First Published: The Call, Vol. 7, No. 15, April 17, 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The following interview was conducted for The Call with the Chairman of the Communist League of Hawaii.
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Call: What is the Communist League of Hawaii?
CLH: The Communist League of Hawaii is an organization of revolutionaries in Hawaii who have united around the Program of the CPML. The League was established in May 1977, after a group of communists from different areas of work discussed and studied the CPML Program and reached agreement. We strive to apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to the actual conditions in the Hawaiian Islands and contribute to the building of a single, unified party of the U.S. working class.
What is the history and present state of the revolutionary movement in Hawaii?
In territorial Hawaii, the Communist Party U.S.A. once played an important role in the working class struggle. Communist Party members organized the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) on the docks and plantations. The ILWU was able to organize the Filipinos, Japanese, Hawaiians and other nationalities into a militant union which broke the stranglehold that the Big Five companies had on the plantation economy and politics of the Islands. Despite red-baiting and repression, the ILWU succeeded in raising wages, establishing the eight-hour-day and basic democratic rights in breaking the tight-fisted control of the Big Five’s Republican Party.
However, the CPUSA failed to train its members in Marxism-Leninism. Some of its members were recruited only on the basis that they supported the trade union struggle and the ILWU in Hawai. Under the persecution of communists during the McCarthy period and the emergence of revisionism in the majority of the Party leadership in Hawaii, the Party branch disintegrated and fell apart completely.
The Party’s trade union leaders followed a revisionist path and supported the Democratic Party lock-stock-and-barrel. Today, these same ex-Party members are among the worst trade union bureaucrats and anti-communists in the ILWU and other unions. Only a few individual old comrades remained faithful to communism and were able to pass down their revolutionary heritage to the younger generation.
This experience has shown us the importance of the two-line struggle between Marxism and revisionism and the need to Bolshevize our ranks and train our members in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
During the past few years, there has been a resurgence in the revolutionary movement. The majority of the population is non-white and the militant examples of the Indochinese peoples fighting U.S. imperialism and the Afro-American people’s struggle against discrimination had an especially important impact on the national movements of the Asian-American minorities and the native Hawaiians. Local people began to stand up and militantly demand their rights.
The people’s struggle has begun to develop on many fronts–for “our history, our way” in ethnic studies; for low-cost decent housing in Chinatown and other communities confronted with evictions; to “save our surf and protect our fair valleys and beaches from greedy developers; and for the return of the military target island Kahoolawe to the Hawaiian people.
Through these mass struggles, many activists have begun to understand that the basic problem is the capitalist system. Most of our members came forward in the student, anti-war and community movements in Hawaii to become aspiring Marxist-Leninists.
Today, the working class movement in Hawaii is still in a period of preparation and gathering forces for the storms of struggle ahead. The Communist League is still very young and only beginning to develop work in the working class systematically.
In these past few months, however, we have become convinced that there are quite a few advanced workers who readily gravitate to socialist ideas and actively take up and support the people’s struggles. Despite the revisionist betrayal of the old CPUSA and the “left” economism of the Revolutionary Communist Party and other opportunist groups, the revolutionary movement in Hawaii is bound to surge ahead.
How does the League view the national question in the Islands?
The national question in Hawaii is both crucial and complex. The native Hawiian people, who were the original inhabitants of the Island, today constitute only 10% of the population. Whites or “haoles” are 40% and Japanese are 30% of the population. Chinese, Filipinos and other nationalities are also significant sectors of the Islands’ people.
In addition to the major concentration of non-white nationalities in the 50th state, Hawaii retains vestiges of its colonial heritage as a U.S. territory. Its present economy is still dominated by tourism, the U.S. military, and sugar and pineapple production. These conditions make the national question in Hawaii important and complicated.
The Communist League is still studying the national question in Hawaii. This is difficult because of our inexperience and the relatively complex situation of the Islands. The old Party branch in Hawaii did little theoretical work and apparently paid attention to the national question only when it directly affected the trade union work.
In Hawaii, the national movements have played an important role in the mass struggles. In recent years, the rebirth of the native Hawaiian people’s movement has been an inspirational example to all working and oppressed people. Their concrete struggles for land reparations, return of Kahoolawe, and the teaching of their true culture and history have won broad support among the public.
