itself and the bourgeoisie.
In a politically independent country whose national economy has long ago developed as a monopoly, imperialist economy, the basis for any common revolutionary or historically progressive national-democratic platform of the proletariat, petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie has completely disintegrated. The national tasks have been accomplished, and the proletariat and bourgeoisie confront each other in stark contradiction. A class line runs through all the advanced countries and divides “the people” into the camps of revolution and counter-revolution, of the proletariat and the imperialist bourgeoisie, locked in struggle on an international scale. The nations are torn apart. Canadian national interests are only the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie in maintaining its class rule in Canada and in the oppression and exploitation of other nations, and those of the upper and middle petty-bourgeoisie hoping to safeguard the existence of small capital behind the security of stable economic and political national boundaries. As the interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are irreconcilable, so the international interests of the proletariat are irreconcilable with defense of the national interests in an imperialist country. “...’The workingmen have no country’ – this means (a) his economic position is not national but international; (b) his class enemy is international; (c) the conditions of his emancipation also; (d) the international unity of the workers is more important than the national...” (Lenin Letter to Inessa Armand, Vol. 35, p.247). This is one of the most fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism, is the essential basis of proletarian internationalism, and is the starting point of a principled stand on imperialist war. The imperialist interests of the bourgeoisie totally clash with the international interests of the proletariat. The monopoly bourgeoisie fights to forward its interests among the imperialist bourgeoisie of every other country and to maintain state power at home. The proletariat of the advanced nations fights to overthrow the imperialist bourgeoisie of its own country and every other nation, to forward its international interests in unison with the proletariat of every other nation, and in alliance with the genuinely revolutionary national liberation movements of the oppressed nations. In opposition to the imperialist bourgeoisie, to its in-fighting and counter-revolutionary struggle against the workers, there is only one consistently and thoroughly revolutionary class, the proletariat; and only one revolutionary struggle, the world proletarian revolution.
While the historically progressive basis of the national struggle dissolves as the particular nation develops to the monopoly stage of capitalism, nationalist ideology is kept alive and actually intensified by the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists. Whenever the conflict among the imperialist powers is about to or in actual fact has broken out as an open military conflagration, the spokesmen of every imperialist bourgeoisie, whether of the Hitler (openly reactionary) or the Roosevelt (democratic) type, attempt to resuscitate the long dead traditions of the national revolutionary struggle. In times of intensely sharp class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the latter are incessant in their demands for “order” to “save the nation” from anarchy, division and internal strife, and in their standard ’heart-rending’ appeals for national unity and the common national struggle against “the social problems that gave rise to the hatred and conflict” among the classes which together constitute the nation.
The imperialist bourgeoisie is not alone when it laments the passing of the days when “the whole people” were engaged in common national struggle. The petty-bourgeoisie also weeps and wails over the lack of national unity; but as well, it scolds the imperialists for having sacrificed the independence of its nation to the imperialist world system, for having “sold-out” the national resources and wealth of the nation to the highest bidder, and so on. As a ’radical’ cure-all for what they view as the social evils – the class conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, involvement in imperialist war, the wasteful and unplanned exploitation of natural resources, unemployment, etc. – the petty-bourgeois anti-imperialists advocate the struggle for “independent and genuinely national development”. In other words, the struggle to ’cure’ the more obvious sores of capitalism at its highest stage, moribund capitalism rotten-ripe for socialist revolution, by rolling the wheel of history backward to the pre-imperialist era when nations existed in greater isolation and were relatively independent of each other, when the petty-bourgeoisie had a much more stable social position. These radical snivellers become the social props of imperialism within the working class when they present their reactionary nationalist blather and backward illusions as representing the genuine interests of the working class and rally the labour aristocracy and a portion of the backward strata of the proletariat behind them. From their positions of power and authority in the trade unions and the various ’working class’ political parties and organizations, these dyed-in-the-wool petty-bourgeois apologists of imperialism provide an indispensable service to the monopoly bourgeoisie by constantly steering the workers away from revolutionary class struggle into reformism and nationalism.
The position of social prop of imperialism within the working class is one of the few occupations under monopoly capitalism that does not suffer adversely from market fluctuations and economic crisis. Demand for skilled social props for the bourgeoisie is always high, and increases geometrically as economic and social crisis deepens and the proletariat becomes more active, as the class struggle intensifies. As the crisis of imperialism deepens, the same increase in working class activity which bolsters the demand for social props also plays an important role in determining the political form most suitable for defense of the bourgeoisie. It becomes increasingly necessary for the bourgeoisie to accept and even sponsor ever more ’radical’, ever more ’revolutionary’ sounding support since the working class instinctively gravitates towards the only real solution to capitalism: revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and proletarian dictatorship. A further impetus to the ’left’ form of social prop derives from the fact that even with the constant increase in openings, there is still intense competition for every position. The main source of the supply of social props, the petty-bourgeoisie, and particularly the intelligentsia, is being overproduced, ruined and thrown into the ranks of the working class and reserve army of unemployed at such a rapid rate that the supply of potential apologists is always greater than the demand. To secure a position in the face of such intense competition requires a high level of proficiency in the art of deception, an absolute must in the repertoire of any ambitious petty-bourgeois champion of imperialism. In current conditions the most subtle deception, the one most likely to fool the greatest number of workers, is for the petty-bourgeois supporters of imperialism to present themselves as ’anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists’.
Hence J. Scott, En Lutte!, the CCL(ML), the CPC(ML), the Bolshevik Union, etc., all of whom are petty-bourgeois nationalists to the core, formally proclaim that they uphold proletarian internationalism and swear by revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. They do this solely to obtain a hearing within the working class. This hearing once obtained is used to lecture the proletariat that it must not reject defense of the Canadian nation and/or that national liberation is an essential first stage of the proletarian revolution in Canada. But in an imperialist country such as Canada, regardless of how often one claims to be fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat, or how “specifically” one claims to “reject the policy of an all class alliance” (see Scott Canadian Revolution #2, p.39 ), to instruct the proletariat not to abandon the nation is to instruct it not to wage an irreconcilable class struggle against the Canadian bourgeoisie, but rather, to reconcile its international class interests with those of “the whole people”, i.e. the imperialist interests of the Canadian monopoly capitalists and the backward nationalist interests of the petty-bourgeoisie whenever the Canadian nation is seriously threatened. That is, whenever the Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie is facing serious crisis and absolutely requires the unity of the entire nation, of all classes, to maintain its control of state power, the Canadian proletariat is to abandon its revolutionary class struggle and assist the bourgeoisie. It is at such times of crisis for the bourgeoisie, whether as a result of external or internal circumstances, that the social-chauvinist, petty-bourgeois nationalist social props provide their greatest service by stepping to the fore and proclaiming a “change of the principal contradiction”; a “class truce”; the necessity, “even if only temporarily”, of a national united front; or whatever best reflects their particular expression of ultra-opportunism, all for the defense of the nation. Whether or not these petty-bourgeois hirelings are able to prove worthy of their keep to the imperialist bourgeoisie depends upon the skill and subtlety of their presentation and their success in rallying the proletariat behind a struggle in defense of the nation, especially in ’its’, that is, the imperialist bourgeoisie’s, hour of need.
