Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

PRRWO: Anarcho-Socialism U.S.A. Expose PRRWO’S Hustlerism!


2. THE CHARACTER OF OUR PARTY: BUILD THE PARTY ON THE PROLETARIAN IDEOLOGICAL PLANE, GRASP THE KEY LINK OF POLITICAL LINE!

D. WHO’S COMBINING TWO INTO ONE? THE OLD CRY OF “OVERRATING THE IMPORTANCE OF IDEOLOGY”

In the Sept. 1974 issue of the WV Journal, we said:

Pragmatism is an ideology mutated and promoted by the social relations. Functionalism, instrumentalism, and utilitarianism –these are the “above class” pillars that have’ evolved and are deeply circulating in the bloodstream of our good old American pie tradition. This ideology, however, can be bodily transferred from the bourgeois superstructure – the realm of ideology – to the Marxist-Leninist movement and superstructure of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the form of determining shortcuts, rules of thumb, expediency, demagogy, sophistry, etc. If practice can hold a group together, then that’s what a group should do, regardless of what kind of practice it has – that becomes secondary. If this argument can beat the opponent, then use it. Worse yet, whether to even have a line or not, to be open about it or hide it, or to silently mutate it – all this is determined by what aids one’s organizational supremacy and expansion. Such are some of the manifestations of the iron grip of a far stronger bourgeois ideology on the Communist movement. Pragmatist tendencies, thus, are a particular form of revisionism in the ranks of Communists. (WV, Vol. 1, Vo. 2, p. 22)

PRRWO charged:

This is American Exceptionalism. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-Tung Thought teaches us that the laws governing capitalism, in both its economic base and superstructure are universal and not that there are exceptions to this universal law,

WVO must view it differently, because they say that 𔄢The ideology (Pragmatism) can be bodily transferred from the bourgeois superstructure – the realm of ideology – to the Marxist-Leninist movement and superstructure of Marxist-Leninist ideology...”

We have never heard of one country having 2 superstructures at the same time. The tasks of Marxist-Leninists are to smash the capitalist economic base, construct a socialist economic base and then, through ideological struggle, crystallized through the continuance of class struggle and struggle between the two lines, transform the superstructure so that it can conform to the socialist economic base. (Palante, March-April, 1976, p. 14)

They said that “WV combines two into one,” “combines ML ideology with bourgeois ideology,” which supposedly is the root of WV’s being “soft on revisionism.”

But who’s really combining two into one? Who’s raising the old cry of “over-rating the importance of ideology”? In their failure to recognize the coexistence of bourgeois and proletarian ideology in our thinking – i. e., in not dividing one into two – we see clearly that they are the very ones who are combining two into one. In fact, in the last paragraph of theirs quoted above, PRRWO is not only combining two into one; it’s straight-up revisionism! But if PRRWO wants to distort the issue by charging that WV “believes in two superstructures” and is therefore “combining two into one,” then we plead guilty! This unprincipled play on words is opportunism pure and simple. They’re just trying to dig out of the dusty archives the long-dead Menshevik argument about “overrating the importance of ideology.”

In our quote, given above, as all can see, we expressed the idea that the ML movement, too, is affected by bourgeois ideology – particularly pragmatism as an “accepted” methodology. So although we advocate Communism, we often practice revisionism. That is because our ideology is filled with many aspects of bourgeois ideology.

This idea, that bourgeois ideology affects the Communist movement, its organizations and methodology due to the strength of bourgeois ideology and its relative independence, is nothing new. Lenin, in WITBD stated that: “The content of this new term (freedom of criticism) did not have to grow and take shape, it was transferred bodily from bourgeois to socialist literature.” (p. 8) But perhaps PRRWO and RWL will “discover” some kind of two-headed monster in Lenin’s description of how bourgeois ideology is “bodily transferred” from bourgeois to socialist literature, just as they “discovered” “two superstructures” in our statement.

We have stated many times in public forums that, in this country, if we don’t grasp tightly the importance of theory, we will belittle it in practice; if we don’t understand pragmatism, and all its varied and deep influences in our practice, it will replace Marxism in practice. If we don’t consciously combat chauvinism, most people will practice chauvinism; and if we don’t consciously combat international centrism, we will drift towards and practice centrism. Similarly, this holds for the question of illusions of abstract equality and legality – illusions of bourgeois democracy. If we don’t criticize it and dig out its roots and understand the correct relation to the state and prevent its manifestations in practice, then we will inevitably practice revisionism.

