When the New Communist Movement (NCM) first began to take shape and spread nationally in the early 1970s, hopes for a unified U.S. Maoism quickly disappeared. Even when the NCM divided into four distinct tendencies – pro-Deng Xiaoping, pro-Gang of Four, pro-Enver Hoxha and “anti-dogmatist” – each pool of forces expected to prevail as the recognized “true” Marxist-Leninists. But with a few exceptions, the remaining New Communists of the late 1970s saw all their efforts fall into deeper fragmentation and relative isolation.
Initially, the heart of every debate was China’s post-Cultural Revolution foreign policy, and the responsibility of U.S. communists in response to Beijing’s turn to an anti-Soviet alliance with Washington. The debate was sharpened in 1977 when China’s long-time ally, the Party of Labor of Albania (PLA), openly attacked the “Theory of Three Worlds” with its polemic “The Theory and Practice of the Revolution.” The Albanians argued that the “Three Worlds Theory” ignored the fundamental contradiction between capitalism and socialism and called on the working class to unite with capitalists in “third” and “second” world countries to stop “superpower hegemony.” The effect of “Theory and Practice…” was to split the world Marxist-Leninist movement into a pro-“three worlds theory” camp that continued to support the Communist Party of China (CPC) and an opposing camp that supported the PLA’s polemic. This was the largest split in world Maoism since its formation in 1963 and it would only deepen as China continued to turn its back on the Cultural Revolution and strengthen its policy of alliance with US imperialism.
In the U.S., the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) reaffirmed its support for the Communist Party of China, the overthrow of the “gang of four,” and the “three worlds theory”. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) maintained a silence on events in China until late 1977 when the organization fractured into two camps: a pro-Deng, pro-“three worlds” minority squaring off against the majority led by Chairman Bob Avakian, who argued that a pro-capitalist coup had taken place with the arrest of the “gang of four.” The result was a split that saw over a third of the Party leave to form the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters.
The RCP majority argued that the “Three Worlds Theory” promoted by Deng was a distortion of Mao’s thesis, and that favoring one superpower over another amounted to class collaboration. Even before Mao’s death, it had tried to distance itself from certain aspects of the Chinese line on the international situation, maintaining opposition to regimes that were finding favor with Beijing as anti-Soviet allies, such as the Shah’s Iran and Mobutu’s Zaire.
The forces outside the two largest NCM groups – RCP and CPML – diverged toward either pro-Deng or pro-Albania positions, without seeking unity with either Party. Years of bitter sectarian battles took their toll. Some groups converged in the pro-Deng camp, but rather than growing, the CPML began to implode for ideological more than political reasons. Its decline paralleled the rise of the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS), which brought together groups of mostly Asian (I Wor Kuen, et al) and Chicano (August 29th Movement) Marxist-Leninists. Rather than bolstering the pro-Deng camp, the rise of the LRS further polarized forces in and around the CPML. The LRS went on to merge with Revolutionary Communist League (MLM), led by the venerable black nationalist leader Amiri Baraka in 1979.
The PLA’s initial attack on the “three worlds theory” didn’t mention China or directly criticize Mao. And many of the groups that initially supported the Albanian position, still supported Mao and Cultural Revolution policies of the CPC. But by 1978, the PLA began to widen its attack: accusing the CPC of wavering in its struggle against modern revisionism and charging that Mao had never really been a Marxist-Leninist (pro-Albania groups in the U.S. quickly followed the PLA lead). The response of the CPC was to cut aid to Albania.
The newly pro-Albania groups circulated Hoxha’s brand-new polemics against “Maoism” as a deviation on a par with Trotskyism. For the PLA, the classical Soviet world outlook of two camps – capitalist and socialist – still held, even if the socialist camp was reduced to one country – Albania. But while their newfound hostility to Maoism was retroactive, their previous support for positions that Albania had defended when it was allied with China, were not reconsidered.
While some groups made direct contact with the Albanian Party of Labor to declare their solidarity, the PLA declined to grant “official” recognition to any of them. The two most prominent pro-Albania groups were the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee (MLOC) and the Central Organization of US Marxist-Leninists (COUSML). Both soon moved to declare themselves “the Party.” MLOC, a split-off from the Black Workers Congress, formed the Communist Party USA/Marxist-Leninist (CPUSA/ML, easily confused with CPML) in 1978, and shortly after, suffered a split. COUSML became the Marxist-Leninist Party in 1980.