En Lutte!’s distinguishing feature as a faction of the Canadian and Quebec social-chauvinist ’ML’ movement is that it has, more than any other of the opportunist groups, recognized the fundamental class unity beneath all the factional squabbles, and has sought very concretely to ’transcend’ “definitive value judgements” on groups it wants within its movement and to be done once and for all with the “competition spirit”, i.e., with ideological struggle. “...The time of quarrelling over words is over...”, En Lutte! boldly announces to all “...those people who are looking for a pretext to delay unity (Proletarian Unity #1, p.31). It realizes the simple fact that in unity lies strength, that if the young and still divided opportunist ’ML’ movement in Canada is to secure any influence over ”the peoples”, it must amalgamate its forces. To achieve this marriage of opportunist trends, En Lutte! has developed its semi-centrist unity plan. The main emphasis of this plan, as with all centrism, is to deceive the working class as to the actual class content of opportunism, to distract the class from decisive struggle against the proponents of opportunism in their ranks, to win acceptability for opportunism under the banner of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, to mediate among and reconcile contending opportunist factions; in short, to shield, protect, and thereby consolidate and strengthen ’ML’ petty-bourgeois ’socialism’ as one of many centres of bourgeois influence among the proletariat. We describe En Lutte!’s unity maneuvering as semi-centrist because it does not even follow the classic form. Instead of trying to merge principled Marxism-Leninism with opportunism, En Lutte! contents itself with efforts to link-up trends and shades of opportunism i.e., the contending factions of its ’ML’ movement. How does En Lutte! proceed to unite with and join together groups so constantly at loggerheads with each other?
Since its initial formulation, one of the fundamental aspects of En Lutte!’s ’unity’ jockeying has been its conception of equal relations among ’MLs’. That is, the ’right’ of each group, and consequently each opportunist trend and shade, to an equalized existence and equal time in its “large debate” for unity. This characteristic expression of petty-bourgeois democratism is essential to En Lutte!’s matchmaking scheme because it is the mechanism by which it carries out a fundamental requirement for the amalgamation of opportunist factions: soft-pedalling the existence of consolidated trends – J. Scott and the CPC(ML) versus En Lutte! and the CCL(ML) – among the ’MLs’. En Lutte! accomplishes this elimination of trends in a very ’dialectical’ manner indeed.
On the one hand, En Lutte! ’raises-up’ the more unformulated circles quite simply by greatly exaggerating the actual level of their political development. En Lutte! had carried this deceitful flattery to a high pitch prior to its first conference, trying to take advantage of the isolation and natural desire of the local circles for broader-based work to convince them that they were already at a high level of principle and practical work, that conditions were already “ripe” for the national ’unity of MLs’ around the existing opportunist “factors that unite”. And then the response of the local circles to its conference was so far beyond En Lutte!’s wildest expectations’that it let go a blast of exultative hot air befitting the most extreme of the CPC(ML)’s post-Congress fan fares of glory. It seems that this conference was “an historical event” “a clear sign of the country-wide emergence and revival of the Marxist-Leninist movement”; that it “brought to a hitherto unknown level the debate and polemic on the unity within the Marxist-Leninist movement”; and “brilliantly swept aside..the subjective sectarian and contemptuous conceptions” of “many English-Canadian groups” (En Lutte! 10-28-76, p. 4). What occurred to bring forth such rejoicing? The fondest of En Lutte!’s dreams, the ’miracle’ it had been devoting itself to for years: despite the continued strength of “sectarian logic”, “...most if not all, M-L groups of both nations in Canada gathered together in one room, around a common debate...”. Imagine! Just the sight of the representatives of all the opportunist trends rubbing shoulders “together in one room” is enough to send En Lutte! into ecstacy. And what pray tell was the line content of this “historical event”? The CCL(ML), which had to put in an appearance at one of the conferences to combat criticism of sectarianism, presented its standard appeal to hardcore, ’principled’, sectarianism, narrow unity on the basis of its opportunist line alone, against En Lutte!’s unprincipled unity maneuvers. En Lutte!’s sympathizers from around the country mouthed its standard appeal to soft-core sectarianism, broad unity on the basis of a blend of opportunist lines, against the League’s “dogmatism”. J. Scott “moved” the participants by recounting stories of the ’heroic’, ’front rank’, ’two-line struggle’ of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s ’against’ a party already 40 years deep in consolidated ultra-opportunism, social-chauvinism that Mr. Scott himself had helped to consolidate and defend, and which he defends to this day. The Bolshevik Union babbled on as usual. And En Lutte! tied-off this “historic” “...first step of resolutely struggling against opportunism, especially right opportunism, and against sectarianism...” by reassuring everyone that it was absolutely “convinced” that something of principle would arise from all this socialistic socializing in the end. (ibid., pp. 4-5)
What more clear picture of petti foggery could be asked for! At a time when not a single ’ML’ organization in Canada or Quebec has in any way shown itself capable of developing consistent, principled Marxist-Leninist line and practical work; when ultra-opportunism dominates the entire international ’ML’ movement; when the primary task of all principled Marxist-Leninists is to tell the truth about the actual state of affairs in the movement, to develop the most ruthless and incisive struggle against opportunism – En Lutte! does just the opposite. It draws in still unformulated and developing groups and individuals, praises them to the skies simply for appearing at its conference, and proclaims the level of “debate and polemic” to have been raised to a “hitherto unknown level” when no polemic has occurred at all. En Lutte! counts heavily on the spontaneous opportunism of these small circles, appeals to their still very strong petty-bourgeois prejudices, and lauds their ignorance and naivete. En Lutte! knows from its own experience that, as such groups have all developed out of one or another petty-bourgeois reformist movement and most likely could not have amassed the experience or theoretical skill necessary to fully grasp the opportunism of its plan, flattery and indulgence will very often strike a responsive chord. And it is solely this chord that En Lutte! seeks to strike. It in no way wishes to lay bare the full extent of opportunism internationally, for such exposure would strip it of its own pretense of principled Marxism-Leninism.
But this artificial ’elevation’ of circles is only half the trick. To reach a state of equilibrium En Lutte! must also lower the level of consolidation of the older, larger and more developed groups. In the past En Lutte! has accomplished this feat by characterizing trends in its ’ML’ movement only as “erroneous conceptions”, “errors”, or “divergences in opinion”. Now, in introducing its second conference, En Lutte! has elevated its muddling of lines by going so far as to speak of general “positions” existing in the movement. But while it can no longer avoid the division of its movement into “positions”, it is quick to reduce these “positions” to naught by announcing the “long way to go” before the ’ML’ movement will be based on a “serious class analysis” (Proletarian Unity #2 p.7). Quite right. It is undeniable that no “serious class analysis” exists. But this is only one aspect of “determining the path of revolution”. And, lack of “serious class analysis” notwithstanding, there has been plenty of “serious” position-taking on other crucial aspects of the question, such as the level of development of Canadian capitalism, the position of Canadian capital in the world imperialist system, etc. So much position-taking in fact that groups invited to En Lutte!’s conference break down into two very specific, long-standing, fully consolidated and applied trends, as discussed above. En Lutte!’s apparent concern for science is nothing more than an attempt to distract from and disguise the existence of these trends.
