The CCL(ML)’s Statement of Political Agreement leaves no doubt that it is not to be considered as simply one of many circles working for the construction of the Party. On the contrary, “The CCL(ML) is the instrument necessary to fulfill these essential conditions for the creation of a real communist party in Canada.” (Statement of Political Agreement p.65)
True to its promise, the MREQ did not engage in “an endless series of debates” and within a year of publication of its pre-party Organization position, “moved forward” with those who were ready to unite. And following from the logic of the MREQ’s party-building plan, the CCL(ML)’s initial pronouncements placed it on the verge of ’party’ declaration. Despite the previous extensive criticism of the CPC(ML) for its ’precipitative’ party-building activities, the League offers us a plan that is every bit as arbitrary. The only difference between the League and the ’party’ it proposes is left to the whim of the League’s central committee.
The League is not the party. Why? Because although it has the ideological and organizational characteristics of the party, it has not yet defined a true revolutionary program nor is it yet a detachment of the working class.Ibid. p.56.
Such a ’unique’ conception: an organization ’forged’ in complete isolation from both the working class and communist movements, lacking a “true revolutionary program”, and lacking even elementary fusion with the working class, is, if we are to believe the League, “the instrument” to form the Party, possessing as it does “the ideological and organizational characteristics of the party”. How utterly unpretentious, how lacking in ’precipitateness’! But the League does not rest content with such a ’modest’ view of itself. It must supplement its ’initial definition’ of its ’vanguard’ status with the wherewithall for its ’party’ declaration.
In the theoretical realm, the League must of course define its “truly revolutionary program”. This poses no great difficulties for the League, since its line is already assumed to be correct, though ’unproven’. A programme will be simply a matter of expanding its Statement of Political Agreement, a task which is either to be completed or advanced considerably by the First Congress, which will “deepen and elaborate” its line. In the meantime, to complete its theoretical chores, the League intends to take up the ’struggle for unity’ of Marxist-Leninists in Canada. Though this task may lengthen the period before declaration, depending on how rapidly the League can line up kindred opportunists or unformulated elements across the country, it also poses no great problem. First of all because ’unity’ must, of course, be around the League’s “clearly formulated” political line. This in spite of the fact that “Clearly our assimilation of Marxism-Leninism and our ability to apply it creatively...are still fairly limited.” (Ibid. p.67)
But secondly because, in the same vein as the MREQ, the League creates its very own definition of what is sufficient for ’unity’. It seeks only the “greatest possible” unity (p.65). The formation of the CCL(ML) itself is a practical demonstration of what the League considers to be “possible” and ’great’. This only affirms, as against our opportunists’ way of seeing things, that what is ’possible’ is not always ’desirable’.
While these theoretical tasks are called “decisive”, the League is quick to point out that it is an organization of action, and that it is its practice that will “confirm the correctness” of its positions (p.67). As would be expected after studying the theoretical tasks it sets for itself, the League guarantees the success of its practical tasks simply by posing them; i.e., these tasks either coincide with already on-going League work, or are presented in such a way that they could be considered fulfilled at the League’s discretion.
The “principal task” is identified as “communist agitation and propaganda”. In the next sections we will see why the League interchanges “principal task” with the correct phrasing “principal activity” when discussing propaganda and agitation, but for now we need only analyze the League’s two subcategories for organizational tasks. First, the League must itself be organized if it is to be able to carry out its agitation and propaganda. Thus, the League must concentrate on internal consolidation, i.e., its “...primary organizational task is to establish the essential structures of the CCL(ML)...” (p.68). Since the League retains the MREQ’s “organizational development” as the standard of measure for success, this ’extremely difficult’ and already half-completed task of building the organization “from the top down” assumes added importance as a testing mechanism. After all, without its “essential structures”, how could the League judge the correctness of its line and success of its work?
The second organizational task, the more troublesome one for our petty bourgeois new arrivals, is to win the ’most advanced elements’ and establish factory cells. But the League is not dismayed by the difficulties this poses. It simply lowers the content of this task to its own level, that is, to Economism and militant reformism. On the one hand, while elaborating the MREQ’s denial of the existence of advanced workers, the League seeks only to recruit a “...certain number of conscious workers...” (p.65). We must, however, allow for what the League considers to be ’conscious’. On the other hand, the factory cells are to be organized by the simple and presumably already operating procedure outlined by the MREQ, ’implantation’, now referred to as “sending Marxist-Leninist militants into the plants” (p.68). Since none of the League’s founders have dealt in principle with their recurring Economism, we can assume that this new variation of implantation differs in no essentials from the original and that the “going in”, if we may borrow a phrase from H. Bains, will result only in more hankering after ’palpable results’. The creation of factory cells, a prerequisite for the League transforming itself into the ’Party’, is further facilitated by the League’s inclusion of “...hospitals, large stores, etc. ...” as bases for its ’factory’ cells (The Forge #6). This broadening of its focus beyond the industrial proletariat will allow the League to ’accomplish’ this task it has set for itself even if it is unable to make inroads in the major industrial plants.
As a finishing touch, the League declares the “national communist newspaper” to be the principal means of conducting agitation and propaganda. Voila, The Forge. And since agitation and propaganda is the League’s “principal task”, without which fusion with the working class is impossible, the already established and on-going Forge becomes the key to fulfilling the practical tasks necessary for ’Party’ declaration.
In sum, the only ’tasks’ which the League must carry out before its ’Party’ declaration stage is fully set are: 1) the drafting of a programme; 2) the lining up of a few kindred opportunist groups in the larger cities and the implantation of some of their cadres ’with and among’ the workers; 3) the duping of a few militant trade unionists and petty bourgeois new arrivals into aligning with the League, as a showcase of ’fusion’ with the working class. Such is the sum’and substance of the CCL(ML)’s ’Party’-building.
While the connection between the CPC(ML)’s party-building plan and that of the League’s has not yet been widely recognized within the movement, the League’s isolated formation and excessive ’modesty’ upon declaration rubbed much of the movement, friends and foes alike, the wrong way. Some of the League’s friends were perturbed at being left out of the whole thing, and slapped the League’s hands, in the most ’comradely’ fashion of course, for ’factional tendencies’. For their part, the League’s foes did no better. Having failed to see that the MREQ’s criticism of the CPC(ML) came wholly from the Right as an effort to cover the MREQ’s own ’party’ designs, the League’s opponents still persist in treating the MREQ’s offspring in a comradely way. They have not yet realized fully that our still developing movement is undergoing a split and is narrowing. Thus the majority of the League’s foes still view the CCL(ML) as one pole of a principled two-line struggle within the movement. Opting for En Lutte!’s posturing as a ’non-sectarian’ centre, they have in the first place failed to grasp that there is not yet a principled, consistent Marxist-Leninist line to engage in such a two-line struggle. In the second place, they have failed to recognize the League’s formation as the full consolidation of opportunism within the participating groups, and that this act and the political line accompanying it have placed the CCL(ML) outside the communist movement. Consequently, these elements have thrown pointed, pin-pricking questions at the League, but still accommodate it and give it credence as a ’genuine’ Marxist-Leninist group.
This is precisely the kind of response the CCL(ML) will flourish on and use to expand its influence. Insofar as it is related to as a principled section of the movement, engaging in two-line struggle, it validates its own claim to be a viable Marxist-Leninist centre. The League demonstrates fully that it has learned from the CPC(ML)’s bad example. The League has replaced the CPC(ML)’3 brazen sectarianism with its own ’soft-core’ sectarianism, the CPC(ML)’s liquidation of the movement with its own ’comradely’ appeals to the movement. The CCL(ML) must assume such ’congenial’ airs if it wishes credibility. The wonder is that so many elements in our movement are so easily swayed by a little glad-handing and slaps on the back. The fact that the CCL(ML) was allowed to parade its effrontery before the movement, the fact that it was not immediately exposed as a consolidated opportunist trend by large portions of our movement, the fact that it is now credited with waging ’two-line struggle’ over the tasks before us, the fact that it has not been consciously evicted from the movement, these facts are as much a criticism of our movement as of the CCL(ML).
As the League implements its ’party’-building plan, a plan thoroughly factional to the last detail, it continues to give token response to ’others’, to the various groups which criticize its high-flown claims. By the second issue of The Forge, the League was attempting to convince us “undeveloped”, “primitive” and “ideologically and politically unclear” Marxist-Leninists that we have misunderstood its actions. The League would have us believe that when it splashed the slogans: “CCL(ML): vanguard organization of the working class” and “Workers, rally to your vanguard organization, join the ranks of the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist)” in bold print across the pages of The Forge (#3), that this was, after all, perhaps poor phrasing or a bad translation. The League ’certainly has no intention’ of excluding any other Marxist-Leninists from this role. Though it does not repudiate being “the instrument”, it will not go to any great lengths to explain why, precisely, it is ’the instrument’, and how this claim coincides with its ’comradely’ relations to the movement. For those who accommodate the League, it will return the favour. If you will recognize us, if not “the instrument”, well then at least as ’Marxist-Leninists’, we will see if something can’t be arranged. The League thus prefers the ’soft’ to the ’hard’ sell. The League must pursue this temporizing policy in order for its declaration to be a ’success’. It must soften up the movement, arouse a little sympathy and insure that the movement ’understands’ that when its time comes, the League would be ’abandoning its responsibilities’ if it did not declare itself the Party.