Political differences on international line – big and small – are detailed in the polemics of the period, but the practical implications of these differences were less clear. The RCP’s previous orientation toward work in unions went with the RWH split-off; concentrating on low-income neighborhoods, the RCP later dropped the word ’Worker’ from the name of its paper. Its approach to street demos switched from ’mass’ to small but militant. Pro-Albania groups turned to Third Period Comintern-era ideology to replace Cultural Revolution-era Maoism. In 1979, the Communist Workers Party – formerly the Workers Viewpoint Organization – made headlines across the country and around the world when five of its members were gunned down in Greensboro, North Carolina during an anti-Klan rally by a combined KKK/Nazis death squad.
Numerous smaller Marxist-Leninist collectives around the country continued to maintain their independence, declining to join any of the larger national formations. And, while concern with “line development” and sectaria began to recede in importance for many, to be replaced by an emphasis on organizing and recruitment, the pattern of fragmentation had become the dominant feature of the movement, and proved irreversible.
SDOC (M-L) Comments: Uphold Our International Leadership! by the San Diego Organizing Committee (Marxist-Leninist)
More “Great Disorder Under Heaven” by the Communist Workers Group (Marxist-Leninist)
“These Are the Worst of Times, They Are the Best of Times” by Ray O. Light
Split and Decayed – The Present State of the Opportunist Movement by the Committee of U.S. Bolsheviks
In April 1974, the recently rehabilitated Chinese leader Teng Hsiao-Ping made a speech to a Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly in which he articulated a framework for analyzing international conflicts which would later come to be called “the theory of three worlds.” The framework divided the world into the “two superpowers” (US and USSR), the “third world” (the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America), and the “second world” (the countries of Europe, Canada, and Japan).
At the time, this approach was relatively uncontroversial in the U.S. new communist movement. Only the Communist League openly questioned the framework, for which it was severely criticized by the October League and the Revolutionary Union, and in the pages of the Guardian. By 1977, however, the consequences of the theory for both Chinese foreign policy and its line on the strategy and tactics of the international communist movement were apparent: the “main blow” was to be directed against the USSR. Reactionary regimes in the third world which opposed “Soviet social imperialism” were to be supported and the “second world” was now viewed as a potential ally in the struggle against “hegemonism”.
While the Guardian newspaper began raising concerns about the policy implications of the theory of three worlds as early as late 1975, it was not until 1977 when the Albanian Party of Labor openly attacked the theory with its polemic, “The Theory and Practice of the Revolution.” As a result, Marxist-Leninist parties and groups throughout the world began lining up both in support or in opposition to the theory and issuing polemics explaining their positions. In the United States, organizations supporting the Chinese leadership strongly defended the theory and, following China’s lead, attributed it to Mao, while the RCP, defenders of the deposed Gang of Four, argued that the theory was a deviation from Mao’s strategic analysis. The Communist Workers Party, staked out its own unique position on the issue, holding that the “theory of three worlds” was indeed Mao's creation, but that it was being abandoned and betrayed by the post-Mao Deng-Hua leadership in China. Some increasingly vociferous opponents of the theory, accepting the attribution to Mao, soon expanded their critique from a rejection of the theory of three worlds to a rejection of Maoism itself, thereby deepening divisions in an already deeply fragmented new communist movement.
Chinese Foreign Policy during the Maoist Era and its Lessons for Today by the MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the U.S.
Speech By Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, Deng Xiaoping, At the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly by Deng Xiaoping
Chairman Mao’s Theory of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds is a Major Contribution to Marxism-Leninism by the Editorial Department of Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily)
Open Letter of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile to the Communist Party of China
Theory and Practice of the Revolution by the Party of Labor of Albania
People’s Daily Editorial on Theory of Three Worlds: ’A Major Contribution to Marxism’ by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
LPR’s Views on the International Situation by the League for Proletarian Revolution (Marxist-Leninist)
“Three Worlds” Theory: Anti-Leninist Deception of the Masses by the Communist Committee
Theory of Three Worlds: A Major Contribution to Marxism-Leninism by I Wor Kuen
A Great Strategic Concept: In Defense of Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Theory of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds by the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist)
Study Theory of Three Worlds by The New Voice
In Defense of Marxism-Leninism on the International Situation by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
Theory of the “Three Worlds” Opposes Marxism-Leninism by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
Statement on the ’Third World’ by the Marxist-Leninist Collective
The Fight for the Marxist-Leninist Line on the International Situation Intensifies. Every Genuine Marxist-Leninist Party and Organization Must Take a Stand by The Leninist Core to Found the U.S. Bolshevik Party
The Albania Critique of the Theory of ’Three Worlds’ by the Theoretical Review
RCP Vacillates on Theory of the “Three Worlds” by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
Repulse the Bankrupt Theory of the “Three” Worlds – Revolution on the Order of the Day! by the Leninist Core to Found the U.S. Bolshevik Party
“Three Worlds” Strategy: Apology for Capitulation by the Revolutionary Communist Party
World Imperialism and Marxist Theory: On the International Line of the Communist Movement by Paul Costello
Defend Mao’s Theory of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds Against Trotskyism and Revisionism by the C. W. Li [Communist Workers Party]
Chairman Mao’s (or Deng Xiaoping’s) Theory of the Three Worlds is a Major Deviation from Marxism-Leninism by Robert Seltzer and Irwin Silber
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Although the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) attempted to build a unified national organization, significant regional differences in politics and loyalty remained. These differences were rooted in earlier conflicts over the nature of communist political work – with an East Coast faction heavily invested in trade union activity and concepts drawn from the 1930s years of the Communist Party. The Avakian faction, in contrast, argued for far more radical political approaches to the working class. By 1977, two years after the RCP’s September 1975 founding congress and one year after Mao’s death, the conflict reached a breaking point and erupted over the arrest of the “Gang of Four.”