The new immigrants, including many Filipinos and Samoans, are concentrated in the lowest-paying jobs in tourism and other industries and face discriminatory state policies against immigrants. Their discontent and anger against discrimination was fully evident during the campaign to free the framed-up Filipino nurses Narciso and Perez. On only a week’s notice, 200 people attended the benefit dinner called by the Support Committee. Only when this resistance of the oppressed nationalities merges with the working class movement will the people’s struggle against capitalism really become strong.
The Communist League supports full democratic rights for the oppressed nationalities. For the immigrant nationalities, the League recognizes that it is our proletarian internationalist duty to work closely with them in support of the revolutionary struggles in their third world homelands, in addition to the struggle in Hawaii. We must strengthen our work among the oppressed nationalities, continue to break with chauvinism and narrow nationalism, and unite the working people.
What is the stand of the League on the international situation today?
The Communist League of Hawaii takes a firm stand in support of the theory of the three worlds developed by Mao Tsetung. During a period when world events develop rapidly and tumultuously, the theory of the three worlds lays out a clear strategic orientation for the international working class.
Since the annexation of the Islands in 1898, Hawaii has been used by the U.S. imperialists as a staging ground for further aggression in the Pacific. During the Southeast Asian war, troops and planes bound for Indochina were stationed at Schofield, Hickam and other bases in the Islands. Anti-personnel “guava bombs” were dropped on the target island of Kahoolawe as practice for the crimes carried out in Vietnam.
After the victory of the Southeast Asian peoples, the U.S. troops which violated Kampuchean territory in the so-called Mayaguez incident were also trained for their dirty work on Kahoolawe. Today the U.S. Pacific Fleet is still based in Hawaii, and the U.S. military controls about 30% of the land on the island of Oahu. Without the consent of the people, nerve gas, poison gas and nuclear weapons have been stored by the U.S. imperialists in Hawaii.
Today, the contention between the two superpowers has brought greater danger to the Islands’ people. With Soviet submarines and ships more brazenly cruising in nearby Pacific waters, the U.S. has put up stiff resistance to returning Kahoolawe and other lands to the Hawaiian people. While the local fifth column of the Soviet social-imperialists–the CPUSA–has resurfaced recently to spread lies about “detente,” the war clouds are also brought closer by the ruling class elements like Malcolm MacNaughton, the chief executive of Castle & Cook (a Big Five firm), who opposes normalization of relations with China in favor of “detente” with Russia.
While the U.S. imperialists prepare to use Hawaii in the coming war with Russia, no attempts have been made to alert the people to the war danger or to construct air raid shelters and civil defense structures for the local population. The people have no stake in the war plans of the U.S. and Soviet bosses. When the next war breaks out, we must turn this imperialist war into a people’s war against capitalism and both superpowers.
Finally, the League gives full support to the socialist People’s Republic of China. With the downfall of the “gang of four,” China has remained true to the teachings of Mao Tsetung under the leadership of Comrade Hua Kuo-feng. China today remains a bastion of world peace, the strongest base area of world revolution and the brightest example of the future path of all mankind.
How does the League view the question of communist unity?
From the very outset, the Communist League has sought to avoid local circle mentality and struggled to build the unity of the revolutionary forces. We began by discussing the Program of the CPML, rather than drafting our “own” program, in the interests of communist unity.
As a communist organization, the League determines its own work and direction. But while the League retains its independent views and separate organization, we unite with the CPML Program and use The Call newspaper as the center of our work. This is entirely in accordance with the views set forth by Lenin in What Is To Be Done? on the ”Iskra-type” newspaper. This is also entirely in accordance with the advice of Chairman Mao that we unite on questions of principles while reserving secondary differences.
Today, the opportunist forces are in disarray. The major split in the Revolutionary Communist Party is a good example. While leaders like the revisionist RCP Chairman Bob Avakian grow more and more frantic in their attempts to fool honest rank-and-file members, the unity trend among genuine Marxist-Leninist forces constantly grows stronger.
Most of our members and friends have had previous experience with the RCP, Workers Viewpoint Organization and other opportunist groups, but have struggled against opportunism to find unity with the CPML and other forces. In the development of the League, I can say that the following orientation has been decisive: ”Practise Marxism, criticize revisionism; unite and don’t split; be open and aboveboard; don’t intrigue or conspire.”
We look forward to strengthening our ties with the CPML and other organizations in the Marxist-Leninist Unity Committee and eventually merging together into the ranks of a single, unified Communist Party.