Such distraction, such playing at innocent lack of awareness, coupled with its exaggeration of the small circles, is fundamental for En Lutte!’s ’unity’ plan because it is only on the basis of “equal rights” that it has any hope of striking the compromises necessary to form its CPC(ML) style united front of ’MLists’ pre-party organization, and from this the party. On the one hand, if En Lutte! were to admit the existence of fully consolidated trends among the ’MLs’, it would be compelled by its ’principled’ veneer to throw over its ’unity’ schemes, there no longer being any “fundamental” unity to work from, and take up ’struggle’ against opportunism in the manner of the League. On the other hand, the petty-bourgeois basis of the ’ML’ movement breeds division, a direct continuation of the struggle of small capital for ’independent’, competitive existence. The continued separation of groups fosters this division and adds a potential element of hostility as practical work and in-group relations become more stable and local possessiveness sets in. To bridge the ’gap’ among the various groups, En Lutte! strives to overcome circle mentality, not by waging principled struggle against opportunism and trying to set local work on a principled footing, but simply by bringing the local groups together for “political confrontation” face-to-face exchanges a la its conferences. ’Surely’, reasons En Lutte!, once everyone is “together in one room” all will recognize that there are no fundamental differences, no differences of principle, among us; that the entire ’ML’ movement is united to defend the national interests against the superpowers, a position which inevitably overrides any other minor points of difference. Surely we will all be able to see that though we approach our social-chauvinism from different angles we will all end up at the same place in the end. And once this basic identity of interests is understood, unity will proceed apace.’ And to assist this process to the utmost, En Lutte! “humbly” offers its services to smooth over factional disunities by every means possible, allowing each trend and the groups comprising them maximum equality and leeway for their opportunist formulations, including, of course, its own. It hopes in this way to create an amicable atmosphere among the trends and, through a steady policy of compromise and reconciliation, “reinforce what unites” all the way to formation of its own ’non-sectarian’ pre-party organization.
En Lutte!’s mediating approach to unity, its drive to “...’adjust’ ’conflicts’ at all costs, to neutralize the conflicting trends...” (Lenin Notes of a Publicist Vol 16 p. 212), is even more clearly displayed in its recent shameless efforts towards the most outrightly nationalist elements via currying favour with J. Scott.
Prior to October, 1976, En Lutte! had apparently not yet recognized either the extent of Scott’s influence West of Ontario, or the truly kindred ’unity’ spirit he and his trend could prove to be. In Proletarian Unity #I, En Lutte! let slip an uncharacteristically sharp criticism of the PWM and, therefore, by implication, J. Scott, going so far as to state that this group (plus H. Gagnon’s Quebec Communist Party of the late 1950’s) did not establish “...the unity of Marxist-Leninists; in fact they did not even succeed in making a real break with revisionism nor did they ever clearly establish their actions on a Marxist-Leninist basis...” (p.10). Further, En Lutte! declared the PWM and thus Mr. Scott to be anti-party “in practice”, guided by a “... spontaneous line...in organizational matters...” and producing the effect of “...strengthening of the tendency towards localism and economism, the two principal negative legacies of the PWM.. .”(ibid p.15). Not a month had gone by before En Lutte! was sorely regretting its ’rash’ judgement and was gladly eating crow hand over foot.
It turns out, you see, that in the intervening month, and apparently unbeknownst to En Lutte!, the “Vancouver comrades” had concretized En Lutte!’s general lead and taken the initiative in forming a coalition of tactical unity for the October 14 demonstrations. En Lutte! was overjoyed; immediately ’self-criticized’ for its “small groupism” and “sectarianism” lagging-behind in assuming its “responsibility towards the working class and the people” and for its “capitulationist spirit” in the ’struggle’ for tactical unity; and mobilized, two weeks before the 14th, to “follow the example of the Vancouver comrades” (En Lutte! 10-9-76, p.6) and construct a nation-wide united front of ’MLs’. With this exemplary opportunist action on the part of the “Vancouver comrades” as its immediate inspiration, En Lutte! set about adjusting its ’critical’ approach to the present day advocates of the PWM trend in fine centrist fashion.
So soon as it began construction of its national united front, En Lutte! ran head on into the reality of consolidated trends within its “fundamentally united” movement. The Vancouver coalition, part of which had long upheld that “brazenly opportunist” line of national liberation struggle in Canada issued En Lutte! an ultimatum: no West Coast participation in the united front so long as Canada was characterized as an imperialist country! Well, what was En Lutte! to do? It had already stated many a time that “...tactical unity is the best way to give the masses a correct and single Marxist-Leninist political leadership...” (En Lutte! 10-9-76 p. 4), and certainly could not renege or be slow in fulfilling its “responsibilities to the people”. There was never any hesitation. To achieve “single”, though far from “correct” leadership, En Lutte! automatically retreated from its formal recognition of the “imperialist character” of the Canadian bourgeoisie and dropped any reference to Canadian imperialism in its ’tactical’ declaration. En Lutte! of course had “clear opposition to this point of view” but this is tactical unity we are speaking of here, the one thing closest to En Lutte!’s heart. For En Lutte!, “clear opposition” to opportunism in no way constitutes “sufficient reason to withdraw from the project”. What are principles after all when ’unity’ is at stake? Unity, you must understand, no matter on what basis nor at the expense of how much “abstract principle”, is the most precious commodity. “Our position”, apologizes En Lutte!, “was dictated by the strict application of our political line that defines what unites the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement today. The movement as a whole does not acknowledge the imperialist character of the Canadian bourgeoisie... In the present conditions we can demand that all communists take a definite stand on this question” (En Lutte! 10-28-76, p.7). Indeed! We of En Lutte! will certainly not “demand” a “definite stand” on such a paltry question as the nature and strategy of the revolution with the possibility of tactical unity at hand. We have our ’opinion’, our’position’ and you have yours. Comrades! Do not get excited over these “divergences in opinion”, they spring primarily from the “youth” of our movement and should not be turned into obstacles to unity. So long as you were willing to unite, even given our differences, we are equally willing and eager to compromise whatever point of ’principle’ is barring our “common action”. We will simply “strictly apply” our line of uniting around the lowest common denominator and build the broadest possible united front from this basis. Poor En Lutte! It so abhors the rough edges and jagged corners of the consolidated trends which result in such harsh factional squabbles between them. When confronted with an ultimatum, with a bold expression of the actual degree of solidification of one of the mature trends in its ’ML’ movement, it is sent scurrying to find a line that all the groups and individuals would unite around. In the manner of the extremely ’non-factional’, philistine conciliator, En Lutte! takes refuge in a declaration so vacuous, so full of mealy-mouthed platitudes that none of its comrades could possibly object. In this manner, En Lutte! thinks itself able to slip around openly admitting that very definite opportunist trends exist. However, when we, as En Lutte! is so fond of repeating, “seek truth from facts”, we find that, contrary to En Lutte!’s wishful scheming, the trends are so distinct and consolidated that they cannot agree on even the most elementary question of the revolution -the nature of Canadian society and which classes comprise the revolutionary alliance; and that to build its united front En Lutte! must strike out what it purports to be a fundamental aspect of its line: the “imperialist character” of the Canadian bourgeoisie (see Proletarian Unity #2, pp.22-23 for this Declaration). These ’facts’ En Lutte! attempts to hide by describing the high degree of dissimilarity between the two main petty-bourgeois nationalist trends as only a very low degree of unity at this stage of development of its movement. As everything is attributed to youth and political immaturity, En Lutte! thereby avoids any necessity of recognizing the distinct trends and struggling against them.