In response to this event, Avakian presented a policy document to a meeting of the national central committee entitled “Revisionists Are Revisionists and Must Not Be Supported, Revolutionaries Are Revolutionaries and Must Be Supported.” It argued that the Gang’s defeat represented a "coup" by "capitalist roaders" against "Mao’s closest supporters." A significant group within the RCP’s leadership rejected this analysis, arguing that the organization should uphold the new Chinese leadership and the arrest of the Four. They included by Mickey Jarvis, the vice chairman of the RCP and Leibel Bergman, a veteran of the old CPUSA who had served as an important mentor to Avakian during the formation of the Revolutionary Union. This grouping had major support in the RCP’s East coast organization plus almost all of the leadership of the national youth organization. Avakian maintained strong support on the West Coast, the South and the Appalachian coalfields. The two factions divided the Midwest between them – particularly Chicago, the location of the national headquarters.
The meeting ultimately endorsed the Avakian position. In the aftermath of the vote, major structural and personnel changes were made in the national leadership – Jarvis (for example) was pushed into a defacto exile from his base in New York City, by being re-assigned to the organization's Denver district. As the pro-China members of the central committee returned to their areas, they decided to leave the RCP and declared a “revolt” against the central committee and its decision to uphold the Four. Between this “revolt” and the subsequent purge directed by the Avakian leadership, some 40% of the Party left the organization. These included one-half of the members of the standing bodies of the Central Committee and almost one-half of the Central Committee itself. Among them were the Vice-chair of the Central Committee and its standing bodies; the Chair of the East Coast Region; the Vice-chair of the Mid-west Region; Chairs of the Milwaukee-Minnesota, Chicago-Gary, NY-NJ, and Philadelphia-Baltimore Districts; the head of Party work in the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB); the head of Party work in the National United Workers Organization (NUWO); and the head of Party work in the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC). The dissidents soon formed themselves into a new organization – the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters (RWHq).
Each side of the split published collections of documents that contained the major arguments of both sides. The RCP maintained the national organ Revolution, while the RWH began issuing a new newspaper, The Worker, following in the tradition of the various regional Worker newspapers that had previously been published by the Revolutionary Union.
In the years that followed, the RWHq focused heavily on trade union activity – especially in the steel industry in the Midwest. Although it shrank in numbers rapidly, its remaining forces participated in unification efforts with other pro-China groups [see section below, “Unification Efforts of Pro-China Groups“ for primary RWHq materials]. In 1979, the RWHq effected a fusion with the Bay Area Communist Union. Then, in 1985, it merged with the Proletarian Unity League and the Organization for Revolutionary Unity to form the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
The post-split RCP took a sharp turn leftward – pulling most of its cadre out of basic industry and adopting a policy of what it called going “lower and deeper” into more oppressed sections of the working class. It also launched a series of campaigns – including a major memorial to Mao Zedung, a national campaign for a May First rally in Washington DC, and a violent demonstration in front of the White House in 1979 where 400-500 RCP members and supporters rioted to protest Deng Xiaoping’s visit to cement an alliance with the United States. As part of its continuing rivalry with the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), the RCP produced a satirical issue of The Call in early 1979, ridiculing the CPML’s ties to the post-Mao Chinese leadership and its objective alliance with U.S. imperialism against “Soviet hegemonism”.
