First Published:The Workers’ Advocate Vol. 7, No. 6, November 1, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba and Malcolm
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In the spring, 1977, issue of Class Struggle, theoretical journal of the October League (OL) social-chauvinists, there is a major article entitled “Whitewashing Enemies and Slandering Friends” by Eileen Klehr. Klehr is vice-chairman of the OL (now treacherously calling itself the “Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)”). The OL is a rotten social-chauvinist sect. It is “Marxist-Leninist” only in words, but in deeds it is a bunch of fanatical U.S. superpower imperialist chauvinists. Its theory of directing the “main blow” against the Soviet social-imperialists as the “strategy and tactics” of revolution (The Call, centrefold, Nov. 22, 1976) is an open call for defending the U.S. imperialist fatherland in a reactionary inter-imperialist war for world domination. The OL is trying its hardest to give a “Marxist” colour to the propaganda of U.S. imperialism and to create war hysteria and fear of the foreign threat. The OL is so shameless that its propaganda is more warlike and bellicose in tone than that of U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter, and the OL regularly denounces the Carter administration, which is arming to the teeth in order to massacre the people in a threatened third world war, for alleged “appeasement”.
In order to gain the confidence of the working class, to deceive it and lead it to the slaughter, the social-chauvinists deck themselves out as “internationalists”. Lenin pointed out: “Only lazy people do not swear by internationalism these days. Even the chauvinist defencists, even Plekhanov and Potresov, even Kerensky, call themselves internationalists. It becomes the duty of the proletarian party all the more urgently, therefore, to clearly, precisely and definitely counterpose internationalism in deed to internationalism in word.”[1] In Klehr’s article, she tries to present the OL’s support for U.S. imperialism in its struggle against Soviet social-imperialism and also against the world revolution as “internationalism”.
According to the OL, true internationalists in the U.S. are not those who resolutely and selflessly struggle to wipe out the ultra-reactionary government of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class as their contribution to world revolution. Oh no. For OL true internationalism is – don’t laugh – to support U.S. imperialism in directing the “main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism. True internationalism, a la OL, is expressed not by fighting the U.S. imperialists, but by denouncing Carter’s decision to not go ahead just yet with much more production on the B-1 bomber, an instrument designed for mass slaughter with nuclear weapons, as “appeasement”. (The Call, Editorial, July 11, 1977) You blink your eyes with amazement at such brazen enthusiasm for imperialism, but Klehr’s article begins with a picture captioned “Solidarity Between Moroccan and Zairean Soldiers”. This picture lauds the “unity” between the cannon-fodder from Morocco, fresh from being used in an unsuccessful attempt to drown in blood the national liberation struggle of the Spanish Saharan people led by POLISARIO, and the cannon-fodder from “Zaire” (the Congo-Kinshasa), being used in an attempt to wipe out the national liberation movement in the Congo (K), led by the Marxist Revolutionary Party of the Congo (K). Defence of U.S. imperialism and its neo-colonial empire and spheres of influence from “theft” by Soviet social-imperialism and from true liberation by revolution – that is the new “internationalism” of the OL.
Ms. Klehr’s article talks of “whitewashing enemies and slandering friends”. Who are one’s friends and who are one’s enemies – this is a fundamental question for the revolution. Klehr’s “friend” is, first and foremost, U.S. imperialism, which is being “slandered” by being called equally with the Soviet social-imperialists a barbarous and aggressive enemy of the world’s people. According to Klehr, this is “slander” as the Soviet Union is the most dangerous source of war and is fascist, presumably in contrast to the allegedly non-fascist, democratic and peace-loving U.S. imperialism, a U.S. imperialism which is alleged to have been civilized by its defeat in Indochina. Another bunch of Klehr’s “friends”, referred to in the title of her article, are the U.S. neo-colonial lackeys in the vast U.S. colonial empire around the world – and first and foremost OL lavishes praise on the most blood-stained dictators, traitors to and murderers of their own people, such as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu of the Congo (K) and Idi Amin of Uganda. Klehr says that to oppose these imperialist agents is ”. . . to oppose the struggle of the third world countries and peoples. . .” and this is echoed in a centrefold article (The Call, July 11, 1977) on the same subject, which says that not to support these lackeys “. . . is a chauvinist attack on the rising national movements in the third world which are not under working class leadership today.” (What a nice euphemism for fascist dictatorship – “national movements . . . not under working class leadership”.) Finally, Klehr rushes to the defence of the West European imperialists, who are more of her poor slandered and misunderstood friends. OL praises this big neo-colonial power, the European Economic Community, which is actually competing with both superpowers to drink the blood of the oppressed nations, which is arming to the teeth to suppress socialism in Europe, and which with NATO is a reliable base area of U.S. imperialism in its struggle against the Soviet-led imperialist Warsaw Treaty bloc.
And who are Klehr’s enemies? She subtitles her article “An exposure of the. RCP’s revisionist line on the international situation”. But this is just a ruse. She does not particularly have the Revolutionary Communist Party in mind. Thus her article attacks RCP as being ”in opposition to the concept of the three worlds”. Yet everybody knows that the RCP has never opposed the counter-revolutionary theory of “three worlds”. Quite the contrary. So Klehr’s article is really directed mainly at all who have preserved their revolutionary honour and wish to fight U.S. imperialism and its social-chauvinist lackeys. Her enemies, first and foremost, are the genuine Marxist-Leninists and true internationalists in the U.S. who are rallying together to fight social-chauvinism, repudiate the theory of directing the “main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism, and who direct their struggle towards forwarding the proletarian revolution in the U.S. She has particular venom for the ideas coming out of the historic Seventh Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania. She labels the Internationalists as “Trotskyites”, “agents of the Soviet social-imperialists”, “followers of the gang of four” and “anti-China”.
In this article OL continues its trick of using all sorts of sophistry, dressed up as “dialectics”, in order to defend chauvinism. Lenin denounced this trick, which was also used by the social-chauvinists of his time, and pointed out that “Dialectic is turned (by the social-chauvinists – Ed.) into the meanest and basest sophistry!”[2] Furthermore, he observed that Plekhanovya social-chauvinist who prided himself on his philosophical and theoretical knowledge, had “set a new record in the noble sport of substituting sophistry for dialectics”.[3] Klehr is unable to give any serious argument against the internationalist position that both superpowers, as the leaders of the world system of imperialism, are, to the same extent and the same degree, whether taken separately or together, the main enemy of the world’s people. Therefore she shrugs the question off, evades the now embarrassing question of where to direct the “main blow”, and resorts to pure logic and abstract “dialectics” (or, to be precise, fast talk and hustling). She says that recognizing both superpowers as equally the main enemy of the world’s people violates the law of uneven development of capitalism, that it is an undialectical theory of “equilibrium” and thus the real internationalists are, presto!, “mechanical materialists” and “Trotskyites”. It is all obvious, just ABC, since “unless one freezed time and space matter and motion, no two things in the universe are ’equal to the same degree and the same extent’.”[4] My, that was easy – it didn’t require any examination and class analysis of world politics and economics, this “dialectics” is really strong stuff! Is NATO a U.S. imperialist bloc, for fighting the Soviet social-imperialist Warsaw bloc? Oh no, says Klehr, blocs don’t exist – that violates the dialectic principle that nothing is static in the world! Before now, people held to the old-fashioned belief that it was necessary to defeat imperialism arms in hand, with revolutionary struggle and people’s war, but now OL has revolutionized warfare and wiped out whole imperialist blocs with a single verbal quibble! Ah, the power of philosophy! And, as everyone knows that dialectics hold that opposites can be transformed into one another – thus the OL U.S. superpower chauvinists turn into “internationalists” in the hands of Klehr’s article.
OL is flying a false flag. It is seeking to persuade the American revolutionaries, tempered as we were by the years of mass struggle against the U.S. imperialist wars of aggression in Indochina and years of denouncing U.S. colonialism hidden under the puppet regimes of Thieu, Diem, Lon Nol, Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai-shek and others, that times have changed, there are new conditions, and we must support U.S. imperialism as the alleged lesser of the two evils against Soviet social-imperialism and that we musn’t dare to denounce the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire for fear of “distinguishing between progressive and reactionary regimes”. The OL acts like a thief, caught in the act, who cries “Stop Thief!” to avoid exposure. The OL holds that world war can be put off by preserving the balance of power between the superpowers by aiding the allegedly weaker one to attack the allegedly “rising” one – and on this basis, just because OL itself calls for maintaining the equilibrium between the superpowers as” an alleged factor for peace, OL turns around and attacks the internationalists who believe in fighting all imperialism as adherents of the theory of “detente” and “equilibrium”! The OL opposes the new democratic and national democratic revolutions of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America under the hoax that this is “overthrow of third world governments” (and thus presumably violates some social-chauvinist loyalty oath against overthrowing reactionary governments) – and then, having consigned the oppressed people to the tender mercies of the Shah of Iran, Mobutu of the Congo (K), Pinochet of Chile, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Marcos of the Philippines, the OL turns around and accuses the revolutionary internationalists of “not supporting the struggles of the third world”. What clowns! The OL is trying to pervert the most revolutionary and scientific theory the world has ever known – Marxism-Leninism. – into a tool for deceiving the masses with militant words while crawling in front of the U.S. imperialists and licking their boots, cleaning off the blood-stains from the torture chambers of the “independent” regimes in Brazil and Chile, from the SAVAK in Iran and the murderers of Lumumba in the Congo (K) and from the blood-stained chauvinists and murders of neo-revisionist Tito regime in Yugoslavia. The Soviet social-imperialists kill and exploit under the signboard of “socialism”, the U.S. imperialists kill and exploit under the signboard of “human rights” and today Klehr is on her knees in front of the imperialists under the signboard of “dialectics”. This cannot deceive the masses for long. Comrade Enver Hoxha denounced in 1974 the comical posturings of the various puppets of one superpower or the other, the sham “anti-imperialist” utterances by the rulers of the aircraft carrier neo-colonies of U.S. imperialism, the feigned support for communism by international opportunism, as follows: “.. If you make such concessions to these monsters (the two superpowers – Ed.) they will allow you even to insult them, call yourselves communists, even pose as adherents of Marx, Lenin and Mao Tsetung. But all this is bluff, for they have gripped you by the throat and you cannot budge: you have become their slave, their agent, have sold out your country and people.”[5]
What is real internationalism, internationalism in deeds? Internationalism here in the U.S. imperialist heartland requires the American revolutionaries and proletariat to fight resolutely against “our own” bourgeoisie, to undermine it, weaken it, launch revolutionary struggles against it and overthrow it, as our contribution to the world proletarian socialist revolution. Comrade Lenin teaches that:
There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is – working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception.