The CCL(ML)’s attitude towards the movement is only a continuation of the petty bourgeois narrowness and opportunism of its founders. It views the movement only from the narrow standpoint of its own circle. Just as the MREQ, COR and CMO consolidated ’in private’, so the League will proceed to its ’party’ irrespective of the needs of the movement. That the League does not yet proclaim itself the ’Party’ is only a matter of formality and timing. All that is lacking is sufficient influence within the movement and the practical ability to split a large portion from it. But ’in principle’ all that is needed is a change of name, to, say, the Canadian Communist Party (ML). This is precisely the League’s intention.
By the time the League was formed, Stalin’s work on the periods and stages of the Party’s development had long since been raised in the movement. This analysis provides a completely objective and historically proven framework for determining our tasks and activities at any given point in the Party-building process. This alone already disqualifies the League from learning from Stalin’s work on the Party, since it is concerned less with what is objective and historically proven than with finding a means to justify its own ’party’-building scheme. The League must therefore ’doctor’ Stalin while swearing by him. With its most profound “integrity towards the principles of Marxism-Leninism” the League proceeds to make a complete revision of Marxism-Leninism on Party-building. This revision has three basic components. First, in order to justify ’party’ declaration prior to fusion with the advanced workers, the League’s account of the Party’s development entirely ’forgets’ the stages of the first period and very ’creatively’ introduces the concept of ’goal’ alongside Stalin’s “tasks” and “activity”. Second, by perpetuating the MREQ’s and CMO’s denial of the scientific definition of the advanced workers, the League substitutes its own more accessible notion of relatively ’advanced elements’ and thus demonstrates that its ’party’ is to be a liberal-labour party. And third, in order to reach the second period immediately upon declaration, the League pleads a difference in translation to excuse its rejection of propaganda as the main activity of the first period. Following from this particularly odious technique, the League in a very ’Left’ fashion counterposes political to economic agitation. Thus the League has not rectified the MREQ’s plan one wit. These ’creative additions’ constitute the theoretical elaboration of this plan and guarantee that the League is firmly on the road to creating CPC(ML) #2.
A. STAGES IN THE FIRST PERIOD
The history of Party-building throughout the international movement shows that no movement can develop a consistent, principled Communist Party without the direction of a main core or leading centre. Such a centre cannot simply be declared, but must be “welded”, as Stalin says, and must win the communist movement on the basis of proven theoretical and practical leadership. Conjointly with the development of a leading centre, the formation of cadres takes place; i.e., the unification of the communist movement and the winning of the advanced workers, the fusion of the communist and working class movements. Regardless of how many factions, such as the CPC(ML) or presently the League, parody the “ideological and organizational characteristics of the Party”, the fact remains that the actual ideological and organizational content of the Party must be built, not simply declared. The leading centre does not simply declare itself the “vanguard organization”. It becomes a true vanguard organization only after it has proven itself, only after it has attracted the finest and most principled elements within the communist movement and demonstrated that it has the wherewithall to provide consistent and principled leadership. The formation of Party cadres, the raising of communist cadre to the level of consistent Party work, and the winning over of the advanced workers and their integration into that work, is likewise achieved only through prolonged and proven work. Whatever the different specific circumstances of development, e.g. duration of the early stages, assistance from the international movement, when formal proclamation is made, and so on, real Party formation and consolidation can only take place on this foundation. The formation of the Party expresses the fusion of communism and the working class movement and marks a new level of ideological and organizational unity. On this basis, the declaration of the Party is the culmination of the first period.
The League, however, has taken things into its own hands. For the League there is in fact no process of development involved in Party-building, there is no welding of the main core, no fusion from which the communist movement proceeds to the Party, Its process consists solely in determining the ’correct’ timing. It has already achieved ’vanguard’ status, not through proving itself before the movement, but simply through declaration. As to fusion, the League knowingly reminds us that
Only the Party can fully achieve the fusion of scientific socialism with the workers’ movement. Only the party will be able to make the large working masses aware of the historical mission of their class and lead them in the struggle for power. Ibid p.63
Well and good. But from this the League ’reasons’: since there is no Party it quite ’naturally’ follows that its creation must occur, not at the end of the first period, after the leading centre has proven itself and unified the movement, after the advanced workers have in the main been won, but at the beginning of the period, before all this occurs. This ’logic’ follows from the League’s ’concern’ with the “large working masses” as opposed to the advanced workers, and amounts to the CPC(ML)’s maxim that the Party is necessary for everything. This is initially verified by the League’s statement that its own “...entire existence falls within the early phase of the 1st stage...” (p.66). Since the League’s “central task” is the creation of the ’party’, and its existence is ’transformed’ in the “early phase”, there is no question as to when this fiasco will take place. By this simple procedure, the League substitutes its self-proclamation for the arduous tasks of building a Marxist-Leninist Party, For those who refuse to believe this is what our ’genuines’ have in mind, the CCL(ML) spells it out in a fit of ’creative genius’.
B. A ’CREATIVE ADDITION’
The League reveals an award-winning talent for mendacious interpretation of Marxism-Leninism with its designation of winning the advanced workers as the “goal” of the first period, rather than as the “task” as Stalin has it. The intention of this seemingly minor alteration of the original is to finish the job of splitting apart the creation of the ’party’ and fusion with the advanced workers. By making winning of the advanced workers a “goal” instead of a “task”, the League has made room for a “task” that will achieve the ’goal’. It has thus postponed our true task, winning the advanced workers, a task that is essential in order that the Party may be formed, and makes this task a function of the already-created ’party’. Having made winning the advanced workers only a ’goal’, something which will be striven for but not necessarily achieved before the ’party’ is created, the CCL(ML) is able to substitute a new “task” in its stead. The League declares propaganda and agitation to be not only the “principal activity” but also the “principal task” of the first period. This done, the League need only re-assert, with the consistency and force of ’logic’ befitting a ’vanguard’ organization, its earlier conception of the Party as the initiator of the Party-building process:
...only the party will have the capabilities – the political line, the experience, the link with the masses – to achieve the goal of the first stage. Only the party will be able to carry out the principal tasks of agitation and propaganda as well as the other tasks, necessary for reaching our goal in this stage. That is why building the party must be the central task of our organization, of all Canadian Marxist-Leninists. Ibid p.66-67
Thus the League ’proves’ the necessity of establishing the ’party’ before the advanced workers have been won. The MREQ’s statement that “the task of party-building is a job for communist themselves” is fully clarified and realized. The creation of the ’party’ no longer involves the working class at all. It is an activity entire to itself, conducted by a pre-ordained section of the self-proclaimed ’Marxist-Leninists’, and taken up in contradistinction to winning the advanced workers, to conducting propaganda and agitation, and to all the “other tasks”. We could not ask for a more brazen example of the League’s ability to substitute its own petty opportunism in place of the science of Marxism-Leninism. Since winning the advanced workers is only a “goal” to be achieved after the ’party’ is created, it should be clear that for some time the ’party will be composed only of petty bourgeois ’militants’ and will stand in isolation from the working class. Thus the CCL(ML), despite itself, reveals what sort of ’party’ this will be: a ’party’ by and for the petty bourgeoisie.
C. ELIMINATION OF THE ADVANCED WORKERS: KEY TO A MENSHEVIK PARTY
Lenin teaches us that “always and everywhere” it is the advanced workers who determine “the character of the movement”, give themselves over entirely to mastering scientific socialism and organizing the proletarian revolution, and rally the masses of workers to socialism. No Party can hope to fulfill the needs of the working class movement unless it is the embodiment of the fusion of the advanced workers and communism, unless it has the advanced workers as the backbone of its leadership. The existence of the advanced workers is not a relative phenomenon, is not dependent on, nor the product of a special “favourable” set of conditions. The advanced workers are the product of the objective development of capitalism. They are a natural phenomenon of the spontaneous workers’ struggle against capital, thrown up by the working class movement, without the aid of the communist movement. As the development of capitalism is universal, so too is the generation of advanced workers. The advanced workers are such because they seek solutions beyond trade unionism, have an impassioned desire for knowledge beyond their immediate struggle. They are not simply in the forefront of the economic struggle, are not simply militant trade unionists. They actively strive for, and are capable of developing a comprehensive understanding of scientific socialism, and thus become independent leaders of the communist workers’ movement. Lenin states that
The history of the working class movement in all countries shows that the better situated strata of the working class respond to the ideas of socialism more rapidly and more easily. From among these come, in the main, the advanced workers that every working class movement brings to the fore, those who can win the confidence of the labouring masses, who devote themselves entirely to the education and organization of the proletariat, who accept socialism consciously, and who even elaborate independent socialist theories. Every viable working class movement has brought to the fore such working class leaders, its own Proudhons, Vaillants, Weitlings, and Bebels. V.I. Lenin A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy CW Vol.4 p.280
Clear it would seem. Irrespective of national differences, “relative peace and prosperity”, the extent of petty bourgeois influx into the communist and workers’ movements, and other notorious ’conditions’, such leaders are brought to the fore by what is most fundamental: the conditions of wage-slavery. This is the Marxist-Leninist view. But it is not a view that sits well with the narrow vain-glory of the petty bourgeoisie. Our petty opportunists cannot imagine that any worker could be as ’advanced’ as their own precious selves. Thus by one or another means the petty bourgeois ’party’-builders attempt to substitute themselves in the role of the ’advanced’.
