First Published: The Call, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 9, 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
With the bosses’ press filled with gloom and doom, we must present our view of New Year’s 1978 as one filled with revolutionary optimism and enthusiasm for the future.
But one might well ask, what is there to be optimistic about? We are, after all, still in the midst of the worst post-war economic crisis.
Even while the press points to a new “recovery” and an upturn in production, basic industry is being further crippled by the steel crisis. Tens of thousands more workers were thrown out on the streets as a Christmas gift from the capitalists.
At the same time, there is the ever-increasing rivalry among the various imperialist countries over a shrinking world market. We cannot help but see that the danger of a new world war is greater than ever before.
Yes, if we look at things only in the light of the sharpening attacks on our rights, our living standards and on world peace. New Year’s 1978 does indeed seem gloomy and dim. Certainly for the capitalist system 1978 doesn’t promise anything better than 1977 did.
But for the working class and oppressed peoples of the world, hardships and suffering are only one side of the picture. The more important side is the growing struggle for liberation, freedom and socialism that is promising a better day ahead. The past year certainly demonstrated this fact. The next year promises even more examples.
For every act of aggression, suppression and exploitation by the capitalists in 1977, there were dozens of examples of rebellion, resistance and revolution on the part of the people. For every effort to divide our struggle, there were new steps taken toward unity.
For the U.S. ruling class in particular, 1977 was a year with little to celebrate. With all the Bicentennial paint and polish washed away, U.S. imperialism reveals itself as a rapidly declining imperialist power, no longer able to sit on top of its world unchallenged. Reeling from crisis (massive unemployment, sputtering production, an energy crisis, skyrocketing inflation and monetary chaos to name but a few examples) the U.S. is having big problems at home as well as abroad.
What began as a year for showing off Jimmy Carter’s plan to “bring the country back together” through a jumble of new liberal welfare programs, ended in even deeper crises and social chaos. None of these programs has brought one new job for the unemployed and even Carter’s own Congress has turned against him.
The capitalists were also shaken in 1977 by a new awakening on the part of workers, minorities, women and youth. Examples of this awakening could be felt from the significant movement against the racist Bakke Decision to the Puerto Rican uprising in Chicago’s Humboldt Park last summer, to the important struggle for the freedom of the two falsely convicted nurses, just to name a few. From Kent State to hundreds of other campuses, the student movement showed more signs of energy than at any other time in the ’70s.
The bosses’ attempt to make the workers pay for the crisis was increasingly met with strikes and other forms of rebellion. Last year saw the first major steel strike in 18 years as iron miners struck the whole northern ore range for over four months.
The character of this huge strike movement was also significant. It increasingly reflected the rank-and-file disgust with both the union leadership as well as the bosses.
This past year’s massive wildcat strike by the country’s miners sent the bureaucrats scurrying for help and now the entire UMW is on strike trying to overcome the sabotage of union chief Arnold Miller. The dock strike, which ended last month after 60 days, was thoroughly betrayed by the international leadership, awakening many more workers as they forced a rotten contract down the throats of the rank and file.
1978 poses the question squarely before us–where is the real working class leadership going to come from? There can only be one real alternative to the sellout leadership of the reactionary bureaucrats, as a growing number of workers are beginning to find out. It won’t come from the new liberal brand of misleaders like Miller and Sadlowski. 1977 saw these phony “militants” exposed time and again before significant sections of the rank and file for their traitorous collaboration with the bosses.
Neither will it come from the phony “communists” like the CPUSA revisionists, who have joined in with the liberal millionaires in calling for a great “nationalization” scheme to bail out the giant steel companies in their fight with foreign steel. They have joined together as well in spreading the pipe dream of “detente” and “world peace” even as the superpowers are rushing towards war with greater speed.
No, none of these agents of big business can rescue the working class from the hell that this crisis has brought, any more than Carter’s liberal solutions can. There can be only one road out of the crisis–the road of class struggle, with the workers and oppressed people acting as their own liberators.
The realization that the crisis is real and is here to stay for a long time was burned into the minds of many last year. Breaking out, as it did, against a backdrop of the ever-sharpening worldwide i crisis of capitalism, the present economic crisis is incapable of showing any kind of real “recovery,” “boom” or light at the end of its tunnel.
The whole of society is being affected– culturally, militarily, politically as well as economically. Rising crime, drug addiction among youth, a growing arms race and a fascist menace–these are the things that are shaping the consciousness of millions of Americans.
