The MCLL is presently divided along political lines – this paper will outline the parameters of the present political disagreements. Marxism-Leninism is a guide to action and is not a dogma to be used to gloss over fundamental political questions; furthermore, the masters teach us that all political problems must be analyzed in the concrete, not in the abstract. It is therefore necessary to analyze the immediate and burning questions which we as communists face today – what answers we must have before we can move on. But it is not necessary to answer every question which faces the communist movement in order to decide on the present divisions which we face.
We assert that the questions which divide us are concrete and major political disagreement which divide the MCLL into two camps and revolve around the following questions:
1. Is the Soviet Union social-imperialist and does it promote a revision of Marxism-Leninism? We assert that the answer is yes, the USSR is revisionism incarnate. We assert that this means that communists must destroy ideologically the presumptuous line that fundamental laws and principles of Marxism-Leninism can be now revised. The most pernicious revisionism of Marxism-Leninism promoted by the rotten opportunists now dominating the USSR is that there can and will be a peaceful transition to socialism. This denies the necessity for the violent destruction off the bourgeois state apparatus and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Finally, we contend that clearly the Vietnamese recognize the absolute necessity for the rejection of peaceful transition toward socialism and we unite with them as communists in their resolute struggle to defeat USNA imperialists. We also understand the absolute necessity for the destruction of revisionism, that tool of the bourgeoisie cloaked in Marxist-Leninist terminology which subverts the revolutionary potential of our class as we struggle toward the realization of our historic mission, the creation of the classless international society.
2. The most immediate task of communists in the USNA is the building of a multi-national communist party of a new type. That party will be built by rigorous, definite and unyielding clarification of the different political opinions and positions and even to carefully differentiate the “shades of opinion” which divide us.
The process of differentiation includes political struggle with all political groups which means concretely that we must go to the continuations committee, and use every ounce of energy to build a party by September 1974.
The sum and substance of this paper is the political analysis which leads us to conclude that we must build a multinational anti-revisionist communist party at the present time (immediately).
Internationally, four main contradictions face the world’s people. They are:
Between oppressed nations on the one hand and imperialism and social imperialism on the other hand.
Between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie (including the new bourgeoisie of the USSR) in capitalist and revisionist countries.
Between imperialist and social imperialist countries and among imperialist countries, and
Between socialist countries on the one hand and imperialism and social imperialism on the other.
These were outlined by the Ninth Party Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1969. One can easily see the difference between these and those outlined by the Party in its letters to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1963. A brief outline of the contradiction between socialist countries and imperialism and social imperialism is useful in understanding the importance of this change., The parameters and relations of these contradictions have been precisely outlined by Enver Hoxha:
Regardless of the changes that have taken place and are taking place in the world, U.S„ imperialism remains the chief enemy of all peoples, the greatest oppressor and exploiter of other countries, the bastion of international reaction. As long as it remains unchanged together with its aggressive and war-mongering policy and strategy, which stem from the very essence of its exploiting system.
U.S. imperialism cannot live without economic expansion, without political intervention and military aggression, without oppressing and exploiting other people. Otherwise, it dies and the road is opened to revolts and revolution.
...
But U.S. imperialism is not the only enemy of the peoples neither should we consider as its allies only the reactionary puppets directly connected politically, militarily, and financially with Washington. Despite their contradictions with the United States, Britain, West Germany, Japan, and other imperialist countries remain its chief partners, likewise follow the policy of economic expansion and neo-colonialism towards other countries, seek to create spheres of influence, and always come out in support of world reaction. A united Europe, which is being hatched up by the West European capital, aims at becoming a new imperialist superpower with claims to hegemony and domination similar to the United States and the Soviet Union. The struggle against U.S. imperialism will not be effective, unless it is waged against its friends and allies too, against all imperialist powers.
...
An enemy just as dangerous, just as cunning and aggressive as U.S. imperialism for the peoples and the revolution is the new Soviet revisionist imperialism. Enver Hoxha, Report Submitted to the 6th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, pp. 19, 21, 22, footnote ed. Tirana, 1971
The rise of social imperialism and its ideological tool, revisionism, has immediate consequences internationally and in the MCLL. It means that we must understand the historical development of social imperialism (socialism in words, imperialism in deeds) and how we move ideologically in this country and what our revolutionary responsibilities are in this country.
Historically, the Communist Party of China put forward the following principles of peaceful co-existence in 1955 at Bandung:
1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
2. Mutual non-aggression.
3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
4. Equality and mutual benefit.
5. Peaceful co-existence.
Further, the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China continues to explain this doctrine of “peaceful co-existence”:
The foreign policy of our party and government is consistent. It is: to develop relations of friendship, mutual assistance and co-operation with socialist countries on the principle of proletarian internationalism; to support and assist the revolutionary struggles of all oppressed people and nations; and to strive for peaceful co-existence with countries having different social systems on the basis of the Five Principles of mutual respect ... and to oppose the imperialist policies of aggression and war. Our proletarian foreign policy is not based on temporary expedience; it is a policy in which we have long persisted ....
We have always held that the internal affairs of each country should be settled by its own people. The relations between all countries and between all parties, big or small, must be built on the principles of equality and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. Ninth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
But Marx clearly articulated the position that communism would not be possible until the international proletariat had triumphed in class struggle. No single socialist state can be expected to achieve communism in this period. One of the consequences of “national” socialism has been the emergence of revisionism – revisionism not based in petite bourgeois elements of a capitalist state, but revisionism based within a national state government ostensibly calling itself socialist...All socialist states that exist prior to the inevitable victory of the international proletariat face the dangers of revisionism. Even China is not exempt from a constant struggle against revisionism. Thus, one of the dimensions of the classical contradiction between imperialist nations and oppressed nations has been the complexity introduced by the relationship of social imperialism to imperialism.
The revisionists of the Soviet Union have accepted the principle of mutual respect in word, but have corrupted the notion of peaceful co-existence. They have asserted the possibility of the “peaceful transition to socialism”. Then saying that non-interference with the countries having different social systems means an alliance with the bourgeoisie of capitalist countries or with imperialist themselves. What else but this alliance could have triggered this fundamental change in the principle of Marxism-Leninism which mandates the smashing of the bourgeois state machinery? The alliance specifically explains the revisionism of the CPSU.
A more important question for the moment, however, is “What constitutes the socialist camp?” We would assert the following: Albania, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and, perhaps, Cuba.
It is this camp that must lead the struggle against imperialists and social imperialists.
A word must be said about Cuba before moving forward. There has been evidence in the recent past that Cuba is moving into the camp of the revisionists. The inclusion of material incentives and the recent visit of Brezhnev support this proposition, but insufficient data exists for the exclusion of the Cuban country from the socialist camp. This is, for the present, only a question of further study by us. Other smaller countries such as Guinea-Bissau exist apparently as socialist countries, but we simply have insufficient information to include or exclude them. The overall purpose here is merely to show the general world alignment of forces, not to be definitive.
And what of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, that once proud bastion of socialism?
The fundamental feature of the present policy of the Soviet Union in relations with other countries is that of any imperialism; to preserve and consolidate its own sphere of influence to extend its domination over other peoples and countries, to enslave and exploit them ... The Soviet revisionists have been speaking a great deal recently about the so-called “international dictatorship of the proletariat” but behind this they hide their counter-revolutionary aims. In the conditions when capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union, the slogan “the international dictatorship of the proletariat” aims at the use of force to keep satellite countries of the so-called “socialist community” under its own domination, to supplement its domination by “peace-means” COMECON and other agreements, with domination by means of violence, using as the main weapon the military organization of the Warsaw Treaty, which now has been turned into an organization of aggression and war similar to NATO. Figret Shehu “about some actual problems of the struggle against modern revisionism” from Some Questions of Socialist Construction in Albania and of the Struggle Against Revisionism, Nairn Frasheri Publishing House, Tirana, p. 160, 162.
The dependence on the Soviet Union for all of the revisionist countries of Eastern Europe has thus been accomplished through the use of economic, political and military domination that is no bettor nor worse than that employed by other imperialists, and, as pointed out above, this has been accomplished under the guise of the creation of “the international dictatorship of the proletariat.” Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and others offer brutish examples of the corruption of the Leninist principled the right of nations to self-determination, rationalized away by the concept of the “international dictatorship of the proletariat” and the limited sovereignty of the state.
Another example of the revisionism of the CPSU on the international front is offered in Chile. Here Allende’s “Peaceful road to socialism” grew from the class collaborationist line of the CP of Chile and its Moscow-orientation. Not only did the CP of Chile advocate collaboration with high ranking military officers, but it also strategically subordinated the question of class conflict. This, of course, is a primary tactic of the revisionists, as can be seen in all their actions: they will pay lip service to the principles of Marxism-Leninism while hiding their real objectives from the masses. Those objectives were not limited to the territorial boundaries of Chile. The CPSU stands to gain both nationally and internationally:
1. Continued influence in Chile and the discrediting of revolutionaries in Chile.
2. Protected the CP’s image as a non-revolutionary “democratic” form in Italy and France, two countries where the revisionists can attain major electoral victories.
The prices paid by the Chilean working class and the peasantry is stark proof of the sell-out nature and opportunist objectives of the revisionists. Particularly when compared to Vietnam and the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, the Chilean experience shows the necessity for the strict adherence to the science of Marxism-Leninism, understanding and accepting the inevitability of class conflict.
This inevitability and the necessity for a rigorous struggle against revisionism has increasingly more important significance as international capital continues to move towards the rationalization of a world economy.
A. The overt and fascist exploitation of oppressed nations by imperialist nations has led to the development and growth of socialist national liberation fronts – movements which have been successful in breaking out of neo-colonial bondage. Thus, the contradiction of external, military oppression is that it strengthens the revolutionary forces which are now guided by developed theories of national liberation tested and proven by the Chinese and Vietnamese.
B. The competition between capitalist and imperialist states has led to costly and debilitating wars in which productive resources, potential markets, and social stability are greatly undermined. Just as internally we understand that the USNA national bourgeoisie, after the fratricidal competition of the 1880’s, moved to rationalize the markets and consolidate resources, so there has emerged a bourgeoisie – based on the USNA multinational corporation – that has begun the organization and rationalization of inter-imperialist competition. The development of the “cold war” ideology and the strategy of “limited war” allows the capitalist nations to continue to maintain a war economy – necessary to prevent economic stagnation – in an attempt to avoid having to fight one another.
Thus the four contradictions listed previously are exacerbated. It is not a question of the primacy of one contradiction over another or the question of one being more important than another. All four must be considered when communists develop programs. For example, in a country with a developing national bourgeoisie, communists must unite under an anti-revisionist banner and refuse alignment with the national bourgeoisie. Thus, the difficulties outlined in the Chile discussion will be avoided.