Marxism-Leninism teaches us that it is only through winning the advanced workers to communism that the working class movement can become an invincible force, develop its own independent political Party and consciously struggle for communism. It teaches us that prior to this fusion, it is the duty of communists to raise their theoretical work, propaganda and agitation to the level of and direct it towards the advanced workers. If we are to form a Leninist Party, a Party comprised of truly class conscious revolutionaries, the staunchest, most disciplined, dedicated and enlightened representatives of the working class, then we must address ourselves to the advanced workers. Only such a Party is worthy of the name Communist.
To lower the definition of the advanced worker, let alone to liquidate that definition, is to adapt and lower communism to Economism, is to lay the basis for a liberal labour, trade unionist party and thus liquidate the class independence of the proletariat. Either our work is addressed to and at the level of the advanced workers, or else it is lowered to the level of the most backward strata of the class. To belittle the role of the advanced workers in any way is to belittle Marxism-Leninism and reduce revolutionary class political consciousness to trade union politics. Lenin states that:
The ignoring of the interests and requirements of this advanced section of the workers, and the desire to descend to the level of understanding of the lower strata (instead of constantly raising the level of the workers’ class consciousness) must, therefore, necessarily have a profoundly harmful effect and prepare the ground for the infiltration of all sorts of non-socialist and non-revolutionary ideas into the workers’ midst. V.I. Lenin Apropos the Profession de Foi CW VOL 4 p.292
From this it is obvious that an organization’s view of the advanced workers and their relation to the Party is fundamental to its conception of the Party and what is necessary to accomplish the tasks presently facing our movement. The League’s ’analysis’ of the advanced workers, that is, the lack thereof, in its Statement of Political Agreement is merely an extension and elaboration of the MREQ’s and CMO’s line. This position merits further attention here not only because it is such a crucial question to Party-building, but because it is an excellent example of the absurd lengths to which our opportunists will go to defend their precious ’pearls of wisdom’.
The League begins its graphic ’fresh approach’ to the advanced workers with an unusually keen pronouncement: “To succeed...” that is, to achieve the principal goal and accomplish all tasks “...we have to do a concrete analysis of the Canadian workers’ movement and some of its essential characteristics.” (Statement of Political Agreement p.76)
Quite right! Bravo to the League! It is in fact crucial that our movement study and analyse “...the conditions of the working class in all spheres of economic life, study the forms and conditions of the workers’ awakening, and of the struggles now setting in, in order that we may unite the...working class movement and Marxist socialism, into one integral whole...” (V.I. Lenin Draft Declaration of Iskra and Zarya CW Vol. 4 p.325)
Further to this, we must analyze the communist movement, its history, level of development, the class nature of the principal trends, the source of its disunity and isolation from the working class, the nature of its tasks, and so on. But as we will see, the League has different ideas on what constitutes “concrete analysis”.
While the CCL(ML) excels at chewing the cud of well-worn phrases, its ’analysis’ shows that it has digested nothing of Marxism-Leninism. Its “concrete analysis of the Canadian workers’ movement” reveals the following curious ’facts’ concerning the Canadian and Quebec working class: 1) That “at one time” the Canadian CP was a revolutionary party, but “degenerated” and has yet to be replaced. 2) That because of Canada’s “prosperity and relative peace” and the “benefits” accruing therefrom, we now have a very strong labour aristocracy which controls the unions and acts as an agent of the bourgeoisie in the workers’ movement. 3) That state monopoly capital notwithstanding, the bourgeoisie cannot resolve the contradiction between “exploiters and exploited”, that is, “Those who remain deprived and stripped of all forms of property...” (our emphasis). The CCL(ML) thus ’deprives and strips’ the scientific concept of “exploited” to focus on their own declassed, petty bourgeois, “deprived and stripped” status. That the worsening of the conditions of the working class is most typified in the area of “...industrial sickness and accidents...”. 5) Based on this tremendous ’wealth’ of data, revealing the height of the League’s analytical ability, a memorable pronouncement: “Thus...” (?) “...we should orient our activities mainly toward the large mass of workers...”. And there you have it! Instead of the “concrete analysis” we are promised, the League musters only a description of certain aspects of the conditions of the working class in every imperialist country, and even then does so incorrectly.
But the crucial factor at work here is not simply that the League’s analysis is a miserable failure. What is important are the peculiar ’aspects’ the League chose in order to support its conclusions.
It is immediately apparent that in ’analyzing’ the “essantial characteristics” of the Canadian and Quebec working class, the League has nothing to say about the phenomenal upsurge of the spontaneous strike movement since the middle 1960’s; not a word on the nature of the demands put forward, the relative number of economic and political strikes, new forms of struggle developed by the workers, the branches of industry most active, the effect these strikes had on the relation between rank and file workers and the established trade unions, and so on. The League says nothing of the effect that the workers’ movement had on the ’transformation’ of the petty bourgeois movement of the 1960’s into a ’communist’ movement. It is silent on the present state of the communist movement, the class content of the various contending trends, the petty bourgeois nature of their influence within the working class, and so on. Having pre-determined its necessary conclusion, the League needs none of such comprehensive analysis. But what is this conclusion? What is it that warrants the League’s concern that we know about “Canada’s relative prosperity and peace”, but not about the fact that this prosperity was the property solely of the petty bourgeoisie and labour aristocracy? What is it that drives the League to ’forget’ a massive strike movement that was precisely the working class’s response to worsening economic conditions? What is it that sparks the League’s concern for those who have been “deprived and stripped” of property, and yet its utter lack of concern for those who have long been accustomed to owning only their ability to labour? What is it, we ask, that gives the League such narrow vision that its conception of the worsening conditions of the working class is typified by “industrial sickness and accidents”? Is not the League itself suffering some ’sickness’? What is it that allows the League to note the absence of a Party, but also allows it to ignore the dominance of opportunism in our movement? Just what is it that we are to take with us as we “...orient our activities mainly toward the large mass of workers”? The League has ’omitted’ what is most fundamental in its ’analysis’, for it has no wish to draw fundamental conclusions. It has not bothered with the objective, with the ’other’, since its head teems with ’realities’ all its own:
But the subjective and objective conditions mentioned above – a period of peaceful development and relative prosperity following the war, the strong influence of the bourgeois ideology on the workers’ movement, and above all the absence of a genuine communist party – have strongly affected the class consciousness of the Canadian working class.
Not to mention the ’class consciousness’ of the petty bourgeoisie.
A look at the level of consciousness of the Canadian working class reveals first of all, that there is no longer a communist workers’ vanguard in the Canadian workers’ movement. The number of communist workers, that is, workers who are class conscious and who lead the large masses of workers, is extremely small.
Whereas the number of penny ante opportunists who lead large ’masses’ of opportunists is extremely great.
There is, however, a good number of combative workers who are progressive enough to put into question the existing system. They aspire in a confused way... (We cannot help but interrupt here, since this ’confused way’ so concisely describes the League itself) ...to socialism. Often in the forefront of local struggles, these workers are active on the local union level and exercise a certain leadership over the masses of workers. But they are undeveloped ideologically, tainted with reformism and nationalism. (Again, right on the mark!) The few class conscious workers and the larger number of combative workers, under the conditions of Canada today, make up the most advanced elements of the working class. These are elements which we must initially rally to communism in order to bring about the fusion of Marxism-Leninism and the workers movement. Statement of Political Agreement p.76-77
That is to say, there is, however, a good number of petty opportunists who think they are “progressive enough” to pose as leaders over the working class while ascribing to the workers their own backwardness, Economism and social-chauvinism. But these “combative” opportunists that populate the CCL(ML)’s leadership in reality only strike out against the working class, against Marxism-Leninism, and against the efforts of our movement to create a strong and principled Party. Totally incapable of raising itself to the high standards of Marxism-Leninism and meeting the needs of the advanced workers, the League attempts to create a working class in its own miserable image, to impose its own inability to grasp Marxism-Leninism onto the working class, and to excuse its own petty bourgeois Philistinism by bourgeoisifying the working class. This is the only means by which it can pose ’party’-building tasks that are so low it will have no difficulty in fulfilling them. This is the only way in which the CCL(ML) can create what it needs: a petty bourgeois, Menshevik party.