Important Struggles in Building the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA by Bill Klingel and Joanne Psihountas
The Decline of the RCP: A Polemic by the Organization for Revolutionary Unity
Supporting Revisionism: RCP Takes Stand with ’Gang’ by the October League (Marxist-Leninist)
RCP Splits! Gang of Four Purge Rips Apart Maoists by Workers Vanguard
Behind the Split in the RCP (Part 2) by Workers Vanguard
Attack on China Splits RCP by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Why did the “RCP,USA” Split? by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
On Party Building and the RCP Split. Line Struggle, or Squabble between Opportunists? by the League for Proletarian Revolution (Marxist-Leninist)
Party Routs Revisionist Clique: The High Road vs. The Well-Worn Rut by the Revolutionary Communist Party
Revolution and Counter-Revolution: The Revisionist Coup in China and the Struggle in The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA by The Revolutionary Communist Party
Red Papers 8: China Advances on the Socialist Road: The Gang of Four, Revolution in the US, and the Split in the Revolutionary Communist Party by the Revolutionary Workers’ Headquarters
Communism and Revolution Vs. Revisionism and Reformism in the Struggle to Build the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade by The Revolutionary Communist Party
The Revolutionary Communist Party and Flag Burning During Its Forgotten Years, 1974–1989 by Robert Justin Goldstein
Communiqué on the Second Congress of the RCP
Opening Remarks at Congress by Bob Avakian
Mensheviks Sow Confusion On Fusion
On the Mensheviks’ Views of Crisis: “Capitalism Works After All” by R. Lotta
CPML Caught in Dilemma: How to Attack Mao While Pretending to Uphold Him
Ex-Member Exposes CPML: Blind Tagging Behind China Demanded
New National Weekly Revolutionary Worker: “Create Public Opinion. . . Seize Power!”
Announcing the Revolutionary Worker
Traitor Teng Given Fitting Welcome
“I Waved the Red Book Teng Hsiao-Ping’s Face”
Storms Are Gathering – Carry the Red Flag Forward! by Bob Avakian
RCP Sinks Deeper in the Swamp by the Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
RCP satirical issue of the CP(ML)’s The Call newspaper
RCP Opens Fire on Tenants: ’Like the Klan without robes’ by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Forward to Revolutionary May Day, 1980!
A Reply to the RCP: “Mao Defenders” Sow Ideological Confusion and Provoke Reaction by the Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
The Stakes Are Up – For Them and Us by Bob Avakian
Bob Avakian: ’The Jerk’ Is Loose! by the Bolshevik League of the United States
Anger of Black Community Explodes in Oakland City Council
The Counter-Revolutionary Activity of the RCP by the Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
RCP’s May Day: Not Revolutionary But Revolting! by the Bolshevik League of the United States
RCP: On Farragos, May Day 1980 and the Echoes Today by Mike Ely
On the Question of So-Called “National Nihilism”: You Can’t Beat the Enemy While Raising His Flag
New Programme and New Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (Drafts for Discussion)
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In 1977, Albania began to publicly if indirectly distance itself from Chinese foreign policy, as exemplified by the Zëri i Popullit editorial, “Theory and Practice of the Revolution”. By the following year, however, the break became an open one with the publication and translation into numerous foreign languages of Enver Hoxha’s book, Imperialism and the Revolution, which not only took issue with the “theory of three worlds” but criticized Mao Tse-Tung Thought as an “anti-Marxist theory”.
The Chinese reaction soon followed. In July 1978, the Chinese government notified the Albanian government that it was stopping its economic and military aid to Albania and recalling its economic and military experts. The Albanians replied with a letter accusing the Chinese leadership of using technical problems as a cover for the real reason – political disagreements over China’s foreign policy.
Many new communist movement groups quickly took sides in the dispute. A number of groups which had previously opposed the “theory of three worlds,” including the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninist, the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee, and the Leninist Core, quickly expanded their critique of Chinese foreign policy to open opposition to Maoism. Some of these groups, which had been among the most zealous proponents of “Mao Tse-Tung Thought,” now viewed with each other to prove who was the most critical of Maoism and the most vociferous opponent of Chinese “social imperialism”.
Despite the allegiance of these groups to the Enver Hoxha and Party of Labor of Albania (PLA), the PLA did not reciprocate. The Albanians maintained a policy of recognizing a single party in a foreign country (usually based on how well the party toed the Albanian line). However, the PLA distanced itself from the US groups over fears of “CIA infiltration.”
The Revolutionary Communist Party, on the other hand, rejected the Albanian attack on Mao, arguing that the “theory of three worlds” was not Mao’s, but that of Chinese revisionists. Many supporters of the “theory of three worlds” either ignored or played down the China-Albania break.