Within the contradiction between oppressed nations and imperialism and social imperialism is arising a myriad of other subordinate contradictions. This is due to the interconnectedness of the four contradictions and the effects one has on the others. In the present period, the contradiction between oppressed nations and imperialism is affected by the contradiction between imperialist and social imperialist countries and among imperialist countries. Historically, this latter contradiction has produced vicious competition for the dominance of one imperialist country over another for the control of colonial and neo-colonial possessions. This in turn produced world wars and the debilitating wars mentioned above. The Chinese Communist Party has outlined the analysis we must apply to this situation and the principles we must follow.
Lenin said that ’an essential feature of imperialism is the rivalry
between several Great Powers in the striving for hegemony.’ Today,
it is mainly the two nuclear superpowers – the USNA and the USSR –
that are contending for hegemony. While hawking disarmament, they
are actually expanding their armaments every day. Their purpose is
to contend for world hegemony. They contend as well as collude with
each other. Their collusion serves the purpose of more intensified
contention. Contention is absolute and protracted, whereas collusion is relative and temporary....( pp. 23, 24)
...
The awakening and growth of the Third World is a major event in contemporary international relations. The Third World has strengthened its unity in the struggle against hegemonism and power politics of the superpowers affairs. The great victories won by the people of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia in their war against U.S.N»A„ aggression and for national salvation have strongly encouraged the people of the world in their revolutionary struggle against imperialism and colonialism. A new situation has emerged in the Korean people’s struggle for the independent and peaceful reunification of their fatherland. The struggles of the Palestinian and other Arab peoples against aggression by Israeli Zionism, the African peoples’ struggles against colonialism and racial discrimination and the Latin American peoples’ struggles for maintaining 200 mile (nautical) territorial waters or economic zones all continue to forge ahead. The struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples to win and defend national independence and safeguard state sovereignty and national resources have further deepened and broadened. The just struggles of the Third World as well a» of the people of Europe, North America and Oceania support and encourage each other. Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and the people want revolution - this has become an irresistible historical trend. (our emphasis) ...(p. 22)
The U.S.N.A.-Soviet contention for hegemony is the cause of world intranquility. It can not be covered up by any false appearances they create and is already perceived by an increasing number of people and countries. It has met with strong resistance from the Third World and has caused resentment on the part of Japan and West European countries. Beset with troubles internally and externally, the two hegemonic powers – the U.S.N.A. and the U.S.S.R. find the going tougher and tougher. As the verse goes, ’Flowers fall off, do what one may,’ they are in a sorry plight indeed. ....(p. 24)
...
Lenin pointed out repeatedly that imperialism means aggression and war. Chairman Mao pointed out in his statement of May 20, 1970 ’The danger of world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today.’ It will be possible to prevent such a war, so long as the people, who are becoming more and more awakened, keep their-orientation clearly in sight, heighten their vigilance, strengthen unity and persevere in struggle. (p. 28) The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China 1973
In many countries, the imperialists gained alliances with the comprador bourgeoisie, those members of the bourgeoisie in the colonial country who had a material dependence on the continuing dominance of the imperialists in the nation’s economy. It was in the interest of the comprador class to unite with the imperialists to defeat the rising national bourgeoisie as the latter attempted to create the industries that could compete with the imperialists. Thus, the comprador class became the enemy of the proletariat, the peasantry, and the national bourgeoisie as these classes forged an alliance to defeat the imperialists.
Through the development of the multinational corporation, however, the division between the comprador class and the national bourgeoisie has been reduced in some countries. This has occurred through the international alliance of the bourgeoisie of advanced capitalist countries. These forces, in conjunction with the national bourgeoisie of oppressed nations created a whole new service and supportive industries within the oppressed nations. These industries profit from the imperialist industries and investment without being in direct competition with them. The profits from these industries are then often invested in the multi-national corporations, creating a “junior partner status” within the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations.
This situation was also addressed by the CCP in their letter to the CC of the CPSU in June, 1953. “As the internal social contradictions and the international class struggle sharpen, the bourgeoisie, and particularly the big bourgeoisie, in some newly independent countries increasingly tend to become retainers of imperialism and to pursue anti-popular, anti-communist and counter-revolutionary policies. It is necessary for the proletarian party resolutely to oppose these reactionary policies.”
In other countries “the patriotic national bourgeoisie continue to stand with the masses in the struggle against imperialism and colonialism and introduce certain measures of social progress.”
What should the stance of the proletariat in an oppressed nation and its party be towards its national bourgeoisie in a situation where there has correctly been formed a united front against imperialism?
Again the CCP states “When a united front is formed with the bourgeoisie, the policy of the proletarian party should be one of both unity and struggle. The policy should be to unite with the bourgeoisie, in so far as they tend to be progressive, anti-imperialist, and anti-feudal, but to struggle against their reactionary tendencies to compromise and collaborate with imperialism and the forces of feudalism.” Thus, the struggle against the national bourgeoisie may assume a primary aspect in countries where the interests of the national bourgeoisie have merged with the interests of the comprador bourgeoisie and imperialism and social imperialism and preclude a united front or alliance. all quotations from A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, the letter of the CC of the CCP, June 14, 1953 (p. 16-17)
We live in an oppressor country. We have a responsibility to unite with these national liberation struggles and support them. Stalin said:
Formerly, the principle of self-determination of nations was usually misinterpreted and not infrequently it was narrowed down to the idea of the right of nations to autonomy. Certain leaders of the Second International even went so far as to turn the right to self-determination into the right to cultural autonomy, i.e., the right of oppressed nations to have their own cultural institutions, leaving all political power in the hands of the ruling nation. As a consequence, the idea of self-determination stood in danger of being transformed from an instrument for combating annexations into an instrument for justifying them. Now we can say that this confusion has been cleared up. Leninism broadened the conception of self-determination, interpreting it as the right of the oppressed peoples of the dependent countries and colonies to complete secession, as the right of nations to independent existence as states.
Formerly, the national question was regarded from a reformist point of view, as an independent question having no connection with the general question of the power of capital, of the overthrow of imperialism, of the proletarian revolution. It was tacitly assumed that the victory of the proletariat in Europe was possible without a direct alliance with the liberation movement in the colonies, that the national-colonial question could be solved on the quiet, ’of its own accord,’ off the highway of the proletarian revolution without a revolutionary struggle against imperialism. Now we can say that this anti-revolutionary point of view has been exposed. Leninism has proved, and the imperialist war and the revolution in Russia have confirmed, that the national question can be solved only in connection with and on the basis of the proletarian revolution, and that the road to victory of the revolution in the West lies through the revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent countries against imperialism. The national question is a part of the general question of the proletarian revolution, a part of the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, p. 71,72,73.
The ideological struggle we have here in the U.S.N.A. is similar to that faced by Lenin in his struggle against Kautsky. Kautsky said that imperialism was the primary problem but contended in some mystical way that it was mainly a “policy of capitalism that could be changed rather than the highest stage of capitalism. More importantly he used this position as a smokescreen precisely to avoid the question of revolutionary struggle in the oppressor country. This we contend is what we face here in the U.S.N.A.; of course, we must support national liberation struggles but in a revolutionary way (the only real way). The struggle against revisionism, the building of a multi-national party are concrete supports for national liberation struggles. We must demolish any attempt to separate support for national liberation struggles from being a part of our overall revolutionary responsibility. Lenin articulated these principles in his polemic against Kautsky.
The questions as to whether it is possible to reform the basis
of imperialism, whether to go forward to the further intensification and deepening of the antagonisms, are fundamental
questions in the critique of imperialism. Since the specific
politics; features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and
increased national oppression due to the oppression of the
financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition,
a petty-bourgeois democratic opposition to imperialism arose
at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries. Kautsky not only did not trouble to
oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition, which is
really reactionary in its economic base, but became merged
with its practice and this precisely where Kautsky and the
broad international Kautskyism trend deserted Marxism.
...
In the matter of defining imperialism, however, we have to enter into controversy, primarily with Karl Kautsky, the principal Marxist theoretician of the epoch of the so-called Second International. The fundamental ideas expressed in our definition of imperialism were very resolutely attacked by Kautsky in 1915... when he said that imperialism must not be regarded as a “phase” or stage of economy, but as a policy, a definite policy ”preferred” by finance capital; that imperialism must not be “identified” with “present-day capitalism’; that if imperialism is to be understood to mean ”all
the phenomena of present-day capitalism” – cartels, protection, the domination of the financiers, and colonial policy – then the question as to whether imperialism is necessary to capitalism becomes deduced to the flattest tautology”, because in that case, “imperialism is naturally a vital necessity for capitalism and so on,
...
The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) advocacy of conciliation with imperialism, because a “fight” against the policy of the trusts and banks is mere bourgeois reformism and pacificism, the benevolent expression of pious wishes.
.... Lenin, “Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism”, Selected Works, in one volume, New World Paperbacks, pp. 249-50, 234, 235, 236
It is absolutely necessary that in our support for national liberation, we understand that we unite with and call for freedom of succession for oppressed countries not as a substitution for our own class struggle, but as a part of a world wide class struggle. That ideological struggle involves immense struggle against revisionism and educating our class on the importance of the world wide struggle and proletarian internationalism. Countries undergoing the economic development sufficient to provide the material basis for a highly, differentiated class structure, the material basis for opportunism and revisionism in some sectors of the working class, and a consolidating national bourgeoisie integrated into multi-national capital include South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Ghana and Nigeria and the Philippines. Countries in which the low level of economic development and in which a comprador and national bourgeoisie compete for hegemony include Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Angola and Mozambique and Bolivia.
Further research on the placement of various countries within these groups and those countries which are undergoing development from one to the other is obviously needed.
All this is the result of the alliance of international bourgeoisie of the advanced capitalist countries through the form of the multinational corporation. This alliance was created to avert the deadly struggles which would follow the decline of the US dollar and the increasing imperialism of Japan and Western Europe. Within the framework of the multi-national corporation, this international bourgeoisie would be able to continue and even increase its dominance of the proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries and of the working class of the oppressed nations. It is not a monolithic, untenable super-imperialism, however, but merely a temporary alliance between imperialists. It both strengthens the objective basis for proletarian internationalism and underscores the necessity to defeat revisionism on an international level.
Indeed, none of the above is to deny the continuing struggle among the bourgeoisies and the imperialists. It is merely to assert the dominance of the alliance within the contradiction between the imperialists and social-imperialists as the Soviet Union had opened its doors to export and investment through the multi-national corporation.
It is the temporary nature of these alliance that will break down as national liberation struggles continue and imperialism and social-imperialism are forced to accept smaller pieces of the worldwide pie. This will, of course, lead to the heightening of the contradictions and the eventual decay of the alliances which could, in turn produce a third inter-imperialist war. The universal contradiction from which the four fundamental contradictions flow is the contradiction between labor and capital with imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism.
The relationship between the universality and the particularity of contradiction is the relationship between the general character and the individual character of contradiction. Mao Tse-tung, On Contradiction, p. 28
The fundamental contradiction between oppressed nations and imperialism and social-imperialism has been and is now in an acute stage. It is moving toward a qualitative change where oppressed nations are gaining the principal aspect of the contradiction between oppressed nations and imperialism and social-imperialism.