The League’s argument against the advanced workers rests on three conditions which have allegedly “strongly affected”, that is, lowered, “the class consciousness of the Canadian working class” : 1) relative peace and prosperity, 2) the strong influence of bourgeois ideology, and most of all 3) the lack of communist leadership. In terms of “peace and prosperity”, the League gives us absolutely no concrete details about these all-important ’benefits’. We are told nothing about ’prosperity’ relative to what, which strata of the working class received what gains, how income stood in relation to inflation, the standard of living of the working class in relation to other classes, the “insecurity of existence” of the working class, and so on. The League does not bother with such ’trifles’ because its ’analysis’ is simply a regurgitation of what its ’theoreticians’ memorized in freshman sociology, now couched in ’Marxist-Leninist’ phrases. In the fine tradition of Marcuse and Mandel, the League thus evolves its very own neo-Trotskyite line.
On the one hand, the League speaks only of the strengthening of the labour aristocracy, of the benefits accruing to this small stratum of workers. Our ’vanguard’ certainly does not want to be associated with the conception that the working class has lost its revolutionary capacity. It admits that at one time it held such “confused and erroneous ideas”, but after all, the League is now ’Marxist-Leninist’. It no longer holds to such open Trotskyism. And yet, when the League is done talking about the labour aristocracy, it draws the conclusion that ’somehow’ the material benefits enjoyed only by a few have ended up “strongly affecting” the entire working class. That the League implies that the working class as a whole has benefited materially is shown by its relating such benefits to “peace and prosperity”. It ’overlooks’ the fact that the labour aristocracy in fact benefits whatever the objective conditions, peaceful and prosperous or no. The labour aristocracy must be maintained at all times so that it can ’strongly affect’ the working class, not through material means, but through control of the trade unions and reformist political movement. Given this, it is clear that “peace and prosperity” as the League puts it, does not simply mean a period of greater benefits to the labour aristocracy. It means a period of ’relative’ prosperity for the class as a whole. The benefits have apparently, in the League’s view, found their way into the pockets of the masses of workers after all. This, in the League’s view, has not eliminated the revolutionary potential of the working class, but – how shall we say it diplomatically – has ’blunted’ the workers class consciousness. The implication of the League’s analysis is obvious: not only is the Canadian working class exempt from the Leninist definition of advanced workers, but the working class as a whole has a material stake in maintaining imperialism, i.e. to secure its “relative prosperity”. What this conception does to the revolutionary role of the working class, to the Marxist doctrine of class struggle, is self-evident.
The League will state none of this outright; there is, after all, no prestige nor security amongst the Trotskyites. But that does not prevent the League from expressing in its own peculiar way the very same petty bourgeois hostility towards the working class, the same attempt to ascribe to the working class the opportunism and ’benefits’ peculiar to the petty bourgeoisie. Following the League’s line of ’thought’ (if we may call this raw petty bourgeois instinct ’thought’), it stands to ’reason’ that if ’peace and prosperity’ are ’unfavourable’ conditions for cultivating class consciousness, then the ’most favourable’ conditions are the worst. If “prosperity and peace” have the ’unfortunate’ effect of “strongly affecting” the class consciousness of workers, then it follows that communists should seek to disrupt ’prosperity and peace’, should attempt to deprive the workers of these undeserved ’benefits’, should worsen the conditions of the working class and thereby ’increase’ its class consciousness. Why, we would then be knee-deep in advanced workers. We would not only be on the verge of the ’party’, but on the brink of revolution. This Trotskyite thesis is the ’logical’ conclusion of the League’s linking of ’relative peace and prosperity’ with a ’strongly affected’ working class. The League will leave it to the Bolshevik Tendency to fully elaborate such ’conclusions’, but it will continue to share with the Bolshevik Tendency the same contempt for the working class and the same effort to advance the interests of the petty bourgeoisie at the expense of the proletariat.
How typical of this ’vanguard’ organization, an organization which swears up and down by the science of Marxism-Leninism, which has so much to say about the working class and conspicuously little to say about the petty bourgeoisie, an organization which claims to be “the instrument” to create a political Party that represents the class independence of the proletariat, how typical it is for these non-entities, these colorless frumps to invent an ’analysis’ which states that under imperialism, when the working class is most consolidated and organized, when conditions are everywhere on the eve of proletarian revolution, that these conditions are not so favourable after all and “strongly affect”,that is lower, the workers’ class consciousness. How typical it is that these political cretins, who smirk over the ’lowered’ revolutionary consciousness of the working class under imperialism, should state that the petty bourgeoisie, despite its daily destruction, despite its total disarray as a class, despite its inability to stand independently as a class, is nonetheless experiencing a veritable gusher of ’revolutionary’ consciousness, of “questioning traditional values”. How typical of our declassed ’intellectuals’ who, although simply lacking when it comes to assessing reality, have so many ways to say that the petty bourgeois stands ’above’ the working class. How typical, how pathetic, and how utterly disgusting.
The other two ’new conditions’ of ’Canada today’ used to eliminate the advanced workers – the strength of bourgeois ideology and the lack of a communist party – stand as rather thin and transparent garnish for the League’s revisionism. The League states that bourgeois ideology has gained “strong influence” in the working class movement in direct relation to the “development of a workers’ aristocracy”. This formulation is wrong on two counts. First, the underlying assumption at work is that the entire working class has “gained and benefited” from the ’peace and prosperity’ of imperialism, and thus has a collective stake in remaining under bourgeois leadership, under the thumb of trade unionism. The League will protest that by ’peace and prosperity’ and material gains it means only the labour aristocracy, that it has already stated that the gains of the working class as a whole are “fragile and ephemeral”, and so on. But in order that the working class may be “strongly affected” by the benefits enjoyed by a few, it is clear that the majority of workers must also share in such benefits. Otherwise there is no basis for them being “strongly affected”. With the entire class basking in the ’benefits’ of imperialism, why of course the advanced workers have simply disappeared. Having received their share of the “gains”, the advanced workers no longer ’needed’ to go beyond trade unionism, had no incentive to study, study, study, and simply packed off to the bush to count their bankrolls and escape the class struggle. However much the League may protest these conclusions, they follow directly from the League’s view of the working class.
Second, to state that bourgeois ideology “increased accordingly” with the development of the labour aristocracy fails to account for the fact that bourgeois ideology always maintains a “strong influence” in the workers’ movement, regardless of ’peace and prosperity’ or the labour aristocracy. It is an axiom of Marxism-Leninism that without class conscious leadership, the working class movement is bound to trade unionism, which, as Lenin says, means the enslavement of the working class to bourgeois ideology. To make an argument that the control of bourgeois ideology has ’increased’ when it already fully predominated is absurd. By posing this absurdity, the League reveals its assumption that there are two forms of trade unionism: the militant and progressive kind, which the workers display when they are less ’strongly influenced’ by bourgeois ideology; and the ’reformist’ variety, which predominates when the labour aristocracy “strongly affects” the working class and bourgeois ideology “increases accordingly”. As we will see in analysing the League’s conception of “class struggle trade unionism”, the League does in fact posit a ’non-reformist trade unionism’, and makes this ’militant’ form of bourgeois ideology the focus of its work in the second period of the ’party’. That this is Menshevism and Economism pure and simple does not in the least “strongly affect” the League’s attempt to rationalize their opportunism.
This leaves only the third ’new condition’, what the League claims has “above all strongly affected” the viability of the Canadian and Quebec working class movement: the “absence of a genuine communist party”. Here again the League runs afoul of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that quite apart from the communist movement, the working class movement has its own development, its own momentum, and on its own is made up of various strata which reflect qualitative differences in outlook. The working class advances its own leaders who turn to communism to understand the line of march and take up the tasks of organizing proletarian revolution. The existence of communist leadership, a communist movement, or a communist Party does not create this advanced stratum. It comes into being regardless of what is happening amongst the intellectuals. Rather, it is precisely because the working class produces an advanced section that is straining towards communism that Marxism-Leninism is able to become solidly grounded within the class and move it beyond trade unionism. The level of development of the communist movement has nothing to do with the existence of the advanced workers. And yet this is precisely the conclusion the League attempts to make: the “absence of a genuine communist party” resulted in a “strongly affected”, lowered, class consciousness of the working class, reduced the number of advanced workers to an “extremely small” amount, and therefore we must appeal to the “combative workers”, the militant trade unionists, and lump them under the category of “advanced elements”. In reality, the absence of communists does not lower the class consciousness of the working class, nor does it reduce the number of advanced workers. The absence of communists simply means that the level of the working class will not be raised, and that the number of advanced workers already in existence will not be raised beyond the natural and spontaneous rate of generation. It is in fact the League’s own “absence of a communist” outlook and its pandering to the petty bourgeoisie that “strongly affects” it in the direction of opportunism, that allows it to belittle the advanced workers and substitute in their place trade unionism.
The “absence of a communist party” is a criticism, not of the class consciousness of the workers, but of the utter lack of consciousness among the petty bourgeois intelligentsia. That the working class movement is still suffering under the yoke of bourgeois ideology is true, but this is not the result of the “gains and benefits” of imperialism as the CCL would have it. The working class movement suffers because of the complete lack of revolutionary class consciousness in its supposed political leadership, the communist movement. This is the result of the “strong effects” of imperialism, not upon the working class, but upon the petty bourgeoisie, specifically the intelligentsia. Had the League intended to make a contribution to advancing the movement towards a truly communist Party, it would have shown the depths of ’militant’ opportunism generated among certain sections of the declassed intelligentsia when they are not among the recipients of the “favours and advantages granted by the bourgeoisie”. It would have aimed its attack, not at the working class, but at the communist movement, fully exposing its tailing behind the spontaneous workers’ movement, its super-abundance of nationalism, reformism and ideological underdevelopment. And, in the first place, it would have owned-up to its own political backwardness, its own ambitions for “gains and benefits”, instead of staining the proletariat with its own image. It would have raised itself to the level of our tasks, to the level of the advanced workers and transformed its own consciousness, rather than seeking justification for its own opportunism through the excuse of “strong effects” of imperialism on the working class.