It is because of the strength of the old world, as Lenin put it, especially when we bow to spontaneity (at moments when we are least “conscious” of it) in the absence of guidance from MLMTTT, in the absence of plans and clear lines, that our practice will deviate along the lines of bourgeois ideology.

As Lenin stated: “SD ideology was able to achieve this superiority (in the German trade union movement) and will be able to maintain it, only by unswervingly fighting against all other ideologies.” WITBD, Peking ed., p. 50.)

A precondition for struggle against revisionism is to recognize the co-existence of bourgeois and proletarian ideology in our thinking. As Chairman Mao put it:

There are many Party members who have joined the CP organizationally but have not yet joined the Party wholly or at all ideologically. Those who have not joined the Party ideologically still carry a great deal of the muck of the exploiting classes in their heads, and have no idea at all of what proletarian ideology, or communism, or the Party is. ’Proletarian ideology?’ they think, ’The same old stuff!’ Little do they know that it is no easy matter to acquire this stuff. (Mao, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 94)

As genuine Communists, we must remold our ideology as we engage in class struggle, for whether or not one builds the party ideologically and politically is the watershed between the genuine and the sham. Therefore, “we must be prudent, modest, andprevent rashness.” This is precisely the ideological attitude needed to prevent bowing to spontaneity and to prevent bourgeois ideology, which is far stronger, from taking command. Not to recognize the co-existence of two ideologies in our thinking, not to have a prudent and modest attitude towards this ideological question, is to have joined a Communist organization organizationally, but not ideologically. For those Communist organizations who refuse to recognize the co-existence of these two ideologies, no matter how much they say “ideological and political line decide everything,” in reality organizational authority, organizational ties (for example, schemes like Workers’ Congress’ Iskra newspaper line in the US) and personal relations will decide everything. (We recommend that comrades check out the short story called the “Hidden Reef” in the Chinese collection of short stories titled “A Young Pathbreaker,” where the author describes how a revolutionary comrade with proletarian background (and, in fact, everyone) has a “hidden reef” in his thinking and must constantly be on guard to fight it. Chairman Mao teaches us that everything reactionary is the same; if you don’t hit it, it won’t fall. To do ideological work is like sweeping the floor; where the broom doesn’t reach, the dust never vanishes of itself. This certainly is something we must practice every day and every hour, and must develop a habit of doing; otherwise, bourgeois ideology will mature and will develop from innocence to adolescence to adulthood, and eventually to the point of no return, as in the case of “C”PSU and “C”PUSA.

We would like to point out that the task of Communists is to first smash the bourgeois state. Under the bourgeois state, as a whole, bourgeois ideology is always dominant. The task of the proletariat is not and cannot be to transform the bourgeois ideological superstructure first and then smash the bourgeois state. That’s Utopian, since the role of the bourgeois state is to maintain and intensify the ideological enslavement (as well as all other spheres of enslavement) of the masses through the state apparatus and thousands of other means available to them. Chairman Mao said that to make revolution, we must create public opinion favorable to Communism, though bourgeois ideology will still be dominant overall under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. PRRWO says that “The tasks of Marxist-Leninists are to smash the capitalist economic base and then through ideological struggle, crystallized through the continuance of class struggle and struggle between the two lines, transform the superstructure.. .”(emphasis ours). First of all, this liquidates the need to have ideological struggle before Marxist-Leninists “smash the capitalist economic base,” the need to create favorable ideological public opinion to aid the smashing of the bourgeois state and, most important of all, the need to build a vanguard party that can successfully resist all ideological contamination – real bullets as well as sugar-coated bullets – and will be able to see ahead and lead the masses.

Lenin said in his “Letter to American Workers” that

People have not become saints because the revolution has begun. The toiling classes who for centuries have been oppressed, downtrodden and forcibly held in the vice of poverty, brutality and ignorance cannot avoid mistakes when making a revolution. And, as I pointed out once before, the corpse of bourgeois society cannot be nailed in a coffin and buried. The corpse of capitalism is decaying and disintegrating in our midst, polluting the air and poisoning our lives, enmeshing that which is new, fresh, young and virile in thousands of threads and bonds of that which is old, moribund and decaying. LCW, Vol. 28.