Everything else is deception...[6]
But this is precisely the question that Klehr avoids like the plague. She discusses this and that, rambles on and on, but never touches to the heart of the matter, never discusses directly the attitude towards “one’s own” bourgeoisie. Conscious that directing the “main blow” at the foreign enemy means supporting the U.S. bourgeoisie as the alleged “underdog”, she barely mentions the question of the “main blow” in passing, on page 28. Imagine that! According to the OL, directing the “main blow” at the Soviet Union is the fundamental strategy of the revolution, a question that directly follows from the “fundamental strategic rule of Leninism”, a lesson of “communist strategy and tactics”, and yet the question is sidestepped in a major article on the international situation and on internationalism. What is Klehr hiding?
A real internationalist must inspire in the American proletariat an intense burning hatred towards the bourgeoisie, a fierce indignation at all its crimes. The proletariat must be prepared to sacrifice everything for the struggle against the bourgeoisie. It must feel as an axiom that “There is nothing good in the monopoly capitalist class, there is everything good in the working class.” Revolutionary propaganda must make the proletariat feel that each bomb, each rocket, each B-1 bomber, is being produced to oppress them, to slaughter their friends abroad, to drown the world proletariat and the socialist countries in blood, and to enchain the oppressed nations. Without this, there will be no revolution. Without this, all talk of the great revolutionary struggle one will wage sometime in the future is a hoax. This is a test which all real internationalists must pass. But look at the reality of OL’s propaganda and agitation, at its concrete political work. Whenever the OL denounces U.S. imperialism, it is always sure to add that the Soviet Union is yet more aggressive. Take OL’s attitude to the B-1 bomber. Does the OL inculcate in the proletariat the burning feeling that this plane is a tool of aggression, that may perhaps be used in inter-imperialist rivalry against the Soviet Union – and we will let the OL leaders, those great “internationalists”, take what joy they may from the prospect of murder by nuclear holocaust of tens of millions of the Russian people – but may also be used against the oppressed nations, or against socialist China and socialist Albania? No, the OL condemned the U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter for not producing more B-1 bombers in the July 11th issue of The Call. According to The Call, “The decision to drop the B-1 bomber must be considered in line with other appeasement policies.” The next sentence then tries to blackmail the American proletariat with fear of the foreign bourgeoisie. “The Soviet Union is already putting a similar weapon, the Backfire bomber, into use, thus gaining yet another military advantage over the U.S.” Can this be called training the U.S. proletariat to strive for the defeat of “their own” government in an imperialist war? Of course not! The OL is for victory for the U.S. imperialists in an inter-imperialist war, for preventing the Soviet social-imperialists from “gaining yet another military advantage over the U.S.” This is OL’s consistent policy. This shameful editorial is fully in line with such past warmongering as OL’s blaring headline “USSR Leading in Superpower War Race” (The Call, February 21, 1977). The OL laments and cries over each supposed set-back for U.S. imperialist military might. That is OL’s real stand on the questions of war and peace and of internationalism: all the rest is deception.
Now examine OL’s stand on the question of the U.S. colonial empire. The OL has always prided itself on its own special sectarian principles and alleged great contributions on “the national question”. Klonsky boasts that “It is on the national question and especially in defence of the right of self-determination for all oppressed nations that our Party has clearly stood out from every other trend.”[7] Well, does the OL engage in exposing the cruel exploitation and vicious suppression of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America by U.S. imperialism? No, not at all. In fact, it is precisely on this question that the OL first achieved real notoriety for its social-chauvinist stand in support of the fascist feudal butcher, the Shah of Iran. The OL, in order to retain any influence in the working-class movement at all, is forced to make a show of alleged support for struggles against open colonialism of the old style, such as in Palestine, Azania (“Republic of South Africa”), etc. OL completely hides the existence of the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire, in which formally independent countries with “their own” flags and postage stamps, are held in the iron grip of partial or complete neo-colonial slavery to U.S. imperialism through’ financial links, economic and military alliances and puppet regimes. Following World War II, the national liberation movement reached new heights and the: protracted anti-imperialist struggles have shattered the old-style colonial system. One country after another has won independence. But, Khrushchov and Klonsky to the contrary, colonialism did not vanish. The imperialists have certainly not given up colonialism, but have adopted a new form, neo-colonialism. The U.S. imperialists, while retaining various direct colonial possessions until defeated by the national liberation movement, have specialized in developing new-style colonialism, neo-colonialism. The U.S. imperialists are still today the biggest neo-colonial power in the world. The workers and peasants in many allegedly “independent” countries, groan under colonial and semi-feudal slavery, masked by the ruling regimes of the domestic reactionary classes. This vast colonial empire is white-washed and prettified by the OL. Far from arousing the indignation of the American proletariat against the crimes of U.S. imperialism and its running dogs, the OL denies these crimes and paints beautiful opium dreams of a fantasy world where imperialist lackeys are the “main force” pushing world history forward. The OL even chokes at the sound of the word “neocolonialism”. Klehr’s article does not even mention this word. This word appears only once, without explanation, in the entire 165 page book of “Documents from the Founding Congress of the Communist (read: Social-Chauvinist) Party (Marxist-Leninist)”. Dan Burstein, the editor of The Call, managed to spit the word out a few times in his Titoite article “The World Is Being Turned Upside Down”, but all but once in reference to Soviet neo-colonialism.[8] Take Latin America, where bloody military dictatorships and feudal oligarchies in hock to U.S. imperialism abound. The OL paints these U.S. imperialist-dominated regimes as fighters against the superpowers and, in fact, says that ”. . . The Soviet Union is pursuing a far more aggressive policy on the continent than its rival.” (The Call, January 10, 1977 in the article “Latin America Rebuffs Superpower Schemes”) In this way, the OL objectively lines up with U.S. imperialism and such valiant “fighters” against social-imperialism as the bloody murderer Pinochet of Chile, Geisel of Brazil, etc. Instead of exposing the U.S. imperialists to the proletariat, the OL exposes only the designs of social-imperialism. Whenever it is time to put theory into practice the OL is found on the side of U.S. imperialism. When there was a Soviet-backed invasion of Congo-Kinshasa (“Zaire”) earlier this year, the OL came out as a big defender of the reactionary regime of Mobutu and painted U.S. imperialist domination of the Congo (K) in liberation colours. OL neither exposed the crimes of U.S. domination nor even mentioned the true revolutionary forces that have been fighting for years against Mobutu, the murderer of the national hero of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Instead of arousing a burning hatred for U.S. colonialism, the OL is trying to mobilize the proletariat behind U.S. domination of the oppressed nations as an alleged bulwark against social-imperialism. This is not internationalism, but great-power chauvinism.
In fact, even the OL’s “support” for the struggles against old-style colonialism is just a big sham. At the crucial moment, OL always comes out in favour of the schemes of U.S. imperialism. Consider the case of the U.S. colonial rule over the Panama Canal Zone and U.S. domination of all Panama. The raging struggle of the Panamanian people against U.S. colonialism is dealing big blows to U.S. imperialism and damages it in the eyes of all the other Latin American peoples. Therefore U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter has concluded the negotiations for a new unequal treaty. This treaty continues to legalize U.S. military occupation of the Canal Zone, in words that are even more explicit than the old 1903 unequal treaty. But it removes certain hated symbols of the old colonialism. Now the Panamanian flag will fly over the territory trampled on by U.S. colonial troops. By this neo-colonial policy, by removing some symbols of colonialism while retaining the essence of the brutal aggression against Panama, Carter hopes to lull the Panamanian people to sleep and to present himself to Latin America as a man of “peace”, a supporter of “human rights”. Instead of exposing this miserable farce and thus educating the American proletariat and giving aid to the Latin American people, the OL instead gives a “communist” cover to Carter’s deception. In an editorial in The Call of September 19, 1977, the OL hails this new unequal treaty, this tool of aggression, as a victory for . . . Panama! The editorial is entitled “Panama Wins a Victory on Canal Treaty” and states that “the Panamanian people won an important victory with the signing of a new Canal Treaty last week”. OL simply bubbles over .with enthusiasm and, echoing the lies of the bourgeois press, states: “The new treaty gives the Panamanian government full control of the Canal and the 500-square-mile Canal Zone by the year 2000”. What touching faith in the promises of the U.S. imperialists. Actually the treaty guarantees U.S. military domination for the lifetime of the treaty, until 1999 . . . and naturally what comes after 1999 is regulated by the next treaty, not this one. And this treaty gives The U.S. the “permanent right”, not even limited by the life of the treaty to “defend the neutrality” of the canal. In this way, the U.S. imperialists are openly vowing to never, ever give up control over Panama. What an “important victory” for the Panamanian people! Today, the OL scrapes and bows and licks Carter’s boots clean. Thus at the crucial moment the OL has come out to oppose the struggle against the old-style colonial possession of the Panama Canal.
The OL has even gone to the extent of supporting the U.S. bourgeoisie in its aggressive intentions towards the socialist countries. Instead of putting the spotlight on the intense hatred the U.S. imperialists have for China and Albania, on their plans for military aggression and their constant attempts to subvert socialism from within, the OL is advocating that U.S. imperialism is friendly towards China and is just a little bit sluggish in its friendship, that it is just “stalling”. According to a shameful editorial in The Call, ”The Carter Administration, after putting China on the bottom of its list of foreign policy, is finally sending its emissary to Peking.” (The Call, August 20, 1977, “Normalize U.S.-China Relations!”, emphasis ours) So U.S. imperialism is not surrounding China - with military bases, building aggressive cruise missiles and neutron bombs, flying spy satellites over China, occupying China’s province of Taiwan and sponsoring subversive forces from within, but simply not paying enough attention to China! According to the editorial “ . . . the only real opposition (“which is preventing” Carter “from breaking relations with Taiwan in favour of the PRC” – ed.).is coming from certain groupings of big businessmen and from the Soviet Union, which claims that ’detente’ will be threatened by closer U.S.-China relations.” So the real reason that U.S. imperialism occupies Taiwan is fear of the Soviet New Tsars! Of course, the OL is willing to grant that there are a few big bad businessmen, “certain groupings of big businessmen”, just as the revisionist party talks of an ultra-right fringe. What an exposure of the anti-China nature of the OL, those alleged great friends of China, who whitewash U.S. military occupation of Chinese territory! Perhaps the OL will be satisfied by a solemn pledge from the New York Times that the U. S. will vacate both the Panama Canal Zone and Taiwan by the year 1999 ...
