Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Harriet Tubman-Nat Turner Collective (ML) Liquidating itself to the WVO


First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Harriet Tubman-Nat Turner Collective is a Boston based communist organization which emerged out of the Afro-American Liberation Movement. HT-NTC was initially formed by members and former members of the ALSC-Boston Chapter, the February First Movement, and “Struggle” newspaper.

Our development was profoundly influenced by the emergence of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-Tung Thought as the dominant trend of the AALM in the struggle against bourgeois nationalist ideology. When HT was formed, we were not a communist organization. Our grasp of the basic principles of MLMTTT was very low. Vestiges of bourgeois nationalism were still strong. However, as we deepened our study and grasp of M-L theory, with the help of fraternal M-L organizations of the revolutionary wing (summer-fall ’75) of the anti-revisionist communist movement, particularly the WO, these initial difficulties were oveercome. We became a communist organization in August ’75 and are now multi-national.

The development of our organization, ideologically and politically, and the task of linking theory to practice was pushed forward tremendously by the intense struggle against the October League’s thoroughly right opportunist line on the Bourgeoisie’s Boston Busing Plan. Despite this work, our organization was characterized in the main by right deviations. In our desperate attempts to rid ourselves of right errors, using bourgeois methodology, we inevitably pushed ourselves into the left opportunist line of the PRRWO/RWL clique. Our main ideological deviations were then characterized as left dogmatism. Since the summer of 1976, we have intensified the two-line struggle internally and externally, with the aid of WVO comrades, and have broken with the bankrupt left opportunist line.

We view ourselves as part of the genuine M-L trend led by the correct line of the leading circle – the WVO – which has developed through 8 or 9 years of bitter though fruitful struggle in the communist movement for the highest possible ideological and political unity. In this struggle, genuine communists have sorted out the sham Marxists and unstable elements from the anti-revisionist communist movement.

With the realization of communism as our final goal, our “Northern Star,” the central task of this movement, of the genuine M-L circles led by the WVO, is the formation of a genuine Communist Party on firm anti-revisionist ideological foundations, i.e. on the proletarian ideological plane. The WVO comrades state:

In the era of imperialism, the eve of proletarian revolution, an era in which imperialism intensifies and exacerbates all of the basic contradiction in the world, when the victory of socialism is possible in one or a few countries, when the objective factor for revolution is ripe and the subjective factor is lagging, the proletariat in imperialist countries must carry out immediate and universal preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat. First and foremost in this preparation is the formation of our genuine Communist Party, the principal task in the absence of such. (WVO newspaper, Nov. 1976, p. 1, original emphasis)

This party has the historic task of leading the U.S. proletariat in the smashing of the U.S. monopoly capitalist ruling class and its state machine, thus putting an end to the misery and exploitation of the masses of working and oppressed peoples in the U.S. Through the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist construction, we will be performing our proletarian internationalist duty toward the complete emancipation of all oppressed peoples, helping to clear the way for humanity’s onward march to communism.

PERIODS, KEY LINK AND THE SORTING OUT PROCESS

What has been the history of the anti-revisionist communist movement? What is the correct way to interpret the 8 or 9 years of tortuous struggle, the many twists and turns, the sorting out of genuine and sham communists into definite trends based on ideological, political, and organizational lines?

One aspect of strategic thinking of Communists on party building is the question of periods. It allows us to see what we have gone through and what is the next obstacle we must overcome in order-to make the qualitative leap necessary to form the party.

Every phase of its development (the communist movement – HT) is characterized by a principal contradiction. Class struggle in society must be reflected in the communist movement, concretely manifested and concentrated in the two line struggle between Marxism-Leninism and different shades and forms of opportunism. Each phase, therefore, is characterized by a line struggle, with a dominant line, whether correct or incorrect. Resolution of the principal contradiction that characterizes the movement as a whole, enables the Communist movement to “liquidate the old period” and surge forward. (WVO Journal #4, p. 93)

We feel that this is the correct M-L stand, method, and viewpoint on the question of periods which has been reaffirmed by the WO comrades. In the past, we adhered to this methodology in words but opposed it in deeds and we will put forth a self-criticism of this incorrect line as we uphold the correct line.

