Part and parcel of the attack on the Third World Coalition and the October League over the issue of the national liberation struggles of Asia, Africa and Latin America, is the attack against the “New Left conciliators and liquidators”.
From the very beginning the two arguments are lumped together, the very title and language of the “Reply” to the Third World Coalition letter include the TWC in the “new left” and brands them conciliators. Later in their dispute with OL over the issue of the national liberation struggles and with Revolutionary Union over the United Front Against Imperialism as a tactic for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist CP, the Peoples Tribune adds the charge of liquidationism to their assault on the “New Left”.
Let us try and sort out the mish mash of arguments and counter-arguments appearing in the Peoples Tribune in the interests of clarity, in the interests of educating our comrades and friends in the working class.
This article began with a discussion of the CL theoreticians abstract idealist theory of dialectics and how they try to maneuver inside their ’system’ of pure reason, of reason separate from material reality. Second, we proceeded to examine the application of idealist and mechanical dialectics to a particular concept, i.e., the concept of Third World and saw how the CL finds the origin of ideas or concepts in the ’heads’ of imperialists on the one hand and on the other, in a one-sided view of history. Now let us go on to study how the idealist method of dialectics applies itself to the real world in the context of the real historical relations out of which arises the concepts it bats around in its mechanical and metaphysical schemas.
Having entered into the political arena in order to do battle with revisionism the Peoples Tribune finds itself first and foremost engaged in a struggle with the conciliators of revisionism instead of revisionism, and the liquidators of the left instead of its sincere but misguided membership. This is not hard to understand when we realize that it is not the real world and real unity with which they are concerned, but the opportunity to polemicize in a mechanical and dogmatic way in order to come to intellectual, verbal agreement on all points with some un-named ’sincere and honest’ Marxist-Leninists with whom it hopes to “merge”.
What becomes of these charges of “conciliationism” and “liquitationism” in the hands of the Peoples Tribune? They become the basis for a re-iteration of the well known dangers of these tendencies.
Reformism, ultra-leftism, dogmatism, opportunism and revisionism, of all stripes exist within the revolutionary left at present. They must be combatted and defeated. Under the banner of doing battle with them, using “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought” to distort and oppose Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, the metaphysical dialecticians of the Peoples Tribune pose so that they can oppose. This is their method for they are not interested in the real unity, the resolution of the contradictory tendencies within the revolutionary left, within the real world, in a Communist Party, but are interested solely in swelling their own ranks and in carrying out their dark, double-dealing schemes.. Idealist, mechanical dialecticians cannot and do not correctly understand the process of development. For this reason they are incapable of creating a qualitative transformation of existing conditions, and are only capable of creating quantitative repetitions. Where their methods of work and styles of writing ought to qualitatively develop they only repeat themselves quantitatively, expanding the body of their writings but never qualitatively developing it.
The attack on conciliators and liquidators is nothing other than an attempt to force the real world into the Peoples Tribunes’ schematic, idealist understanding of the struggle between the contradictory elements in the Left. It is for this reason that they continually refer to Lenin and Marx, What they are trying to do is to mechanically reproduce in the present the struggles of Lenin and Marx against reformism, revisionism and liquidationism. Let us briefly examine the charge of liquidationism that is levelled against the R.U.
What is the one thing Lenin pointed out liquidators could not and would not do?
But – and this is the whole point – no task is more unpleasant, undesirable, and unacceptable to the liquidators than that of ascertaining our main differences on questions of theory, programme, tactics and organization.”
Under these circumstances they will inevitably strive to substitute for the definite ’clarification of differences’ demanded by the Bureau, petty personal squabbles, distortions, and willful misrepresentation, which can only hamper its work, and they will constantly necessitate those lessons in ’loyalty’ which the Secretary of the International has already been compelled to teach the liquidators. from “Once More About I.S.B. and Liquidators”, vol. 20, pp.54-55, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works
In their own paper the theoreticians of the CL point out the clear difference between themselves and the RU on the issue of the role of the United Front Against imperialism. There is at least a basis here then to carry out principled polemics, but principled polemics are precisely what the Peoples Tribune have never printed. In its Red Papers, R.U. avails its position to polemical struggle along with what ever else. Contrary to Lenin, who points out that you do not bat around liquidationist theories, but that you point to their practice, to its inconsistency, to its inability to establish a mass base, the Peoples Tribune no where does this. Instead the attack against R.U. is based on the theoretical dispute over whether or not the UFAI is the correct tactical way of creating a Communist Party, and it is important to keep in mind, the exclusion of CL from the very United Front it is ruthlessly attacking.
The charge of liquidationism, whether correct or not in this case, is not correctly or clearly examined by the Peoples Tribune.