Thus, the OL is constantly prettifying U.S. aggression in order to create an atmosphere of war hysteria in which to strike the “main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism. The OL’s support for the B-1 bomber, their painting the U.S. neo-colonial empire in liberation colours, their treacherous stand toward the socialist countries – all these are but the practical consequences of OL’s theory of directing the “main blow” at a foreign enemy. OL’s “internationalism” is the “internationalism” of superpower finance capital, which recognizes no national boundaries but instead seeks to bring the entire world under its murderous domination and ruthless exploitation. This “internationalism” of finance capital is called, in plain language, rabid chauvinism, warmongering and jingoism. Proletarian internationalism requires one to be a revolutionary at home. You can not be a slave to “your own” imperialist bourgeoisie at home in a superpower, and a great “revolutionary” on the international level.
In place of fighting against the U.S. bourgeoisie and its state apparatus, Klehr calls on the U.S. imperialists to fight harder against the Soviet New Tsars. Klehr actually scolds what she calls the “dominant U.S. ruling circles” for “appeasing” the foreign threat. Thus there are two roads, two paths placed before the American proletariat. On the one hand, there is the path of proletarian internationalism. The internationalists fight against the U.S. bourgeoisie, desire the defeat of “their own” government in its rivalry with foreign imperialists or in its struggles against the world revolution, and actively work for the overthrow of the imperialist bourgeoisie. On the other hand, there is the path of imperialist aggression, chauvinist “internationalism”. The social-chauvinists are scared stiff by the sorry plight of the U.S. imperialists. They use the slogan of “appeasement” to “accuse” the government of being weak-kneed and peace-loving. They are seeking to mobilize the proletariat to force the government to step up its aggression all around the world. And they are pledging in advance their loyalty to the U.S. monopoly capitalists in the threatened world war.
What is “appeasement”? According to Klehr, “This a policy that the U.S. imperialists have chosen as the best, way to contend with the Soviet social-imperialists. It is a policy of making ever greater concessions to them in the hopes that this will temporarily divert their aggression, thus enabling the U.S. to strengthen, its own political and military position.” (p.25) Klehr is opposed to this “appeasement” policy because she believes that it is not the best way for the U.S. imperialists to contend with the Soviet social-imperialists and strengthen U.S. imperialism’s political and military situation. If Klehr were a revolutionary and believed that the “dominant U.S. ruling circles” were making a mistake and blundering right and left, then she would welcome this. She would utilize these mistakes to bring U.S. imperialism to its knees. She would use these blunders to create optimism in the American proletariat, not fear. But Klehr is not a revolutionary, but a volunteer advisor to the Pentagon and State Department. She does not welcome the difficulties of U.S. imperialism, but on the contrary she advises U.S. imperialism on how best to strengthen its positions. What a glaring self-exposure!
Klehr brings out what is on her mind by quoting an article about real appeasement of the fascists in the 1930’s which claims that appeasement “could only expose the weakness of the West European countries and thereby encourage Hitler to accelerate a war of aggression.” (p. 42) Klehr clearly believes that the present-day alleged “appeasement” exposes the weakness of U.S. imperialism, and that weakness pains her.
Of course, you must not think Klehr wants to strengthen U.S. imperialism in order to keep the U.S. colonial empire enslaved, attack the socialist countries, and exploit the proletariat at home. Oh, no. She is simply concerned to spare the world’s people a little longer from the holocaust of what OL regards as an “inevitable” third world war. What a humanitarian! According to Klehr, appeasement “bring(s) on war that much sooner”, (p. 25) Thus Klehr believes that it is U.S. imperialism’s weakness that brings on war. OL is thus a real believer in what the U.S. imperialists call the “balance of terror”. Both the superpowers present the arms race as an alleged factor for peace, because it preserves the balance of terror, and Klehr goes along with this imperialist war-mongering. She accuses others of believing in what she calls the “theory of equilibrium”, but it is she who believes that the military balance of power, the “equilibrium” between the two superpowers, must be preserved in order to preserve peace. She is biting her fingernails over her belief that “... militarily the USSR has not only achieved ’parity’ but has exceeded the U.S. in this field.” (p. 24) She is just an imperialist lackey, mesmerized by the guns and armies of the imperialists, who forgets a “trifle” – the revolution. The threatened world war has not yet broken out for one reason only – not the “balance of terror”, but the revolutionary struggle of the world’s people. It is the international workers’ movement,” the surging national liberation movement and the victories of socialism, ail taken together, that have shaken world imperialism. Either revolution will prevent the threatened world war, or the world war will give rise to revolution. To fight for peace, one must weaken imperialism, not strengthen it. It is criminal to preach fatalism to the masses, that the world war is inevitable so they should pin their hopes for a few more years of peace on strengthening the U.S. imperialist nuclear umbrella. Yet this is just what Klehr does. She does not even pretend to discuss the role of revolution in the U.S. preventing the war. This is because the OL believes that “a new world war is inevitable” ’ and “there is no possibility of civil war and the victory of socialism heading off the war”, (p. 9). So, as a good Samaritan and counterrevolutionary liberal, Klehr just must support building more B-1 bombers as a way of “delaying the outbreak” of world war.
Of course, Klehr is outraged whenever anyone accuses OL of wanting to strengthen U.S. imperialism. She rages and fumes, wriggles and squirms, but never straightforwardly denies it. she never states that U.S. imperialism should be weakened to prevent war. She says that the internationalists “opportunistically equate OL’s opposition to appeasement of the Soviet Union with calling for increased U.S. armaments and national unity behind a strong anti-Soviet government as a way to “postpone war”...” (p. 23) And this is exactly right. This is just what OL does. Klehr screams: “Gangster logic”. But she can’t deny the charge and she doesn’t want to anyway. Instead she goes off into a historical parallel with World War II in order to justify “calling for increasing U.S. armaments”. Klehr believes that the social-chauvinists should work to strengthen U.S. imperialism in’ a slightly hidden way, so as to draw the proletariat in behind the U.S. war schemes, and is incensed when the internationalists call a spade a spade. Klehr is furious that “The OL’s work of pointing out the more dangerous character of social-imperialism world wide” is characterized as “urging our own imperialists to be more vigorous in carrying out their imperialist aims and intentions and in their own imperialist drives, to be more vigorous in their plunder and in their contention for domination, exploitation and oppression.” (p. 24) Why, Klehr fulminates, this is .. . ”distorting OL’s line”! But instead of denying the charge, she evades it. She never calls for U.S. imperialism to get out of its neo-colonial empire. If U.S. imperialism is strengthened, if it builds more and more bombers, tanks and missiles in order to fight its imperialist rivals, if NATO is strengthened, won’t the U.S.-led Western imperialists be “more vigorous in carrying out their own imperialist aims and intentions and in their own imperialist drives”? Can Klehr deny this? What does criticism of “appeasement” mean, if not that U.S. imperialism should send in its troops and military aid into Angola, Ethiopia and elsewhere on an even bigger scale.
The social-chauvinists not only want to strengthen U.S. imperialism directly, through more B-1 bombers, but they also want to use the banner of opposing “appeasement” to mobilize the proletariat into armed brigades to fight for U.S. imperialism wherever U.S. imperialism is “appeasing” the Russians. Klehr states:
One might ask the RCP: Should U.S. workers have fought in Spain in the 1930’s? Should they have organized support actions for Ethiopia and China? After all, the main enemy of workers in the U.S. was the U.S. bourgeoisie while aggression in these areas was instigated mainly by its chief rivals, the imperialists of Germany, Italy and Japan. Was this ’class collaboration’ or genuine internationalism?
By this historical analogy Klehr is suggesting that American workers should fight arms in hand on behalf of Mobutu in the Congo-Kinshasa (“Zaire”) and of all U.S. puppets. In fact, Klehr’s historical parallel betrays her complete U.S. chauvinism, her interpretation of the 1930’s after the ideas of an ordinary, imperialist liberal. For Klehr’s information, when it was simply a question of supporting one group of imperialists or the other, the world proletariat did not give its support to the struggle. That is why when the nazis invaded Poland on September 1,1939, the world proletariat denounced both sides, the Anglo-French and the German imperialist armies, and shed no tears for the fascist, reactionary government of the Polish landlords’ and bourgeoisie which drove the Polish people to be cannon fodder for the Anglo-French imperialists. Instead the world proletariat called for the Polish people to “rise up against the oppression of the German fascists and against their own reactionary landlord and bourgeois classes, and establish an independent, free and democratic Polish state”. This is explained in Chairman Mao’s article “The Identity of Interests Between the Soviet Union and All Mankind”, September 28,1939. The situation in Spain, Ethiopia and China was different. According to Klehr’s argument, the chief thing going on in Spain, Ethiopia and China was defence of the interests of the “democratic” Anglo-American-French imperialists. Klehr “forgets” only a trifle – the Chinese and Spanish revolutions and the struggle of the Ethiopian people against fascist enslavement. The world proletariat did not forget these revolutions and just struggles and always firmly supported them. The “democratic” Anglo-American-French imperialists did not forget these revolutions either. They wanted to drown in blood the world revolution, the proletariat, oppressed nations and the Soviet Union. That is why they didn’t mind the Axis doing part of the job for them. But for Klehr, when the Ethiopian people fought against Italian fascist aggression which aimed to reduce them to total colonial slavery, the content of that struggle was simply defence of another imperialist power. For Klehr, when the Chinese people fought Japanese colonial aggression, that was not part of their new-democratic revolution directed against all imperialism, oh no, it was in the interests of the western imperialists. What a slander of the Chinese Communist Party! For Klehr, the world is not in struggle between world revolution and world reaction, but between different rival groups of imperialists. So, Klehr reasons, if the revolutionaries are fighting against one imperialist power, they are therefore fighting for its rivals. Her whole historical analogy boils down to this: if the communist movement can support a revolutionary movement against a U.S. imperialist rival, then why not support any movement in support of U.S. imperialism? How clever! Thus Klehr reveals that the fight against “appeasement” means to organize support groups for the Shah of Iran and other U.S. lackeys. And that the reason that the OL didn’t organize armed detachments to fight for Mobutu was only lack of support in the proletariat and not OL’s lack of desire.