Imperialism and the Revolution by Enver Hoxha
The Marxist-Leninist Movement and the World Crisis of Capitalism by Enver Hoxha
Reflections on China, Volume I by Enver Hoxha
Reflections on China, Volume II by Enver Hoxha
A Tactical Dispute Among Social-Chauvinists – The PLA’s 7th Congress and the CPC by the Communist Workers Group (Marxist-Leninist)
The Soviet Union: Is it the Nazi Germany of Today? by the Communist Committee
In Support of the Struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania Against Revisionism by Ray O. Light
Joint Statement in Opposition to the Cutting Off of Aid to Socialist Albania by the Government of China by Demarcation, Kansas City Revolutionary Workers Collective-Wichita Communist Cell, Marxist-Leninist Collective, Workers Revolutionary Organizing Committee, and Comrades in the Bay Area
Regarding China’s Withdrawl of Aid from Albania by The Leninist Core to Found the U.S. Bolshevik Party
“Mao Tse Tung Thought” A Counter-Revolutionary Concept by The Leninist Core
The Theory and Practice of Chinese Revisionism and Social Imperalism by The Leninist Core
The Anti-Leninist Theory of “three worlds” in Service to the Warmongering U.S.-China Alliance by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
Enver Hoxha Exposes Opportunism–His Own by the Revolutionary Communist Party
Down with the “RCP-USA’s” Shameful Anti-Communist Attack on the Glorious Party of Labor of Albania! by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
Mao Tsetung and Mao Tsetung Thought are Anti-Marxist-Leninist and Revisionist by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
In Defense of Marxism-Leninism on the International Situation [Denver forum]
Enver Hoxha and the PLA: For Imperialism, Against Revolution by the League for Proletarian Revolution (Marxist-Leninist)
Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought. Comments on Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism and the Revolution by J. Werner (Revolutionary Communist Party)
Enver Hoxha and the Crisis of Anti-Revisionism by Neil Eriksen-Schmidt & Paul Costello
The U.S.-China Alliance and the Question of the Main Enemy by Ray O. Light
Initial Views: On the Role of Mao Tsetung... in the Rise of Revisionism in the Communist Party of China by the Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
Once Again in Support of the Struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania against Revisionism by Ray O. Light
On the Influence of Mao Tsetung Thought on the Revolution in the U.S. by the Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist)
The Theory of Three Worlds by the Red Dawn Committee (Marxist-Leninist)
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In this period, the larger pro-China New Communist Movement organizations made determined efforts both to absorb smaller groups and to unite with one another. If they were somewhat successful in the former regard, they were noticeably unsuccessful in the latter.
Renewed unity efforts were kicked off in December 1977 when the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) proposed the formation of a Committee to Unite Marxist-Leninists (CUML) to “serve as a unifying center for all U.S. Marxist-Leninists.” In May 1978, the August Twenty-Ninth Movement (M-L) (ATM) and I Wor Kuen (IWK) announced that they would work jointly with the CPML in the formation of such a Committee. Other smaller groups also welcomed the initiative. At the same time, however, the ATM and IWK were also moving closer together, independently of the CPML. In September 1978 they merged to form the League of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxist-Leninist) (LRS).
In early 1979, a number of the pro-China groups, including the CPML, LRS, Revolutionary Workers Headquarters (RWHq), the Proletarian Unity League (PUL), and the Bay Area Communist Union (BACU) undertook a joint trip to China. The trip may have been an effort on the part of the participants to build unity among all those who supported the Communist Party of China and the “Three Worlds” Theory, but, if so, it was largely a failure. The Chinese did not press the groups to unite, although they effectively withdrew their former designation of the CP(ML) as “the” party in the U.S., a designation which appeared to have been granted when CPML Chairman Mike Klonsky visited China to much fanfare in July 1977.
The CPML’s apparent loss of the China franchise, the failure of unification efforts to produce results and other issues provoked a growing crisis in the organization. Meanwhile, the other pro-China groups pursued their own unity efforts. The LRS absorbed a number of smaller groups, including East Wind Collective of Japanese Americans in the Los Angeles and the Seize the Time Collective of Chicanos and African Americans in San Francisco in 1979. That same year, BACU joined the RWHq. Early in 1980 the LRS merged with the Revolutionary Communist League (Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse-tung Thought) led by Amiri Baraka. Also in 1980, the predominantly Puerto Rican League for Proletarian Revolution (ML) united with the predominantly Chicano Colorado Organization of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought) to form the Marxist-Leninist League.