In sum, it is clear that the League’s ’new conditions’ adds nothing to our understanding of the “essential characteristics” of the working class. It does, however, give us a wealth of insight into one crucial way in which the League represents and defends the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. By making the existence of advanced workers ’relative to conditions’ and by lumping average workers under the heading of “advanced elements”, the League has contributed its own two-cents towards the general petty bourgeois offensive against the working class. This concealed but very real attack on the advanced workers and the revolutionary character of the proletariat is itself one of the “essential characteristics” of modern Trotskyism.
In denying the Leninist conception of advanced workers, the League denies the possibility of diverting the spontaneous working class movement from trade unionism. For it is the advanced workers who can win the confidence of the class, rally the masses behind the proletarian Party, constantly raise the level of the class, and lead the fully class conscious struggle of the workers. If, as the League claims, the working class is so pitifully backward, such that it is virtually missing a stratum of advanced workers who seek out and can fully grasp communism, then the League will, of course, have to ’educate’ the workers in something they can spontaneously understand: the fight for their immediate interests. In order to establish credibility within the movement, the League must follow the Marxist-Leninist form: “win the advanced” to its banner and form its ’party’ on this basis. But it feels at liberty to define the ’advanced’ as it wishes. Unable to raise itself to the level of Marxism-Leninism, the League brazenly lowers the level of the advanced workers to suit its own Economist tendencies. The League seeks to freeze the working class movement in its spontaneous resistance to capital, addresses itself to and intends to ’fuse’ with the most militant elements of the lower middle and backward strata of the class. In this way it forges a ’party’ of militant trade unionism, following in the steps of the CP of the 1930’s.
In re-writing its definition of the advanced workers, the League offers two more of its now infamous ’creative additions’ to the body of opportunist thought. First, the League must pretend that Lenin’s definition of advanced workers refers only to workers who are already fully developed communist workers. Thus the League pronounces on the “communist workers’ vanguard” having disappeared and that “The number of communist workers, that is, workers who are class conscious and who lead the large masses of workers is extremely small.” (Statement of Political Agreement p. 77)
Aside from these “communist workers” and the “combative workers”, which the League jointly calls “the most advanced elements”, the League recognizes no other category of ’advanced workers’. It recognizes no stratum of workers who, lacking fully developed class consciousness, cannot yet be called communist, but who are more than militant trade unionists. The League cannot imagine that there are workers who are aspiring, not “in a confused way” to socialism, but with conscious striving and conviction, workers who not only stand in the forefront of the workers’ economic struggles, but who constantly attempt to raise themselves to the level of class conscious struggle, workers who devote themselves entirely to the cause of the proletariat. The League cannot comprehend that such workers exist simply because it has no need of them. But it should be clear that Lenin’s definition of advanced workers describes, not those workers who already have developed an independent, class conscious understanding, but those workers who, by the natural process of capitalist development, are aspiring consciously for such an integral understanding. The advanced workers become communist only after they have been given a comprehensive training in Marxism-Leninism, only after they have been drawn into active participation in the communist movement.
The advanced workers, who are generated independently of the communist movement, constitute a unique stratum of the proletariat. The “communist workers”, those who have already fused with the communist movement and acquired a comprehensive outlook, do not. The communist workers are still ’advanced workers’, are still part of the advanced stratum of the working class, but they are in addition fully class conscious and fused with the communist movement. When the League says that there are an “extremely small” number of communist workers, they inadvertently state the truth. How could there be very many communist workers when we, the communist movement, have yet to reach the advanced workers with scientific knowledge? But to state that there are “extremely small” numbers of communist workers says nothing at all about the existence and number of advanced workers. Of the advanced workers the League gives us nothing but silence.
The second ’creative innovation’ is the League’s introduction of a new ’stratum’ of workers, the “combative”. Since there is such an “extremely small” number of communist workers, and such a “good number of combative workers”, we see that the “combative” form the bulk of what the League calls “the most advanced elements of the working class”. Since the League accepts that we must ’win the advanced’ and conduct propaganda and agitation towards the ’advanced’, we can also see that the League really means to ’win the combative’ and aim its propaganda ’at the level of the combative’. But who are these “combative workers”? Showing great magnanimity towards the working class, the League states firstly that these workers are “...progressive enough to put into question the existing system...”. Having painted such a dismal, gloomy picture of the Canadian and Quebec working class, it is a wonder the League should still find a “good number” of workers who actually “question the existing system”. But for the working class this is not a rare and special quality, reserved only for the ’advanced elements’. Workers from all strata are well enough aware from their own everyday experience of the crying injustices they suffer at the hands of capital. The vast majority of workers “question the existing system”. What divides workers into strata is precisely their depth of understanding of the existing system, how they put it into question, what sort of solutions they seek, and their ability to grasp a scientific comprehension of it. The League has no conception of this. Seeing only through its own petty bourgeois ’anti-imperialism’, the League recognizes nothing but “progressive” doubt of “the system”. That the League should find general questioning of capitalism such a distinguishing feature as to generate an entirely new ’stratum’ of “combative workers” is only a symptom of its own difficulty in being “progressive enough”, despite its ’Marxist-Leninist’ facade, to call capitalism into question. It thus abscribes its own ’combative’, half-hearted, reformist “questioning” onto the working class.
As further characterization, the League states that its “combative workers” “aspire in a confused way to socialism” (p.77). That is, though they ’long’ for socialism, they are marked by a few rough edges: they are “...undeveloped ideologically, tainted with reformism and nationalism...” (p.77). But how is it that one of the distinguishing characteristics of the ’advanced elements’, of the “combative workers”, is that they “aspire in a confused way” to socialism, when the working class as a whole “ spontaneously gravitates towards Socialism...in the sense that socialist theory defines the causes of the misery of the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to assimilate it so easily, provided, however, that this theory does not itself yeild to spontaneity, provided it subordinates spontaneity to itself.” (V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.51)
How is it that ’aspiring to socialism’, let alone “in a confused way”, can be a distinguishing feature of the “most advanced elements” when even the average workers “strive ardently for socialism, participate in workers’ study circles, read socialist newspapers and books, participate in agitation.” (V.I. Lenin A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy CW Vol. 4 p. 281
It should be clear that even Lenin’s definition of ’average workers’ is posed at a much higher level than the League’s “combative”. Even the average workers do not “aspire in a confused way”, but actively seek out consistent communist work. What distinguishes the advanced workers from the average is not “aspiring”, but the ability to fully grasp communism and become independent leaders of the communist workers’ movement. But this level of class consciousness is well beyond the League’s narrow perception. The League can only register as advanced those who, like itself, “aspire in a confused way to socialism”. The League appeals to the lower stratum of the working class, to the ’radicalized’ petty bourgeois new arrivals to the working class, elements indistinguishable from those “radicalized petty bourgeois” who ’aspired’ to an “alternative to capitalist society” and were also “tainted with reformism and nationalism”.
A charming method of ’party’-building, is it not? Simply ascribe your own petty bourgeois characteristics onto the ’advanced’ strata and then proceed to ’fuse’ with this reflection!
What, then, really distinguishes the CCL(ML)’s “confused” “combative workers” from its other strata and defines them as “advanced”? We need only look to the League’s description of the other strata to find the answer. Here we see that the League’s criterion is wholly within the bounds of trade unionism, and guages the different strata in terms of trade union activity, or we should say, ’combativity’. Even the League’s choice of the catch-word “combative” reveals its trade unionist orientation. The “combative workers” are set aside because they “initiate” local trade union struggles and are active, “often in the forefront”, in them. In its great political wisdom, the League reckons this an expression of class consciousness beyond trade unionism. Once the League has elevated ’combativity’ as a factor ’beyond’ trade unionism, it can then define simple, un-’combative’ trade unionism as the domain of the “intermediate strata”. These “...intermediate strata...do not initiate local struggles, but ...participate in them once they are launched...” (p.77).