Indeed, imperialism is still the principal aspect universally and in particular. But the struggle that oppressed nations are waging is the strongest attack against that dominant aspect of both the universal contradiction of oppressed nations and imperialism and social imperialism.
The USNA working class must truly put into effect the fighting slogans of the International Communist Movement, “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite.“ “We must study the revolutionary experience of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, firmly support their liberation as a most dependable support, and in direct accord with our own interests.
On the national question the world outlook of the proletarian party is internationalism, and not nationalism, In the revolutionary struggle it supports progressive nationalism and opposes reactionary nationalism. It must always draw a clear line of demarcation between itself and bourgeois nationalism to which it must never fall captive. (These paragraphs follow closely the CCP June letter, p.14)
This is the only effective way to break down the barriers of nationality, color and geographical location and this is the only genuine proletarian internationalism.
In the USNA, the universal contradiction (between labor and capital manifests itself in the particular through the struggle of the USNA working class against the USNA bourgeoisie with absolute support for struggles of national liberation.
The past few months show clearly the bitter, spontaneous, resistance of the working class all across the USNA. Three thousand woodcutters in Mississippi and Alabama of the Gulf Pulp-wood Association have just come off a militant two month strike. Nearly 2,000 Arab workers and supporters demonstrated in Detroit against the Pro-Zionist actions of the UAW “leadership” on Dec. 5, 1973. In Washington, over 100 Baltimore coke-oven workers from Bethlehem Steel stormed into the United Steelworkers Conference, on Jan. 9 of this year, with placards reading “End Slave Labor”, protesting Abel’s opportunist premises and concessions to the steel industry owners.
The resistance to these miserable conditions imposed upon the working people has spread to the independent truck owners and operators who are staging a nation-wide stoppage. Fitzsimons and the teamster leadership have teamed with Nixon’s gang in denying these truck drivers any support or leadership in their protest against outrageous fuel prices. Attempts have been made to isolate these strikers by slapping them with the blame for recent layoffs and shortages.
From the persistent Farah Strikers and Sloane Rubber strikers in California, to the fearless Harlan County Coal miners in Kentucky, we hear the thunderclap of outrage and indignation of the working class!!! People’s Tribune, Vol. 6, No. 2, February 1974, p. 12 – (emphasis added)
We see in the last several years a relative decline in the strength of USNA Imperialism and a massive come down on the backs of the USNA working class. This comes with increased speed-up in our jobs whatever they may be. the laying off of workers and the heightening of production quotas, the increasing prices with little or no wage increases resulting in even less earned as the Nixon administration reports that at least 3 percent less absolute earnings by workers in a one year period have been reported. There is the current “energy crisis” – which is really a crisis of overabundance/overproduction, not scarcity. What we see happening before our eyes and what we will continue to see, not without some ebbs, but all in all, with some continuity, is the relative and in some cases, absolute, impoverishment of the American working people. This will tend to exacerbate many conditions – between national minorities and Anglos, and between those who used to be very comfortable and are now just getting by and between those who were subsisting and who will not be now. The ruling class will attempt to pit the petite bourgeoisie against the proletariat.
But there is also a heightened openness to answers among advanced strata of the class and a more general sense of struggle between the bourgeoisie (them) and the workers (us) than has been held for a number of years. Up to this time there has not been the anti-revisionist communist party to move this struggle and consciousness to socialism and class struggle.
We must understand that the consciousness of the class is trade-union consciousness and that it is only a communist party which can systematically and consistently move large sections of the class to class consciousness, There is among the class a growing consciousness of themselves as workers who are being messed over by the profit machinations of those who rule. This is a contradictory consciousness, as the government is still seen as in some ways an intermediary between those who rule and everyone else. Thus, trade-union consciousness manifests itself in certain advanced sections as anti-capitalist, but can easily be moved to reformism under new guises (e.g. Coleman Young) Trade-union consciousness is the belief on the part of the class that they must have and in some cases struggle for structural reforms, both political and economic. Trade unions are the dominant class forms by which the class minimally defends itself against the predator capitalist. The class cannot simply gain class consciousness by participation in struggles or by the day to day experience of living and working in this society. It has to be brought by Marxist-Leninists who bring socialist consciousness as opposed to bourgeois ideology to the working class.
Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology being developed by the masses of workers themselves in the process of their movement the only choice is: either the bourgeois or the socialist ideology.
...
Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social-Democracy.
...
It is often said the working class spontaneously gravitates towards Socialism. This is perfectly true in the sense that socialist theory defines the causes of the misery of the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to assimilate it so easily, provided, however, that this theory does not itself yield to spontaneity, provided that it subordinates spontaneity to itself. Lenin, What is To Be Done?, p. 48, p. 49, p. 51 footnote, Peking Ed.
We understand that only when the spontaneous development of trade union consciousness is diverted to become class consciousness can the subjective basis for proletarian revolution be established. Class consciousness means:
1. an understanding of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms
2. an understanding of the class to which one belongs
3. an understanding that only a proletarian, socialist revolution can bring about qualitative change
4. an understanding that socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat must be created.
This consciousness, however, does not come about by simply being a member of the working class and working for a living. Nor does it simply come from engaging in reform struggles at the place of work – i.e. trade union struggles, or community or electoral struggles. This class consciousness must come from without. In 1974 this does not mean from without of the class, but from without the day to day activity of the class and the spontaneous revolts and struggles of the class. It can only come from the reading and study and applying of Marxism-Leninism brought by communists.
We know that the ruling class intends to use and is using the tactics of speed-up and layoffs to extract more surplus value from the backs of the working class. As well as this, they are developing tactics to deal with the natural spontaneous struggles brought about by the decline in living standards, fewer jobs and massive inflation. One of those tactics is going to be an attempt to make the strike illegal. The ruling class understands the possible loss of control by the unions of the strike and thus seeks to undercut the ability of the class to use the strike, especially political strikes. This activity, plus new interpretation of laws around stop and frisk, the moving of unions to bear down harder on its membership are all tactics to bring the class under stiffer control.
In fact, we would predict that in many cases, it will be the union bureaucracy that will be the first line of defense against the development of working class militancy. The picture of union goons at the plant gates enforcing the rules of the owners will be repeated many times. The other side of the coin is the development of fascist ideology within the working class – particularly among white workers.
We can see, then, that within the USNA, bourgeois ideology holds sway over the minds of the mass of the working people. There is developing in embryo class struggle on the part of advanced sectors of the class, but this continues to be led back to reformism because there is no anti-revisionist communist party. The CPUSA works as a major weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie towards inhibiting the development of class consciousness and toward moving the class into reformism and anarcho-syndicalism. The struggle against revisionism becomes particularly acute in the USNA. The history of the role of the CPUSA and the objective material conditions which supported its revisionist politics are critical for the understanding of the working class movement in this country.
Revisionism and opportunism (which go hand-in-glove) result from the objective situation in the United States of North America: the development of USNA capitalism to the stage of imperialism allowed : for the bribery of certain sectors of the American working class. To quote from Lenin, “Imperialism end the Split in the Socialists” in On Trade Unions:
Secondly, why does England’s monopoly explain the (temporary) victory of opportunism in England? Because monopoly yields superprofits, i.e. a surplus of profits over and above the capitalist profits that are normal and customary all over the world. The capitalists can devote a part (and not a small one at that I) of these superprofits to bribe their own workers, to create something like an alliance (recall the celebrated “alliances” described by the Webbs of English trade unions and the employers) between the workers of a given nation and their capitalists against the other countries. The bourgeoisie of an imperialist “great” power can economically bribe the upper strata of its workers by spending on this a hundred of so francs a year, for its superprofits most likely amount to about a thousand million. And how this little sop is divided among the labour minister, “labour representatives” (remember Engel’s splendid analysis of the term), labour members of war industries committees, labour officials, Workers belonging to the narrow craft unions, office employees, etc., etc. is a secondary question... The last third of the nineteenth century saw the transition to the new imperialist era. Finance capital not of one, but of several, though very few, Great Powers enjoys a monopoly... the monopoly of modern finance capital is being frantically challenged; the era of imperialist wars has begun. It was possible in those days to bribe and corrupt the working class of one country for decades. This is now improbable, if not impossible. But of the other hand, every imperialist “Great” Power can and does bribe smaller strata (than in England in 1848-63) of the “labour aristocracy”. (pp. 293,294,295)
We believe that the condition’s outlined above are similar to those facing us today in the USNA. A historical materialist analysis of those contradictions leads us to conclude that revisionism is the primary struggle that we face. The ability of imperialism to continue to bribe largo segments of the working class is fading. With the rebuilding of Europe, the rise of Japan, and the enormous burden of the USNA acting as the policeman of the world, a new alliance has come about between the international bourgeoisie of the advanced capitalist countries and the current alliance between the USNA and the USSR. These new alignments have given some breathing space to the USNA imperialists, nevertheless the USNA has to throw more and more of the burden of its losses back on the USNA working class; that fact alone will of necessity result in much resistance by American workers.
More and more of the class is finding it increasingly difficult to survive, and this situation will probably accelerate (with short temporary periods of recovery) thus weakening the class-wide phenomenon of opportunism. That is, the economic base of opportunism will deteriorate in the coming period as imperialism suffers greater and greater defeats on the international front. The proletariat will turn more and more to left alternatives. Revisionism, left unchecked, will lead the revolutionary potential of the class back to the domination of the bourgeoisie. Thus, revisionism – which is the major hindrance to the ability of the class to realize class consciousness – must be ruthlessly destroyed ideologically. It is the revisionism of not just the CPUSA, (although rooted in its history) but revisionism from all fronts and within the opportunist historical tendencies of the working class in the USNA that presents the major obstacle for the building of the new communist party.
These material forces have had their effect on the development of struggle in this country. What we have seen is the rampant and rank opportunism and revisionism which is the history of the Left and trade union struggles of the last forty years. This is the very problem that Lenin faced in his struggle against the revisionism and opportunism of the Second International. Stalin states in Foundations of Leninism;
I have already said that between Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin, on the other, there lies a whole period of domination of the opportunism of the Second International. For the sake of exactitude I must add that it is not the formal domination of opportunism I have in mind, but only its actual domination. Formally, the Second International was headed by “faithful” Marxists, but the “orthodox” – Kautsky and others. Actually, however, the main work of the Second International followed the line of opportunism. (emphasis added) The opportunists adapted themselves to the bourgeoisie because of their adaptive, petty bourgeois nature; the “orthodox”, in their turn, adapted themselves to the opportunists in order to “preserve unity” with them, in the interests of “peace within the party.” Thus, the link between the policy of the bourgeoisie and the policy of the “orthodox” was closed, and, as a result, opportunism reigned supreme.