The basis of the theory of “appeasement” is the repudiation of revolution. The OL keeps the issue on the level of a struggle between imperialist governments and not of a struggle of the oppressed classes against the imperialists. Klonsky crystallized the essence of social-chauvinism as follows: “As long as the two superpowers continue to contend for world domination, one must either defeat the other or be defeated by the other.”[11] What “dialectics”! Either “they”, the foreign superpower and “main danger” wins, or “we”, the allegedly democratic superpower, wins. Who can deny that? We deny it. The issue is revolution, not which superpower gains a temporary advantage on the road to the total doom of imperialism. The wretched opportunist Kautsky defended social-chauvinism in exactly the same way as Klonsky. Kautsky stated: “. . . Never is government so strong, never are parties so weak, as at the outbreak of war. . . Today the practical question is: victory or defeat for one’s own country.”[12] And Klonsky echoes this. What he is saying is: either “we” win or “they” win. Revolution – forget it. Be practical, not dogmatic and “ultra-left”. The only practical question is – which superpower prevails. So the Klonskyites compare the two superpowers, rationalizing that no two things are exactly equal, and, lo and behold! decide that democracy, justice, morality and even “Marxism-Leninism” compel them to support “their own” bourgeoisie in its struggle to dominate the world.
Klehr is so ingrained with this imperialist chauvinism that for her any criticism of social-chauvinism is “a new apology for the two superpowers, especially the Soviet social-imperialists”, means “serving Soviet social-imperialism”. Are you against NATO? But the Soviet Union is “trying to disband NATO while leaving the Warsaw Pact intact”.[13] Therefore, criticism of NATO “serves (the) social-imperialists”. Are you against U.S. war preparations? The Soviet Union is too! Therefore build more B-1 bombers! The only practical question is – which superpower stands to gain or lose by the war preparations. Klehr and Klonsky’s whining about how revolution against U.S. imperialism serves Soviet social-imperialism is no different from the cries of the open anti-communists to “go back to Russia”. Klonsky moans that the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists ”try and defend the New Tsars by complaining that we are too hard on them (New Tsars – Ed.).”[14] No, dear social-chauvinists. Our “complaint” is that you are too soft on imperialism, that you are a lackey of world imperialism. Lenin denounced your sophistry long ago. He said: “The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany.”[15]
Thus the “appeasement” slogan in today’s conditions is a slogan that first and foremost means repudiating revolution. The social-chauvinists are afraid to make revolution for fear that this will give the Soviet New Tsars an advantage. They have no faith that the revolutionaries suffering under social-imperialism will undermine the imperialist bloc of the East, while we undermine U.S. imperialism, the leader of the imperialist bloc .of the West. They pretend not to understand that any upsurge of revolution right in the heartland of U.S. imperialism will be a tremendous inspiration to the entire world revolution. No, for them the “practical” question is: either U.S. imperialism will defeat the New Tsars or it will be defeated by them. The real practical question is: either the American revolutionaries will defeat social-chauvinism, or they will betray the confidence of the entire world proletariat and be condemned forever as Klonskyite imperialists, phrase-mongering slaves of “their own” bourgeoisie.
Under the banner of criticizing “appeasement”, Klehr in fact presents a picture of an alleged weak-kneed, peace-seeking U.S. imperialism. The OL is actually giving credibility to the political deception of the Carter administration, to Carter’s imperialist pacifism and his “human rights” campaign.
Carter has been following the policy of imperialist pacifism, of concealed but frenzied war-mongering and aggression. Carter is trying to paint a false picture of a U.S. imperialism that has been “reformed”, that has “learned its lessons” and which is now “peaceful”, “anti-racist” and “democratic”. He is doing this in order to disarm the revolutionary masses at home and to mobilize allies abroad. Comrade Stalin pointed out: “Imperialist pacifism is an instrument for the preparation of war and for disguising this preparation by hypocritical talk of peace.”[16] The U.S. imperialists have not adopted this policy from choice, as the OL thinks, but because they are faced with the rising workers’ movement at home and the anti-imperialist and national liberation movements abroad, with chaos at home and chaos abroad. Instead of exposing this sham, the OL joins the deception and shouts that the U.S. imperialists are following a policy of “ever greater concessions” to the Soviet New Tsars. Carter appointed Andrew Young as Ambassador to the UN in order to put on a show of “anti-racism” and “human rights” in order to fool the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America and to suppress the Afro-American people’s movement at home. The OL is supporting the illusions about Andrew Young by labelling him a supporter of “appeasement”, a softy.[17] Another cornerstone of Carter’s “human rights” campaign is the new unequal Panama Canal Treaty, which continues U.S. aggression in Panama only with a few of the more obvious old-style colonial symbols removed. The OL supported this too and hailed it as a “victory” for the Panamanian people, thus helping U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter, giving him, exactly what he needs in his plot to pacify the Panamanian people’s struggles and to strengthen U.S. imperialism’s positions in Latin America generally. And by denouncing Carter’s decision to not yet build more than a few prototype B-1 bombers, the OL paints a fantasy of a U.S. imperialism which is not armed to the teeth.
In order to give some air of reality to their war hysteria about “appeasement”, the OL considers imperialist pacifism to be “appeasement”. The OL has a very touching faith in the “peaceful” pronouncements of the U.S. government. Furthermore, especially when the two superpowers collaborate to suppress the revolution, the OL refuses to side with the world revolution but instead presents this collaboration as U.S. imperialism giving in to the Soviet New Tsars. The collusion and contention of the two superpowers are two sides of the same contradictory reality, important expressions of the same imperialist strategy to rob the world’s peoples of their freedom and to dominate the world. At the same time as the contention between the superpowers is sharpening and leading towards world war, they are also trying to devise new forms of collaboration amidst their divergencies. But strangely enough, this is something that is incomprehensible to that” great “dialectician” Klehr, who is on the rampage against “mechanical materialism” and “metaphysics”. She just cannot understand that the superpowers are united against the revolution at the same time as they are at each other’s throats in a deadly attempt to redivide the world. Pretending that each contact between the superpowers is a sellout of U.S. imperialist interests is a typical trick of a certain section of fascist American politicians, and one of the ways in which the U.S. imperialists bargain for better terms with the Soviet New Tsars.
Consider the way that OL whitewashes the U.S. imperialist aggression against Ethiopia by “accusing” the U.S. of “appeasing” the Russians. According to Klonsky: “Among the appeasers of Soviet social-imperialism are the leaders of U.S. imperialism themselves. This could be clearly seen in Andrew Young and Vice-President Mondale’s recent statement supporting the presence of hundreds of Soviet ’advisors’ in Ethiopia.”[18] The fact that Young and Mondale support the presence of Soviet advisors is indeed revealing and it is a pity that Klonsky didn’t learn anything from it about the criminal collaboration of the superpowers against the world revolution. Instead, Klonsky is painting a picture of a U.S. imperialism that has become a “timid mouse”, that has lost its fangs when it comes to fighting for domination of Ethiopia. But the truth is far different. The U.S. imperialists are experienced neo-colonialists. They don’t run into quite as much of a frenzy at the sight of a Soviet soldier as the OL does. The U.S. imperialists know that they have positions in the Ethiopian economy that are not easily dislodged by the presence of the Soviet advisors. And they also have a blood-stained, counter-revolutionary army fighting on their behalf, the so-called Ethiopian Democratic Union, a band of feudal gangsters which is massacring the peasants, committing numerous anti-people atrocities, fighting the Marxist-Leninists of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP), and contending with the fascist junta for state power. This is the way the U.S. imperialists think: “We have not been able to’ strangle the Ethiopian revolution, which has overthrown Haile Selassie and continues to grow in the struggle against the junta. The Soviet Union wants Ethiopia? First they must destroy the revolution. Let the Soviet Union pour in its resources and its lackey Castro in an attempt to destroy the EPRP and the Ethiopian national democratic revolution and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and the Eritrean national liberation struggle. Once revolution is defeated and Ethiopia is preserved as an area for exploitation by the world system of imperialism, then we shall see if the New Tsars find it so easy to displace U.S. imperialism. In the meantime, we will enflame the war between Ethiopia and Somalia and utilize the Soviet backing of the Ethiopian fascist junta to win over the Somalian regime and try to displace the Soviet Union there.” And the OL is silent on these aggressive manoeuvres of U.S. imperialism. The OL is covering up for U.S. imperialist aggression in Ethiopia and Somalia by presenting the U.S. as a man who has lost his nerve and resigned himself to “appeasing” the Russians. The open lackey Andrew Young is in his way a far better “Marxist” than the sophistical, evasive lackey Klonsky, and he shamelessly and cynically blurts out a good deal about U.S. policy in his Playboy interview.[19] Young sneers at the “Marxism” of the Soviet-Cuban-MPLA neo-colonial government in Angola and states: “There’s nothing wrong with their deciding to live under a socialist system. It’s a decision that does not interfere with us in any way”, (just as Klonsky’s “Marxism” doesn’t interfere with his services to U.S. imperialism in any way either – Ed.) “In spite of the fact that he’s a Marxist, Neto’s relationship with Gulf Oil is what keeps the revenues coming in that make it possible for the Cubans to run the country. The Cubans could not run it by themselves.” And Young adds: “There’s nothing the Cubans can do that we cannot thwart.” Thus Young explodes the myth of U.S. “appeasement” in Angola and lauds the “socialist” Soviet-Cuban-MPLA government for continuing to exploit the Angolan people and for preserving Angola (that part of it not yet liberated by the Angolan national liberation movement led by UNITA) for world imperialism and Gulf Oil.