The first period, the struggle against and defeat of eclectic theories, lasted from the mid-1960’s to 1972. There had been several unsuccessful attempts to reconstitute the party by splinter groups such as the Progressive Labor Party and the Provisional Organizing Committee, after the total revisionist betrayal of the CPUSA in the late 1950’s. This was a period when the spontaneous mass movements (particularly the national and student) were surging forward in the absence of a genuine communist party to meet and lead them to MLMTTT and to new offensive positions against the reactionary dual tactics of the bourgeoisie. This period was marked by the reaffirmation of some general standpoints of MLMTTT, the key link in opposition to the growth of many eclectic, petty-bourgeois theories of revolution such as Nkrumahism, Guevarism, Fanonism, “students” and “lumpen” as vanguard, Trotskyism, etc. As the POC and the PLP degenerated into Trotskyite sects, the Revolutionary Union played a leading role, particularly during the late 1960’s in introducing and reaffirming certain MLMTTT principles to the advanced workers and elements who were coming forward rapidly.

The second period was characterized by the struggle against and the defeat of the pragmatist line of belittling the role of Marxist theory in the principal task of party building. In this period, 1972 to 1975, the RU turned from a leading role into its opposite. This period was one in which the mass movement began to ebb and it was necessary to sum up the experience of struggle in the old period using the theory of MLMTTT to develop the theoretical and ideological training of the advanced. However, the RU became the main proponent of the pragmatic, right opportunist “practice-practice-practice” line which downplayed the importance of party building and the role of M-L theory. This incorrect line developed into the dominant, leading line in the CM (Communist Movement) until it was beaten back by a developing revolutionary theory trend which correctly raised party building as central and the leading role of theory. This correct trend, made up of the WVO, PRRWO, Black Workers Congress (and the August 29th Movement – ATM) in the main, developed in 1974 (in fundamental opposition to the RU, as well as the OL, I Wor Kuen, “C”L, and the Guardian renegades) and united around the leading role of theory, party building as central task, Bolshevik criticism-self criticism, and waging open polemics. This revolutionary theory trend crystallized into the Revolution Wing of the CM (WVO, PRRWO, ATM, RWL) in the fall of 1975 around definite principles of unity:

...(1) propaganda as our chief form of activity, (2) focus on winning advanced workers, (3) Marxist-Leninist analysis of fusion, advanced workers, periods, key link, (4) factory nuclei as our main form of organization, (5) political line as key link, (6) necessity to grasp nationally specific forms of revisionism, (7) attitude toward criticism, self-criticism, (8) upholding the leading role of M-L theory and party building as the central task, and (9) waging open polemics. (Workers Viewpoint newspaper, Aug. 1976, p. 7)

This drawing of absolute lines of demarcation between the revolutionary and opportunist wings brought the sec period to an end.

The third period began in 1975 as the mass movements began to swell. Political line became the key link, i.e. those questions most clearly related to the state and the seizure of state power by the U.S. proletariat and its party, the concentrated expression of which would be the party’s political program. Even in the struggle against RU’s pragmatism, differences which were secondary at the time developed within the revolutionary theory trend over questions of political line. The WO comrades struggled openly against PRRWO’s “left” tendencies. As RU’s practice-practice-practice line was defeated, the two line struggle over the question of building the party on the proletarian ideological plane and grasping the key link of political line became the next rigorous demand of the sorting out process. It was PRRWO’s opportunist Menshevik line on organization which opened the floodgate of opportunist backsliding by PRRWO on all major lines: it provided the conditions for the centrist opportunist line in RWL to consolidate into “left” opportunism and gain dominance; it provided the conditons to halt the principled merger of WVO and RWL within the Revolutionary Wing; it laid the basis for the split and degeneration of the Revolutionary Wing; as well as the rapid degeneration of the PRRWO/RWL “left” opportunist clique into a Trotskyite sect. The major line struggle waged and successfully completed against the PRRWO/RWL clique, primarily by the WVO, has deepened the ideological and political unity of the genuine M-L circles tremendously. This has pushed us ahead to the present period.

The fourth and present period is one in which the formation of the proletariat’s political party is nearer than ever before. It is characterized by the bolshevization of the organisational sphere of the Party, since it is in the main now a question of building up the Party among the advanced elements, particularly among the advanced workers. Since the WVO has developed as the only communist organization capable of founding the genuine Party of the U.S. proletariat, the key link or organizational sphere is now a major issue for the future party members as well as all the advanced elements around the Party and the U.S. proletariat. The struggle over the political and other line differences between the genuine communist circles in the revolutionary trend and the WVO, leading toward organizational liquidation (based on ideological and political unity to form the “great whole”, i.e. building the party from the top-down approach with the WO as the leading circle based on their correct and leading line) must vigorously and simultaneously proceed forward, though it is no longer the center of gravity, the key link, or principal contradiction, to build up the Party.