This teaching must be taken to heart. Why have all other party building efforts in the past degenerated? PRRWO cannot answer and therefore has to avoid the question. By refusing to examine the concrete historical experience of the proletariat in advanced capitalist countries, we cannot learn from past lessons. No, we are not daunted by our mistakes or fearful of the difficulties ahead. For despite past failures, generation upon generation of proletarian new blood will rise and our party will be built! An essential condition for our success, however, is that we draw deep lessons from the past. The worst betrayal of the proletariat, therefore, would be to act like PRRWO does, shutting our eyes to history, evading the real questions to which we must address ourselves, and acting as if we are living in a vacuum, away from the poisonous stench of decaying capitalism. They feed people with general platitudes against exploitation, aid say “ideological struggle is in the main over,” hoping that somehow we will get our thing together, hoping that somehow we will smash the state, and then, after that, we can leisurely engage in ideological struggle to change the superstructure to conform to the economic base!!

We don’t need such general platitudes against exploitation! It’s nothing but philistinism!

Comrades, PRRWO forgot that smashing the state itself is, in large part, changing the superstructure. The state is part of the superstructure itself. The state is not only political power, but also economic and ideological power itself, as Marx and Engels have constantly taught us. Saying that we will engage in class struggle only after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie bypasses the question and a large part of class struggle itself. In fact, when the proletariat smashes the bourgeois state and exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletarian superstructure will then be come the dominant aspect (before that, the bourgeoisie is always the dominant aspect).

But wait, there’s more to come. Another out-and-out revisionist part of PRRWO’s line is that they say after we smash the state, we can engage in ideological struggle to change the superstructure to conform to the economic base!! Comrades, what is this besides boastfulness in words and tailism in ideology?

The Chinese comrades have stated that the proletariat must exercise all-round dictatorship of the proletariat; the proletarian superstructure must lead the development of the economic base. That’s the significance of the slogans “Grasp revolution to promote production” or “Class struggle is the key link to economic development.”

In other words, the superstructure is not changed to conform to the economic base; it has to be ahead of the economic base. This is the watershed between the modern revisionist “C’PUSA and the Marxist-Leninist CPC. To passively conform to the economic base is to tail, is to bow to palpable economic and material results, to goulash Communism, is to take material incentives as the leading factor and not the ideology of proletarian internationalism and Communism, is not to carry the socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, through to the end.

Comrades, we have exposed PRRWO’s Trotskyite line on the superstructure with regard to the trade union question. Trotsky liquidated the potential revolutionary role of trade unions under capitalism, and he treated trade unions as an administrative apparatus which merely conforms to the economic base under socialism (rather than treating them as schools for Communism, as Lenin said they should be) and hence liquidated the role of Communism as a leading factor of the economic base in revolution. In both cases, before socialist revolution, under a “left” cloak, and after socialist revolution, under a right cover, Trotsky liquidated the importance of superstructure.

Comrades, do we see the stark similarity between PRRWO and Trotsky?? Trotsky was a “Menshevik-inside-out.” And PRRWO’s Trotskyite line is an economic determinist line, is a Menshevik line inside out!! And Trotsky had a bourgeois line on ideology just like PRRWO’s (and that’s no accident !).

WHO’S KIDDING WHOM? AN EXAMPLE OF PRRWO’S “SELF-CRITICISM”

We stated in WV, vol. 2, No. l:

For this country, reformist influences, whether they take the form of outright reformism (that’s the less dangerous kind, for it is overt and detectable), Social-Democracy, revisionism, or even “Marxist-Leninism” (be they based on the labor movement or based on the petty bourgeoisie) their forces of habit and intrinsic faith in “democracy”, their emotions and predilections, or their overt and covert prejudices, all act like a shackle upon the proletariat and prevent them from gaining political independence from the bourgeoisie. (p. 23)