The charge of conciliationism is very clear example of the Peoples Tribune method of using “Lenin” to oppose Lenin. How is this? On page 15 of Vol 5, no 2, of the Peoples Tribune the following is written:
The OL starts by considering the revisionist to be weak and harmless and the Trotskyites to be merely wrong Marxist-Leninists, rather than counter-revolutionary agents outside of the Communist movement. From this position the OL has moved to a position of alliance and collusion with them. The OL leadership balks at exposing the Trotskyites and revisionists: they call for unity with them. Lenin described this state of affairs in a similar situation:
The attempt of the conciliators to unite at all costs with the Liquidators (the August Conference 1912) proved fruitless, and the unifiers themselves became ideologically and politically dependent on the Liquidators.
First the quote which is attributed to V.I. Lenin here was not written by Lenin at all. It was written by the “conciliators” themselves. The quote is one Lenin refers to in his article The August Fiction Exposed. It was actually written by the conciliators, the Lettish Marxists, in order to characterize their own experience within the August bloc.
Second, what in fact occurred was that it was the leadership of the Lettish workers and not the workers themselves which had been most interested in uniting with the liquidators. And it was the broad membership of the Lettish workers organization that repudiated that unity. Lenin in relating to the situation correctly and consistently exposed the error of conciliationism but never lowered his attack to the level of insinuating that the Lettish conciliators were incapable of or would never resolve there erroneous viewpoints. In fact the opposite was the case:
Those who knew the facts never doubted that the liquidators were... deviating from the truth.
But one thing is true: eager support for the liquidators and their Seven came from the Lettish “leadership”. The Lettish newspaper, which was then controlled by the liquidators, published articles against the Six which, by their scandalous tone and liquidationist content, put them on a par with the articles published, in the St. Petersburg organ of the Russian liquidators.
True, only a very insignificant number of the Lettish workers supported the liquidationist campaign. The ’leading’ body, however, was on the side of the liquidators, and they continued to speak ’on behalf of the Lettish organised proletariat... “Conciliatory trends were undoubtedly very strong at the Lettish Congress. The Letts did not want to tell the Liquidationist group in the Duma plainly and bluntly that it was a group of splitters, who were flouting the will of the workers and that they ought to resign from the Duma. They did not want to do that, evidently because the Lettish minority does not go to the same lengths as the Russian liquidators, and also because the Letts still have hopes of a nossible reconciliation with the Chkheidze group. from Vol 20, pp 177,178,179, Lenin, Works.
Thus, it was not the Lettish workers who supported the unification with the liquidators. Lenin found it inappropriate to use beligerent and derisive language in describing their plight, for he was first and foremost concerned with the working class and not their petty-bourgeois and. bourgeois “leaders”. Such must always be the case for a Communist, for a cadre of a Marxist-Leninist CP. Our attacks are meant to educate and lead the working class to victory, not to waste the time and confuse the advanced elements.
We do not defend neutralism; we are opposed to it. But we do not behave like the Narodniks and liquidators when they obtain a chance majority in some union. Only feeble groups with no principles lose their heads at the first ”victory” and hasten to “consolidate” their victory by a majority of a score or so of votes. Excited and in a hurry not to miss such a golden opportunity, they hastily revise their “principles”, forget their neutralism, and stick an a label. Marxists do not behave like that. They are not stray visitors in the working-class movement. They know that sooner or later all the unions will take their stand on the basis of Marxism. They are convinced that the future belongs to their ideas and, therefore, they do not force events, do not goad the unions on, and do not stick labels on them or split them.
Steadily and confidently they carry on their Marxist Propaganda. They patiently teach Marxism to the workers, drawing on the lessons of life, and not deals between unprincipled groups will divert them from that path.
There was a time when the present-day liquidators demanded that the trade unions should be Party unions and have official representation in the Party. There was a time when the Narodniks compelled the Railwaymen’s Union to officially swear allegiance to their program. Today both have swung to the opposite extreme, and stand for neutralism. They have been compelled to do this by the political weakness of their positions.
We are following our old roads, proclaimed long ago and upheld by the entire body of Marxists. from Vol 20, pp. 140, Lenin, Works.
The quote from the Lettish Marxists, which has been wrongly attributed to Lenin is used as a justification for the childish and destructive behavior of the authors of the Peoples Tribune. This is nothing other than using our great leaders teachings to oppose Marxism-Leninism.
We will quote further from the writing of V.I. Lenin:
That is exactly what they are – sterile! The “unity” of the varied intellectualist little groups is bought by the Narodniks at the price of their utter political impotence among the masses.
And with us Marxists, too, it is the Trotskyists, the liquidators, the “conciliators”, and the “Tyszka-ites”, those who shout loudest about group unity, who display the same intellectualist impotence while the real political campaigns, not the imaginary ones, but those that grow out of actual conditions (election, insurance, daily press, strike campaigns, etc.) show that the majority of the class conscious workers are rallied around those who are most often, most zealously and most fiercely accused of being “splitters”. “The conclusion to be drawn is clear, and however unpalatable it may be to the host of intellectualist groups the course of the working-class movement will compe1 them to admit it. This conclusion is that attempts to create ”unity be means of ’agreements’ or ’alliances’ among intellectualist groups, which in fact express tendencies that are injurious to the working-class movement (Narodism, liquidationism, etc.), lead only to complete disintegration and impotence. Both Narodism and liquidationism have proved this by their lamentable example.