Further to its ’diplomatic’ efforts toward the national liberationist trend for which Mr. Scott is a leading spokesman, En Lutte! also sought reconciliation with Scott himself. It therefore took the opportunity presented by its first conference to gush all over itself in praise of its new-found “comrade”, criticizing itself severely for “certain statements” which could “lead one to think we consider the PWM and comrade Scott as not having been part of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement” (En Lutte! 10-28-76, p.5). No, no! En Lutte! certainly did not intend to give such a decisive assessment of so important and influential a personage as Jack Scott. But En Lutte! makes up for its blunder and then some by solemnly proclaiming Scott a “great proletarian fighter”, who as a “pioneer” “made an important positive contribution to the development of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement” (ibid, p.4-5). No more anti-party element “in practice”, no more failure to make “a real break with revisionism” for Mr. Scott. En Lutte! has found another potential ally, adjustments must be made to accommodate the new arrival. Nowhere does En Lutte! more clearly express the identity of its approach to unity with that of an epitome of petty-bourgeois opportunism, one of the most undaunted centrists in the history of the international movement, and a man whose name En Lutte! loves to throw as slander at its opponents: L. Trotsky. Lenin’s polemical analysis of Trotsky’s and others maneuvers around the“unity crisis” of the RSDLP in 1910, applies word for word to En Lutte!’s courting of Mr. Scott:
...One view on unity may place in the forefront the ’reconciliation’ of ’given persons, groups and institutions’. The identity of their views on Party work, on the policy of that work, is a secondary matter. One should try to keep silent about differences of opinion and not elucidate their causes, their significance, their objective conditions. The chief thing is to ’reconcile’ persons and groups. If they do not agree on carrying out a common policy, that policy must be interpreted in such a way as to be acceptable to all. Live and let live. This is philistine ’conciliation’, which inevitably leads to sectarian diplomacy. To ’stop up’ the sources of disagreements, to keep silent about them, to ’adjust’ ’conflicts’ at all costs, to neutralize the conflicting trends – it is to this that the main attention of such ’conciliation’ is directed... (V.I. Lenin Notes of a Publicist Vol 16, p.212).
In its most recent Proletarian Unity, February, 1977, En Lutte! launched what for it was one of the most severe ’attacks’ ever made against any of its comrade ’MLs’. In this issue, with its lavish praise of J. Scott still reverberating through Its movement, En Lutte! “firmly criticized” the “one-sided” line of the PWM, identifying it as “brazenly opportunist” and stating in no uncertain terms that the PWM had been “incapable of applying Marxism-Leninism to the concrete reality of our country...” (Proletarian Unity # 3, p.14). Quite bold! But then the PWM is a long since dead and buried organization. En Lutte! finds such a group easy enough pickings for its ’sharp’ ideological demarcation. But what of the present? What of the “undesirable influence” En Lutte! states this trend still retains? Does En Lutte! inform us who are the main perpetrators and defenders of this line today? Does it direct our struggle against the core of this trend as it should? Nothing could be further from En Lutte!’s mind. After all, the founder and principal theoretician of this trend, both now and since the inception of the ’ML’ movement in the early I960’s, is none other than En Lutte!’s new found ally J. Scott. To avoid any messy and, from its ’unity’ perspective, unnecessary conflict with this influential “friend of the people”, and yet maintain the ’firmness’ of its polemic, En Lutte! simply identifies a different, secondary group as, “to its knowledge”, the “most recent example” of the continued existence of this trend; i.e., by its article in Canadian Revolution #4, Workers Unity (Edmonton), a small and out-of-the-way collective, easily as convenient a target as the defunct PWM. On the fact that Mr. Scott authored a screed in Canadian Revolution #2 from exactly the same perspective as Workers Unity (Edmonton), and has been authoring such articles by profession for some fifteen years now, En Lutte! remains discreetly silent. As its silence is absolutely essential to the smooth functioning of its ’unity’ plan.
Later, in its March 3, 1977, newspaper, En Lutte! carries this manner of “bitter struggle of political confrontation”(En Lutte!, from Canadian Revolution #3, p. 19), of “open and vigorous struggle against right-wing opportunism” (En Lutte! 4-29-76 p. 6) to even more absurd heights. Here, in the midst of one of its many ’profound’ so-called self-criticisms, En Lutte! informs us that despite its previous error in “formulation” of the principal contradiction in Canada, it never failed to criticize “bourgeois nationalist conceptions, or the various postures of conciliation with the bourgeoisie” [En Lutte! 3-3-77 p.8). A reference to its September slip-up against J. Scott’s “posture of conciliation”? Not at all. This time, En Lutte! takes us, so it thinks, even further away from Scott’s Red Star Collective and cites as proof of its ’principled struggle’ against nationalism, its opposition to the CPC(ML). As everyone knows, the CPC(ML) “...in practice, puts forward a national liberation struggle in Canada against American imperialism...” (ibid). That Mr. Scott was the principal leader of the PWM which, as En Lutte! itself must admit, upheld precisely the same line as the CPC(ML); that these two organizations developed in peaceful harmony for approximately five years on the basis of precisely this line; that the political continuity of this line is precisely the reason the Vancouver coalition would not agree to any mention of Canadian imperialism in the October 14 united front of ’MLs’; that this line is the foundation for Scott’s addition of an ’ML’ veneer to the Council of Canadian Unions’ nationalist line on the necessity for “Canadian unions” as a prerequisite to ’socialist’ revolution in Canada; that this line is precisely why Mr. Scott’s New Star Books publishes the likes of H.E. Bronson, an arch-nationalist who makes no bones about identifying those who oppose “liberation nationalism” (read: the national struggle against U.S. imperialism) with Trotskyism or ultra-leftism – of all this, En Lutte! says not a word. As if by magic it is struck dumb as to Mr. Scott’s long-standing leadership of this “brazenly opportunist” petty-bourgeois nationalist trend. Such ’dumbness’, of course, has nothing to do with magic; it is simply the actual content of En Lutte!’s ’struggle’ against “bourgeois nationalist conceptions”. That is, ’criticism’ of those beyond the scope of its unity efforts, organizations such as the PQ, CPL, or CPC(ML), and protection, hiding, accomodation and conciliation with potential participants and allies. This is the actual content of its ’unity’ campaigns: to lay a basis for unity among opportunist trends at all costs.
Mr. Scott is, of course, not the only recipient of En Lutte!’s ’critical’ support. The CCL(ML) has been En Lutte’s main target for several months now and the time element, plus the League’s stubborn refusal to cooperate fully, prompted En Lutte! to go to the extremes of chicanery to cover for both the League and itself. On the one hand, rather than just ignoring the League as a leading representative of an overt social-chauvinist trend in Canada as it did with Scott, En Lutte! ’recognizes’ the League’s “tendency to social-chauvinism” but completely discounts and attempts to deny its existence as part of a trend. The League’s chauvinist line on the international situation and the question of war is ’denounced’ by En Lutte! as the worst form of “dogmatism”, “hiding” and “opening the door to opportunism. It is that left-opportunism hides, in fact, right-opportunism... ”(Proletarian Unity #2, p.28). But the operative phrase in this and all similar ’attacks’ is: “opening the door to”; that is, has not yet developed into, dare we say it ... opportunism. Despite the obvious gross opportunism of this, in fact, international trend, so gross that En Lutte! has been forced to hint at its existence (references to “a current... in numerous capitalist countries in Europe and North America” that “creates confusion” on the question of national defense; see Proletarian Unity #2 pp. 38-39), En Lutte! wishes to assure us that while something is amiss, it is not yet out of hand. Thus, in reference to the League’s overt social-chauvinism, En Lutte! goes out of its way to specify that “...it would certainly be entirely wrong to state that the League’s international positions are definitely opportunist and social-chauvinist...” (ibid p.35). Oh no! Nothing so final as stating that the League’s line is “definitely opportunist and social-chauvinist”; anything but that. How can En Lutte! disclose the fully extent of the League’s opportunism when it also upholds the legitimacy of defense of national interests in imperialist countries, and ’differs’ from the League only in its manner of explaining the necessity of this defense? En Lutte! simply cannot expose the League’s overt social-chauvinism without simultaneously exposing its own. Thus, despite the League’s consistent and long-standing elaboration of blatant social-chauvinism, En Lutte! declares that it only represents a “tendency” to social-chauvinism, that its views only “...contain the germs of opportunism and social-chauvinism.” (ibid). And most recently, in an attempt to ’politicize’ its defense of its League comrades, En Lutte! has labelled this most crass opportunism as “centrist”, which to En Lutte! does not mean primarily the attempt to create space for the continued existence of ultra-opportunism and its acceptance as a legitimate shade of Marxism-Leninism, but rather “continual oscillation between proletarian revolution and social-chauvinism”. Such “oscillation” is, in actuality, only that between more and less obvious “postures of conciliation with the bourgeoisie”, and it is precisely this fact that En Lutte! seeks to distract the workers from with its blather about “oscillation” and “tendencies” towards social-chauvinism.