Carter’s “human rights” fraud combines both the “soft” tactics of imperialist pacifism and the “hard” tactics of outright attacks on the world revolution and on U.S. imperialism’s rivals. Carter’s “hard” tactics are at present focussed on the propaganda front of support for Soviet “dissidents”, on outright attacks on revolutionary peoples and on an open arms build-up. The OL supports this open aggression of U.S. imperialism as well as the political deception of imperialist pacifism. We have already seen how the OL supports the open arms build-up and sheds tears for the B-1 bomber. The OL also supports Carter’s campaign of support for Soviet “dissidents” and tries to outdo Carter in denouncing the Soviet Union. The OL, who are timid liberals in denouncing U.S. imperialism suddenly become “bold” “Marxists” when denouncing the foreign imperialists. They contrast the “bourgeois democracy” in the U.S. to the fascism in the Soviet Union. They are crusaders for “bourgeois democracy” and the “pro-West” capitalist elements in the imperialist bloc of the East. They are for the reactionary pro-West intelligentsia who wish to see a more thorough “liberalization” than exists presently under Soviet social-imperialist domination. The OL has continued so far on this path that they have come out in favour of George Orwell’s hitlerite books that attack the Soviet Union of Lenin’s and Stalin’s time, namely, 1984 and Animal Farm. The OL protests the fact that the Soviet Union banned these books from Moscow’s international Book-Fair (see The Call, September 26, 1977). According to the OL, “Orwell’s description of the police-state run by ’Big Brother’ hit a little too close to home for the Soviet Union’s New Tsars.” The OL adds with enthusiasm, in “the hands of Russian readers, they would be read as an indictment of today’s Soviet fascist rule.” Why, maybe OL’s Liberator Press should reprint them! But any class-conscious Soviet worker would burn this fascist bit of U.S. ideological aggression which slanders socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the “Big Brother” who was denounced by Khrushchov. Orwell’s books are straightforward cold-war anti-communist poison. The OL rehabilitates Orwell’s hitlerite poison, saying “Certainly, Orwell’s books were reactionary at the time they were written.” (!!! emphasis ours) And not today? The OL believes that fascism improves with age, like good wine. Orwell’s poison seems to them a particularly good vintage. Should Trotsky’s slanders of the dictatorship of the proletariat and Khrushchov’s “secret speech” also be rehabilitated on the grounds that they were “reactionary at the time they were written” but could be read today as an indictment of the Soviet New Tsars? The OL shamelessly ridicules the charge that these books “were said to be guilty of ’promoting racism, violence, fascism and war’.” The OL justifies its defence of Orwell’s book by the same trick as usual – the Soviet New Tsars are against it so it’s good. The OL self-righteously says that other reactionary books were present. Then, of course, any good ACLU bourgeois democrat and advocate of “human rights” would be offended by removing Orwell’s hitlerite books, while any proletarian revolutionary would denounce the Soviet Union for organizing a book fair for Western ideological aggression, for demoralizing and degenerating the Soviet people, and for spreading of fascist propaganda. OL’s only complaint, however, is that the Soviet Union did not include enough reactionary books! Thus OL is not for revolution in Russia, but for bourgeois “liberalization”. The OL is not for the dictatorship of the proletariat, which also would not promote Orwell’s anti-communist wild ravings, but for an open fascist dictatorship without the socialist mask.
The only part of Carter’s “human rights” campaign that OL refuses to go along with is certain outright attacks on the oppressed peoples. But this is no virtue of OL’s. OL would be hounded out of the communist and workers’ movement if it, say, openly supported Zionism, apartheid or Ian Smith’s racist regime in “Rhodesia”. That is why the OL makes a show of support for these struggles, while waiting for the crucial moment to betray them, like it betrayed the Panamanian people’s struggle. If the OL were to move further to the right, it would lose any appeal at all and cease to be of any value for the bourgeoisie. That is OL’s special role in the “human rights” campaign – to win the working class to the campaign through giving it a facade of “Marxism-Leninism”.
Lacking anything serious to say, Klehr accuses the revolutionary internationalists of “Trotskyism”. This is an especially unfortunate accusation for her to make. She quotes Comrade Stalin a number of times, but anyone who checks these quotations and studies Comrade Stalin’s works will find that these very quotations speak against OL’s social-chauvinism. OL suffered the same fiasco on the question of the “main blow”. Comrade Stalin’s clear teachings on the “main blow” in his classic work The Foundations of Leninism show the absolute necessity to fight OL’s opportunism and social-chauvinism. Actually when Klehr quotes Comrade Stalin and makes a big show of “anti-Trotskyism” this doesn’t even indicate respect for Comrade Stalin, since the OL is shouting up and down about Comrade Stalin’s alleged “mistakes” and the “mistakes” of the Comintern (see Class Struggle, No. 8) Klehr is making such a big deal about “Trotskyism” because OL’s open struggle against the “ultra-left” as the main danger in the U.S. communist movement has been discredited. Our historical task at this time is to repudiate Browderism, right opportunism, the theoretical basis of social-chauvinism. In order to give lip-service to fighfing revisionism while still continuing the fight against the “ultra-left”. OL denounces “Trotskyism” instead of the “ultra-left”, and denounces “mechanical materialism”, “metaphysics” and the “theory of equilibrium’’ instead of “dogmatism”. At the very sight of all these dreadful words, the weak-nerved are supposed to get down on their knees and beg absolution from the Klonksyites, beg to never again get any “uppity” ideas about thinking for themselves, following Marxism-Leninism and overthrowing the bourgeoisie. For the social-chauvinists, blackmail and bullying long ago replaced serious analysis.
This empty bluster of the social-chauvinists is not new or original. It is an old trick of the revisionists and class traitors to call the revolutionaries “anarchists”, “ultra-leftists” and, more recently, “Trotskyites”. Not that there is anything good in anarchism, ultra-leftism or Trotskyism, and in fad it is the revolutionary Marxists who have led in defeating anarchism, ultra-leftism and Trotskyism. But the Marxist-Leninists fight sham revolutionism for the sake of teaching the proletariat how to be more revolutionary, to fight in a genuinely revolutionary manner, and to follow Marxism, the most revolutionary theory ever known. The revisionists and social-chauvinists, in order to deceive the working class, present their fight against revolution and their betrayal of the interests of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie in the guise of a “Marxist” fight against sham revolutionism. When the Second International collapsed into a sea of chauvinism, went over to the side of the bourgeoisie and justified the mass slaughter of the First World War, the opportunists called those who remained loyal to revolutionary Marxism “anarchists”, What, lead mass revolutionary struggles in the midst of wartime and see the legal trade-unions smashed and the legal newspapers banned? Anarchism! Work for the defeat of “one’s own” government and risk arrest and execution for high treason? Anarchism! In unison, the social-chauvinists and revisionists cried out: “Down with Anarchism. Down with Leninism, Down with Revolution!’ Comrade Lenin said: “Of course, the counter-revolutionary philistines cry out ’anarchism!’, just as the opportunist Eduard David cried ’anarchism’ when he denounced Karl Liebknecht (revolutionary German Marxist and internationalist who put forward in World War I the fighting slogan “Our chief enemy is at home.” – ed.). In Germany, only those leaders seem to have remained honest socialists whom the opportunists revile as anarchists ...”[20] Similarly, when Khrushchov restored capitalism in the USSR and split the International Communist Movement with his modern revisionist line, he called the Marxist-Leninists “Trotskyites”. “ultra-left ”, and “dogmatic ”. And just because he himself had sold out to imperialism, he threw in “agents of the imperialists”, “sold out for thirty pieces of gold”, just as the OL denounces the internationalists for being agents of the New Tsars just because it is OL itself which has sold out to world imperialism.
With this charge of “Trotskyism”, the OL is lifting a big rock to drop it on their own feet.
Very well then, let us repudiate Trotskyism. In repudiating Trotskyism we will find that it is OL and the social-chauvinists who are in fact reviving and taking up a number of Trotskyite theories and methods. Since OL insists on forcing the question of Trotskyism upon everybody, one could hardly close one’s eyes to the close alliance and mutual support that has always existed between Trotskyism and both old and new modern revisionism., During the polemics of the ’60’s against modern revisionism, the Marxist-Leninists pointed out this close alliance as follows:
It is most absurd for the leadership of the CPSU to pin the label of ’Trotskyism’ on the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, it is Khrushchov himself who has succeeded to the mantle of Trotskyism and who stands the Trotskyites of today.
Trotskyism manifests itself in different ways on different questions and often wears the mask of ’ultra-leftism’, but its essence is opposition to revolution, repudiation of revolution.
As far as the fundamental fact of their opposition to the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat is concerned. Trotskyism and the revisionism of the Second International are virtually the same. This is why Stalin repeatedly said that Trotskyism is a variety of Menshevism, is Kautskyism and social democracy, and is the advanced detachment of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
In its essence, the present-day revisionism of Khrushchov also opposes and repudiates revolution. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that Khrushchov’s revisionism is not only cut from the same cloth as Kautskyism, but also converges with Trotskyism to oppose revolution, Khrushchov had better pin the label of Trotskyism on himself.[21]
Let us start with the question of method.
Both the opportunists of the Second International and the Trotskyites took up the style of making all sorts of revolutionary declarations in words to mask their abject slavery to the bourgeoisie in practice. Lenin pointed out that “The sad experience of the Second International has clearly demonstrated the immense damage caused by combining in actual practice, ’general’ revolutionary decisions, formulated in general phrases, with reformist actions ...”[22] Trotsky perfected this method with his use of ultra-revolutionary rhetoric to cover unity with opportunism and service for imperialism. As Lenin put it, “ . .. Trotsky ... screens them (the extreme opportunist Liquidators – ed.) with r-r-revolutionary phrases, which cost him nothing and do not bind them in any way.”[23] The new Browderites of the OL have taken to this same policy, to cover their chauvinism with the most “revolutionary” “general” declarations. Take their attitude to the threatened world war. The OL is for U.S. imperialism in its rivalry with the Soviet New Tsars and is oh so afraid that the Soviet social imperialism will pick up military advantages over the U.S. imperialists. To cover this, Klonsky “boldly” says in his Political Report “Our slogan of ’turn the imperialist war into a civil war’ must be transformed from a political slogan into an action slogan.”[24]
My, my, how r-r-revolutionary! The OL is not only for ’turning the imperialist war into a civil war’ when the imperialist war breaks out. Oh no. The OL even puts forward this slogan today, before the imperialist world war has broken out. Just try and let the internationalist Marxist-Leninists beat that! Who says that the OL is “ultra-rightist”? Why, the OL is the most “left” of anyone! Only, just a second there, what does it mean to “turn the imperialist war into a civil war” into an “action slogan”? Does it mean to start the armed insurrection? That is what making “civil war” into an “action slogan” actually means. Yet obviously that is not what OL has in mind. Does it mean to use mass revolutionary struggle right now to stop the threatened imperialist war? Well, not that either. Klonsky has pointed out just two paragraphs previously that, in his fatalist view, “... there is no possibility of civil war and the victory of socialism heading off the war.” In fact, according to Klonsky, “... a revolutionary situation does not presently exist in the U.S....”[25] So all this talk of “civil war” as an “action slogan” is just empty talk, hot air, striking a r-r-revolutionary pose to fool the naive and reconcile them to ultra-rightist reformist practical work. In fact, it commits OL to nothing. It hasn’t made one bit of difference in the chauvinist drivel coming out of The Call and Class Struggle, which are still denouncing “appeasement” and advising the U.S. imperialists on howbest to fight the Soviet New Tsars. The OL is still worshipping “bourgeois democracy”, prostrating itself in front of the capitalist courts and dreaming of “revolutionizing” the capitalist trade unions as a prerequisite for class struggle. They refuse to propagate active resistance in the legal cases they take up, for fear that this will harm the legal defence. Better to always shout about how powerful the police and fascists are and how the masses are being trampled to the ground, better to write headlines like “Racist Chants Haunt Dying Black Girl!” (The Call, September 26, 1977, p. 3) Meanwhile OL is fighting against those who are really preparing for civil war, who are leading the resistance movement against growing fascism and are learning how to arouse the masses in revolutionary struggle that breaks through the capitalist legality. Klonsky’s hot air about “civil war” as an “action slogan” is just the revisionist-Trotskyite method of using general revolutionary phrases which cost him nothing and which hide the fact that he is fighting against those for whom revolution is not a rhetorical flourish for a speech but a problem taken up for solution.