So you can see that while we are optimistic, we are not blindly optimistic. We can see that all is not rosy and that the road ahead is tortuous. But as we get organized and prepared to meet the crisis and the threat of war head on, we can face the future with confidence and enthusiasm.
A major step forward has been taken with the founding of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) last June. 1977 saw our Party play a role in many significant struggles of the people. Our Founding Congress took place at the same time the Humboldt Park rebellion was breaking out. The CPML helped organize in Humboldt Park as its first effort in the mass struggle. The rest of the year saw our Party dig into strike struggles from coast-to-coast and help give leadership to the growing fightback movement for jobs or income now.
In this fightback struggle, the CPML has pointed the way forward in building multinational unity, rallying white and minority workers and unemployed closer together and taking up the special demands of minorities and women. This style of work stands out in stark contrast to the labor hacks and opportunists like the CPUSA and the RCP who spread the poison of white chauvinism and disunity within the ranks of the working class.
The working class movement is still heavily under the thumb of the sellout labor lieutenants like Meany and Co., while our Party is still very young and only beginning to get itself planted firmly on its feet. Without the revolutionary leadership of a real communist party, victory is not possible.
The fact that now the Party has been founded, gives new hope for the coming battles between our class and the capitalists. Each class battle now must be seen in a new context. As the influence of the Party grows through its experience in the workers movement, that movement itself will change. From essentially a trade union struggle, it will change into a politically conscious movement against the capitalists and ultimately into a revolutionary socialist movement.
The tasks in 1978 include firming up our Party and placing it in the heart of the struggle of the people, especially of the workers and minorities. It requires that the fight be taken up to build class struggle unions and defeat the influence of the reactionary union leaders and the revisionist CPUSA.
1978 will also be a year for heightening the fightback struggle of the workers and unemployed. The kick-off point to really building the fightback in a mass way will be the February 18 demonstration in Washington, D.C. But the movement for jobs or income will continue through International Women’s Day, May Day and the rest of 1978.
The new year will also bring new efforts in uniting the young communist movement and making further gains in our goal of a single, unified Marxist-Leninist party. We have already come forth with our suggestions for a new national Unity Committee which will bring together our Party with those honest Marxist-Leninists still in other M-L organizations or in groups under opportunist leadership. (See Call Editorial, Dec. 26.) 1978 will see the task of party-building still the number one task for us.
Inseparable from our own struggle in this country is the worldwide movement against imperialism and the two superpowers, the main enemies of the world’s peoples. 1978 must be a year when the united front against the superpowers grows into an even mightier force than it was last year.
Both the factors for war and revolution continued to increase in 1977. The threat of war is coming especially from the Soviet Union which is revealing itself as the modern day Hitler Germany. But country after country has stood up to the bullying and interference by the USSR. 1977 saw Soviet forces repelled in their attempt to invade Zaire, while Sudan and Somalia expelled Soviet advisers after witnessing long years of Soviet subversion in their countries.
Like the U.S., the Soviet Union is being hit by problems at home and abroad as the new czars propel their country rapidly towards war. The growing arms race and contention between the two superpowers is being met with opposition everywhere.
The third world stands as the main force in this great struggle and the firmest ally of the U.S. working people. Next year will provide more opportunities for us to build our support work for the third world struggle with the focus of the next immediate period on southern Africa, where the guns of liberation are the loudest.
Throughout the third world, from Panama to liberated Kampuchea, from the African Horn to the guerrilla camps of the Palestine Liberation Organization, 1977 was a year of heightened unity and new victories. This, despite the aggression, subversion and splitting and wrecking activities of the two superpowers and their agents. The forces of imperialism, hegemonism, colonialism, Zionism and racism are more than meeting their match in the third world.
1978 calls for us to redouble our efforts, to unite all those who can be united to oppose the two superpowers, to oppose their war drive and to defend the livelihood, freedom and national rights of the people.
Finally, 1978 will undoubtedly be a year to usher in a new round of victories in the struggle for socialism. Socialism won victories of major importance in 1977, especially in China where the people, led by the Party and Chairman Hua Kuo-feng, consolidated their victory over the reactionary “gang of four” who tried to restore capitalism in this bastion of revolution.
In July of last year, our Party leadership held a significant meeting with Chairman Hua and leaders of the Chinese Communist Party where we expressed support in our common struggle. 1978 will intensify the efforts to build closer relations between the Chinese and U.S. peoples and to learn from China and other socialist countries where Marxism is no longer an ideal, but a living reality.
We hope that the new year will find our readers in good health and spirit. We hope that they will spread The Call further among the people and unite with us in winning even greater victories in 1978.