This was the period of relatively peaceful development of capitalism, the pre-war period, so to speak, when the catastrophic contradictions of imperialism had not yet become so glaringly evident, when workers’ economic strikes and trade unions were developing more or less “normally”, when election campaigns and parliamentary groups yielded “dizzying” successes, when legal forms of struggle were lauded to the skies, and who, it was thought that capitalism would be “killed” by legal means – in short, when the parties of the Second International were living in clover and had no inclination to think seriously about revolution, about the dictatorship of the proletariat, about the revolutionary education of the masses. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, p. 12, Peking Ed.
These forces, operating in the context of the USNA itself, led to American opportunism and revisionism:
The opposition to the oppression of the pre-imperialist and early imperialist capitalists was the formation of a powerful trade union movement led by a variety of Communists, anarchists, and syndicalists. But even more so, the principle political opposition to the Wall Street robber barons, was the gigantic Populist movement. This movement was a movement of the petty bourgeoisie. That is to say, of the small farmers, the small businessman, the intellectuals and from time to time, labor played some role in this scattered movement. As the Populist movement declined, the scattered intellectuals who knew or studied Marx and Marxism along with the mainly European revolutionaries from the defunct First International, came together to form the Socialist Labor Party. However, this party was a composition of the petty bourgeoisie, militant democrats of the Populist and Free Silver Struggles, uniting with the dogmatist groupings from the First International as well as the Lasaillean groups of revisionists. The Dialectics of the Development of the Communist League, pp. 2,3
During the late twenties, the thirties and the forties, the Communist Party held hegemony of the Left forces in the USNA. After the first World War, the Socialist Party gradually faded into virtual irrelevance in terms of revolutionary struggles and the Trotskyites were never more than small sects. So it was that the CPUSA dominated the conscious leadership of the working class’ struggles. It gave leadership in the formation of Industrial Unionism, in major strikes, in the unemployment councils, in the caucuses, in the struggle for the right of self-determination of the Negro Nation and various other struggles.
Even Stanley Aronowitz, self proclaimed anarcho-syndicalist, understands the historical power and opportunism of the CPUSA and its revisionism:
By 1939 Communists had become entrenched in the top echelons of several important CIO and, to a lesser extent, AFL organizations. At one point it was estimated that a third of the CIO membership belonged to unions euphemistically called “left wing”. In practice, they were progressive, close to or in the Communist Party. The unions included electrical workers, auto workers. West Coast longshoremen, maritime workers, transport workers, metal miners, packinghouse workers, furniture workers, distributive and department store workers, fur workers, white collar arid public workers.
Among AFL unions, Communists did not play leadership roles on national levels, but were important in local and district organizations of painters, carpenters, hotel and restaurant workers, railroad brotherhoods and some others. In a remarkable article written for The Communist in November 1939, William Foster, the secretary of the AFL committee directing the 1919 steel strike and now a leading American Communist, wrote a retrospect on Communist Party trade union policy. The article represents the perspective of a man who had renounced dual unionism more than twenty-five years earlier. The two key points of the article are that Communists must now work for AFL-CIO unity, basing themselves on the tactic of pressuring the decent elements in both the federation and the government and that the party should no longer maintain factions within the CIO. On the first point, Foster wrote:
’Roosevelt in his unity efforts, reflects the desires of the great majority of New Dealers. Lewis speaks for the solid unity sentiment of the entire CIO... Tobin expresses the unity (sic) will of a big majority of AFL members, and Whitney undoubtedly does the same for the bulk of railroad unionists.’
And on the second he states:
The organizational forms of the Communist trade union work have changed radically to correspond to the present period (of center-left unity). Party members do not now participate in groupings or other organized activities within the unions. The party also discountenances the formation of progressive groups, blocs, and caucuses in unions; it has liquidated its Communist factions, discontinued its shop papers and is now modifying its system of industrial branches. Communists are policy making, and administrating on an unknown scale... building the highest type of trade union leadership based on efficient service and democratic responsibility to the rank and file. Stanley Aronowitz, Workers’ Control, p. 89-90.
The revisionism of the CPUSA explains why pure opportunists such as Walter Reuther could maintain such power; their political line was barely distinguishable from that of the CP. A careful study of Reuther’ rise to power cannot be given here. We have repeatedly talked, however, about how the CPUSA gave up its power inside the UAW and actually helped bring Reuther to power. Two good examples: 1) the CPUSA ordered Wyndham Mortimer not to run for President of the UAW and instead supported R.J. Thomas, a weak kneed noncommunist who later Reuther could easily defeat. Mortimer, on the other hand was enormously respected in the UAW and could never have been unseated by an opportunist punk like Reuther; 2) the CPUSA never carried out the necessary ruthless struggle against the anti-communist clauses being put in union constitutions, in fact, in some cases, the CPUSA even voted in favor of the clauses.
Where could honest working people turn for leadership? Naturally, they turned to the CPUSA and were led right back to the bourgeoisie. Many working people then attacked the CPUSA for this misleadership, and the bourgeoisie used this to spread rampant anti-communism.
The revisionism and opportunism above are not merely “mistakes” made by the CPUSA. The dissolution of the Negro councils throughout the Negro Nation, the support of Harry Truman in 1944 as Vice President (in opposition to Henry Wallace). the opposition of Wyndham Mortimer, party member, to becoming president of the UAW, which assured the eventual victory of Walter Reuther, all constitute the history against which we as communists must struggle.
These failures of the CPUSA all led to the total triumph of revisionism within the CP, “to its subordination to the liberal bourgeoisie and to the dominance of reformist politics both within the trade unions and without. The Communist Party within the USNA misinterpreted and incorrectly implemented the decisions of the Third International around the creation of United and Popular Fronts against Fascism. To quote from George Dimitrov (General Secretary of the Third International, at the time the Fascists took power in Germany) the united fronts were to be created to:
...form a united front, to establish unity of action of the workers of every factory, in every district, in every region, in every country, all over the world. Unity of action of the proletariat on a national and international scale is the mighty weapon which renders the working class capable not only of successful defense, but also of successful counter-attack against fascism, against the class enemy....Moreover, a powerful united front of the proletariat would exert tremendous influence on all other strata of working people, on the peasantry, on the urban petty bourgeoisie, on the intelligentsia. A united front would inspire the wavering groups with faith in the strength of the working class... The establishment of unity of action by all sections of the working class, irrespective of the party or organization to which they belong, is necessary even before the majority of the working class is united in struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the victory of the proletarian revolution. Communists, of course, cannot and must not for a moment abandon their own independent work of Communist education, organization, and mobilization of the masses. However, to ensure that the workers find the road of unity of action, it is necessary to strive at the same time both for short-term and for long-term agreements that provide for joint action with Social Democratic parties, reformist trade unions and other organizations of the working people against the class enemies of the proletariat...And here it must be said that under American conditions the creation of a mass party of the working people, a Workers and Farmers Party, might serve as such a suitable form. Such a Party would be the specific form of the mass popular front in America and should be put in opposition to the parties of the trusts and the banks, and likewise to growing fascism. Such a party, of course, will be neither Socialist or Communist. But it must be an anti-fascist party and must not be an anti-communist party. The programme of this party must be directed against the banks, trusts and monopolies, against the principle enemies of the people, who are gambling on the woes of the latter... The united front of the proletariat brings to the fore an army of workers who will be able to carry out their mission if this army is headed by a leading force which will point out its aims and paths. This leading force can only be a strong proletarian revolutionary party. Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works, Vol. 2, pp. 27, 28, 32, 38, 75.
We see that Dimitrov is talking about specific class alignments of workers within the united front which does not speak to the bourgeoisie. Yet incredibly that is precisely what the CPUSA did – it moved for alliance with the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie. Not only that, but it moved to subordinate itself to this wing, whether in support of Roosevelt or in the trade unions, and did not understand the necessity of struggle and alliance in United Fronts. The CPUSA did more than that. It totally gave up the independence of the party. It supported liberal candidates for office rather than running their own, they hampered the class’ mass struggles and came out against striking for a period. They finally, under Earl Browder, went so far as to dissolve the party.
A careful study of Lenin On Trade Unions and Letter to a Comrade shows that the CPUSA was, in fact, abandoning the working class.
This disaster is still with us. How many times have advanced workers rejected communism solely on the basis of the miserable history of the CPUSA? That phenomenon does not just occur in the past but lingers with us in the present. Our own history confirms that fact. We, after-all, are the “new” left, and looked around for “new” theories of revolution. But declaring oneself to be a member of the “new” left was not enough to escape the trap of revisionism.
The Civil Rights Movement, the Free Speech and Free Education activities on campuses, the Anti-War Movement and the Feminist Movement all represented major struggles which have been carried out in the last period. We must analyze their politics and from whence they are derived. Both the Civil Rights Movement and the Feminist Movement degenerated into reformism, spontaneity, bourgeois nationalism and attacking the class rather than the enemy. The fact that the CPUSA is both revisionistic and conservative tells people they should not be communists, so they must become something else. Thus, Blacks developed Black Power/bourgeois Nationalism rather than identifying the correct enemy and uniting with the rest of the class to move it toward that struggle. The Feminist Movement identified the contradictions as being between men and women and therefore identified the enemy as men rather than the ruling class. In all of these cases the struggles were taken over by the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology and simply moved toward reformism.
The role of the CPUSA in these struggles is difficult to ferret out, but it is of considerable import:
1. the CP calling itself communist turned many away from communism;
2. The CP did not struggle against anarcho-syndicalism, reformism, bourgeois nationalism, instead aided their development both directly by advocating such activities and by turning people off to communism, and, thus, seeking another alternative;
3. Major leadership in labor struggle, the Anti-War Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and feminist activities have been taken by CP, ex-CP or ex-fellow travelers who moved the struggle into reformism and under the control of the foundations, democratic party and major unions.
This history lays the material base for why we must ideologically destroy the revisionist CPUSA. Since that history and the existence of the CPUSA is part of our objective conditions, the defeat of that ideological line is not only possible, but absolutely necessary. Clearly, however, its ideological destruction can only be accomplished by the creation of an independent communist party of a new type. This is clear from the history of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Their failure to address themselves precisely and ideologically to the revisionism of the CPUSA played directly into the hands of the CPUSA. The result was right opportunism (NPAC, Martin Luther King) and anarcho-syndicalism (LRBW, BPP).
In particular, the struggle of national minorities which has escalated in the last fifteen years has come strongly under the domination of the CPUSA and the bourgeoisie who have said that the struggle is a racial one, and has further divided the class. We must come to understand that the national struggles of national minorities and of oppressed nations is fundamentally a class struggle and that the working class must not let itself be divided, but rather must fight against that at all times.
But this history and these struggles prove one thing – that there are no “new” theories of revolution. The pressing duty of revolutionaries is to apply the laws, principles, and method of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete situation we face today.
The communist forces now present in 1974 are more formidable than they have been since the degeneration of the CPUSA into outright revisionism. Thus, we have major national groups such as OL, CL, RU, and other groups such as BWC, PSP, New Voice, PWOC, Baltimore Workers Organizing Committee, The Guardian, Puerto Rican Workers Organizing Committee, El Comite, Puerto Rican Socialist Revolutionary Party, Resistencia, Puerto Riquena, North Carolina Marxist-Leninist Cadre and other lesser known groups around the country. There is always a need for a party, but sometimes there isn’t the material conditions to create one, i.e., there are not enough communist forces to be able to come together and form a viable party. There are certainly those forces existing now, and if we assume proper leadership, we can be part of the conscious process of building a party.