In January 1980, the CP-ML, the LRS and the RWHg announced their decision to “hold a series of meetings to seek greater unity. ” Those meetings were in their words: “a step forward in the process forging a single, unified communist party.” In an interview in the LRS paper, Unity, simultaneous with this announcement, a League spokesperson, William Gallegos, justified this new unity effort by stating that the Committee to Unite Marxist-Leninists which had been touted as a joint party building effort of the CP-ML, the IWK, ATM and others “had never existed.” This acknowledgement (which was never publicly disputed by the CPML) generated a certain amount of outrage among other pro-China groups, including the Workers Congress and the League for Proletarian Revolution, which alleged that they had been mislead about the Committee’s status. Like the CUML (real or not) before it, these new tri-lateral meetings failed to unite the participants and this failure only served to deepen the growing crisis within this sector of the New Communist Movement.
During this period, the pro-China groups were vociferous in a number of causes. One was a defense of the Kampuchean Revolution under Pol Pot, most notably with The Call editor Daniel Burstein providing glowing reports in the paper on the situation in Kampuchea, where he and three other Call staffers were the first U.S. journalists to visit since the Khmer Rouge took power. The pro-China groups also came out strongly in support of China’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam.
More controversial was the issue of what role, if any, U.S. imperialism could play in the international struggle against “hegemonism”. In the late 1970s, I Wor Kuen warned the U.S. against “appeasing” Soviet social-imperialism and by 1980, CPML chair Mike Klonsky was stating that the U.S. has a role to play in the worldwide anti-hegemonic front, while The Call was writing about a Soviet “master plan for conquest.” The question was posed most starkly by the Communist Unity Organization, which published the pamphlet Sooner or Later in 1980. Sooner or Later called for an alliance with U.S. imperialism in the “world anti-hegemonist front,” and illustrated the consequences of its position by opposing “appeasement” and the withdrawal of U.S. bases from the Philippines or Puerto Rico, while expressing support for a strengthened U.S. military.
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Resolutions of our Fourth General Meeting (July, 1977) by the Bay Area Communist Union
Editorial: Practice Marxism Not Revisionism. ATM Cadre Reject Splitters by the August 29th Movement (Marxist-Leninist)
Learning From Past Mistakes to Avoid Future Ones in the Struggle for Unity. An Urgent Letter to Comrades in the ATM, the CPML, IWK, and the MLOC, With a Word to Those Who Would not Touch Either Unity Plan With a Ten-Foot Pole by the Pacific Collective (Marxist-Leninist)
RCP satirical issue of the CP(ML)’s The Call newspaper
Commentary: Some perspectives on appeasement and the danger of world war by I Wor Kuen
Soviet Union – Central Problem of World Politics. Affects Struggle for Socialism in U.S. by The New Voice
WW Three: Questions & Answers by The New Voice
Sooner or Later. Questions & Answers on War, Peace & the United Front by the Communist Unity Organization
Book Review: Sooner or Later? by The New Voice
TNV Holds a Congress by The New Voice
Editorial: The Road to Communist Unity by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Editorial: Repudiate the Call For Menshevik Unity! by the Revolutionary Communist Party
Behind RCP’s Attack on Our Unity Efforts by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Welcome Proposal for Unity Committee by The New Voice
Joint Statement of ATM, CP (M-L) and IWK for Marxist-Leninist Unity
Editorial: Build the Committee to Unite Marxist-Leninists! by the August 29th Movement
Unity Committee: Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil by the League for Proletarian Revolution (Marxist-Leninist)
Third Worldists in Disarray: THE DIRT COMES OUT! by The U.S. Leninist Core
In the CUML: Party Building What is the Road? by the Marxist-Leninist League
Open Letter to CPML by The New Voice
Statements on the Founding of the League of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxist-Leninist)
More Conspiracies, More Intrigue, Getting Together by The Leninist Core to Found the U.S. Bolshevik Party
The Revolutionary Communist League (M-L-M) and the League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L) Unite!
Fred Ho’s Tribute to the Black Arts Movement: Personal and Political Impact and Analysis
An Exchange on May Day... Unity at What Price? between the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters and the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee
Statement on the Merger of the Bay Area Communist Union into the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters
Build the Black Liberation Movement
RWH on the Black Liberation Movement: Wrong Again! by Amiri Baraka (Including “Notes on Baraka's ’RWH on the BLM: Wrong Again’ From a White Communist“ By Jim Woods)
RWC Strike Sum-Up: Party Building Tasks by the Revolutionary Workers’ Collective
Develop Party Type Units and Nuclear Style of Work. Comments on Part 1 of the RWC’s Sum-Up by the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist)
RWC Strike Sum-Up: Trade Union Tasks by the Revolutionary Workers’ Collective
Develop Leadership in Mass Work. Comments on Part 2 of the RWC’s Sum-Up by the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist)
Comments on RWC Strike Sum-Up by the Pacific Collective
WC Commentary on Pacific Collective Views: Take Marxism-Leninism to the Working Class by the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist)
Pacific Collective Criticizes WC(M-L). Strike Sum-Up Series To Continue by the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist)
WC(M-L) to Deepen Rectification Campaign by the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist)
Pacific Collective Polemic with WC (ML). Part 1 – Views on the Advanced by the Pacific Collective
ML Collective Struggle: Leadership selection summed up by Friends on the East Coast
Pacific Collective Polemic with WC (ML). Part 2 – Building Communist Cores by the Pacific Collective
Progress Report: Forward COReS-LPR merger!