Now we can see just how far the League must degrade the working class in order to have the ’advanced elements’ standing at its own level. Lenin described the average workers as a “broad stratum” who also
...strive ardently for socialism, participate in workers’ study circles, read socialist newspapers and books, participate in agitation, and differ from the preceding stratum (the advanced) only in that they cannot become fully independent leaders of the (communist) working class movement. The average worker will not understand some of the articles in a newspaper that aims to be the organ of the Party, he will not be able to get a full grasp of an intricate theoretical or practical problem. V.I. Lenin A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy CW Vol. 4 p.281
For the League, participation but no initiation of local union struggles; for Lenin, striving ardently for socialism, differing from the advanced workers only in terms of grasp of intricate problems of science. For the League, trade union consciousness = minimal participation in local union struggles; for Lenin, trade union consciousness equals the struggle for the workers’ immediate interests alone, no matter how ’militant-ly’ or ’combatively’ this struggle is waged, or whether it is waged on the political or economic fronts. For the League, ’combativeness’ = a form of struggle ’above’ pure trade unionism; for Marxism-Leninism, ’combativeness’, as long as it is simply militancy in the union struggle, is still only a militant form of reformism, is part and parcel of trade unionism. For the League, ’combative’ = “advanced elements”; for Marxism-Leninism, even the most backward workers may display ’combativeness’. The League has no conception of truly advanced workers. The highest limit it can achieve, and thus consider to be ’advanced’, is nothing more than trade union militancy.
It is crucial for its revision of Party-building that the League not recognize this fact, that it present militant trade unionism as ’socialism’. In its struggle to achieve this association, to reduce the level of the Party to reformism, the League certainly cannot be accused of inconsistency and vacillation. Its Economism plods tediously along at a steady pace throughout their documents. Even the level of the backward strata of workers is lowered. Lenin speaks of this strata restricting itself to trade unionism, not combining with the communist movement, not joining the political struggle for socialism without “different forms of agitation and propaganda” being brought to bear on it. The League, however, sees the backward strata as an out and out reactionary force, “strongly marked by the ideology of class collaboration and heavily influenced by the labour aristocracy”, this consciousness manifesting itself as being “difficult to mobilize, even on the local level”. If the League’s “most advanced elements” are “tainted with reformism and nationalism”, we can well imagine what die-hard reactionaries the League conceives for its “backward strata”. No wonder it finds them “difficult to mobilize”.
We would have less argument with the League had its analysis of strata been intended as an analysis of the levels of political consciousness of, say, the petty bourgeois intelligentsia. There would then be more substance than smear to the League’s way of seeing. We would find that there are the “combative” petty bourgeois, the highest stage of development of that class, the “most advanced elements”, who are distinguished by their “aspiring in a confused way” to almost anything, and who “initiate” struggles for the narrow interests of the petty bourgeoisie. Then we would find the “intermediate strata” of the intelligentsia, those who “do not initiate local struggles” on behalf of the petty bourgeoisie, but who “participate in them once they are launched”. Following after the “intermediate”, of course, we would find the most backward strata of the intelligentsia, those who “are strongly marked by the ideology of class collaboration and heavily influenced by the labour aristocracy”. These petty bourgeois are naturally “difficult to mobilize, even on the local level”. Had the League, in short, stuck to describing itself, its ’analysis’ might have born fruit. As it is, it bears only opportunism and contempt for the working class.
The CCL(ML)’s “advanced elements” are, in fact, no more than militant trade unionists. In terms of Lenin’s analysis of strata in the working class, these “combative workers” stand at a transitional stage somewhere between the backward and average strata. But how low the League has gone to find its “advanced” is actually quite secondary. The decisive factor is that it has lowered communism to the level of trade unionism, has done precisely what Lenin warned against if the class is to be freed of bourgeois ideology: it has yielded Marxism-Leninism to spontaneity.
Of course, the CCL(ML) calls for the creation of a party. This, so it says, is its principal task. But there are Parties and ’parties’. The League can succeed in its ’party’-building only by eliminating the advanced, working class leaders who would readily reject the League’s petty bourgeois ’socialism’. So, on the plea of Canadian exceptionalism, of the absolutely inane theory of the ’very peculiar’ and ’changed’ conditions of the working class, the League has ’proven’ the non-existence of the advanced workers and substituted its “combatives” as stand-ins. It aims for workers who cannot fully grasp socialism, are absorbed in local work and cannot see the needs of the movement as a whole, and who themselves rely upon the advanced for leadership. These workers can readily grasp and actively pursue only what is most familiar to them, the trade union struggle, and this is precisely what the CCL(ML) serves up as the business of ’communism’. The League does not concern itself with raising the level of the class, but with solidifying it as is, affixing ’Marxist-Leninist’ trappings to this spontaneous struggle. In so doing, it opens wide the doors of its ’party’ to the “large masses of workers”, but closes its doors to the advanced. It thereby strives to “affirm itself as a mass party” by creating a ’party’ at the level of very “combative” trade unionism: a mass, ’militant’ labour party. Such is the sum and substance of the CCL’s Menshevism.
While our numbskulls nonchalantly chew the cud over the question of advanced workers and argue that the “most advanced elements” are, after all, “undeveloped ideologically, tainted with reformism and nationalism”, and so on, one can imagine the following exchange between some advanced workers about the existence of a communist movement:
“Good God, comrades, perhaps Lenin’s analysis of the development of the communist movement is no longer applicable. I mean, really, look at the level of communist work we have to put up with. We certainly don’t see much of that broad communist propaganda and agitation Lenin wrote about. And as far as principled and consistent leadership goes, so far you can forget it. What do you think? Are there any advanced communists after all?”
“Well, comrade, its hard to say. You’re certainly right about what we’ve got now. We must carefully consider that Lenin made his analysis before imperialism was fully established, before opportunism was provided with such a firm and prosperous basis, and also before the petty bourgeoisie had been so thoroughly demolished and thrown down into our ranks in such great number. Perhaps the petty bourgeois intelligentsia has been so ’strongly affected’ by imperialism that none are capable of rising to the level of Marxism-Leninism.”
“A possibility, but we shouldn’t lose hope and think that none can become consistent communists. I’ve heard that Mao says it takes at least ten years to turn one of those intellectuals into a communist, and Lenin certainly had to fight every step of the way. The communist movement here is young and inexperienced, still learning and...”
“We know, we know all that, and we certainly haven’t give up, but the situation now is completely ridiculous. These groups don’t seem to be able to proceed towards principled Marxism-Leninism, even at a snail’s pace. You’ve read their papers and pamphlets, you know what we mean. Their agitation is so childish, it’s embarrassing to read. Their propaganda is so general and vague, so full of empty-headed phrase-mongering, it’s enough to make you sick at heart. Their polemics very rarely expose an opponent’s errors clearly, and hardly ever state the simple truth. It’s all I can do to get through them anymore, and you know I don’t have all the time in the world. If there was something to them, you know I wouldn’t mind. But this has got out of hand. When what we need is some real direction, these runny-nosed kids think it’s enough just to rehash the same old Economism. I don’t know. I say they’re a lost cause and let’s forget them.”
“But, you know just how far we can get on our own, and besides, surely there are some Marxist-Leninists emerging, despite the pollution of the opportunists. Perhaps a principled trend won’t mature for several years, but there are always new cadres coming into the movement, ones who were not schooled in the 1960’s movement and have no investment in petty opportunism. These youth are being drawn to our struggle even now. There’s bound to be some who can develop principled communist leadership.”
“You may be right, comrade, but think what a job we’ll have ahead of us. Any Marxist-Leninists worth their stuff will have to fight not only all the CP stiffs and bureaucrats but a half-dozen other opportunist ’parties’ all claiming to be our vanguard. It’ll take some pretty dedicated communists to cut through that. You’ve seen how ardently these self-righteous ’vanguards’ defend their own opportunist aims. I guess we’ll just have to see how things develop.”
And so on.
D. A QUESTION OF TRANSLATION?
The completion of the CCL(ML)’s ’party’-building plan comes in its justification for its entry into the second period immediately upon declaration of its ’party’. The League is not satisfied with the mere declaration of its faction as The Party. It is an organization of Action, of Mass Struggle (or at least ’support’ for such struggle) and will spare no effort to establish its ’party’ on the same plane.
Having stated that our movement is in the “first stage” that is, period, “of party building” (p.66), it would stand to reason that the CCL(ML) should agree that propaganda is the main form of activity of this period. Both Lenin and Stalin clearly state that this will be the case so long as the advanced workers have not yet been won to communism. The League even quotes Stalin to this effect. There would seem to be no doubt in the matter. This would in fact be the case for a Marxist-Leninist organization. But once again we must part company with Marxism-Leninism if we are to follow the CCL(ML) and discover what it is it has in mind. The League is so bold as to give a direct quote from the classics, stating “Propaganda as the chief form of activity”, but instantaneously revises it with the following footnote:
In place of the word ’propaganda’, the French version of this article by Stalin has the term ’education’. We feel it is correct to give the wider interpretation of the term – that is, propaganda and agitation as the key forms of political education – and not the narrow interpretation of the English word (propaganda as opposed to agitation). Statement of Political Agreement p.66
Isn’t that nice. “We feel it is correct”! We, the precious CCL(ML) have decided that Stalin’s ’restrictive’ statement is not necessary for our purpose, so we will revise it, we will ’broaden’ it to fit our own needs. With its loose play with language, the CCL(ML) has proven, not that French is more suited to Marxism-Leninism than English, but simply that opportunism can be spoken in any tongue.