PRRWO makes fun of this point and jokes about the term “forces of habit”, “predilection,” etc. That’s because they don’t really want to deal with their own concrete form of bourgeois ideology. For example, PRRWO came out with a four page propaganda leaflet against the recent UFT strike in New York City. Later, after the strike was over, PRRWO changed their position. In self-criticism, they pointed out that “voluntarism” was their error. But voluntarism can lead to many kinds of deviations, with greatly varying content. Chairman Mao spoke of voluntarism in the CPC, in the past, as purely military thinking, “roving bandit mentality.” This is certainly not the ideological basis for PRRWO’s scabbing in the UFT strike.. Given the fact that the teachers in the UFT are largely white, and given the social basis of PRRWO, the self-criticism of “voluntarism” is a dodge, a cover which allows PRRWO to cop out of genuine ideological rectification of their repeated narrow nationalist deviations. As Lenin taught us:

.. .long ago, a number of profound objective causes, independently of the particular composition of the ’given persons, groups and institutions’ began to bring about and are steadily continuing to bring about in the two old and principal Russian factions of Social-Democracy changes that create – sometimes undesired and even unperceived by some of the ’given persons, groups, and institutions’ – ideological and organizational bases for unity... These objective conditions simultaneously give rise to inseparably interconnected changes in the character of the working class movement, in the composition, type and features of the Social-Democratic vanguard, as well as changes in the ideological and political tasks of the Social-Democratic movement. Hence, the bourgeois influence over the proletariat that gives rise to liquidationism (=semi-liberalism) and otzovism (=semi-anarchism) is not an accident, nor evil design, stupidity or error on the part of some individual, but the inevitable result of the action of these objective causes, and the superstructure of the entire labor movement in present-day Russia, which is inseparable from the ’basis’.... From this point of view, unity is inseparable from its ideological foundation, it can grow only on the basis of an ideological rapprochement, it is connected with the appearance, development, and growth of such deviations as liquidationism and otzovism, not by the accidental connection between particular polemical statements of this or that literary controversy, but by an internal, indissoluble link such as that which binds cause and effect. (“Notes of a Publicist,” LCW, Vol. 16, p. 213-4)

If PRRWO made narrow nationalist deviations only in one or two instances, they might be secondary and not fundamental deviations. But if they are repealed over and over again, as a pattern for the entire organization, which concretely is the case with PRRWO, then “it is not an accident, or evil design, stupidity, or error on the part of some individual, but the inevitable result of objective causes and the superstructure of the movement” immediately preceding us, “which is inseparable from the ’basis,’” as Lenin put it.

Some of PRRWO’s past student, lower petty bourgeois, and lumpen youth ideological and class basis are the sources of their narrow nationalism, anarcho-socialism and hustler get-it-over type methodology. All these class prejudices, forces of habit, illusions and non-proletarian sentiments (in the form of PRRWO’s dual unionist tendencies, narrow nationalist scope, policy, and line) are inevitably jumping out as dead weights, the dead hand of the past, which holds back the development towards proletarian revolution.

Marxism-Leninism comes from without. Most often, as is the case here in the U. S., elements from national and student movements were the “fire on the tree tops,” the first to adopt MLMTTT. The Communist movement is solidly based on these two movements of the past, though many people in the movement of the oppressed nationalities and national minorities had working class backgrounds or were workers. The main ideology was not proletarian in these movements– though there were many “shoots” and “proletarian kernels” in the practice and thinking of these two movements – as PRRWO also recognizes. But response to revolution, took the form of advocating “go to the masses,” pitting the building of the mass movement against the role of theory, whether conscious or not, is similar to Russia’s Narodniks and Economists, who belittled the role of scientific socialism. PRRWO still has not, themselves, passed through the eclectic period in their ideology. This is clearly shown in virtually every question they have touched. They are still trying to mold the world according to their petty bourgeois image.

In Russia, the movement, especially in the early stages of its development, included the liberal bourgeoisie as an oppositional class which stood, on one hand, against the Czar and feudalism, but on the other hand, didn’t want a proletarian revolution, but only a loyal oppositional movement. As the class struggle proceeded and deepened, a whole section of Russian Social-Democracy jumped out as “legal Marxists,” and their influence inevitably led to a “peculiar form of Social-Democratic opportunism, known as ’economism.’” (“Preface to the Collection Twelve Years”, LCW, Vol. 13) and later liquidationism. The effect of this opportunism was so strong that, independent of any individual’s will, it held sway, like Lenin said, “.. .from the very outset the Rabochaya Mysl began unconsciously to carry out the Program of the Credo. This shows (something Riocheye Dyelo cannot understand at all)...” (emphasis ours) (WITBD, p. 46).