The BOC/CWC(M-L) comrades give a brilliant and concise explanation of the basis for our views on the development of the WVO as the center of gravity of the genuine party building motion (see “Two Roads to Party Building,” WVO newspaper, Nov. 1976, p. 22). This analysis flies in the face of the sorted-out opportunists and revisionists, “left” and right, whose petty-bourgeois sense of “injury” makes them pour out cries of WVO being “hegemonistic” and “intellectualistic” in their principled party building approach; it drives those unstable elements, who try to artificially separate the leading line from the leading circlele (i.e. “WVO has the leading line, but there is no leading circle now,” etc.), to take a definite stand with the proletariat or with the opportunists – either build the party out of the genuine M-L trend led by the WVO or joining the sham opportunist and revisionist trends!

HT SELF-CRITICISM ON PERIODS

Our organization’s grasp of this correct stand, method and viewpoint on the question of periods is very important at this time. We must be extremely self-critical for upholding a rigid and dogmatic view, using an idealist methodology on this question. Our former view of periods was that each phase, each two-line struggle proceeded within a very rigid and predetermined framework: “ideological,” “political” and “organizational” periods. Lagging behind the objective conditions, we objectively stated our actions from a priori positions and concepts rather than understanding reality from the stand, method, and viewpoint of MLMTTT, in order to change it. We committed a priorist and rationalist errors as a result. The rigid “3-period” formulation denies the fact that MLMTTT has not been and could not be fully retrieved in one all encompassing period in which “ideology is key link.” In each successive period of the CM, Marxist-Leninist ideology is reaffirmed in different spheres (i.e., political, organizational, military, cultural, etc.) as they are won away from the bourgeoisie by the proletariat and its party. Also in our haste to abandon the dialectical materialist method on this question, we negated the entire second period struggle against RU’s pragmatic, right opportunist line, and we missed the essence of struggle to develop the revolutionary theory trend and the Revolutionary Wing!

In studying Engel’s criticism of Duhring (Anti-Duhring), our Chinese comrades assert that:

A priorism is an idealist theory of knowledge. The materialist theory of reflection holds that ideas are the reflection of objective reality, that all true knowledge $ originates from experience. So there is no knowledge prior to experience. Yet a priorism holds that the rational includes some “gifted concept”, “self-understood reason”, “born principles” or logical categories, that it does not arise from experience but is innate in the mind, and’ that starting from these principles or categories, one can get real knowledge through logical deduction. A priorists do not admit the dependence of conceptual knowledge upon perceptual knowledge, but think that the former is independent; they oppose proceeding from practical experience, but stand for proceeding from practical experience, but stand for proceeding from the rational. They do not proceed from facts to concepts but vice versa. (“Study Philosophy,” p. 3)

The basis of these errors stems from some petty-bourgeois student social basis in our organization. A major condition for the hegemony of this incorrect line was the brief growth and spread of the “left” opportunist poison of the PRRWO/RWL clique and our liberalism in taking up the necessary theoretical tasks of exposing their line.

THE SORTING OUT PROCESS CONTINUES – ATM’S OPPORTUNIST MANEUVERS

We have seen what the past 8 or 9 years has meant for the ideological and political development of the genuine M-L trend. But what of the present-day flag-bearers of opportunism and revisionism who have been sorted out in the development of the communist movement? The WVO comrades correctly uncover this process:

Individuals and organizations are sorted out over concrete questions of the key link in any particular party building period. They also are sorted out when they are not advanced elements or are incapable of withstanding the necessary hardships to move forward in any phase of the cm.

This process has been the death knell for the revisionist RCP/RU, the right opportunist OL, ATM, MLOC, etc. as well as the politically “dead” PRRWO/RWL clique on the “left”. WVO’s major polemic in the second period against the RU, “Marxism or American Pragmatism?” (Sept. 1974) was a milestone in the exposure of RU/RCP’s anti-proletarian stand. Today, the main danger in the CM, the OL, on the brink of forming their revisionist party, has shown that the struggle against right opportunism and revisionism is a protracted one, an integral part of building the party on the proletarian ideological plane (i.e. developing and enriching MLMTTT in the course of criticizing revisionism, establishing and consolidating the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DOP), and realizing the final goal of communism). The genuine M-L forces, led by the WVO, have grasped firmly this fact – “OL: A Most Dangerous Revisionist Trend,” “The Boston Forced Busing Plan: The Dialectics of Bourgeois Formal Democracy and Fascism,” May l975; “Slipping and Sliding: OL, The Most Dangerous Revisionist Trend in the Communist Movement and Their Call for the Party,” March 1976; and “Once Again on OL,” Aug. 1976 (WVO); The October League and the Boston Crisis: Deepen the Criticism,” fall 1975 (HT). The BOC/CWC comrades have pinpointed the pattern of MLOC’s opportunist maneuvers to look “profound” and “theoretical” to the communist movement and to the advanced: ”MLOC: Intriguing and Conspiring for a Revisionist Clique,” (WVO newspaper, Nov. 1976).