On the other hand, to further distract the working class from the essence of the League’s, and thus its own, social-chauvinism, En Lutte! muddles the truly fundamental question at issue on the question of imperialist war – does or does not the proletariat have any ’national interests’ to defend in an imperialist country – by laying its greatest emphasis on secondary aspects. The best example of this technique is its singling out the question of the inevitability of a third world war for a ’struggle’ with the League. For the proletariat, the issue at hand when considering the possibility or imperialist war is not so much whether it is or is not possible to prevent war, but the concrete internationalist policy that must be followed to accomplish the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie whether during the period of preparation for war or during war itself. By putting the League’s stand on inevitability in the foreground, En Lutte! is able to ’oppose’ the League’s “tendency” to social-chauvinism – the League’s logical conclusion that since war instigated by the superpowers is inevitable, alliance with the bourgeoisie is mandatory immediately – and present itself as ’principled’: “...we should prevent ourselves from speculating unduly on the future and should work with the material at hand. Now, what we can say is that given the conditions of the moment, it is the proletarian revolution which principally arms the people to defeat imperialist wars...” (Proletarian Unity #2 p. 33), without ever touching on the fact that its concrete policy on war differs from the League’s only in terms of timing.
En Lutte!, as we have seen, also maintains the chauvinist view that the proletariat has ’independent’ national interests to defend in non-superpower imperialist countries. En Lutte! also maintains the view that “the people must be prepared” for the “struggle against imperialist aggression and for national independence”, and that in a war situation “it is even possible that a fraction of the bourgeoisie finds themselves temporarily in the people’s camp” (all from Proletarian Unity #2 p.33). That is, En Lutte! ’differs’ from the League only in thinking it unwise to flaunt this completely chauvinist policy so soon. It is perfectly willing to align with the bourgeoisie “but this is only one possibility among others depending on the situation” (ibid). Let’s not be too hasty and obvious in our actions, reasons En Lutte! quite rightly, or we will leave ourselves open for immediate exposure. We will discredit ourselves in the eyes of the proletariat before we can really render service to the bourgeoisie. When the bourgeoisie is going through a crisis, when a revolutionary situation exists, En Lutte! explains to the CCL(ML), that is the time to convince the proletariat to renounce Its revolutionary interests and aims, declare a class truce, and support the bourgeoisie’s armed forces. Really, scolds En Lutte! infuriated by the League’s ineptitude, the art of social-chauvinist deception requires flexibility, not dogmatic rigidity!
En Lutte! accomplishes three important tasks in this maneuvering. It shifts the workers attention away from the common social-chauvinist policy of the two leading ’ML’ groups,and in the process is able to present itself as conducting principled struggle against opportunism and simultaneously warn that opportunism as to its extreme obviousness. This latter factor is En Lutte!’s primary consideration within the ’ML’ movement.
If it is to protect its own ultra-opportunism, it must ’correct’ the League’s or anyone else’s too obvious chauvinism and attempt to nudge it to the ’left’ through gentle criticism. En Lutte! is so stupid, or so unconscious, that it openly admits as much in one of its latest ’attacks’ on the League’s pseudo-self-criticism of its position on the role of the army, to wit: “...Canadian Marxist-Leninists will certainly be happy about the rectifications the League has undertaken to correct the overly obvious manifestations of its opportunist line...” (En Lutte! 2-17-77, P.9).
An exceptionally clear and very concrete example of En Lutte!’s ’correcting’ ploys and the underlying intention therein, is its elaboration of its ’fundamental’ differences with the League on the reasons behind the “growing unity of the Second and Third worlds”. The League, according to En Lutte!, places its emphasis in the wrong place again, presenting the rapprochement between the two “worlds” as resulting from the “determination” of the bourgeoisie of the Second World (Canada for example) “whether they like it or not, to preserve our national independence in a more or less determined way”(Proletarian Unity #2, p.36). En Lutte! slaps the League’s hands and rebukes it: ’Foolish CCL(ML), so obvious in your opportunism. Put it this way comrade social-chauvinists. The Canadian bourgeoisie is being forced into this rapprochement by the “intensification of its contradictions”. Being a bourgeoisie, we certainly cannot admit that it is occupying this “progressist” position willingly. And for heaven’s sake, phrase your conclusions more guardedly. Throw as much dirt into the workers eyes as possible. Do not applaud the bourgeoisie for its “positive” contributions to the world united front against the two superpowers. Speak only of “using” the “difficulties of the Canadian bourgeoisie to the maximum to unmask the superpowers, to strengthen the camp of the revolutionary class...” (Proletarian Unity #2, p.36), and hope that the workers forget that this camp is “constantly increasing” in favour of the imperialist bourgeoisie of the Second World, and that we intend to direct them to “...unite with all countries which, sooner or later, oppose imperialism and the two superpowers, even if this union is temporary or limited...”(ibid, emphasis added p40). Just hope that they have forgotten the second world war, when precisely this ’ML ’ policy of a “temporary or limited” alliance of all the world’s “people’s”, all “democratic”, “freedom-loving” and “peace-loving” imperialist nations against the “aggressive” and “war-mongering” imperialist countries of that time, led the national sections of the international proletariat to slaughter, not the bourgeoisie in class war, but each other in imperialist war.
In both phases of its development, En Lutte!’s ’unity’ plan has constituted a serious and immediate threat to the establishment of a communist workers movement in Canada And Quebec. On the one hand, En Lutte! has always exercised a strong influence over the less consolidated elements hovering around the ’ML’ movement. Initially, when En Lutte! employed a more consistent centrist approach (for example, formally taking the correct internationalist position against the League’s support for national defense while maintaining and fostering unity with the League) this influence was one of wretched ’ML’ diplomacy towards open social-chauvinism, and provided detailed instruction in the art of ’struggle’ against opportunism in words and unity with opportunism in deeds. In consequence, En Lutte! was diverting these elements from decisively breaking with their petty-bourgeois class basis, and was encouraging them to bypass the theoretical and practical work necessary to establish a principled communist movement. Now, with its wholesale adoption of the same overt social-chauvinism it previously criticized, En Lutte!’s influence has gone far behond the sphere of diversion. It is openly appealing to the predominating nationalism of the still petty-bourgeois circles; teaches ’diplomacy’ not towards brazen social-chauvinists but among them, solely for the purpose of prettifying the too obvious expressions of this ne plus ultra of opportunism; and strives to firm-up and consolidate all the loose-ends of the ’ML’ movement around this crass social-chauvinism. Every success En Lutte! achieves, whether partial (the strengthening of its present organization) or complete (creation of its all-in-one opportunist pre-party), broadens the organizational basis of the prevailing ultra-opportunism and thereby further strengthens it. The grounds for development of a principled communist movement from the presently existing groups diminishes in direct relation to En Lutte!’s advancement.