Actually, since OL doesn’t believe that civil war is possible prior to world war, all transforming the slogan of ”turning the imperialist war into a civil war” into an “action slogan” can mean for the OL social-chauvinists is to bring about the imperialist war. Now there’s something more to OL’s liking. It fits in with building more B-1 bombers. And it tells you which side OL will be on in the inevitable civil war.
How did Trotskyism arise and develop? Let us start with Trotsky’s career prior to when he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 for the purpose of infiltration. In this period a key question was the struggle against opportunism: economism, Menshevism, Liquidationism, otzovism (liquidationism from the “left”) and social-chauvinism. Either fight against opportunism and work to consolidate a steeled party or conciliate with opportunism. This question has great relevance for today’s struggle against social-chauvinism. Trotsky constantly vacillated back and forth from one side to the other. But in the main his policy was left phraseology and a bloc with the opportunists against the aim of the left. Trotsky did not take a premature, impetuous stand and call for a break with opportunism and Menshevism prior to when the conditions were ripe for this. No, the exact opposite. Trotsky was a notorious conciliator even with the liquidators, so named because they wanted to liquidate the underground, illegal party and replace it with mere dreams of a non-Party labour congress or a legal liberal-labour Party under Tsarist autocracy. Trotsky also conciliated social-chauvinism after World War I broke out and denounced the slogan of working for the defeat of “one’s own” government as ... a concession to social-patriotism! There you have typical Trotskyism: “militant”, “left” phrasemongering “against” social-chauvinism for the sake of uniting with the social-chauvinists in the struggle against Leninism and its slogan of “the defeat of ’one’s own’ government in the imperialist war”. Lenin aptly denounced Trotsky’s policy as “... high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism.”[26] Thus Lenin scornfully flayed Trotsky’s “high-flown phraseology” and clearly pointed to Trotsky’s constant conciliation with Menshevism and opportunism.
Trotsky always found unity with the opportunists and participated in many right opportunist groupings. It was Trotsky who was the chief organizer of the infamous anti-Party “August bloc” in 1912 which was set up to shield the liquidators and oppose the Bolsheviks. The History of the CPSU(B), 1939 edition describes Trotsky’s role as follows: “Trotsky and the Trotskyites took a liquidationist stand on all fundamental issues. But Trotsky masked his liquidationism under the guise of Centrism, that is conciliationism; he claimed that he belonged to neither the Bolsheviks nor the Mensheviks and that he was trying to reconcile. In this connection, Lenin said that Trotsky was more vile and pernicious than the open Liquidators, because he was trying to deceive the workers into believing that he was “above factions”, whereas in fact he entirely supported the Menshevik Liquidators. The Trotskyites were the principal group that fostered Centrism.” This Marxist-Leninist classic goes on to quote Comrade Stalin: “Centrism is a political concept. Its ideology is one of adaption, of subordination of the interests of the proletariat to the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie within one common party. This ideology is alien and abhorrent to Leninism.”[27] Trotsky denounced Comrade Lenin as a “dictator” and “sectarian” for calling resolutely for a break with opportunism. Various opportunists have advocated that the PL and certain other groups fell into Trotskyism by exaggerating the struggle against revisionism, although the historical fact is that PL fell into Trotskyism when it gave up the struggle against revisionism. Here we see that Trotsky himself did not exaggerate the struggle against opportunism, but was a sectarian who conciliated and advocated unity with the opportunists under cover of the most extreme “revolutionary” phrase-mongering.
After Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party he tried to destroy it from within. He was denounced and defeated in a protracted struggle led by Comrades Lenin and Stalin. Comrade Stalin wrote a number of classic works against Trotsky, such as “The Social-Democratic Deviation In Our Party”. A fine collection of these works has been published under the title On The Opposition. After Trotsky was defeated politically and ideologically, he continued to degenerate. Comrade Stalin pointed out in 1937 in Mastering Bolshevism that ” ... Trotskyism has ceased to be a political trend in the working class, that has changed from the political trend in the working class which it was seven or eight years ago into a frantic and unprincipled gang of wreckers, diversionists, spies and murderers acting on the instruction of the intelligence services of foreign states.” This is a crucial fact about Trotskyism. Today Trotskyism is a direct agency of imperialism and fascism. It has not changed its nature.
In the process of its degeneration, Trotskyism concocted a whole array of pseudo-theories, from the absurdly “left” to right opportunist ones, from dogmatic deviations to “creative” revisions of Marxism. There is a multitude of Trotskyite sects. Nevertheless there are certain basic features of Trotskyism. These include:
1. First and foremost, Trotskyism is directly in the service of imperialism.
Trotskyism long ago ceased to be a trend in the International Communist Movement and went over to direct support of imperialism. Inside the Soviet Union the Trotskyites murdered a number of revolutionary communists, like Comrades S.M. Kirov, Maxim Gorky, Menzhinsky and Kuibyshev. The Trotskyites were the nazi fifth column inside Russia. The Trotskyite so-called “Fourth International” worked internationally against the communist and workers’ movement and had extensive ties to the axis fifth column network. The Trotskyites refused to support the anti-fascist war against the axis since they worked hand-in-hand with the axis.
Today the Trotskyites are still an agency of fascism and are directly linked with imperialism. They are even angling for an open payment of several million dollars from the courts to be levied as an alleged “penalty” against the government.
2. Trotskyism denies the revolutionary potential and strength of the proletariat, denies the strength of the revolution, and opposes the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution.
In denouncing Trotsky’s “theory” of “permanent revolution”, Comrade Stalin pointed out: “Lack of faith in the strength and capacities of our revolution, lack of faith in the strength and capacity of the Russian proletariat – that is what lies at the root of the theory of ’permanent* revolution’.”[28] And he stated that “... the mistake of the Russian ’permanentists’ lay not only in their underestimation of the role of the peasantry, but also in their underestimation of the strength of the proletariat and its capacity to lead the peasantry, in their disbelief in the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat.”[29]
The Trotskyites believe in the strength of imperialism and the weakness of the revolution. Thus Trotskyism denied that the Russian proletariat could build socialism in one country and lead its allies, first and foremost, the masses of labouring peasants. This led the Trotskyites into the arms of the fascists.
3. Trotskyism denies that the proletariat has allies, and negates, first and foremost, the revolutionary potential of the masses of peasantry and the revolutionary class alliance of the workers and peasants under the leadership of the proletariat.
The Trotskyite theory of “permanent revolution” openly denounces the peasantry and “skips” the bourgeois-democratic stage of revolution under the absurdly “left” phrase-mongering of being immediately for the proletarian revolution. As the peasants form the main force (but not the leading force) in the national revolution, and as the democratic revolution is essential in arousing the peasantry, the theory of “permanent revolution” fits in well with the Trotskyite negation of the national liberation movement and opposition to the theory of national democratic or new-democratic revolution. The Trotskyites both directly serve their imperialist masters and also deny the world proletarian movement its natural ally by denouncing the great historical revolutionary current of national liberation.
The Trotskyites oppose the united front, denouncing not only the peasantry but also negating the dual, vacillating character of the national bourgeoisie in an oppressed nation and opposing progressive elements from other classes. They create maximum confusion concerning united front tactics in general.
It is very significant that the Trotskyites at the same time give the line that “all nationalism is reactionary” in order to denounce the national liberation movement and “all nationalism is progressive” in order to attach the proletariat as a tail to all sorts of dubious elements, cultural nationalists and even the Congressional Black Caucus (in the case of SWP).
4. Trotskyism denies the nature of the present epoch and denies that imperialism is moribund capitalism.
Stalin pointed out: “It is the extreme misfortune of our opposition that it does not understand the extreme importance of this difference (that “imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism” – ed.) between pre-imperialist capitalism and imperialist capitalism.
Hence the starting point for the position of our Party is the recognition of the fact that present-day capitalism, imperialist capitalism, is moribund capitalism.[30]
Stalin pointed out that the result of this was the Trotskyite line of “sapping the proletariat’s will for revolution, the line of passivity and waiting”, in contrast to the revolutionary line “of intensifying the revolutionary onslaught on one’s own bourgeoisie and giving free rein to the initiative of the proletarians Of the individual countries,...”[31]
5. Trotskyism goes to great extremes to camouflage its opportunism and service to world capitalism with “left” and “revolutionary” phrase-mongering, with “high-flown phraseology” which costs it nothing.
Trotsky started this policy to cover his unity with the opportunists against the left. Later on, this same tactic was used and still is used as a mask for the straightforward wrecking activity of the Trotskyites.
6. The Trotskyites promote the “theories” and ravings of Trotsky and slander the great Marxist-Leninist leaders. They especially go all out to launch hysterical ravings often harsher than the imperialists themselves against Comrade Stalin, Chairman Mao Tsetung and Comrade Enver Hoxha, the leaders of the International Communist Movement in the period since the death of great Lenin.
It was Trotsky who began the frenzied slanders against Comrade Stalin, accusing him of “betraying the revolution”, “liking to kill people” and other similar trash one does not like to soil this paper with. These slanders were taken up by the imperialist yellow press as their own. Tito, Khrushchov and international opportunism have continued this tradition. And to this day slanderous attacks on Comrade Stalin are connected with the desire to rehabilitate one or another renegade, such as Tito, the “Eurocommunists”, Khrushchov or Trotsky.