The communist forces and soon the few communist party must focus on the bringing of Marxism-Leninism to the class. We must come to understand that the process of diverting the mass spontaneous working class movement from bourgeois ideology to communist ideology has three component, parts:
1. Marxist Leninist study
2. reform work
3. putting forth revolutionary goals and programme.
All of these are essential to moving, diverting the spontaneous movement. They are all inter-related and at any one time one becomes principle. This depends on the state of the spontaneous movement, the degree to which Marxist-Leninism, has entered the ranks of the advanced workers, the level of government and union and company repression coming down on the class. To successfully carry any of these activities on a long term basis the class needs organization (i.e., the party. Given that in this period with the lack of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the lack of class consciousness, even among advanced elements of the class (although it is increasing) the emphasis must be on study. For otherwise, the reform work will degenerate into reformism, because without Marxists-Leninists to carry it out and move it to class consciousness it will stop at reformism. Marxist-Leninists must put forth revolutionary programs and goals which can move the class; those goals will be created only after sufficient study and application of the laws of Marxism-Leninism directly to this country.
In other words, if there are not enough Marxist-Leninists around to be able to put forth revolutionary goals, slogans and programme within the context of the reform work , that reform work will inevitably degenerate into reformism. We must develop the Marxist-Leninists so that we can move as leadership in the class around revolution and not around doing a better job of reform work than the reformists.
Understanding that without a party, Marxist-Leninists will not have the strength to take hold and grow on a consistent basis, we understand that if we are to take Marxism-Leninism to the work-place, a party is necessary for any long term gains.
We recognize that throughout the organization all persons pay lip service to the necessity of building a new multi-national communist party. We would submit however, that as Huck Finn says: “Saying so don’t make it so.” Deeds are required. The concrete action that the different positions require are the true tests as to whether a position truly supports the building of a communist party. That test in this case is to analyze the concrete strategies that are offered as the alternative to the one which we have put out... that we must take the immediate steps of relating to the continuations committee, getting on with other communist groups, and expending every bit of energy towards the creation of the party by September of 1974.
The communist party of a new type must have certain attributes and must serve certain purposes. It will become the General Staff, the vanguard, the organized detachment and the highest form of organization of the proletariat. What this means is that the party must move the class from spontaneous struggle and trade union consciousness to class-consciousness, revolutionary struggle. It must point the road on which to travel in order to create a socialist revolution. It must point out the zigs and zags in the movement ahead and arm the proletariat with revolutionary Marxist-Leninist theory and organization. As the General Staff it, through its cadre, works with the masses of working people and brings Marxism-Leninism to the class and bringing back to the masses the synthesized understanding of the masses in order to aid and lead them in their understanding of how to move. It does this through its growing influence upon the advanced elements in the class and then the middle elements. As well it spreads an understanding of class consciousness through its influence on other organizations of the proletariat, in which, in cert-in periods, it may take leadership.
The party must be, first of all, the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must absorb all the best elements of the working class, their experience, their revolutionary spirit, their selfless devotion to the cause of the proletariat. But in order that it may really be the advanced detachment, the Party must be armed with revolutionary theory...Only a party which adopts the standpoint of advanced detachment of the proletariat and is able to raise the masses to the level of understanding the class interests of the proletariat – only such a party can divert the working class from the path of trade unionism and convert it into an independent political force...The Party is the political leader of the working class...The working class without a revolutionary party is an army without a General Staff. The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat.
...
’The Party is not the only advanced detachment of the working class. If it desires really to direct the struggle of the class it must at the same time be the organized detachment of its class. The Party’s tasks under the conditions of capitalism are immense and extremely varied. The Party must direct the struggle of the proletariat under the exceptionally difficult conditions of internal and external development; it must lead the proletariat in the offensive when the situation calls for an offensive; it must lead the proletariat so as to escape the blow of a powerful enemy when the situation calls for retreat; it must imbue the millions of unorganized non-Party workers with the spirit of discipline and system in the struggle, with the spirit of organization and endurance.
...
The Party possesses all the necessary qualifications for this because, in the first place, it is the rallying centre of the finest elements in the working class, who have direct connections with the non-Party organisations of the proletariat and very frequently lead them; because, secondly, the Party, as the rallying centre of the finest members of the working class, is the best school for training leaders of the working class, capable of directing every form of organisation of their class; because, thirdly, the Party, as the best school for training leaders of the working class, is, by reason of its experience and prestige, the only organization capable of centralising the leadership of the struggle of the proletariat...The Party is the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat. J.V. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, p. 103, 104, 106, 110, Peking Ed.
Of course, the party, when it is created will not be fully formed; it must train its cadre in the science of Marxism-Leninism and move advanced elements of the class to &ha study of Marxism-Leninism. It ”an, as it is more fully formed, and as the large numbers of advanced workers both in and out of the Party are Class conscious Marxist-Leninists, move more fully into the struggle on a mass basis to divert the working class from spontaneity to class consciousness. The party must develop over a period of time and with increasing practice and understanding of theory to lead the class in its struggle to throw off the domination of the bourgeoisie and its ideology.
It is our position that continuing as the MCLL as in the past is incorrect – that our history is one of bowing to spontaneity and not in the legalization of the party, although we have mouthed that this is what we are about. Yet it is true that the precise division which exists the organization appears precisely to be around the strategy for party building, and not whether it must be created. The following analysis then is offered to support the tactic which has been put forward – namely the central focus of our party building is the continuations committee, study and place of work organizing.
Lenin said that the working class has only two weapons: theory and organization. Clearly the highest development of both of these weapons resides in the party – the advanced detachment of the working class. The fundamental prerequisite for the formation of the party then is to have cadre trained in the science of Marxism-Leninism which as a world view provides the material basis for understanding organization and, of course, is the theory of revolution. Class consciousness must be brought to the working class and the science of Marxism-Leninism must be brought to party cadre and working class as a whole. It is clear, however, that the bringing of class consciousness to the working class presupposes developed Marxist-Leninists to carry out that task. The exact time frame for that process depends on condition, time and place.
Class struggle at this time always leads back to trade union consciousness; that is because at the present time there is no anti-revisionist party to instill class consciousness into the spontaneous class struggle. On the other hand, there is no party apparatus for the ongoing d continuous training of cadre.
The necessary first step in party building is the intensive study of Marxism-Leninism by the advanced of the advanced. There are many who have made all the necessary commitments: who have shown courage and strength and fortitude in battle; who have committed themselves to one organizational form or another; who have obtained respect and leadership within the class; and who have begun sporadic process of unsystematic study of revolutionary theory. There is no process (organizational strategy) for taking these people and systematically turning them into scientists of revolution. Instead there is existing a process where strong potential cadre are required to arduously and slowly make themselves go through a maze of obstacles (e.g., the study of Mandel, participating in one trade union struggle after another, going to 1,000 demonstrations, etc.) as if they were children denied of any parental guidance. The study of Marxism-Leninism is not a one shot matter – it is a continuous process of study, discussion, testing with real world, more intensive study; even more importantly, this kind of training must be systematic – it must include the guiding hand of organization capable of a long term strategy for the development of cadre along with the development of the advanced of the advanced, to bring them into the party as soon as possible.
It is the strength, understanding and training of the cadre which will e the basis of the party, not the movement itself. That understanding comes only through carefully planned revolutionary training. That training depends on continuous study, a highly developed theoretically founded newspaper which is national and a system which assures that it is both studied and followed.
Revolutionary work for party cadres takes many forms and tacts, as the different conditions change, as the class moves and as the bourgeoisie is on the offensive or defensive. But all revolutionary work contains within it an understanding that politics is in command. This is true whether in trade unions, co-operatives, congress, underground, struggle in the community organizations, or cultural forms. It is not the question of whether the proletariat produces the art or literature, but a question of the politics of the art and literature.
Within this political context, literature, art and general media are important to the overall revolutionary struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat. They, however, have their particular place in the revolutionary struggle, which must not be overlooked and ignored, but which is subordinate to other more important areas and, as a part, must give way to an understanding of what is best for the whole at any particular time.
Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause: they are as Lenin said, cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine. Therefore, party work in literature and art occupies a definite and assigned position in party revolutionary work as a whole and is subordinated to the revolutionary tasks set by the party in a given revolutionary period. Opposition to this arrangement is certain to lead to dualism or pluralism, and in essence amounts to ’politics-Marxist – art-bourgeois,’ as with Trotsky. We do not favor overstressing the importance of literature and art, but neither do we favor underestimating their importance. Literature and art are subordinate to politics, but in their turn exert great influence on politics. Revolutionary literature and art are part of the whole revolutionary cause, they are cogs and wheels in it, and though in comparison with certain other and more important parts they may be less significant and less urgent and may occupy a secondary position, nevertheless, they are indispensible cogs and wheels in the whole machine and indispensible part of an entire revolutionary cause. (Mao Tse-tung, Yenan Forum on Literature and Art – May 1942 – Selected Readings from the works of Mao Tse-tung pp 271-1)
We would submit that while there are many strategies for building a party, the differences reduce themselves into two categories: those that say the party will emerge from the building of the base in the working class movement and those that say that the intense training of the advanced in the science of Marxism-Leninism is primary.
The Revolutionary Union in its paper says:
The party will have to come from merging of forces now in motion and from forces not in motion...The most important thing we want to emphasize is that this unified general staff can only be created through active participation in the class struggle. It cannot be created, as some of these groups we referred to earlier seem to think, by theoretical debates or, as some of these groups have done, by simply declaring themselves to be the Party. For the most part, the activity of these groups in any particular struggle is to relate to it by giving advise instead of diving into the fray. Red Papers #5, p. 7.
We believe that the above position is particularly incorrect to the extent that it calls for communists at this time to ̶dive into the fray.” This call occurs after an analysis that admits that communist forces are divided, scattered, and generally not grounded in revolutionary training. We should compare the analysis that Lenin used in a similar situation:
Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual
state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread
of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the
theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little,
and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical successes. (p. 27)
...
Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This thought cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. (p. 28) Lenin, What Is To Be Done?
Is this not exactly the problem that we have faced in the last five years (at least)? We had a communist party that had unscrupulously rejected Marxism-Leninism as its guide to action. That party was used by novices as the test for “revolutionary theory” which allowed every opportunist, careerist, to put forward a “new revolutionary theory”. In addition, the upsurges of the 1960’s brought millions of people into the “movement”. Many of the leaders of these masses of people claimed to be revolutionaries. What we have had is a general lowering of revolutionary theory and millions of people looking for leadership. Many of these people, in rejecting the revisionism of the CPUSA turned to anarcho-syndicalism, bourgeois nationalism, Trotskyism, but most of all to empiricism and an approach of developing a hew theory”. This left our class open to all the rankest forms of opportunism and took us right back to the CPUSA and the bourgeoisie.