The struggle against the ATM opportunists has just recently begun to deepen. Our view that ATM is a sham right opportunist organization is based on our opposition to their insistence to hold onto bourgeois nationalist, reformist and centrist lines. Lenin taught that “Opportunism would not be opportunism if it were able to put things clearly and straightforward.” Underlying all the diffuse and vague formulations about the “main” contradiction and the “principal” contradiction in the U.S. (Revolutionary Cause #1 and #2) ATM objectively holds that the principal contradiction in the U.S. is between the oppressed nations within her boundaries and U.S. imperialism. In analyzing workers’ struggles, etc. ATM has consistently raised the National Question above the question of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. ATM has developed a whole system of views on this question, from finding great-nation chauvinism under every rock and bottle-cap (even falsely accusing the WVO comrades of chauvinism, distorting WVO’s analysis of the progressive role played by the Young Lords Party/PRRWO in the first period – see Revolutionary Cause #7) to their current formulation about the “economic, political and social privileges” of white workers. The ATM opportunist leadership writes:

With the tremendous superprofits stolen from oppressed peoples throughout the world as well as from the oppressed peoples here, the U.S. bourgeoisie has been able to establish a system of social, economic, and political privileges which divides the oppressor nation (Anglo-American) proletariat from those of the oppressed nations and peoples. Recognizing the distinction between the oppressor nation and oppressed is the consistent stand of the proletariat – not in order to divide, but in order to unite, their class. (Revolutionary Cause, #7, p. 2, emphasis in original)

Does ATM refer here to the privileged, upper stratum of the U.S, working class, the labor aristocracy, which is consciously bribed by the U.S. monopoly capitalists? We think not! ATM develops their revisionist line further:

This class (the U.S. working class – HT) is not united – there exists many divisions within it (national divisions, age divisions, skill and unskilled divisions, divisions of the sexes, etc.). But none of these divisions is as sharp, as deeply rooted historically or as crucial to the ruling class as the national divisions. For this reason they (the bourgeoisie – HT) have developed a system of political, social and economic privileges for the workers of the oppressor nation (a system based on the denial of political, social and economic equality to the oppressed nationality workers). Combined with this (our emphasis – HT) is the presence within the working class of a labor aristocracy and a set of social props whose function is to develop and maintain the divisions within the class – mainly through the spread of the poisonous ideology of national chauvinism, racism, and reformism. (Revolutionary Cause, #8, p. 3)

Comrades and friends, ATM liquidates the struggle for the rights under bourgeois democracy which the white sector of the working class has gained through the struggle of the entire class; democratic rights’ that have been denied the oppressed nationalities due to national oppression and which the entire class must fight for in a revolutionary way. ATM would have us believe that the denial of voting rights to the oppressed nationalities, particularly the Afro-American nation, in the last decade and “freedom from the discriminatory hiring practices, etc.” are part of this all encompassing system of privileges that have been “developed” for white workers by the bourgeoisie! Upon obviously getting hit on their incorrect line, ATM continues to wriggle:

We do NOT (original emphasis) hold that there is a broad sector of the proletariat that is bribed. But we maintain that the distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations must not be blurred over.

To do so is to liquidate both the national question and the task of placing before the class the principled basis of unity of all nationalities. The workers of the oppressed nation are not bribed but they do enjoy political and social (as well as often times economic) – privileges not accorded to oppressed nationality workers. This can be the right to speak their native tongue, English, whereas in the Southwest Chicanos cannot speak their own Spanish language.