Political education does indeed encompass both propaganda and agitation, but that does not change the fact that ’narrow’ Lenin and ’narrow’ Stalin singled out propaganda as the chief form of activity in winning the advanced workers, irrespective of the translation. They determined propaganda as the main form of activity on the basis of the objective needs of any developing movement, of what is mandatory if a truly communist Party is to be forged. The League’s ’differing’ translation does not alter the fact that in winning the advanced workers it is necessary for communists to concentrate precisely on “the detailed analyses and the presentation of theory and history...”, as the League describes propaganda (The Forge #1 p.5). It should go without saying that it is through propaganda, through the presentation of “...’many ideas’, so many, indeed, that they will be understood as an integral whole only by a (comparatively) few persons.” (V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.82) that the advanced workers can have at their disposal a wealth of information essential for developing a comprehensive and integral world-view.
It also goes without saying that propaganda and agitation, however interconnected and mutually supplemental, are still two distinct concepts. When we emphasize propaganda, we do not wholly exclude agitation, nor do we counterpose the two. When agitation comes to the forefront, that does not at all mean that propaganda simply ceases. These two forms of “education” operate from the basis of the same world outlook, and differ only in the particular forms they are presented in and the particular audiences they are directed towards. Propaganda as the main activity means simply that we lean to propaganda, we stress propaganda, we devote the greater part of our energies to it, an emphasis directly related to the fact that we must concentrate on drawing out the advanced workers and do not direct ourselves primarily to leading “revolutionary mass struggles”. Unless we have won the advanced workers (and this cannot be accomplished without directing comprehensive communist propaganda towards them, propaganda that is so comprehensive in scope that it can meet the intellectual requirements of the advanced and train them to apply materialism independently) there clearly can be no basis for leading the “revolutionary mass struggles”. On the other hand, propaganda as the “chief form” of activity does not mean the liquidation of all other activities. In addition to propaganda directed to the advanced, we also, as a secondary activity, engage in communist agitation among the broad masses of workers. Such agitation is an integral aspect of our work in the period of the Party’s formation, but we should in no circumstances give it priority over propaganda in this period nor should we place it on the same level. To do so would amount to belittling our main task, the winning of the advanced, and reduce that task to the level of winning the average and backward.
This “rendering more profound” on the part of our “vanguard” opportunists, this ’dialectical’ lumping together of propaganda and agitation under the heading of “principal task”, does not arise from the English or any other translation, but from the class view of our translators. The CCL(ML) “feels it is correct” to raise this question of translation for a very good reason. It is attempting to obliterate the real differences between propaganda and agitation – scope of presentation and audience – and the fact that it is objective conditions which determine which form of activity comes to the fore at any given time. It is attempting to put the two forms on an equal plane regardless of the level of development of the movement. Once it has thus leveled the distinction between propaganda and agitation, the League is free to substitute one for the other. But the League’s operation does not cease with this simple maneuver; it has much grander designs. Once it has interchanged the two forms, it finds no difficulty in concluding a very ’dialectical’ transformation, a ’negation of the negation’, as it were, and re-asserts the primacy of agitation over propaganda. Not six pages after it has ’broadened’ Stalin’s ’narrow’ formulation and raised its cry against those who would oppose propaganda to agitation, the League shows its full colours. In discussing its “principal means” of doing propaganda and agitation, we find that “In this paper, communist propaganda will have an important place; political agitation will be dominant.” (Statement of Political Agreement p.72)
Further, when introducing this paper, The Forge, the CCL(ML) elaborates more on its ’amendment’ to Marxism-Leninism:
Political agitation will be the priority of the newspaper. Communist propaganda, the detailed analyses and the presentation of theory and history will have an important, but secondary place. The newspaper will closely follow all the developments of the economic struggle of the working class and the movement of the oppressed masses.
Political agitation links each manifestation of political oppression wherever it exists, in all strata and classes of the society, to the struggle for socialism. It is this kind of agitation, political exposures, which is the necessary and fundamental condition to form the political consciousness of the working masses. It is there living exposures, rather than theoretical explanation alone, which are the key to building the vanguard. The Forge #1 p.5
The League has indeed been bitten by the revisionist bug. Not only does it create its own false equation of propaganda and agitation, it also directly contradicts what is demanded by Marxism-Leninism for the first period by singling out “political agitation” as “the priority” for its work. The CCL(ML) will be hard put to find a single word in the body of Marxist-Leninist literature about “theoretical explanation alone” being “the key to building the vanguard”. But the CCL(ML) must create such nonsense if it is to build a case for its own “key”. The League must pretend that propaganda as the.“chief activity” means propaganda as the only activity, and that this, of course, is ’insufficient’. The advanced workers, states the League, cannot learn by “theoretical explanation alons”. We must have, states the League, political agitation and political exposures. We must have so much of this, states the League, that political agitation must be “key”. It is through such ’agitated’ logic that the League turns Marxism-Leninism on its head.
Lenin and Stalin state that propaganda is the chief form of activity when our main task is to win the advanced workers to communism. Nothing could be clearer. As to other forms of activity, for instance political exposures, Lenin states that “These comprehensive political exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training the masses in revolutionary activity.” (V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.87)
But being “an essential and fundamental condition...” for training the masses of workers is not the same as being the essential and fundamental condition for training the advanced workers. Political exposures may take a wide variety of forms, as can be seen by Lenin’s writings. Some may be more complex, surveying a wide range of interconnections that bear upon a particular incident, and thus will be propagandistic in character. Others may concentrate on a very few, especially revealing points, and thus be agitational in character. When our main task is to win the advanced workers to communism, our chief activity will naturally be propaganda since it is propaganda that generates a comprehensive world-view well within the grasp of the advanced. When we undertake political exposures, we will also quite naturally concentrate on those political exposures which are propagandistic in nature, which explain a wide range of factors that relate to a given topical incident. We will also engage in other activities, forms of work directed towards the masses of workers, which, whether in the form of speeches or in the form of written political exposures, will be agitational in nature, will dwell on one or two essential points well within the grasp of the masses of average workers.
All this is entirely alien to the League. It is indeed ’speaking in another language’, the language of opportunism and “confused and erroneous ideas”. It cannot comprehend propaganda as the chief form of activity simply because it cannot comprehend winning the advanced workers as our central task. It cannot conceive of the latter simply because it has no other conception of ’advanced’ beyond its own petty, grovelling opportunism. It thus invents its own language, its own interpretation of ’propaganda’, ’agitation’ and ’political exposures’. It attempts to turn Marxism-Leninism on its head, simply because that is the position from which the League itself surveys the world. But despite the foolish stance the League has taken, there is, after all, a method to its madness.
By revising the chief activity, by reducing political exposures to agitation, and by making agitation the “key”, the League is attempting to direct the work of the communist movement away from the advanced workers and towards the ’broad masses’. It does this, not because it assumes to have already won the advanced, but simply because it has no conception of the advanced. It has already substituted “combative” workers, that is, militant trade unionists, in place of the advanced workers, and having done this must interpret ’winning the advanced’ as ’winning the militant trade unionists’. Since the militant trade unionists are in fact only average workers, the winning of them demands a form of ’education’ suited to the average workers, that is, it demands agitation. The League must therefore, after it has substituted average workers for advanced, find a means to substitute agitation for propaganda. In this respect the League is entirely consistent, entirely true and ’faithful’ in its Economism. In its peculiar ’translation’ of Marxism-Leninism, it has found the means to ’fuse’ the first and second periods of the Party, the means to by-pass the advanced workers and appeal directly to the “broad masses of working people”, and thus create a ’party’ that represents, not the fusion of communism and the advanced workers, but the fusion of petty bourgeois opportunism and trade unionism.
E. THE LEAGUE BECOMES ’POLITICAL’
Being a collection of groups with long-standing Economist deviations, the League must make every effort to disassociate itself from its infatuation with reformism. It attempts to do this, to drive home its new ’non-Economist’ posture by announcing itself a convert to ’politics’. From now on, the League will do ’political’ agitation, ’political’ exposures, ’political’ politics anything, so long as the word “economic” is not attached. But there are politics and politics. There is, for instance, something called ’trade unionist polities’, and as we will see, this is exactly what the League has in mind.
Following a passage from Lenin stating specifically that economic and political agitation are “...inseparably connected in the activities of the (communists) as the two sides of the same medal. Both...are equally necessary to develop the class consciousness of the proletariat.” (V.I. Lenin Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats CW Vol.2 p.332) are informed, in bold print no less, that for ’communists’ of the CCL stripe, contrary to what Lenin states, the “two types of agitation are not of equal importance. Political agitation must always predominate.” Statement of Political Agreement p.71)
Even Lenin is not ’revolutionary’ enough for our opportunists, once they have stumbled into the realm of ’polities’. However, neither the League’s bold print nor its conception that “political agitation...is the superior form of communist agitation...”(p.72) can be found anywhere in the writings of Marxism-Leninism. From its inception, scientific socialism has recognized and advocated the integral combination of economic and political agitation, reflecting the indissoluble connection of the three fundamental forms of proletarian class struggle: economic, political and theoretical.