Lenin also talks about the situation described above where one group of workers after another “dived into the fray” only to be arrested, fired, etc., causing the stopping of revolutionary work for long periods of time. (Reference: Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, Peking Ed. P. 125)
These unnecessary firings are to be compared with what was the most crucial task at that time.
...first, by the fact that our party is only in the process of formation, its features are only just becoming defined, and it has yet far from settled account with the other trends of revolutionary thought that threaten to divert the movement from the correct path...under these circumstances, what at first appears to be ’unimportant’ error may lead to most deplorable consequences, and only short-sighted people can consider factional disputes and a strict differentiation between shades of opinion inopportune or superfluous. The fate of Russian Social Democracy for many years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or the other ’shade’. Lenin, What Is To Be Done, Peking Ed. p. 25-6
Are these not once again the experiences of the Motor City Labor League? Have we not all come into the “movement” with little or no theoretical development, with little or no knowledge of the science of Marxism-Leninism? Is it not true that still many of us (after years of revolutionary class struggle) cringe at the words “science of Marxism-Leninism’? Have we not contributed to the general lowering of theoretical understanding of Marxism-Leninism by labeling many things and concepts as Marxist-Leninist when in fact they were “anarcho-syndicalism” or “sectarian” when comrades (all of whom have a long and dedicated history in “practical” revolutionary struggle) begin to turn to the masters of the science for guidance and training? From our history then how can we but press first and foremost for the theoretical development of cadre and the very avoidance of “movement” or “mass” activity? Are not “factional disputes” and the strict differentiation between shades of opinion the most important work that we have to do?
The October League takes a position similar to that developed by RU. While not being so backward as to say that revolutionary groups must “dive into the fray”, it nevertheless says that the development of national organizations (i.e. organizations developed along national lines consisting of Negro national minorities alone, etc.) is correct regardless of the level of ideological development.
Some of these groups have played a leading role of bringing revolutionary leadership and theory (no analysis of the content of the theory) to the afro-american, puerto rican, chicano, and asian people’s movements, especially to the minority workers. This of course is the most important kind of mass work for communists at the present time. Building the Party, p. 16
Does not the above assume that the development of theoretically advanced workers will arise out of the movement even when it is bourgeois nationalist in form and content? In essence, the above statement assumes that there is a step by step process which can occur in the absence of a party and lead to “revolutionary theory”. This simply stated is theoretically incorrect. This theory of gradualness is in its essence described by Lenin as “immatureness”. (See What Is To Be Done?, pp. 98-108) 123-137, Peking Ed.
The October League speaks to the tasks of communists at this time in the same context of “gradualness”:
Today we must work and push for a multinational party. Where necessary some national forms might be preserved even after the party is built if it will bring minority forces into the party and help forge class unity. Ideologically and organizationally the party must be united with a single center.
One more important organizational task calls for communists to build their present organizations along Leninist lines so that the party is formed on a sound basis. First they must be built at the point of production on the basis of the factory nuclei or concentration.
If we seriously take up these ideological mass and organizational tasks and combat sectarianism and small group mentality, the day will soon approach when a new party can emerge, (emphasis added) when the communist movement can be united and not scattered and isolated into dozens of small circles. Building the Party, pp. 16,17
And once again we see that not only is the position put forward by the OL incorrect theoretically but is in direct conflict with the day to day experiences of the MCLL. Our theory does not come from the gradual development of these groups and the activity but just the opposite. It is the formation and organizing of all these forms that has prevented us from developing the theory, from doing the necessary study to understand that Marxism-Leninism is a science and that it must be used at all times to guide our actions–any other method (and we have used them all) leads to spontaneity, anarcho-syndicalism or worse.
We unite with Lenin in his description, analysis and criticism of amateurishness, a problem we understand in immense detail.
In a vast number of cases, they had almost no equipment and
absolutely no training. They marched to war like peasants from
the plough, armed only with clubs. A students’ circle having no
contacts whatever with the old members of the movement, no
contacts with circles in other districts, or even in other parts
of the same city (or with other universities), without the
various sections of the revolutionary work being in any way
organized, having no systematic plan of activity covering any
length of time, establishes contacts with the workers and sets
to work. The circle gradually expands its propaganda and
agitation; by its activities it wins the sympathies of rather
large sections of workers and of a certain section of the
educated classed, which provide it with money and from among
whom the “committee” recruits new groups of young people.
...
And usually the very first of these actions ends in immediate and wholesale arrests. Immediate and wholesale, precisely because these open hostilities wore not the result of a systematic and carefully thought-out and gradually prepared plan for a prolonged and stubborn struggle, but simply the result of the spontaneous growth of traditional circle work; because, naturally, the police, in almost every case, knew the principal leaders of the local movement, for they had already “won a reputation” for themselves in their school days, and the police waited only for a convenient moment to make their raid, deliberately allowing the circle sufficient time to develop its work so that they might obtain a palpable corpus delicti, and always permitted several of the persons known to them to remain4t liberty in order to act as “breeders” (which, I believe, is the technical term used both by our people and by the gendarmes). One cannot help comparing this kind of warfare with that conducted by a mob of peasants, armed with clubs, against modern troops. And one can only wonder at the virility of the movement which expanded, grew and scored victories in spite of the total lack of training among the fighters.
...
Thrown into confusion at first and committing a number of mistakes (for example, its appeal to the public describing the misdeeds of the Socialists, or the deportation of workers from the capital to provincial industrial centres), the government very soon adapted itself to the new conditions of the struggle and managed to deploy its perfectly equipped detachments of agents provocateurs, spies and gendarmes. Raids became so frequent, affected such a vast number of people and cleared out the local circles so thoroughly that the masses of the workers literally lost all their leaders, the movement assumed an incredibly sporadic character, and it became utterly impossible to establish continuity and coherence in the work. The terrible dispersion of the circle memberships, the lack of training in and the narrow outlook on theoretical, political, and organizational questions were all the inevitable result of the conditions described above. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, pp. pp. 124,125, 126, Peking Ed.
The above quote is included in its entirety because it precisely describes what our “movement” has been like in the 1960’s. The Panthers, Weather people, etc. are only the most extreme examples of how this happens. It is clear that the more subtle repression, but nevertheless very important, is the political firing. Once a revolutionary is fired from a plant often the nature of the work either stops altogether or changes radically. Therefore, the concept of diving into the fray is in direct conflict with above described principles. Not only is it wrong in relation to Leninist principles developed in building the Bolshevik Party, but it is in direct conflict with the concrete experience of the people of the Motor City Labor League of the last ten years. We have made all those mistakes that Lenin talks about and we know at this time that only the conscious training of cadre, from there the development of a party and then the use of the fractional method of work can we move to a higher level of revolutionary work. The alternative is small group mentality; we must know there is no other alternative.
The only correct way to guard against small group mentality is to assure the extensive study and training of cadre with revolutionary theory. The easiest way to assure that small group mentality will continue is to allow groups to continue (often without ideological struggle) along nationalist or other lines. We should note that an all white organization is organized along nationalist lines. But to be more concrete: it is only when the demand for concrete steps toward party building are made that the true test for “small group mentality” occurs. Until then, groups must take steps toward party building, that is, give up some of their sovereignty, can we see whether the group or its leadership is willing to engage the struggle for party building. Because we must realize that only through the process of ideological struggle (intense though it may be) can the party be built.
The party will not “emerge” as OL says–it must be built by intense ideological study, and by taking precise steps as outlined by Lenin for breaking down small group mentality, amateurishness, and economism. That is clear in the MCLL.
Of course, we must destroy sectarianism, small group mentality, but the test for it occurs when the real, actual steps for party building are demanded. What is the fear of the continuations committee but narrowness, fear of losing sovereignty? Is not loss of “structural power” one of the fears? Otherwise, what is the Marxist-Leninist basis for refusing to engage in the principled struggle for a party?
The Communist League has had another strategy for party building which has had two parts. First, the partial withdrawal of the advanced of the advanced workers from the open struggle and the intense training of those workers in the science of Marxism-Leninism. Secondly, the ideological struggle with other groups, and the calling together of all principled Marxist-Leninist to discuss the process of a party. This strategy can be discussed concretely. Clearly, the old League of Revolutionary Black Workers had an enormous base in the industrial proletariat. After the League split a core of industrial workers remained. Eventually they called on the Communist League for ideological and other leadership. When JX came to the city of Detroit, it was decided that these workers would take what they called a “tactical retreat,” that is they would withdraw from most of their activities both within the plant and without for the purpose of intensive study in the science of Marxism-Leninism.
Of course, since the cadre were all working and many had achieved respected leadership in the class, they could not be “withdrawn” from the class. But they were not forced out there and told “go organize.” They were and are trained – armed with revolutionary theory. Every Friday night for months on end they would read Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Stalin, making sure that every person understood every concept, in fact, people studied every day and collectively on Friday. They studied with an outline of study which assured guidance. This is, most likely, the “genius theory of education” to which the OL refers. It certainly accomplished amazing amazing results in the City of Detroit because clearly CL has the most solidly based organization in the plants of this city of any communist group outside the CPUSA itself. This occurred precisely because CL did not try to recapture the caucuses of the old LRBW by mass actions but instead concentrated on revolutionary training.
But the important fact is not the present base of CL, but how it occurred. The tactical retreat was demanded by CL because of its politics. The revolutionary training of cadre was the most important item on the agenda, not mass struggle, not the step by step process of bringing in more people. Compare also the work that was done with TL where he was sent to cadre school, and was not required to recruit out of the strike. The point is that he was given revolutionary training-quality not quantity. And the extensive contacts exist today at a higher level. The ongoing educationals that they have at the Forge plant, also, were continued. All of this was accomplished without the party, but clearly CL now understands that further work now depends on the creation of the party.
The creation of the continuations committee is another aspect of the strategy which states that ideological struggle is the top priority. M-L groups and individuals are given the opportunity to either organizationally or individually come together and struggle through theoretical differences. This must of necessity to raise the theoretical level of those involved; that is the most pressing task of communists.
The impact of the CL of the Motor City Labor League is not some historical accident. It was the impact of a large number of highly developed M-L proletarian leaders which of necessity heightened the level of theoretical study, struggle, and understanding throughout the organization. Of course, a dialectic existed whereby the line of CL and the study of Marxism-Leninism was occurring at the same time within the Motor City Labor League. That is exactly what happens when a highly theoretically developed Marxist-Leninist organization struggles with any other organization. It is pure idealism to think that the level of intense study and ideological struggle which has helped to develop us all could have happened without the existence of such an organization.
We must also test the practice of the different strategies that have been offered for party building. RU came to the city of Detroit at approximately the same time as CL. RU had a strategy of participating in the mass working class movement. At the present time its cadre are all exposed, it has a shrinking base, the number of Negro national minorities is small and much of its caucus work has fallen apart (e.g. at Dodge Truck). Their line has failed the test of history here.