We shall see that OL’s ultra-right social-chauvinism leads it to unity with the social-democratic essence of the Trotskyite theses. For example, OL’s eulogies of neo-colonialism lead them to negate the hegemony of the proletariat in the national liberation movement, negate the peasantry, negate the new-democratic revolution and instead praise the comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords. That is why Eileen Klehr’s cries of “Trotskyism” are so unfortunate . ... for her. She wanted to ruin others, but she is ruining herself. Let her pin the label of Trotskyism on herself?
In order to eulogize imperialist puppets, reactionary landlords and the comprador bourgeoisie as alleged anti-imperialist fighters and even the “main force” in pushing forward history, Klehr negates the Marxist-Leninist teachings on class struggle. She negates the well-known fact, known both to Marxist-Leninists and to the colonialists themselves who have always paid great attention to the tactics of “divide and rule” and to creating traitor classes to support them, that the comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords are the main social basis of imperialist domination of a country. Klehr goes to the ridiculous extent of attacking the theory of class struggle itself as something Trotskyite, which should not be “harped on”. According to Klehr:
In short, how should the third world be summed up today? From the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism (read: social-chauvinism and Tiioism – ed.), it is the main force opposing imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism. From the viewpoint of the RCP, it is rampant with the imperialist puppets and a bastion of neo-colonialism (where else should one expect to find neo-colonies, except among the oppressed nations? – ed.)
’But what about class struggle!’ harp the Trotskyites. ’You are liquidating class struggle!’ But this is all a sham, even when echoed by the RCP. It is basically a reactionary call to skip over the first stage of national and democratic revolution in the third world, to wreck the anti-imperialist united front of all patriotic classes and strata, to deny to the proletariat its ability and duty to lead these forces and thus, finally, to sabotage the possibility of the revolution’s ever passing over to its second stage of socialist revolution.” (p. 31)
According to Klehr, it is Trotskyism to “harp” on the class struggle. She accuses the theory of class struggle of a whole list of sins, from negating the national-democratic revolution and wrecking the united front to sabotaging the possibility of reaching the socialist revolution.
Now, it is indeed Trotskyism to negate the new-democratic revolution by setting it against the socialist revolution. But the question arises, does this Trotskyite negation of the new-democratic revolution flow from the theory of class struggle? Is it the Marxist theory of class struggle that opposes developing the revolution step by step and uniting all the revolutionary forces into a united front? Klehr lists this sin and that sin of Trotskyism, but the question is: do these sins arise from the theory of class struggle? Or, on the contrary, is it absolutely necessary to make a class analysis of the forces in the oppressed nations in order to be able to lead the revolution through to victory?
All Klehr’s talk of negating the new-democratic revolution with the class struggle is, of course, “all a sham”. Klehr shares with the Trotskyites the negation of the new-democratic revolution, for she explicitly denies the possibility of revolution leading to “the overthrow of the third world governments.” (p. 33) By denying the proletariat and the peasantry in the “third world” the right to overthrow imperialist lackey governments, the theory of new-democratic revolution is thrown out the window. This is especially true since in the majority of oppressed nations under the domination of colonialism today, imperialism rules not through old-style colonialism, but through new-colonial lackeys and reactionary imperialist puppets who must be defeated by revolutionary civil war. The Chinese new-democratic revolution won victory by overthrowing the “third world government” of Chiang Kai-shek, a blood-stained imperialist lackey and murderer of communists and patriots. The national-democratic revolution in the Philippines is seeking to overthrow the U.S. puppet Marcos government and any other puppet government the imperialists might replace Marcos with. The Ethiopian new-democratic revolution is seeking to overthrow the “third world government” of the fascist puppet Mengisfu. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile is leading the Chilean people to overthrow the fascist government of Pinochet. UNITA is leading the Angolan people in struggle against the Soviet-Cuban-MPLA neo-colonial government. To deny these revolutionary peoples the right to “overthrow third world governments” is to deny them revolution, to consign them to the struggle for production while the politics, economy and whole life of the oppressed nation is monopolized in the hands of the imperialists and their trusted and well-groomed running dogs.
It is clear that both Klehr and the Trotskyites oppose the new-democratic or national-democratic revolution, one with open ultra-right phraseology, the other with “leftist” phraseology masking direct service for imperialism. So why does Klehr bring up the question of negating the^ new-democratic revolution? Solely to blame the theory of class struggle!
In fact it is only the theory of class struggle that illuminates the road forward for the oppressed nations. Class struggle is a universal Marxist law, valid for all class societies. Marx and Engels declared in the Communist Manifesto that: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” They exempted only the pre-history of society with its primitive communism. This Marxist law also applies to Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Marxists have fought against the cultural nationalists and others who denied that class analysis applied to oppressed nations. It is Marxism, the theory of class struggle, that illuminates the exact content and tasks of the bourgeois-democratic and proletarian socialist revolutions and of the necessity for the one to pass uninterruptedly into the other.
What Klehr is trying to do is hide and prettify the role of the reactionary and sold-out traitor classes. She is denying that imperialism has a social base inside a country in the feudal landlords and comprador bourgeoisie. She is denying that no national liberation struggle in history ever won victory without fighting against sold-out traitors and internal enemies. In denying these things, Klehr is going straight against Mao Tsetung Thought.
Let us examine how Chairman Mao utilized the theory of class struggle to chart the path forward for the Chinese Revolution. We will give some quotations from Chairman Mao to re-establish some basic principles concerning the motive forces and targets of revolution and the existence of internal enemies of the revolution. Klehr differs with Marxism-Leninism not on a tactic here or there, but on basic principles common to any of the tactics used in the Chinese Revolution. Any of Chairman Mao’s works from any stage of the revolution refute her. Of course, the exact alignment of class forces and the tactics changed during the course of the Chinese Revolution according to the concrete circumstances. China had three revolutionary civil wars and a war of resistance to Japan prior to liberation in 1949. The tactics used were not stereotyped but rich, living, flexible tactics based on careful study of the class alignments. There is no substitute for a thorough reading of Chairman Mao’s works. The OL and other social-chauvinists expose their great-power chauvinism by giving right opportunist dogmatic prescriptions for capitulation stereotyped for all the oppressed nations. Thus Klehr wants to give at one stroke a prescription for the relation between the comprador and national bourgeoisie good for all the oppressed nations at one time. Her prescription is – the entire bourgeoisie and class of feudal landlords in Asia, Africa and Latin America are objectively revolutionary. And she stubbornly maintains this despite ail the news readily available about the acts of the neo-colonial lackeys. What right-wing ultra-dogmatism!
In The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party, written in 1939 during the War of Resistance Against Japan, Chairman Mao identified the landlord class and the comprador bourgeoisie as the main props of the imperialist rule in China and among the targets of the revolution. He pointed out the inseparable relation between the national revolution against imperialism and the democratic revolution against feudalism. He stated: “Imperialism and the feudal landlord class being the chief enemies of the Chinese revolution at this stage, what are the present tasks of the revolution?
Unquestionably, the main tasks are to strike at these two enemies, to carry out a national revolution to overthrow foreign imperialist oppression and a democratic revolution to overthrow feudal landlord oppression, the primary and foremost task being the national revolution to overthrow imperialism. “These two great tasks are interrelated Therefore the two fundamental tasks, the national revolution and the democratic revolution, are at once distinct and united.
...It is wrong to regard the national revolution and the democratic revolution as two entirely different stages of the revolution.
He clearly pointed out that “The landlord class forms the main social base for Imperialist rule in China; it is a class which uses the feudal system to exploit and oppress the peasants, obstructs China’s political, economic and cultural development, and plays no progressive role whatsoever.”
As to the comprador big bourgeoisie, Chairman Mao denounced them, stating: “The comprador big bourgeoisie is a class which directly serves the capitalists of the imperialist countries and is nurtured by them; countless ties link it closely with the feudal forces in the countryside. Therefore, it is a target of the Chinese revolution and never in the history of the revolution has it been a motive force.”
Chairman Mao carefully pointed out that as different compradors owe their loyalty to different imperialist powers, under certain circumstances “... it becomes possible for the sections of the comprador class which serve other imperialist groupings to join the current anti-imperialist front to a certain extent and for a certain period. But they will turn against the Chinese revolution the moment their masters do.” That is, the contradictions among the compradors can be utilized by the revolutionaries, but this is due to the class struggle waged by and the correct policy of the communists and the masses of the people. In 1945 Chairman Mao summed up the role of the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang as follows: “In the past, this party carried on a counter-revolutionary civil war for ten whole years. During the War of Resistance (when it was part of the united front – ed.) it launched three large-scale anti-Communist campaigns, in 1940, 1941, 1943, each time attempting to develop the attack into a country-wide civil war. II was only because of the correct policy adopted by our Party and the opposition of the people of the whole country that its attempts failed. As everyone knows, Chiang Kai-shek, the political representative of China’s big landlords and big bourgeoisie, is a most brutal and treacherous fellow. His policy has been to look on with folded arms, wait for victory, conserve his forces and prepare for civil war.” This statement strikes like a dagger at the enthusiasm for the U.S. imperialist lackey Chiang Kai-shek’s alleged “anti-imperialist role”, which is rampant among certain forces in the U.S. who seek to justify today’s neo-colonial lackeys by reference to past imperialist lackeys.
What were the motive forces of the Chinese Revolution?’ First and foremost, Chairman Mao points out that “the Chinese proletariat is nonetheless the basic motive force of the Chinese revolution. Unless it is led by the proletariat, the Chinese revolution cannot possibly succeed.” The biggest motive force is the peasantry. “They (the poor peasants – ed.) are the broad peasant masses with no land or insufficient land, the semi-proletariat of the country-side, the biggest motive force of the Chinese revolution, the natural and most reliable ally of the proletariat and the main contingent of China’s revolutionary forces. Only under the leadership of the proletariat can the poor and middle peasants achieve their liberation, and only by forming a firm alliance with the poor and middle peasants can the proletariat lead the revolution to victory. Otherwise neither is possible. The term ’peasantry’ refers mainly to the poor and middle peasants.”
Chairman Mao also analyzes the petty-bourgeoisie and points out that “... these sections of the petty bourgeoisie constitute one of the motive forces of the revolution and are a reliable ally of the proletariat Only under the leadership of the proletariat can they achieve their liberation.”