On the other hand, and even more importantly, En Lutte!’s ’unity’ campaign will greatly hinder the triumph of Marxism-Leninism in the workers’ movement. It will, in the first place, sicken and repel the advanced workers, who have been familiar with this treachery for decades in the form of the ’old’ revisionist parties, and will understand the identity of class interests expressed by the ’new’ ’MLs’ with every other petty-bourgeois reformist and nationalist party trying to rally the working class. En Lutte!’s semi-centrism defames principled Marxism-Leninism in continuity with forty-odd years of opportunist domination of the international communist movement, but it is one more piece of refuse added to the pile, it is one more addition that must be excavated before the working class can clearly differentiate principle from opportunism, and this further complicates the task of fusing the communist and workers’ movements. Secondly, even though it has come out and expressed its open chauvinism more so than previously, with its persistent efforts to unify the scattered social-chauvinist forces, En Lutte! may very well be able to establish a foothold among the petty-bourgeois new arrivals to the working class, the labour aristocracy, or a section of the backward strata of workers. To the extent that it can accomplish this, in the same way as the CCL(ML), CPC(ML), Red Star Collective, Bolshevik Union, CPC, CPL, NDP, PQ, or any other chauvinist ’socialist’ or ’communist’ organization, En Lutte! will be able to exert a corrupting influence over broad sections of the class preparing the workers to slaughter their class brothers in defense of the bourgeoisie. This is the rotten consequence of En Lutte!’s petty matchmaking schemes.
“Opportunism is our principal enemy” said Lenin, and rightly so. “Opportunism in the upper ranks of the working class is bourgeois socialism, not proletarian socialism. It has been shown in practice that activists who follow the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie themselves. Without their leadership of the workers, the bourgeoisie could not remain in power.” (V.I. Lenin Report on the International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International, 2nd Congress, 1920, Vol.31, p.231). Combating and defeating opportunism is, and always has been, the primary task in the struggle for communist Party unity. But those who, like En Lutte!, struggle ’against’ opportunism and ’for’ unity by devoting their energies to covering-up gross indecencies and staunchly defending the fundamentals of social-chauvinism are promoting only the unity of ultra-opportunism. This is the heart and soul of En Lutte!’s caricature of Marx-ism-Leninism, the essence behind its catchphrases about “large debate” and periods of “intense struggle” prior to declaration of its pre-party, the real content of its “intentions” to “pursue and develop the ideological struggle on the question of the unity of Marxist-Leninists and on all the essential questions of program” (Proletarian Unity #3, p.53).
Contrary to En Lutte!’s lies and deceptions on the state of the movement, the first condition for principled and decisive political struggle, the mandatory basis for building a truly communist international workers movement, is to face the full truth as to the breadth, depth and longevity of petty-bourgeois opportunism and revisionism throughout the international ’ML’ movement. As we have shown in The Movement for the Party, in Canada and Quebec, the present ’ML’ movement developed directly out of and has yet to make any break in content with the spontaneous petty-bourgeois movements of the 1960’s: the student reformist and anarchist, and the nationalist movements in both Canada and Quebec. Further, as we will be elaborating in our upcoming newspaper and polemic on the international development of modern revisionism, Against the Tide, the national movement has found adequate reflection and justification in, and is part and parcel of, an international petty-bourgeois ’socialist’ and social-chauvinist ’anti-revisionist’ movement whose leading lights are the Party of Labour of Albania and the Chinese Communist Party; which, in turn, have their basis in the wholesale adoption of social-democratic and social-chauvinist lines by the Communist International in the early and middle 1930’s. Unless we grasp the predominance of petty-bourgeois ’socialism’ in the international movement and break decisively with the course of development followed thus far, a principled communist Party will not be established for some time to come. Instead, the Canadian and Quebec proletariat will be further weighted down by the dross of several more Canadian “Communist Parties (Petty-Bourgeois)”.
The second condition is that this ideological struggle actually be conducted openly; i.e., that it involve the full and clear exposure of every shade of opportunism regardless of the authority or prestige of its author, and that it be conducted in full view of the international working class and communist movements. To develop ideological struggle openly does not mean, as En Lutte! would have it, simply in its more superficial aspect, namely, that a Party, group or individual state their views publicly. This is taken for granted by every principled Marxist-Leninist. But failure to conduct open polemic can be, and very often is, accomplished in the midst of the most ’public’ statements and exchanges. Such ’open’, yet oblique, polemic is the tour de force of all centrism. To accomplish this evasion of open struggle, it is necessary only for one or more of the participants to gloss over or avoid differences; muddle, sidestep or otherwise ignore criticism; to criticize vaguely, i.e. to refuse to pinpoint and explain deviations or trends, or refuse to name and struggle directly against those responsible for the opportunism being criticized; and to ’concretize’ one’s criticism by uniting or maintaining unity with one’s ’opponent’ irrespective of the severity or extent of consolidation of their opportunism – to name only a few of the more popular techniques of international opportunism. Principled, open ideological struggle demands precise and thorough analysis of trends, exposure of their class basis and the class they serve, identification of their main proponents and national and international connections, clarification of their effects on the working class movement and measures to combat their influence, and refusal to allow them any credibility or promote their continued existence and development in any way.
It is incumbent upon all those striving to re-establish principle, secure the hegemony of Marxism-Leninism in the working class movement, and thereby establish the political independence of the working class, to wage decisive struggle against En Lutte!’s ’unity’ maneuvers, expose its opportunism before the workers’ and communist movements, and refuse any support to or cooperation with its opportunist scheme.
It would be an easy task for the proletariat to distinguish genuine revolutionaries, genuine spokesmen of their revolutionary international interests, from the sham revolutionaries, the social props of the bourgeoisie within the working class, if the latter honestly and openly stated their true social function and identified the class they actually served. It would be a simple situation indeed if the overt social-chauvinists referred to themselves as social-chauvinists and openly extolled the virtues and benefits of being lackies of the bourgeoisie. Or if the labour aristocracy and labour lieutenants of capital told the workers straight-out that they were, in fact, aligned with the imperialist bourgeoisie and served as brokers for bourgeois interests, striving to keep the masses of workers in tow behind the capitalists. But this is not the case. The whole existence and viability of the bourgeoisie’s ’communist’ social props depends directly upon their ability to present themselves as something they are not, i.e. as proletarian revolutionaries, as Marxist-Leninists; and, under this guise, maintain themselves unexposed within the Canadian working class. It is not at all surprising then, that full exposure of all manifestations of opportunism, and especially that assuming a Marxist-Leninist veneer, is the greatest fear of the social props of imperialism and one of the primary and constant tasks of communists. Without such exposure and ruthless struggle against opportunism, Marxism-Leninism would be unable to establish its hegemony within the class and, however militant its struggle, the working class movement would remain bound hand and foot to the bourgeoisie.