Similarly, in the U.S. Communist movement, these petty bourgeois ideologies are concretely manifested in right forms, in OL’s and RCP’s belittling of theory, which essentially deny the revolutionary trend the right to exist. This form of corruption in the Communist movement, as one form of the petty bourgeois response to revolution, took the form of advocating ’go to the masses,’ pitting the role of theory against practice. This is similar to Russia’s Narodniks and Economists who belittled the role of scientific socialism.

PRRWO, the present day otzovists, the “OL inside out,” is the representative of a “left” opportunist trend. PRRWO clings onto forms, onto half-digested slogans and phrases, like “long live MLMTTT,” waving the red flag, hustling on the revolutionary zeal of the naive, all covered by the “fight against the right.” Lenin once remarked that whenever the otzovist mood prevailed, it was of a disorganizing nature. This “left” formalist hustlerism of PRRWO is of the same nature today. They appeal to words and slogans in order to divorce them from concrete class struggles. PRRWO exclaims, “Bowing to spontaneous movements” is the root of all evil!! And if engaging in mass struggles is their root of all evil, then liquidating mass struggles is their lesser of two evils! This amounts to boycottism. While formidable in words and empty slogans, they only appeal to the worst instincts of their own cadres and tailism from white petty bourgeois elements. Their “sophisticated” appeal to bourgeois trends of thought, slogans, and timely insinuations and rumors, plus their hustlerism style, is the special trait of this ideological trend. PRRWO fends off criticism of their opportunism with their hustlerism; that’s also how they hold themselves together!

UNIQUE FEATURES OF PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION AND PROBLEMS OF PARTY BUILDING IN ADVANCED CAPITALIST COUNTRIES

Marx long ago pointed out:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please: they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The traditions of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. (Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, International Publishers, p. 15)

That was the first summation of an ideological question as revealed in the 1848 bourgeois democratic revolution, where the proletariat participated in the revolution but were used by the bourgeoisie. Later on, Lenin, from the experience of the Russian revolution, gained insight into the problem of revolution in advanced capitalist countries. He said,

It is difficult to eradicate bourgeois habits from our own, i.e., the workers party... it is ’difficult’ to be sure; it was difficult in Russia, and it is vastly more difficult in Western Europe and in America, where the bourgeoisie is far stronger, where the bourgeois-democratic traditions are stronger...

This ideological source, along with the class basis (petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy), is the source of opportunism and revisionism in the Communist movement.

Comrade Hill of the Australian CP(ML) also pointed out this problem of party building in an advanced capitalist country:

In countries such as Australia, conditions of bourgeois democracy prevail. Seeming freedom of the press, of organization, of speech, of assembly, parliamentary elections, trade unions, equal ity before law, all combine to bemuse and deceive people that they have democracy, have real power, where as all that these things do is to conceal the reality that Australia is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (an imperialist dependency). In such conditions, the problems of building a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Party have their own peculiarities. Much of the previous experience had been negative. It cannot be said that the problems had been adequately solved anywhere. There were no guide posts. Moreover, the main leaders of communist parties, in almost all so-called bourgeois democracies had succumbed to revisionism. The question of party building had not been put sufficiently on the ideological plane. Therefore, the Marxists in Australia were compelled to face the question in a new way, what sort of party, how to build the party, how to put party building on the ideological plane. E.F. Hill, Australia’s Revolution

All these questions raised by our Australian comrade don’t mean anything to PRRWO, since for them, burning questions like how to build the party, what sort of party to build, how and why revisionism develops, have already been “solved.” In PRRWO’s one-track metaphysical thinking, revisionism is merely a question of the conscious distortion of ML principles, and that’s all!! Instead of tackling these burning issues, all that PRRWO can do is parrot, in unison, what they have memorized: “It’s a Bolshevik Party!”