Far from slighting or downplaying the economic struggle in any way, Marxism-Leninism understands this struggle as a basis, a lever, for the organization of the Party and development of the proletariat’s class struggle against the whole of the capitalist system. It is not the whole of this struggle, but neither is it a lesser form. This basic communist policy was established by the middle 1840’s in Marx’s polemic against Proudhon’s Utopian socialism and rejection of the economic struggle. At its First Congress some twenty years later, the International Workingmen’s Association adopted this Marxist position in a resolution stressing that the economic struggle must not be belittled nor overrated, but above all should not be separated from the political struggle. As Lenin put it,
The resolution declared that the trade unions must not devote attention exclusively to the ’immediate struggle against capital’ must not remain aloof from the general political and social movement of the working class; they must not pursue ’narrow’ aims, but must strive for the general emancipation of the millions of oppressed workers. V.I. Lenin A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats CW Vol.4 p.177
In this first short polemic against the original Economists, those who directly subsumed the class struggle behind the economic form, Lenin spelled out in the clearest terms what this meant: “Marxism linked up the economic and political struggle of the working class into a single inseparable whole...”. (V.I. Lenin Ibid. p.175)
Clear it would seem. Certainly clear enough for Lenin to draw a precise distinction between the tasks of the opportunists and the communists vis-a-vis the economic struggle, a distinction well worth quoting in full:
It is the task of the bourgeois politician to ’assist the economic struggle of the proletariat’; the task of the socialist is to bring the economic struggle to further the socialist movement and the successes of the revolutionary working class party. The task of the socialist is to further the indissoluble fusion of the economic and political struggle into the single class struggle of the socialist working class masses. V.I. Lenin Apropos of the Profession de Foi CW Vol. 4 p.294.
How, then, are we to explain the CCL(ML)’s categorial assertion of the predominance of political agitation? Why is it that these die-hard Economists can muster so much bold print on behalf of the ’political’? The League knows that an elementary point of Marxism-Leninism is that every class struggle is a political struggle, and that the workers’ class struggle has as its immediate objective the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the conquest of political power. But the League attempts to associate the political nature of the class struggle as a whole with only one of its spheres: the political. It imagines that by proclaiming political agitation as the categorical superior over economic agitation, we will not notice that in this very ’political’ formulation the League has substituted trade unionist politics for political struggle for state power. That this is how the League conceives of ’politics’ is fully demonstrated by its ’political agitation’ in the pages of The Forge.
The League is not content with having asserted its ’political’ intentions. In order to show that its Economism is entirely behind it, it defines Economism solely in terms of the economic struggle, economic agitation, and narrow work within the factory. The League makes mention of the stages theory and limiting political agitation to the “economic terrain”, but does not show that Economism may also reveal itself in ’politics’ in the struggle against the government. It never develops a clear and precise picture of the political side of Economism, of the core of the Economists’ attitude to politics, that is,
...the ’Economists’ do not altogether repudiate ’polities’, but... they are constantly straying from the (communist) to the trade unionist conception of politics. V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.67
The League ’forgets’ that there is such a thing as trade unionist politics, since that is precisely the sort of ’politics’ our “vanguard” wishes to pursue. It would be ’inconvenient’ to discuss it. But this omission by the League reveals the ’depths’ of its critical view of Economism. What it criticizes is the species of Economism its founding groups became so familiar with, Economism which boldly takes its stand squarely in the economic struggle. But all this flurry of activity, all this meeting, discussing, agreeing, self-’criticizing’, reorganizing, self-proclaiming, and so on that resulted in the League’s formation was not for nothing. It enabled our opportunists to, among other things, find a means to criticize Economism and simultaneously open an entirely ’new’ sphere for their own precious Economism. When the League declares its adherence to the ’political’, it is simply letting us know that from now on it will flaunt its Economism, not in the narrow struggle against single employers, but in the ’political’ struggle against the government.
Thus the League has no wish to tie any worker solely to the struggle against his employer. Not at all. The League even states that “...the development of the workers’ political consciousness demands an understanding of the relations between all classes, nations, and other strata.” (Statement of Political Agreement p.72)
But what this ’all-round political exposure’ amounts to in the League’s practice is something else. It goes without saying that the workers’ class consciousness must be built through their understanding of the various social classes and strata, of how all the social characters in class society defend, mask and advance their interests, and how each relates to the class struggle of the proletariat. But whereas Marxism-Leninism gives us tools to determine these relations with scientific accuracy, the League insists on inventing its own. Thus, when it states, in a ’principled’ manner in its ’fight’ with Economism that the “workers’ political consciousness demands an understanding of the relation” and so on, the League feels at liberty to substitute its own view of these “relations” for any that may actually exist. This is born out by the League’s sneaking of nearly the entire petty bourgeoisie into the category of “oppressed”; by its own defense of petty bourgeois interests under the cover of ’Marxism-Leninism’; by its social-chauvinist position on unity with the Canadian imperialists in case of superpower invasion; and so on. Such are the “relations between all classes” that the League hopes to put over on the working class.
The CCL(ML) has already given us several concrete demonstrations of its understanding of ’political agitation’. In The Forge we read that “Political agitation will often take the form of large campaigns launched by the League such as we are now undertaking against the wage freeze.” (The Forge # 1 p.5)
That is, the League is not simply waging some narrow campaign against a particular employer, is not concentrating merely on some particular wage issue. Not at all. That would be Economism, and we know that the League has long since ’broken’ with Economism. No. The League is now conducting political agitation on (imagine it!) the wage freeze of the (something political, no doubt), yes, of the government. The League will henceforth not concern itself solely with the economic struggle. It will lend the economic struggle itself a political character. Breath-taking, is it not?
The League cannot conceive that the struggle against the wage freeze, a struggle it is so taken by, a struggle it supports “all the way” to a general strike for repeal, is still only trade union politics, an excellent example of the “economic struggle against the employers and the government”. The League cannot imagine that the simple fact that such struggles are directed against the government and involve law and politics still does not make such struggle any more than simple trade unionism. It is not the business of communists to “launch large campaigns” against wage freezes,for health benefits, etc. The workers are entirely capable of ’launching’ such campaigns themselves, and do launch them whenever the need arises. On the contrary, it is the task of communists to
convert trade union politics into (communist) political struggle, to utilize the sparks of political consciousness which the economic struggle generates among the workers, for the purpose of raising them to the level of (communist) political consciousness. V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.90
F. ARRIVAL AT THE SECOND PERIOD
The CCL(ML) has fully established its theoretical justification for entering directly into the second period of the Party, for becoming a ’mass party’, prior to winning the vanguard ideologically. All that remains is the doing. For this, the League establishes a minimum of conditions. The League portrays the second period as “...when the party affirms itself as a mass party leading revolutionary actions...”(p.66). This characterization appears to differ little from Stalin’s statement that it is “ the period of revolutionary mass struggles under the leadership of the Communist Party...”. But as we have come to expect with the League, things are not so simple. While Stalin stresses the leadership of the Party over revolutionary mass struggles, the CCL(ML) stresses the ’affirmation’ of its ’mass party’ as a leader in such struggles. Since the League has already ’affirmed itself as “the vanguard organization”, there is no doubt that its ’party’ will likewise ’affirm itself as a leader of “revolutionary actions”. While the Bolsheviks had no need of such pretentious self-affirmation, and were instead affirmed by the course of history to be the true leaders of the proletariat, the League must count on its ’mass party’ to ’affirm’ itself. If the League left it to the working class to do the ’affirming’, the workers would certify the League, not as a ’mass party’ of the working class, but as a ’party’ making a mess of the working class.
The League is no doubt already close to ’affirming’ itself. It displays such a sense of great urgency, of life-and-death struggle, in carrying on its ’political agitation’ to “fight back” against, for example, the Trudeau law; but it shows none of the same immediacy for preparing the workers’ movement for prolonged struggle, for rallying the advanced workers, and for purging the communist movement of all petty bourgeois deviations that block the development of a revolutionary working class movement. The League, after all, is not suicidal. No, the League does not concern itself with these ’paltry’ Marxist-Leninist tasks. It is “concentrating its energies” (The Forge #2 p.3) on building a militant trade union movement, on developing “revolutionary trade unionism”, and on such “revolutionary resistance” as a general strike for repeal of Bill C-73. It must, in short, engage in ’politics’ – trade unionist politics, to be sure, but ’politics’ nonetheless. Having fulfilled nothing, the League is now prepared to pass into the second period.
All that the League has learned from its passing fancy with the proletariat is that it is possible, so long as conditions are sufficiently retarded, to create yet another outlet for petty bourgeois ambitions, for petty opportunism and the quest for ’palpable results’. It is pathetically humorous to hear the League say that The Forge “Will keep its analysis on the level of the class conscious workers, those who already aspire to socialism and are thirsty for a deep knowledge of Marxism-Leninism.” (The Forge #1 p.5).
It is pathetic because, far from being at the level of the class conscious workers, The Forge represents only the level of unrepentant petty bourgeois radicals who hope to turn the working class to their own ends. It is humorous because no advanced worker thirsting for political knowledge will have that thirst quenched by The Forge. Indeed, such class conscious workers would only say: If this is what the League offers us as political knowledge, we will suffer our thirst a little longer. This stuff is easy to swallow, but leaves one as dry as before.