Last November, the Organization of Communist Workers published a thorough polemical analysis of the main groups claiming to be Marxist-Leninist, to be struggling against modern revisionism and to be working actively to establish, or to have already established, a revolutionary communist party of the Canadian working class. This work, The Movement for the Party, was met by five months of studied silence, and then En Lutte! blundered. In the March 24, 1977 issue of its newspaper, apparently overcome by its striving to merge all and sundry, En Lutte! accidently stated that “a group in Guelph”, referring to the Guelph Workers Committee which became a part of the OCW, was to be invited to its second conference of ’MLs’. Scarcely a week later En Lutte! was desperately trying to “rectify immediately” this “important error” (En Lutte! 3-31-77, p.13). It was forced to retreat from its first line of defense, i.e. silence, and somehow deal with The Movement for the Party. En Lutte! took its ’bold’ stand against the OCW, not out of any political obligation to the working class to fully expose what it saw as rank opportunism, nor even to defend its own line, but solely by the circumstance of its own stupid error. En Lutte! then attempts to pass off its correction of the previous ’unfortunate’ slip of the pen as deliberate, staunch and, of course, principled struggle against opportunism. But in its innane ’response’, En Lutte! shows only that it is absolutely unable to argue against the points raised, and must grasp, for the lack of a clean weapon, a dirty one – the “lies and slander” it is so quick to accuse the OCW of.
En Lutte! whimpers and snarls its attack in an article which is the very acme of political impotence. En Lutte! whines that the OCW does not consider it, En Lutte!, nor the CCL(ML), nor the PWM as being genuinely Marxist-Leninist; and even worse, that the OCW, to use En Lutte!’s very apt imagery, dumped these groups “into the garbage can of revisionism” (ibid). What greater offense to En Lutte! than to have some “newly born” organization come along and “dump into the garbage can” all that it has been collecting and treasuring for the past three years. One would think that such great offense would stimulate at least some clumsy effort to actually analyze and deal with the OCW’s polemic, especially from an organization so well-known for its ’devotion’ to “large debate” as En Lutte!. Not at all. For all its hitherto unknown “definitive value judgements” against the OCW, En Lutte!, whose leading members evidently had to summon all their courage just to read the book spinelessly evades the very definite criticisms of its line by hurling such slanders as “Trotskyist sect” and “counter-revolutionary group”. En Lutte! hopes that through its loud barrage of cheap and hackneyed cliches, and blustering recitation of authoritative names, the reader will not notice that it has shrunk from open polemic and that it has attempted to slide past the OCW’s many “shreds of proof” of its opportunism altogether.
But why is En Lutte! so overwrought and so vehement in its attack? Why does En Lutte! resort to diversions? Why does En Lutte! not only rush to its own defense, but also to that of “the principal agent of (the) sectarian trend within the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement” [Against Sectarianism p .7), its “dogmatic” arch-rival the CCL(ML), and further, to that of the “brazenly opportunist” (Proletarian Unity #3 p. 14) PWM? Because The Movement for the Party proved in principle, on the basis of extensive and thorough analysis, that the main groups who together form the great bulk of the so-called ’ML’ movement in Canada have, contrary to what they claim, neither broken with their radical petty-bourgeois histories, nor with modern revisionism. They have instead adapted Marxism-Leninism to their petty-bourgeois nationalist and reformist class stand,on which basis their ’struggle’ against modern revisionism is nothing save an empty platitude. En Lutte! slanders not merely in its own defense, but also to protect and shield its reactionary kith and kin.
The opportunism En Lutte! endeavours to defend is an international phenomenon, and En Lutte!’s protective services cannot stop at the national boundaries of Canada. Aside from the Canadian movement, the other running sore which En Lutte! so hurriedly attempts to save from proper medical treatment is the history and general state of the international communist movement. The CWG/OCW’s indictment of the unbridled opportunism of the latter years of the Communist International and of the social-chauvinism of the PLA and the CCP (refer to Forward #I 1-76 and Forward #2 1-77), brought forth a prejudiced and blanket defense of these organizations and their leaders on the part of En Lutte! With tears rolling down both cheeks, En Lutte! bawls, ’You have even called the CCP and PLA revisionist.’ If the proletariat is to free itself of all the social props of imperialism, the bitter truth must be spoken regardless of who it will offend and set to howling. The present authority and prestige of such personages as J. Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, G. Dimitrov and E. Hoxha and of such organizations as the Communist International, the CCP and the PLA are utilized by all and sundry of the “new Marxist-Leninist movement” as shields behind which to hide and attempt to exonerate themselves from any charges of opportunism and social-chauvinism.
The Communist International, formed in 1919, was founded on the basis of the principle of the independent revolutionary organization of the proletariat on an international scale, the implementation of the defeatist tactics employed during World War I by the social-internationalist trend, the twenty-one terms of admission and the other theses and resolutions elaborated by Lenin or under his leadership at the first three world congresses, and on the firm committment to resolutely struggle against all forms of social-chauvinism, against the parliamentarianism of the Social-Democratic parties, against any expression of opportunism within its ranks, and against all the social props of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The Fourth World Congress, whose most prominent participants were Zinoviev and Radek, and at which major opportunist theses and resolutions on the united front were accepted, marks the beginning of a retreat from the CI’s revolutionary internationalist foundations. It is possible by tracing through and analyzing the position of the Communist International on any major facet of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, such as the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism, the theses on insurrection, the basics of revolutionary organization, the tactics of the united front and on imperialist war, the relationship between the struggle for democratic liberty and reform in general and the revolutionary struggle, the relationship between political and economic struggle, the fight against opportunism and revisionism, etc., to detail its progressive desertion of Marxist-Leninist principle between 1922 and 1935. While the CI steadily moved away from its founding revolutionary traditions, particular individuals – most importantly Stalin, on “Bolshevization” of the newly formed communist parties and the struggle against Trotsky; and Piatnitsky on organization – made feeble, sporadic and formal attempts to enforce or at least remind others of these principles, tactics and organizational forms. The Seventh World Congress in 1935 after a thirteen year slide down the inclined plane of opportunism, marks the complete and total collapse of the Communist International as a revolutionary organization, making it indistinguishable from the Social-Democratic Second International.
The Seventh World Congress officially and unanimously accepted the postponement, as untimely, of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in favour of the immediate struggle to protect bourgeois democracy. This was completely in line with the path tread by all renegades who renounce the revolutionary struggle and aims of the proletariat through their indefinite postponement, but not, “Heaven’s no!”, their repudiation in principle. Bourgeois ministeralism, Millerandism, or as it was referred to at the Seventh Congress, the tactics of “united front governments”, was extolled after the model of the French Communist Party as exemplary revolutionary activity. Cabinet portfolios for the leading functionaries of the CP’s replaced the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat as the objective of the activity of the parties. Then, as is understandable given this striving, the fight against the abrogation of bourgeois democracy and with it, prestigious cabinet posts, – Fascism – replaced the arduous and thankless task of organizing and leading the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie. G. Dimitrov’s proposal to establish a new ’proletarian’ party, a mass party of the entire proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie on the basis of the “united front against Fascism”, and his five formal points of unity easily acceptable to any Social-Democrat, gave organizational expression to the opposition of this Congress to the independent organization of the proletariat as a revolutionary class. The Seventh Congress rejected the Leninist norm of organization of the class-conscious and politically active sector of the proletariat on the basis of factory nuclei, and accepted the Social-Democratic norm of a mass organization consisting of a bloc of the proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie under the leadership of reformist petty-bourgeois parliamentarians. Also, from this international podium, the functioning Communist Parties in every major imperialist country bestowed the official sanction of the highest authority of the communist movement upon their new role as brokers of nationalism and militarism, as social-chauvinist agents of their own imperialist bourgeoisie, in the face of the looming imperialist war.