It may take the form of freedom of discriminatory hiring practices, etc. Remember, comrades, Black Americans were still struggling to cast a simple vote at the poles. So privileges objectively exist. (Revolutionary Cause (RC) p. 8, original emphasis)

What sophistry! There is no basis for this system of “economic, political and social privileges” for white workers. The U.S. bourgeoisie does not enjoy a monopoly position over the world’s resources to bribe or raise the entire class to some “privileged” status, as did England between 1848 and 1868. In 1916, Lenin stated:

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 on the other hand, every imperialist “Great” Power can and does bribe smaller strata (than in England 1848-68) of the “labor aristocracy. (Lenin, “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” LCW, vol. 23, p. 116)

This is even clearer today, All the basic contradictions in the world are sharpening, as the rivalry between the two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the contradictions between imperialism/ social-imperialism and oppressed nations and peoples on the other push toward their inevitable resolution: either world war will give rise to revolution or revolution will prevent world war. Therefore, this question becomes one of. the struggle against national oppression of oppressed nationality workers instead of the struggle against “privileges” of the oppressor-nation workers! The material basis of national oppression is the all encompassing exploitation of the oppressed nationalities in the U.S. by the imperialist bourgeoisie: their labor-power, land, raw materials, economy and the suppression of their languages, national culture and democratic rights under bourgeois democracy in order to deepen this economic exploitation. This reduces domestic competition by the national bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations and attempts to blunt the revolutionary fervor of the national movements as a whole. The super-profits drawn from the cheaper labor and raw materials goes to benefit only the imperialist bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy, the privileged upper stratum of the proletariat. The lower starvation level wages forced upon the oppressed nationalities allows the imperialists to drive down the wages of the entire class. In addition, the imperialist bourgeoisie attempts to whip up national chauvinism among its “own” workers, using this ideology to give the illusion that white workers do indeed have a stake in maintaining their “privileged” status. This also feeds narrow nationalist reaction among the oppressed nationalities – we have ample proof of this splitting tactic through the bourgeoisie’ busing plan.

So who “blurs over” the “distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations”? Who liquidates “both the national question and the task of placing before the class the principled basis of unity of all nationalities”? It is ATM! ATM’s opportunist leadership does not bother to make a clear distinction between their line and the nationally specific, revisionist “white skin privilege” line in the U.S. The logical conclusion of ATM’s line is that white workers must give up their “privileges” in order to “unite” with oppressed nationality workers and the chauvinism of the white workers becomes the “direction of the main blow”:

What we must do is show ALL workers their common class interest in destroying any and all systems of privilege. We cannot do this by pretending such a system does not exist (a fact which every class conscious oppressed nationality worker would find very interesting), but rather than breaking it down by struggling for such things as preferential hiring, preferential promotion, equality of language and training, etc. (RC, #9, p. 8)

This thoroughly opportunist line does not unite the working class – it further divides it and “breaks it down”.

ATM’s consolidation around a deep-rooted bourgeois nationalist line is fed by their thoroughly reformist and tailist line. This is manifested in their support for the bourgeoisie’s busing plans and the ERA. This support for and dependence on bourgeois subterfuges, which aid in the development of fascism, shows ATM’s inability to grasp the reactionary political nature of bourgeois democracy and its deceptive use of subterfuges in this period of capitalism to split the class, as opposed to the proletarian revolutionary struggle for genuine reforms that strengthen the “independence, class consciousness and fighting efficiency of the proletariat.” This right opportunist line objectively warps ATM’s view of proletarian tactics in struggling for the DOP. We refer comrades to WVO’s article on the revolutionary struggle for “equal rights” and the exposure of the Boston Busing Plan, in the Nov. 1976 issue of their newspaper, to study ATM’s profound petty-bourgeois longing for the old period of rising capitalism, when the bourgeois democratic revolution (smashing feudalism) still brought reforms that were favorable to the working class and the peasantry. ATM’s thoroughly reformist and bourgeois nationalist line diverts the struggle of the proletariat away from the bourgeoisie and leads them to vicious infights among oppressor and oppressed nationality workers, telling them to look to the “liberal” bourgeoisie to solve the problems which the bourgeoisie itself has created and will continue to do so to preserve itself.

ATM has also taken an unprincipled centrist position on the third period struggle against the PRRWO/RWL “left” opportunists. They explain PRRWO’s degeneration with a metaphysical, idealist analysis of the “new” PRRWO versus the “old” PRRWO (i.e. different organizations). See RC #7-9. Despite ATM’s history in the development of the Revolutionary Wing, they now deny that the Revolutionary Wing ever existed! They dismiss their view of it as a “left” sectarian, subjective and idealist view” and an “overestimation” of the “development of the subjective factor” in the CM during that time (RC #7, p. 9) In our opinion this idealist, vulgar materialist methodology still dominates ATM. In their view of periods of the CM, the rigid 3-period framework: ideological, political, and organizational they see a “revolutionary trend” developing only in one straight, ascending line upward – no twists, no turns!