Only in opposition to these groups and grouplets (in a strenuous struggle, which is inevitable under bourgeois conditions and amidst a host of petty-bourgeois vacillations) is real unity building up among the working-class masses led by the majority of the class-conscious proletarians.
Naive people will ask: How are we to distinguish the intellectualist
groups which are causing damage to the working-class movement by disintegrating it and condemning it to impotence, from that group are
groups which ideologically express the working-class movement, rally,
unite, and strengthen it? There are only two ways of distinguishing
one from the other: theory and practical experience. It is necessary
seriously to examine the theoretical content of such trends of thought
as Narodism and liquidationism (the principal petty-bourgeois trends
that are disintegrating the working class movement). It is necessary
to carefully study the practical experience of the mass working-class
movement as a means of rallying the majority of class-conscious workers
around integral and considered decisions, based on principle and
applied in elections, in insurance campaigns, in activities in
the trade unions, in the strike movement, in the “underground”
and so forth. From n. 61 Vol. 20 Lenin, Works.
...the frothy radical chatter that is increasingly becoming the sole
content of liquidator writings, often obscures from the reader the
principles underlying liquidator propaganda. That is exactly what the
liberal-labor politicians are after – that amidst the din, hullabaloo
and fireworks of radical claptrap the workers should more easily swallow
bourgeois platitudes against the Marxist organisation.
But class-conscious workers will not be deceived by the rantings of
sham, political campaigns launched by the disrupters of the workers’
organisation. What class conscious workers appreciate most of all and
first of all in every press organ is adherence to high principle. What
are the workers really being taught under the cover of the “opposition”
claptrap, clamour and claims to defend the interests of the workers? –
that is the main, the basic and properly speaking, the only important
question that every thinking worker asks himself. The thinking worker
knows that the most dangerous of advisers are those liberal friends of
the workers who claim to be defending their interests but are actually
trying to destroy the class independence of the proletariat and its
organization. page 90, Vol 20, Lenin, Works.
...1909 and 1914. This was a period in which the working-class movement in Russia encountered particularly serious difficulties. Marxists, however, were not and could not be content with simply complaining about the general disintegration, break-down, and so forth. IT WAS NECESSARY TO DETERMINE THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CAUSES of the break-down from the point of view of the particular stage of Russia’s capitalist development, and determine the class significance of the broadest trend that reflected this break-down, namely, the trend of LIQUIDATIONISM. page 126, Vol 20, Lenin, Works.
* * *
The Communist League diatribes against the formation of a United Front Against Imperialism, calling it nothing more than a ”disguised revisionist program”, are a clear cut example of the devious intentions of the editorial board of the Peoples Tribune, and their writers. It is their fundamental aim to divide the revolutionary left along false lines. It is their intention to alienate all pre-party mass organizations rather than to correct their infantile, but dangerous errors. It is the style of the Peoples Tribune to pose in order to “both pose and oppose”...that is, they pose as a pro-party organization so that they can obstruct the formation of a CP by obstructing the development of the many sincere and progressive cadres in all the pre-party organizations. Unfortunately for us this League will never come close to a point where they can “compose”, “to form again on at least a quantitatively higher level”, unless they rectify the errors in their organ. As with M. Proudhon, their great forebearer,
...in spite of all the trouble (they have) taken to scale the heights of the system of contradictions, (they have) never been able to raise(themselves) above the first two rungs of simple thesis and antithesis: and even these (they have) mounted only twice, and on one of these two occasions (they) fell over backwards. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, p. 108
We must point out that no program is disguised revisionism; it is revisionist or it is not. If it is we must decide whether it can be corrected and set about correcting it in the name of the working class struggle, if it is not we must clearly defeat it. It furthers NO one’s understanding for the Peoples Tribune to print obscure and hostile articles. The only reason the UFAI can be called “disguised revisionism” is that, as a result of its primitive level of theoretical and practical understanding, the revolutionary Left has proven itself unable to consistently distinguish the correct from the incorrect line.
In the period of pre-Party formations, communists and those calling themselves communist must carry on PRINCIPLED struggle against all forms of revisionism: they must struggle against the misleading phrase-mongering, the mechanical and dogmatic use of Marxism-Leninism. The disunifying and liquidating visciousness which characterize the writings, thoughts and practices of the PRESENT-DAY REVISIONISTS MUST BE STOPPED!!! PRINCIPLED struggle will serve to establish IDEOLOGICAL UNITY & TEACH THE MASSES, and will thereby SERVE TO ADVANCE THE REVOLUTIONARY ASPIRATIONS OF THE PROLETARIAT AND ITS ALLIES.