The strategy outlined by TZ (to the extent that one was outlined) was:
a. Joint work and theoretical and ideological struggle with other groups and individuals. This, however, excludes the one form that is specifically designed for that very work. The continuations committee includes both joint work and theoretical struggle. The joint work is to build for the Congress and the ideological struggle is around the nature of the program. TZ’s strategy therefore excludes that kind of work with the largest communist organization in the city of Detroit (it without a doubt is the largest in terms of a base in the industrial proletariat and also the largest in terms of membership by Negro national minorities – the most exploited sector within the industrial proletariat).
b. Formation of a pre-party joint committee. Once again excluding the continuations committee which is specifically designed to fulfill this purpose. But we would submit that this strategy was tried and failed miserably. Is this not exactly what the Guardian forums were about? Was this not our own “3-Stage Strategy” – which was open to many elements but never opened to another Marxist-Leninist group! Did not several revolutionary organizations come together in the Guardian Forums and then fall apart? We find it very significant that not only has this form fallen apart but these same organizations are beginning the process of disintegration – many former BWC cadre now relate to the continuations committee and BWC itself is “interested”. RU recently purged its leading Negro national minority theoretician from its central committee around the national question and RU work in this city has significantly dropped off.
c. Significant increase in workers’ study circles. No one disagrees with this. But what is the educational strategy? Our recent educationals were no models of dialectical learning – we have just begun to adopt the small circle struggle method and there is little, if any, overall outline for the circles or how they fit within an overall strategy for party building.
An overall analysis of the political debate within the organization shows that everyone now agrees on party building as a necessity. The question is the strategy. We would submit that real political and theoretical differences underlay alternative strategies (or lack of such) and that the alternatives that have been tried have failed the test of history. We further submit that alternative strategies speak to real purpose – the above strategies have no precise steps to take, they allow for the continuation of small group mentality. There is absolutely no rational reason for refusing to go to the continuations committee except small group mentality, pure and simple.
Class consciousness will not be created in any substantial sense by the continued work of circles. Clearly there is a dialectical relationship between the party and the class such that the instilling of class consciousness into the working class presupposes a disciplined party that can resist revisionist tendencies. The circles by their structure and local character cannot resist the tendency towards local chauvinism, individualism (group and individual) and therefore will not be able in any substantial sense to develop proletarian consciousness for any length of time. Compare the effect of a cadre school to our educationals. The cadre school brings people from all over the country, of all nationalities, for intensive communist development and study – only a party structure can take process one step higher – not a local circle. Our base cannot increase without a party.
We submit that any strategy for building a party must first of all relinquish all the elements of sectarianism. First, if we are going to begin ideological discussion with other anti-revisionist groups and cannot exclude those groups which appear most threatening to us. We must join the continuation committee and work to build the September Congress with the intent of creating the new independent multinational communist party. Our newspaper must be more theoretical in content and begin to put out what positions we have on the questions now before the communist movement. We must not now engage in or attempt to extend the mass movement when we have yet to consolidate ourselves ideologically. In the process of moving groups toward the continuations committee we will of necessity develop ideologically. This means that we will have a basis, that is, an independent basis for getting on with other communist groups; seek out discussion, meetings, and struggle in an attempt to move them to the continuations committee. Inside the continuations committee we must work in an attempt to aid in the coordination of all participating group activities in order to draw more circles in. In answering the questions asked by the groups that we get on with, we will once again aid our own ideological development.
We crust therefore discuss what the prerequisites of the initial formation of the party are, understanding that the party will grow and mature as will its leadership of not only advanced workers but vast segments of the proletariat.
These are the prerequisites of the party:
1. There must be present communist organizations, circles who have Marxism-Leninism as their guide.
2. These organizations must have engaged in practice and have roots among the class.
3. There must be a beginning of a base among advanced workers around the politics of Marxism-Leninism, although this is limited until there is a party which can better organize work, co-ordinate activity, plan educational programmatic thrusts and put forward a consistent political line in its work.
This process cannot help but deepen our understanding of the science and deepen our base in the class. However, as Marxist-Leninists we understand that we must unite with reality. This means that if at the September Congress we believe that the forces present are inadequate for the building of the party we will struggle to put off the calling of the party and move for the continuation and enlargement of the continuations committee until such a time as we feel sufficient forces can be assembled who have the common wish to call the party.
Thus we come to understand the absolute necessity to move the working class from a reformist bourgeois ideology to class consciousness, the proletarian ideology. There is only one way to do this: to bring to the working class Marxism-Leninism, the science to understand reality; a vision of a new order built by the working class and run by the working class and all toilers; and the form of class organization that both leads and is the organized detachment of the class – the democratic-centralist communist party.
The immediate goal of the MCLL must be to build a new independent multi-national party of a new type. All activity must be directed at the tactics around that strategic goal. Second to that goal is the struggle against revisionism. But as we said previously the basis of the party is cadre and the thousands of advanced workers now looking for leadership. The strength of the cadre is in direct proportion to their understanding of Marxism-Leninism. Within the party, all cadre are leaders–structural leadership is created to lead not only in day to day tasks but in implementation of the convention decisions and theoretical work, etc. What does this mean? It means first and foremost that all cadre have a complete understanding of the science which structural leadership is using and therefore can struggle for the correct political line and then can apply that line in their daily practice. This principle means that there are no “intellectuals” or “workers;” there are no “white chauvinists” or “male supremacists,” there are only cadre with the world view of Marxism-Leninism. Of course, different individuals will be more or less subject to intellectualizing or chauvinism or male supremacy and continuous struggle against revisionist tendencies must be carried on.
On the other hand, the organization of revolutionaries must consist first, foremost and mainly of people who make revolutionary activity their profession (that is why I speak of organizations of revolutionaries, meaning Social-Democrats). In view of this common feature of the members of such an organization, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, and certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be utterly obliterated. Such an organization must be not too extensive and as secret as possible. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, p. 138 of the Peking Edition 1973. Emphasis in the original.
These distinctions are obliterated by first rejecting certain concepts of organization which the CPUSA and other tendencies have put forward as Marxist-Leninist principles. The CPUSA always promoted the idea that only the upper strata of cadre would be thoroughly and extensively trained in the science of Marxism-Leninism. It depended on the revolutionary “commitment” of cadre in order to sustain itself. But they were and are not regularly and extensively trained in the science and they were and are rarely disciplined to study. In addition, anti-communism is used by the CPUSA to avoid the use of its terminology and principles and laws. This means that many cadre are regularly relegated to menial tasks or treated as shock troops while the “leadership” does the theorizing. Concretely, the only way to eliminate this is by demanding study and giving cadre the time to do the necessary study. At this time (the time of party building) the primary activity is to say that “cadre are everything” which means that leadership must spend a great deal of time in giving up the necessary information so that all cadre can be leaders. Because a part of socialist leadership is the giving up of information and knowledge so that others can become leaders. But we must have study action groups because another aspect of Marxism-Leninism is its immediate application to our practice and the problems which confront us.
But it is not just the CPUSA which has mistreated cadre. The MCLL also has a history of overextending cadre, giving them day to day tasks instead of, and many times in substitution for, revolutionary training. We submit that this incorrect practice arises precisely from revisionist theory, a theory of organization which must be combated.
First of all, let me express my complete agreement with your explanation of the unsuitableness of the former (“League type” as you term it) organization of the “League.” You refer to the lack of serious training and revolutionary education among the progressive workers, to the so-called elective system, which Dyelo supporters are championing so proudly and stubbornly on the grounds of “democratic” principles, and to the workers’ alienation from active work.
That precisely is the case: 1) the lack of serious training and revolutionary education not only among the workers but among the intellectuals as well), and 3) the workers’ alienation from active revolutionary work.... Lenin, Letter To A Comrade, pg. 1
Letter To A Comrade was written in September 1902 when the process of building a party was in full force. The question to which it addressed itself was the organization of local circles and committees. The state of the “movement” was that of a “general lowering of the theoretical level” ( supra) and the party was not truly the advanced detachment of the working class as it was to become. Therefore, the different political tendencies manifested themselves in applying political principles to specific organizational tasks.
Only recently has the Motor City Labor League been involved in a systematic effort to study Marxism-Leninism. This has been heralded as a progressive step in most quarters, but our minimal study is hardly sufficient. In order to move our study forward, two things must be considered: 1) our past and its errors, and 2) a correct method of study.
The revolutionary party offers the proletariat a dialectical theory of historical development and a theory of organization based on this science of revolution. The theory itself has a long practical history. Its application and misapplication offer both evidence of the need for study and the material to study.
But the MCLL has not understood its role in the application of the theory or the dialectical development of the theory. Until recently a look at Maurice Cornforth’s Historical Materialism or The Communist Manifesto was the limit of our study; and we even failed to distinguish between the two – Cornforth being a rotten reviser of Marx. Theory developed beyond that was produced only through our own practical experience (which by definition could not produce the science of revolution nor the world view). This illustrates a very short-sighted view of both the revolutionary struggle and the development of cadre. We absolutely and unequivocally reject the idea that theory is produced when you “get out there and look around and work your ass off and then you will know what you’re talking about.” The science has been brought to us from without; our study and application to our practice is the only theoretical basis for us.
We must understand that to claim allegiance to Marxism-Leninism is to join in a world revolutionary struggle whose history spans more than 140 years. The laws, principles, and method of this synthesized experience are not changed except with overwhelming proof and application to the real world. Dependence on one’s own practical experience without the integration of this rich history smacks of individualism, or, for the collective, sectarianism. It is to divorce one’s self from the revolutionary movement in thought and to become exceptionalist in deed. Further, it is a misassessment of the role of ideological struggle in the development of theory. It is to assume that theory mystically emerges from one’s own practice to guide and correct that practice in the stage of activity. This method obviates the ideological struggle which produces unity of action. That is, without ideological unity, or at least an understanding of the ideology, how can cadre be expected to act in consort with the line of the organization? Does this assume that our ideology, Marxism-Leninism is not the guiding principle of our actions? It is idealism at its worst to assume that unanimity can occur without this theoretical struggle.
Concomitant to this method, of course, is the theory and method of UNDERDEVELOPMENT. This ’theory’ has plagued the entire history of the MCLL and we explicitly reject it. It is the reason that our practice has been misled. This lies at the heart of the short-sightedness concerning cadre development. Sprouting from the errors mentioned above, the theory is, of course, spontaneity. At its heart is the notion that the moment is everything; and we must respond to it, rather than the notion that the moment is only a part of the longer struggle for future generations of socialists. It also fails to recognize that Marxism-Leninism is the synthesis of years of mass experience. Thus such a theory forces us to act in response to “objective conditions” as they appear at the time rather than act out of the conscious deliberateness based on our theory.
In a work, if activity is the basis of our movement, surely those who have the longest history of participation in this activity will lead the movement, and they will be lead by their former actions. Where is the place of theory in this method?
For those who advocate this false conception, theory becomes subservient to practice and we will always be theoretically underdeveloped! There will never be a time when our theory will dictate our action! The “movement” will be everything.