But when we are speaking of the communist movement over the last 10 years, we do not use such a phenomenon (the development of a “wing” – HT). What we in fact had were two trends in their development, one trend characterized by economism, chauvinism and a contempt for theory, the other characterized by upholding the leading role of theory as a guide to revolutionary practice. (RC #7, p. 9)

Our earlier self-criticism on this question stands as a full criticism of this bankrupt methodology.

Based on these errors and ATM’s vicious use of slander, guilt by association and distortion against WVO, which have no substantiation, we view ATM as a definite right opportunist trend against which the criticism must be deepened.

The emphasis on building the party on the proletarian ideological plane has assumed fundamental importance for the genuine M-L trend in the U.S., due to the many unsuccessful attempts to build and consolidate a genuine communist party to lead the U.S. proletariat historically. The theoretical and practical tasks involved in strengthening party building ideologically has been a fundamental line of demarcation between the genuine M-L party building approach led by the WVO and those of the opportunists trends, such as the OL, which is building its revisionist club not “on the proletarian ideological plane, but right here in the U.S.!” (OL leadership’s remark at Sept. 1976 forum in Boston.) The development of modern revisionism in opposition to MLMTTT, the seizure of state power by the revisionists in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, etc. and the revisionist betrayal of numerous parties in the capitalist countries has raised the international significance of this aspect of party building.

Building the party on the proletarian ideological plane refers to the character of the party and what sort of party we want to build. In grasping the key link in this period, the organizational sphere, we must remember that it is only by grasping ideological building well, studying MLMTTT and criticizing revision ism – our “long term task to strengthen party building ideologically,” can we chart the correct orientation for organizational building”! Chairman Mao stressed that:

We have many comrades who are still not very clear on the difference between the proletariat and the petty-bourgeoisie. There are many Party members who have joined the Communist Party organizationally but have not yet joined the Party wholly or at all ideologically...To put things in order organizationally requires our first doing so ideologically, our launching a struggle of proletarian ideology against non-proletarian ideology. (“Yenan Forum on Literature and Art,” Selected Readings, p. 282)

Under Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, the CPC has developed three great traditions chat have historically guided the strengthening of the CPC ideologically, politically, and organizationally. They are “The style of integrating theory with practice, maintaining close ties with the masses and practicing criticism and self-criticism.” (Basic Understanding of the CPC, p. 103). These three great traditions along with the five criteria for membership in the CPC are as the WVO comrades state, “universal criteria which we communists in the U.S. must also adopt in building the party ideologically.” (WVO Journal #4, p. 36). These five criteria are: (1) to conscientiously study MLMTTT and criticize revisionism; (2) work for the interests of the vast majority of people of China and the world; (3) be able at uniting with the great majority, including those who have wrongly opposed them but are sincerely correcting their mistakes; however, special vigilance must be maintained against careerists, conspirators arid double-dealers so as to prevent such bad elements from usurping the leadership of the Party and the state at any level and guarantee that the leadership of the Party and the state always remains in the hands of Marxist revolutionaries; (4 ) consult with the masses when matters arise; and (5) be bold in making criticism and self-criticism.

Once again on the relationship between building the party on the proletarian ideological plane and tackling the questions in the organizational sphere as the key link, our Chinese comrades explain that if the relationship between the two is not handed well and if organizational building departs from the correct ideological and political line, from its command and guidance, then sectarianism and the mountain strong-hold mentality will inevitably prevail. In point of fact, there has never been any purely organizational building that departs from a definite ideological and political line.

Comrades and friends!

We must grasp this lesson well in order to correctly build and consolidate the genuine M-L party of the U.S. proletariat! The view of the HT-NTC ML is that the formation of the party is a settled question based on the development of, and our unity with, the correct and leading line of the leading circle – the WVO, we must establish and consolidate the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in order to smash the rule and resistance of the bourgeoisie, and firmly keep to our basic orientation – the realization of communism!

BUILD THE PARTY ON THE PROLETARIAN IDEOLOGICAL PLANE! GRASP THE ORGANIZATIONAL SPHERE AS THE KEY LINK!!
FORWARD TO THE FOUNDING PARTY CONGRESS!!
IMMEDIATE AND UNIVERSAL PREPARATION FOR THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT!! KEEP TO OUR BASIC ORIENTATION – THE FINAL GOAL OF COMMUNISM!!