LPR-ML and COReS-MLM Complete Meger – Marxist-Leninist League Founded
Joint Statement on Party Building
Carry Out Open and Above Board Struggle
M-L League to Celebrate 1st Congress
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The distinct Pro-Albania trend in the New Communist Movement emerged in 1978 in response to the open polemics between the Party of Labor of Albania (PLA) and the Communist Party of China. The main organizations in this trend were:
* the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee (MLOC), one of the groups which had its origins in the Black Workers Congress;
* the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists (COUSML);
* the U.S. Leninist Core, which derived from remnants of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization-Revolutionary Workers League alliance that formerly called itself the Revolutionary Wing;
* Demarcation, which came out of the Red Dawn Committee (M-L), which itself had come out of the New York section of the Workers Congress (M-L);
* a number of smaller collectives, primarily in the Midwest and on the West Coast.
Given their shared agreement with the line of the Party of Labor of Albania, efforts were undertaken in 1978-1980 to unify these groups in a single organization and/or party building process. In the end, however, all of these ended in failure.
Initially, the MLOC sought to bring together pro-Albanian forces in support of a joint statement in support of the PLA, but in the end, only two California-based groups, the Committee for a Proletarian Party and the Sunrise Collective, united with the MLOC in its final document. A similar effort, initiated by a group of collectives in the mid-west to issue a joint statement in support Albania after China cut off aid to it, likewise united only a handful of groups.
The MLOC made further attempts to unite pro-Albanian forces around its party building work, but the only significant independent group to join in this process was the San Diego-based Committee for a Proletarian Party. In December 1978, the MLOC became the Communist Party, USA (Marxist-Leninist) (CPUSA,ML). However, within less than a year, it underwent a number of damaging splits. Chapters in New Orleans and Birmingham broke away to form the Revolutionary Political Organization (M-L) while the former Committee for a Proletarian Party and a group in Chicago also departed.
In 1979, the Midwest groups that had attempted to unify pro-PLA forces after China’s aid cut-off, attempted to organize a multilateral conference to advance the party-building efforts of this trend. It failed to attract significant support from other groups as did a similar initiative undertaken by the California-based Pacific Collective (M-L) in their lengthy book, From Circles to the Party.
During this same period, the U.S. Leninist Core and Demarcation drew closer together, uniting in 1979 in the Committee of U.S. Bolsheviks which later that year renamed itself the Bolshevik League of the United States (BL). The Bolshevik League drew close to the Bolshevik Union in Canada and the two organizations soon broke with the PLA, denouncing it with the same vehemence with which they had previously criticized the Communist Party of China.
The final pro-Albania group to declare itself a Party was COUSML which, in 1980 became the Marxist-Leninist Party (MLP). At the time of its founding, the MLP was in the process of breaking with its long-time mentor in Canada, the Communist Party of Canada (M-L) (CPCML). As a result of this break, it too, underwent a split, with forces loyal to the CPCML reforming themselves as the U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization.