PRRWO never asks the fundamental question: why has there not been a proletarian revolution in any advanced capitalist country, and the relation of this question to party building. We have said, in previous publications, that in economically backward countries such as Russia and China, it is easier to make revolution and more difficult to consolidate it. In advanced capitalist countries, more likely it would be harder to make revolution, and easier to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, once the proletariat has been set in motion. Consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in advanced capitalist countries will be relatively easier in comparison to the task of the seizure of state power, not only because material conditions are more favorable, but because under capitalism:

The principal historical cause responsible for the particular prominence and (temporary) strength of bourgeois labour policy in Britain and America is the long-standing political liberty. (Lenin, “In America,” LCW, Vol.36, p. 179.)

and its bribery of a small number of labor aristocrats which deprive the working class of its political independence. This seeming political liberty, the rule of bourgeois democracy, necessitates that the bourgeoisie use many varieties and forms of bourgeois ideology to deceive the masses. But this also facilitates consolidation, because “the more varied the exploiter’s attempts to uphold the old, the sooner will the proletariat learn to ferret out its enemies from their last nook and corner, to pull up the roots of their dominance.” (Peking Review, No. 7, 1974)

However, that also means that the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be much more arduous, It means that the party of the proletariat must (in the course of class struggle) be able to guide the proletariat through the muddy and philistine atmosphere of the decaying and parasitic capitalist system, to resist contamination, to be able to give the masses ideological and political leadership through its ability to impart the ideology of the proletariat based on the theoretical basis of MLMTTT in a most profound, deep-going and penetrating way. The party, the general staff of the proletariat, the concentrated expression of the will of the proletariat, must be built on a firm ideological plane, for otherwise it cannot be the ideological and political leader of the proletariat, just as the locomotive gets its strength from the masses but also guides and pushes them forward.

Marx pointed out that proletarian revolution is unique from all previous feudal or bourgeois democratic revolutions in the past, in that it:

...can not draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped off all superstition in regard to the past. Earlier revolution required recollections of past world history in order to drug themselves concerning their own content. In order to arrive at its own content, the revolution of the 19th century (proletarian revolution – ed.) must let the dead bury their dead bury their dead. There the phrase went beyond the content; here the content goes beyond the phrase!

For this proletarian mission, and because of the necessity to accomplish this mission:

...proletarian revolutions, like those of the 19th century, criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves constantly in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again, more gigantic, before them, recoil ever and anon from the indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created which makes all turning back impossible... (Eighteeth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 19)

Because it is the most radical rupture with bourgeois property relations, “The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with tradition ideas.” (Communist Manifesto) This profound statement by Marx & Engels dearly points the way. Party building must be placed on the ideological plane. Let PRRWO, OL and RCP, let demagogues, political swindlers, vulgar politicians in the Communist movement, and clowns in history laugh and rave at that. Let them build their party on an organizational basis, let them use the “strength of the old world” to build the party. History, as Marx taught, is mercilessly thorough: all opportunists, following the bourgeois road, will be thrown into the garbage heap of history!!

“OVERRATING THE IMPORTANCE OF IDEOLOGY”

In some instances our article raised the ideological task in a one sided way, but it must be viewed as a whole, for the thrust of our line (particularly with respect to OL and RU) correctly raised struggle on political deviations to an ideological plane. For raising this question of ideological tasks, however, PRRWO (over a year later) raised a hullaballoo about how “it’s so abstract,” “you spend all this time discussing it while not talking about political line as key link,” etc. These are the cries of the Mensheviks, who complained about “over-rating the importance of ideology.” Yesterday, our Economists belittled theory, Marxism, the role of socialist ideology; today, our “left” anarcho-socialists belittle bourgeois ideology and dogmatically worship the appearance of theory and the form of not bowing to spontaneity. They refuse to understand Marxism, and refuse to engage in a tit-for-tat struggle against its corruption. Their dogmatic understanding of “dialectical materialism,” in generalities alone is certainly no substitute for Marxist theory with regard to specific, concrete problems that we face in class struggle.

“C”PUSA, the OL, and RCP liquidate from the right the task of building the party, and our “left” anarcho-socialists liquidate it from the “left.” The right bows to bourgeois ideology by not taking up Marxist theory or by literally revising it. The “left” opportunists, by ossifying Marxism, by freezing it into a dogma, killing its vitality as a living science, thus destroy its use as a guide to action and, as a result, they also become subservient to bourgeois ideology in practice. That is why PRRWO is subservient to bourgeois ideology but from the “left” “pole”, taking the “left” form of the path of least resistance; PRRWO is the “twin” of the right opportunists, the “OL-inside-out.”