At the same time, under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a foreign policy was elaborated: the League of Nations joined and pacts of mutual assistance were signed which tied the Soviet Union to and made it a full-fledged participant in the imperialist conflicts among the great powers. The underlying tenets of the foreign policy of the USSR were the definition of an ’aggressor’ in imperialist war, the distinction between the war-mongering fascists and the ’peace-loving’ bourgeois-democratic imperialist powers, the principles of collective security, and full support for the League of Nations and its Charter. The foreign policy elaborated from this basis was demonstratively social-chauvinist and totally alien to the internationalist policy of a proletarian state. The most influential and recognized leader of the world communist movement, Joseph Stalin, officially and irrevocably registered himself as a social-chauvinist, a renegade to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, with the signing of the Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact, his recognition of the militarism and national defense of the French imperialist bourgeoisie as legitimate, and his lack of opposition to, and virtual silence on, the decisive turns in the policies of the Comintern and the Soviet state.
One further gesture of comradeship to the imperialist bourgeoisie by the leadership of the international ’communist’ movement, was the formal dissolution of the Communist International. The scuttling of the rotting hulk of the CI was of no political significance to the proletariat except perhaps to clear the way for the fresh construction of its international organization. But it does serve as a graphic example of the depths to which the leaders of the then bankrupt communist movement, i.e. J. Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, G. Dimitrov, V. Molotov.etc had sunk by 1943. The liquidation of the international party of the proletariat gave formal expression to their social-chauvinist conclusion that since the preservation of national interests took precedence over the class interests of the working class, the proletariat had no further need of international organization.
Mao Tse Tung and Enver Hoxha were reared in this school of national-’communism’ and the Chinese Communist Party and the Party of Labour of Albania under their leadership were two of its products in countries going through a national-democratic stage of development. The genuinely revolutionary bourgeois democratic struggle against political autocracy and national oppression was led by these parties, not as communist parties, but a revolutionary, nationalist, petty-bourgeois democrats. By presenting themselves as proletarian revolutionaries, as Marxist-Leninists, these parties were social-chauvinist and revisionist. This ruse of being Marxist-Leninist has been continued to this day and expanded in scope to include a ’struggle’ and ’split’ with modern revisionism: a ’split’ which, in fact, is nothing more than a clash between the national interests of the various countries involved, on the part of the CCP and PLA merely an effort to follow a course of “genuine national development” free of the interference of their big brother chauvinists of the CPSU. These same differing national interests play the determining part in the differences between the equally social-chauvinist international lines of these two parties and the current conflict between them.
The theories of three worlds and the growing unity of the second and third world countries in opposition to the hegemonism of the two superpowers are central to the international line of the CCP and the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China. Both are attributed to Mao Tse Tung and Chou En-lai; both are social-chauvinist and reformist; and both reject and deny the international revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. On the basis of these lines the CCP sings praise of the Shah of Iran as a “spokesman” of the Iranian people and a fighter against superpower hegemonism; throws its full support behind the French imperialist bourgeoisie’s militarism; and with hint and innuendo opposes H. Kissinger as the spokesman of the ’appeasers’ of the Soviet Union among the American imperialist bourgeoisie; and in the same way makes it known that it prefers the more open militarists represented by J. Schlesinger; – to name only a few examples of the CCP’s social-chauvinist line. While fully upholding the anti-hegemonism struggle of the “peoples and nations”, and thereby following the same social-chauvinist vein as the CCP, the PLA cannot afford to be as broad-minded as the CCP in who it approaches for the international united front against the superpowers. The most immediate danger to China’s national interests comes from Russia, so its line is directed primarily against the USSR and in favour of the second world and increasingly even the US. Albanian national interests are threatened by both the Warsaw Pact and NATO. It therefore must exclude NATO countries as possible allies. At the 7th Congress of the PLA, E. Hoxha, from the point of view of the Albanian petty-bourgeois nationalists and, in general, from the basis of petty-bourgeois opposition to imperialism, expressed this conflict of interests by open criticism of both the theory of three worlds and the growing unity of second and third worlds – the fundamentals of the CCP’s line – while evasively side-stepping any criticism of the CCP, Mao Tse Tung, or of the class content of this line. (Refer to Forward #2 1-77 for elaboration). In very general terms this brings the development of the international movement and the debate among the social-chauvinists up-to-date.
En Lutte! beats its breast and protests that the OCW, in raising such analysis and criticism, has launched “lowly attacks”, “lies and slanders” against the leaders of the international communist movement for the past forty-some years. What the OCW has in fact done is draw a line between itself and the social-chauvinism that was predominant within the CI from 1935 onwards, predominant within all of the ’oppositional’ groupings which sprang up ’against’ the CI, and is predominant now in both the CCP and the PLA and, as well, in the international ’ML’ movement following the lead of these latter parties. The OCW demarcates itself from this legacy of social-chauvinism while En Lutte! instinctively defends and echoes it, giving full vent to its petty-bourgeois class outlook. En Lutte!, of course, will cry: ’We are not social-chauvinists. We follow the lead of J. Stalin, G. Dimitrov, Mao Tse Tung, E. Hoxha and other “great Marxist-Leninist leaders”.’ But this is precisely the connection the OCW is making! Social-chauvinists around the world draw upon a forty-year reserve of social-chauvinism elaborated by all these “great leaders”, use it as a prestigious basis from which to give expression to their own petty-bourgeois, nationalist, social-chauvinism and ward-off any serious discussion of its political content with the childish and scurrilous slander of “a Trotskyist attack”. En Lutte! was struck dumb with horror at the thought of having to reply seriously to The Movement for the Party, and then, when forced to acknowledge its existence through its own bungling, went into hysterics. Such response reveals En Lutte!’s obsession and alarm with the possibility of having the influential references and mentors of its social-chauvinism unmasked, an alarm based on its understanding that such unmasking would lead directly to its own exposure before the Canadian working class.
Finally, En Lutte! quite rightly charges the OCW with trying “...to build division into theory...”. But with this awkward and peculiar little phrase, En Lutte! only further reveals its petty-bourgeois hostility to the political independence of the proletariat. For it is the theory of Marxism-Leninism which expresses the interests of the working class alone, which divides its interests from those of all other classes, and which teaches that the establishment of the class independence of the proletariat demands a thoroughgoing, decisive split with all forms of petty-bourgeois outlook. It is this basic Marxist-Leninist principle that the OCW is upholding and En Lutte! is attacking. The OCW is waging a struggle to assert the revolutionary and internationalist principles and tactics elaborated by Marx, Engels and Lenin; to assert the independent political interests of the proletariat over the stinking remains of the CI and in opposition to the social-chauvinism of the CCP, PLA, and the growing international opportunist ’ML ’ movement. The split with this rotten-ripe ultra-opportunism is precisely the split between Marxism-Leninism and modern revisionism; and a split that must be made for the proletariat to rise to its full revolutionary, internationalist stature and overthrow the imperialist bourgeoisie and all its hirelings.
Organization of Communist Workers April 6, 1977