The Party of the Working Class and the Small Circles of the Petit-Bourgeoisie by the Committee for a Proletarian Party
“COUSML”-“MLOC”: Cheap Tricks and Demagogy Can’t Hide Treachery – Centrism Means Unity with Social-Chauvinism by the U.S. Leninist Core
The New Centrism by Demarcation
Call for Joint Work on the Party Program by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
Draft Party Program by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
An Open Letter – Requesting Discussions of the Draft Party Program and the Reconstitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the United States by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
Reply to the Open Letter of the MLOC by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
Reply to the COUSML Pamphlet: “Reply to the Open Letter of the MLOC” by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee
Party-Formation and the Circle Spirit: A Reply to the MLOC by the Pacific Collective (Marxist-Leninist)
“ML”OC vs. Leninism by Demarcation
Letter to the “CPUSA (ML)” by Demarcation
Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement. A study of the origin, history and present role of the social-democrat Barry Weisberg and his MLOC/“CPUSA(M-L)” by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
Introduction: Objectives of Workers’ Herald by the Revolutionary Political Organization (Marxist-Leninist)
Report from the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party U.S.A. (Marxist-Leninist)
RPO(ML) Resolution on Mao Zedong Thought by the Revolutionary Political Organization (Marxist-Leninist)
Party-Building Statement of the Committee For a Proletarian Party
Announcement of a Multilateral Conference (MULC) on Party Building by the Witchita Communist Cell
A Joint Counter-proposal to the Multi-lateral Conference Proposal on Party Building by Demarcation and the U.S. Leninist Core
Cheap Slanders Will Never Build a Vanguard Party. A Reply to Wichita Communist Cell and Kansas City Revolutionary Workers Collective by the Committee of U.S. Bolsheviks
Announcement of the Formation of the Committee of U.S. Bolsheviks
On the Founding of the Bolshevik League and the Establishment of Bolshevik Revolution by the Bolshevik League of the United States
Report to the Founding Conference of the Bolshevik League of the United States
Faction Purged From B.L. On The Road To a Bolshevik Party by the Bolshevik League of the United States
From Circles to the Party. The Tasks of Communists Outside the Existing Parties by the Pacific Collective (Marxist-Leninist)
U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism! Proletarian Revolution in the U.S. Is Our Sacred Internationalist Duty! by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
U.S. Neo-Revisionism as the American Expression of the International Opportunist Trend of Chinese Revisionism by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists
Communique of the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA
“You Can’t Beat The Enemy While Raising His Flag”: MLPUSA Tries It by the Revolutionary Communist Party
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The Communist Workers Party (CWP) was founded in October 1979. It had its origins in the Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO). WVO had been briefly involved in the Revolutionary Wing in 1975-76, and as the Wing disintegrated, WVO was able to increase its membership and influence from the break-up and purges in other groups, primarily the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL). In North Carolina, for example, former members of the RWL formed the Bolshevik Organizing Collective (M-L) (BOC) which later merged with another local collective, the Communist Workers Committee (M-L) (CWC), before joining WVO.
Almost immediately after its founding, the CWP made national headlines when five of its members (former members of the BOC and CWC) were killed by Nazis in Greensboro, North Carolina. While the rhetoric and behavior of the CWP following the killings could be extreme (for example, its attack on the 1980 Democratic National Convention), by 1980 it began a process of abandoning its former leftism. This process started with a reassessment of its positions on the international situation.
Having previously championed Mao Zedong Thought and Chinese foreign policy, the CWP was silent for a long time about events in China following Mao’s death and the fall of the Gang of Four, before coming out with a position that argued that these developments represented a counter-revolutionary coup. The evolution of the CWP’s thinking continued with its abandonment of the position that capitalism had been restored in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and its open endorsement of détente, stands which were elaborated on in General Secretary Jerry Tung’s 1981 book, The Socialist Road.
N.Y. May Day: 1000 Strong, Workers March Led by WVO. Major Speech from Central Committee of WVO
May Day Speech, 1978 by Jerry Tung
Forged In 5-Years Of Glorious Struggle, CWP Charges Forward To Break The Bourgeoisie
Long Live the Communist Workers Party, U.S.A.!
On the Founding of the Communist Workers Party, U.S.A.
Build the Communist Workers Party! Prepare for the D. of P.!
1980 Elections: The Real Choice is Fascism/World War or Revolutionary Socialism
Just One Cop Is Not Enough, We Have To Kill The Whole System
21 Officers Hurt Battling Communist Worker Groups
Payback: “The Communist Workers Party Stormed the Democratic Convention”
Capitalism Destablized – How Do We Prepare To Overthrow the U.S. Government by Irene Blankenship
Presentation to the Central Committee, November 1980 by Jerry Tung
Presentation to the Party Leadership, December 1980 by Jerry Tung
Questions and Answers by Jerry Tung
The Socialist Road. Character of Revolution in the U.S. and Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union and China by Jerry Tung
An Open Letter to Joe Grady, Gorrell Pierce, and All KKK Members and Sympathizers by the Workers Viewpoint Organization
“Death to the Klan” flyer by the Communist Workers Party
Greensboro Massacre: Premeditated Gov’t Assassination of Communist Workers Party Leaders
“Turn Grief Into Strength! Avenge the CWP 5!” flyer by the Communist Workers Party
The Lessons of the Greensboro Massacre by Ray O. Light
“Greensboro Massacre” – video
“1979: Gov’t & KKK Murder Five Communists” – video
“Communist Workers Party 5 Died Fighting the KKK/Nazis Rather than Live as Slaves” flyer by the Communist Workers Party
The Greensboro Massacre: Critical Lessons for the 1980’s by the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective and the Greensboro Collective
Greensboro: Political Suicide With No Condolences by the Bolshevik League of the United States
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