We have long histories in class struggle. We have participated in every activity; rent strikes, labor strikes, anti-war and on and on and on. But we will never become scientists of revolution until we set down and make ourselves study and learn in concrete detail the laws, principles and method of Marxism-Leninism.
And what of ideological struggle? How is that to occur? Again to answer for those who would maintain the errors of our past, those who hold differing positions are merely underdeveloped and will come to the “correct” position after they have engaged in enough practice... a complete disunity of theory and practice! Further, this method reduces all differences to strategic power moves rather than heightens them to their theoretical bases. We must realize that ideological struggle alone can produce unified theoretical advances. We must apply the axiom “Unity-Struggle-Unity” to our theoretical study and search out theoretical differences around which to struggle. We can no longer afford to sweep differences under the rug of some false unity or to hide them behind subjective responses. We have come too far to repeat those errors again.
How then are we to correct our theoretical misadventures?
Central to the theory of Marx and Lenin, of course, is the necessity for the unity of theory and practice. The application of the theory will prove its correctness only in practice. Similarly, our practice, too long removed from the theoretical guidance of which we are capable, must be led by an integration of Marxist-Leninist theory and the concrete conditions of Detroit and the world in 1974. Perhaps the following from Mao Tse-Tung is most helpful:
... one studies the theory of Marxism-Leninism with a purpose, that is, to integrate Marxist-Leninist theory with the actual movement of the . . . revolution and to seek from this theory the stand, the viewpoint and method with which to solve the theoretical and tactical problems of the . . . revolution. Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p.22
From the above it is obvious to realize the fluid nature of study; it must reflect the changing conditions to which we apply our theory. Because the theory is to be applied, the degree to which it is understood throughout the organization is the degree to which it will guide our practice organizationally.
We must therefore strive for unity on every aspect of our study and the application of the principles discovered there. Two organizational principles grow directly from this: (1) We must study COLLECTIVELY and SLOWLY. Small groups should read short passages and discuss their application as has been the practice of some of the more recent educationals. (2) Practical application of the theory on all fronts means that each educational grouping must contain cadre from all areas of our work. This should insure uniform application of the theory to our work.
A specific study action structure must be set up which requires study by all cadre every week. Cadre will be given the time to study and learn, they will have the right to demand of leadership that each concept be explained until understood (including words defined, principles outlined, etc.). It is the unification around each political point which will be demanded. The concept that “we can do it all” must be rejected – it is an idealistic formulation.
The study will concentrate on three basic works: What Is To Be Done? (Lenin Peking Edition which is easier to read); History of the CPSU – Bolshevik Short Course, and Foundations of Leninism by Stalin (Peking Edition). Letter To A Comrade will be studied. But in this process we will have read sections and passages from Marx in particular as well as the other revolutionary writers. This is considered a 6 month study course.
The MCLL of course is a prisoner of its history; that is a history of “legal” and “parliamentary” work which has in many ways exposed all of our cadre. We have functioned without a coherent political line and we have not used the science of Marxism-Leninism to train and discipline our cadre. This history is similar to the history faced by the Second International.
In the pre-revolutionary period, the period of more or less peaceful development, when the parties of the Second International were the predominant force in the working-class movement and parliamentary forms of struggle were regarded as the principal forms – under these conditions the Party neither had nor could have had that great and decisive importance which it acquired afterwards, under conditions of open revolutionary clashes. J. V. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, p. 101, Peking Ed.
Our history is one of open forums with little political guidance in terms of a strategy or political line. We have zigged and zagged between anti-Leninism to strict and rigid “democratic” centralism. We, nevertheless, have many people who look to us for leadership in these mass forms. We cannot tell them simply that other work must be done and proceed to cut off the activities. But there are other forms that exist with little activity or consume the energy of only one or two cadre, these forms such as MMAC, MRD, Bicentennial would mean that we no longer assign any cadre to these activities and any cadre who relate to those forms would do so without assignment and without support of the MCLL. In addition, cadre would have to perform their activities within the organization and all assigned meetings would take priority.
The simple fact is that before we can do correct work in mass forms we must have accomplished Marxists-Leninists who will provide a materialist analysis when questions are asked. Only Marxist-Leninists understand the relationship between reform work, study and revolutionary goals and programs. We have not yet determined what are the correct revolutionary goals and slogans given the present objective and subjective situation.
False issues have been drawn between place of work as compared to community, workplace versus mass work. Much of the activity we have been involved in at the workplace has been mass work. At this time much of that work is no more correct than activity in mass forms outside of the workplace. Thus at the workplace we must move for more secret work and the intensified study of Marxism-Leninism. The issue which we face in fact is the issue of the political content of the work we do. We submit that the necessary political line is 1) necessity to build a party; 2) anti-revisionism; and 3) study of the science of Marxism-Leninism. This is in distinction to mass confrontational politics or watered down educational forms.
The criticism of the past educational is outlined previously in this paper but here we would emphasize that the intensity of the theoretical work which we must do in a relatively short period of time means that it clearly is insufficient to say that we will study everything which in fact means that we will study little. This means that we must set priorities; our resources are limited. Therefore, the work place is a priority over other work.
This force (chief force) historical materialism hold is the method of procuring the means of life necessary for human existence, the mode of production of material values-food, clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of production etc., which are indispensable for the life of development of society. Bolshevik Short Course pg. 119
These priorities have been set by revolutionaries in the past:
Have we sufficient force to be able to direct our propaganda and agitation among all classes of the population? Of course we have...Like real tailists they live in the distant past in the period of beginning of the movement. At that time indeed, we had astonishingly few forces, and it was perfectly natural and legitimate then to go exclusively among the workers and severely condemn any deviation from this. The whole task then was to consolidate our position in the working class. Lenin, What is To Be Done?, p. 165 International Publishers (emphasis added)
We have not only failed to do this but many times have avoided this kind of work when that was and is what is demanded.
We must struggle to put forward and develop Proletarian Internationalism. However, the only way to do this is the extensive grounding of cadre in the science, the development and putting forth of anti-Revisionist politics and the development of the Communist Party of a New Type. The alternative is the politics of the sixties.
Our history is one of “legal” and “parliamentary” struggles. These struggles allow for more vague “resolutions”, but they also set the trap for never getting beyond general ”parliamentary” struggles. These struggles never established the basis for the creating of a secret or illegal organization. Without the necessary emphasis at this time on secret work and the creation of an illegal apparatus we leave ourselves open to repression that could destroy our whole apparatus. As well as this, workers are often hesitant (rightfully so) to openly take part in Marxist-Leninist study. Proletarian struggle demands a much higher level of security; without that security, petty-bourgeois leadership and the continuation of the domination of bourgeois ideology must predominate - that is why “mass” work which by definition is “open” work is so dangerous.
The mass work of the 1960’s and 1970’s resulted in supporting primarily petty bourgeois leadership to the exclusion of the development of working class leadership and politics. The primary reason for this is the complete absence of security in all mass work and the absence of trained Marxist-Leninists. Even Irwin Silber understands this contradiction:
To argue, as do Ackerman and Boyte, that a “secret” organization is not necessary–that is, a revolutionary organization many of whose members will not be publicly identifiable because of the existence of bourgeois democracy is to betray a pathetic ignorance of the realities of working class life in America. How long dc they think “open communists” will survive in factories where both the companies and the labor bureaucrats are anxious to have them removed? How much time will such “open communists” have to develop their ties with their fellow workers before being fired? National Guardian, 1/16/74
The above is merely to say that the primary work at this time is the establishment of serious training programs in the form of “education action groups” which are entirely secret as far as the place of work is concerned.
Every factory must be our fortress. For that every;factory workers’ organization should be as secret internally as “ramified” externally, i.e., in its outward relationships it should stretch its feelers as far and in as many-directions as any revolutionary organization. Lenin, Letter To A Comrade, P. 243
To be sure, this requires a complete reorganization of us and our outlook. We come out of a history of direct confrontation politics. But the existence of bourgeois democratic rights is certainly not assured for any time in the future. and not politically relevant to the kind of work we must now do. We have no “democratic” rights at the workplace. The creation of an illegal apparatus will begin first with extensive training and support of cadre we now have at the place of work. That training when transferred to other people at the place of work will be the basis for eventually creating illegal “nuclei” which will be the very foundation of the party. All of the above strategy is in direct conflict with continuing of the extensive and the exposed (of necessity) mass work.
The parameters of our immediate tasks are limited by the objective problems that we face: the international situation previously described; the repression that must come as sure as night follows day; and the absence of cadre trained in the science of Marxism-Leninism at the present time. Therefore, we must first train our cadre to do revolutionary work and then take that work to the mass work. If we do it all at the same time then none of it will get done, our cadre will continue to be strung out, our political line will continue to vacillate with the exigencies of the moment and we will not in fact develop the leadership which can become a part of a revolutionary anti-revisionist party of a new type.
On the other hand, four programs and organizations present special problems: 3 for 3, CCC, Alliance, and Coffeebreak. We are in an especially difficult contradiction with these forms. We cannot tell people that we have simply changed direction and we will end the programs of our involvement in the organization. Therefore, we must continue them, But they will receive a different priority. Our first task is the revolutionary training of cadre; therefore, they must be given time to study the science of Marxism-Leninism. That means that “study action groups” will be set up which will be the priority within the organization. In the programs and organizations that we will continue in we will push our primary line which is party building, anti-revisionism, and the study of Marxism-Leninism. Cadre will be given time to study and the primary responsibility of cadre will be to prepare the material which will be reviewed in each week’s study action group. The second priority will be to perform the necessary duties at the place of work in such a way that small (even 1 or 2 people) groups can be established at the place of work. In addition, cadre will be instructed that their primary responsibility for the next period of time is to ground themselves in the science and the active participation in workplace activities. This means that security is crucial. For those cadre who have been active for a long period of time, it will be necessary to continue to have evaluations of work and provide support, but always within the priority of grounding in the science. We will of course continue to provide as much support as possible given present priorities.
WE WILL UNITE THE WORKING CLASS’ THAT UNITY WILL OCCUR IN THE FORM OF A REVOLUTIONARY MULTI-NATIONAL CQMMUNIST ANTI-REVISIONIST PARTY OF A NEW TYPE. THAT UNITY WILL CREATE THE BASIS FOR PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM WHICH WILL GIVE IS A NEW HIGHER REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL.
Chairman Mao teaches is that ’the correctness or incorrectness of the ideological and political line decides everything.’ If one’s line is incorrect, one’s downfall is inevitable, even with the control of the central, local and army leadership. If one’s line is correct, even if one has not a single soldier at first, there power will be gained. This is borne out by the historical experience of our Party and by that of the international communist movement since the time of Marx. Lin Piao wanted to “have everything under his command and everything at his disposal,” but he ended up in having nothing under his command and nothing at his disposal. The crux of the matter is the line. This is an irrefutable truth. Chou En-Lai, Report to the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, August 24, 1973 p. 17
WORKERS AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD UNITE