As well, “The national bourgeoisie is a class with a dual character.” “... at certain times and to a certain extent, it can take part in the revolution against imperialism and the governments of bureaucrats and warlords and become a revolutionary force, but that at other times there is the danger of its following the comprador big bourgeoisie and acting as its accomplice in the counterrevolution.” If a reactionary regime rules a “formally independent” country, some people are very quick to label it “national bourgeois” or, if it is being courted by the Soviet social-imperialists, “radical petty bourgeois”. In fact, however, the national bourgeoisie is a very weak class. In China, although China (or parts of China) held formal independence before liberation, it was not the national bourgeoisie that really held political power. Chairman Mao points out that “The national bourgeoisie in China, which is mainly the middle bourgeoisie, has never really held political power but has been restricted by the reactionary policies of the big landlord class and big bourgeoisie which are in power, although it (the national bourgeoisie – ed.) followed them in opposing the revolution in the period from 1927-1931...” (emphasis added)
Thus what distinguishes Marxism-Leninism from Trotskyism is not that Trotskyism upholds class struggle, but the contrary;- that only Marxism-Leninism upholds class struggle and the correct class analysis. Chairman Mao clearly identified the reactionary internal enemies of the anti-imperialist revolution and the inseparable connection between fighting them and fighting imperialism.
Klehr and the social-chauvinists piously sing psalms of praise to the bourgeoisie. In the section of her article entitled “RCP Sneaks in Trotskyism”, she concocts the theory that it is Trotskyism to deny that the entire bourgeoisie in any oppressed nation is progressive. In this way, Klehr wishes to present all the ruling regimes of the formally independent countries of the “third world”, every one of them without exception, as part of “the movements for national independence” and hence objectively revolutionary. Including Iran. Much of her argument is done by sleight-of-hand behind the reader’s back, such as “forgetting” the feudal landlords or identifying the ruling regimes with the “movements for national independence”.
In this section of her article, Klehr “triumphantly” quotes Comrade Stalin giving the exact opposite line to the OL. Klehr believes that the more quotes the better, no matter what they say. The quotation goes: “Now, after the national bourgeoisie has split into a revolutionary and an anti-revolutionary wing, the picture of the national movement is assuming a somewhat different aspect. Parallel with the revolutionary elements of the national movement, compromising and reactionary elements which prefer a deal with imperialism to the liberation of their countries are emerging from the bourgeoisie.” This profound Marxist-Leninist analysis is a strong blow at all prettification of neo-colonialism. Comrade Stalin concludes from this that “The task is to unite the advanced elements of the workers in the colonial countries in a single Communist Party that will be capable of leading the growing revolution.”
But Klehr has quoted Comrade Stalin only to slap her own face: According to Klehr, the task of communists is to break up the bloc of imperialism and the sold-out bourgeoisie in order to unite the bourgeoisie again into a unified revolutionary force, the “main force” opposing imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism. Thus Klehr states that “Stalin added that the task of the proletariat in these countries was to unite independently in a communist party, to link up with the revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie, and to break up the alliance between the compromising elements and the imperialists.” (emphasis added) But what Comrade Stalin actually said was quite different, namely. “Hence the task of the communist elements in the colonial countries is to link up with the revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie, and above all with the peasantry, against the bloc of imperialism and the compromising elements of ’their own’ bourgeoisie, in order, under the leadership of the proletariat, to wage a genuinely revolutionary struggle for liberation from imperialism.” (emphasis added) Thus Klehr has distorted Comrade Stalin’s words on two points. 1) She has converted Stalin’s concept of fighting against the bloc of imperialism and the sold-out elements of t he bourgeoisie into breaking up that bloc. For example, this would mean that the Iranian people should not fight against the bloc of the feudal Shah of Iran and imperialism, but should break up that bloc and bring the Shah of Iran, the feudal landlords and the comprador big bourgeoisie into its national liberation movement. She is trying to negate the existence of neo-colonialism and of dependent countries. 2) She has forgotten a “trifle” of what Stalin says about the allies of the proletariat, that “trifle” being the peasantry! And this “forgetfulness” of the revolutionary role of the peasantry is characteristic of the Trotskyite liquidation of the anti-imperialist revolution. This “forgetting” of the peasantry is precisely one of the main fallacies of Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution”. Klehr does this because she has no faith in the proletariat and peasantry and stakes everything on the bourgeoisie and landlords.
To see the difference between Klehr’s views and Stalin’s, consider this further quotation from Comrade Stalin in 1927 on the same subject applied to the concrete conditions of China after Chiang Kai-shek’s coup.
Hence, two paths for the development of events in China: either the national bourgeoisie smashes the proletariat, makes a deal with imperialism and together with it launches a campaign against the revolution in order to end the latter by establishing the rule of capitalism; or the proletariat pushes aside the national bourgeoisie, consolidates its hegemony and assumes the lead of the vast masses of the working people in town and country, in order to overcome the resistance of the national bourgeoisie, secure the complete victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and then gradually convert it into a socialist revolution, with all the consequences flowing from that.
One or the other.
Thus Comrade Stalin emphasizes the necessity for the proletariat to lead the revolution and to lead the vast masses of the working people in town and country and says nothing whatsoever about patching the role of the bourgeoisie to make it revolutionary.
Klehr then explicitly shows what lies behind her distortion of Comrade Stalin’s remarks. She states:
But while the RCP will not go so far as to say that these two elements (the revolutionary and anti-revolutionary wing of the national bourgeoisie – Ed.) even exist in any significant way, even this would not be enough. It is necessary, furthermore, to make an assessment: Which of the elements represents the main trend of development, which is rising? On the other hand, which elements represents an adverse but parallel countercurrent, which is declining?
In short, how should the third world be summed up today? From the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism, it is the main force opposing imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism. From the viewpoint of the RCP, it is rampant with the imperialist puppets and a bastion of neocolonialism.” (emphasis added)
From these remarks of Klehr, several points are crystal-clear:
1. According to Klehr, Marxism-Leninism is “not enough”, so it is necessary to use the plea of new conditions and the sophistry of. “grasping the developing trend” to negate the analysis from Comrade Stalin that she quoted previously.
2. According to Klehr, the revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie are the main trend, which is rising, so that the whole bourgeoisie, without exception, will march through the national movement to national independence and straight to socialism. This is the bankrupt revisionist theory of the “dying out of class struggle”. It is the exact opposite of Comrade Stalin’s assessment.
3. Klehr identifies the question of which trend among the bourgeoisie is dominant with the question of “how should the third world be summed up today?” Therefore she is openly admitting that the “third world” refers to the bourgeois elements in Asia, Africa and Latin America and not to the revolutionary masses of the proletariat and peasantry and allies. She is admitting that “support for third world struggles” means support for the struggles of the ruling cliques of comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords in the neo-colonies and support for suppressing the proletariat and peasantry.
4. Klehr completely “forgets” the existence of the feudal landlords, just as she “forgets” about the revolutionary role of the peasantry. This amounts to “forgetting” the democratic revolution directed against feudalism, which is necessary to arouse the peasantry and is a component part of the national-democratic revolution. To “forget” the bourgeois-democratic revolution is also a main fallacy of Trotsky’s “theory” of “permanent revolution”. This proves that Klehr is a bitter opponent of Chairman Mao Tsetung’s great theory of new-democratic revolution. In fact, for Klehr there is no role for any revolution inlhe “third world”.
Thus Klehr has the world outlook of a diehard bourgeois. She only sees the power wielded by governments, and in the neocolonial and dependent countries she therefore eulogizes the reactionary leading cliques! while in the U.S. she kneels before U.S. imperialism. She neglects the basic elements of the masses, the proletariat and the peasantry. She calls negating the bourgeoisie Trotskyism, and in reality she means negating the Shah of Iran and Mobutu of the Congo-K (“Zaire”). Trotskyism does indeed negate the dual nature of the national bourgeoisie. Klehr negates this dual nature top, but from the other end, so to speak. But naturally, if you forget the revolution altogether, then the question of utilizing the vacillating, dual nature of the national bourgeoisie does not even present itself. And to forget the workers and peasants is to forget the revolution. Trotskyism’s major sin in stripping the proletariat of its allies is in negating the revolutionary potential of the labouring masses of the peasantry and the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat to lead the peasantry. The key question in the oppressed nations is not the competition between the local bourgeoisie and the foreign bourgeoisie, although this contradiction must be handled properly. Comrade Stalin emphasized this point in a number of famous articles. In his article “Concerning the National Question in Yugoslavia” Comrade Stalin stressed: “It is quite true that the national question must not be identified with the peasant question, for in addition to peasant questions, the national question includes such questions as national culture, national statehood, etc. But it is also beyond doubt that, after all, the peasant question is the basis, the quintessence, of the national question. That explains the fact that the peasantry constitutes the main army of the national movement, that there is no powerful national movement without the peasant army, nor can there be. That is what is meant when it is said, in essence, the national question is a peasant question.” Stalin returned to this question in the article “The National Question Once Again, Concerning the Article by Semich”. He stated: “The essence of the national question today lies in the struggle that the masses of the people of the colonies and dependent nationalities are waging against financial exploitation, against the political enslavement and cultural effacement of those colonies and nationalities by the imperialist bourgeoisie of the ruling nationality. What significance can the competitive struggle between the bourgeoisies of different nationalities have when the national question is presented in that way? Certainly not decisive significance, and, in certain cases, not even important significance.”[32]
All page references in the text which are not otherwise indicated are to Klehr’s article “Whitewashing Enemies and Slandering Friends”.
[1] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 74.
[2] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 218, “The Collapse of the Second International”
[3] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 235.
[4] Klehr, Eileen, “How RCP’s ’Theory of Equality’ Serves Soviet Social-Imperialism” in Class Struggle, Fall 1977, #8, p. 34.
[5] E. Hoxha, “Speech at the Meeting With His Electors of the No. 209 Precinct in Tirana, October 3,1974, in The Workers’ Advocate, Vol. 5, #1, Dec. 15,1974, p. 15.
[6] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 75.
[7] Klonsky. Michael, “Political Report to the Congress”, p. 21 in Documents from the Founding Congress of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), 1977. From here on, this is shortened to “Political Report”.
[8] Class Struggle, Winter 1976-77, #6. For criticism of this article, see “OL’s Theory of ’Three Worlds’ Denies Revolution and Apologizes for Neo-Colonialism”, The Workers’ Advocate, March 10, 1977.
9. [not marked in text] “Political Report”, p. 44.
10. [not marked in text] “Political Report”, p. 41.
[11] “Political Report”, p. 44.
[12] Quoted by Lenin in “Dead Chauvinism and Living Socialism”, Collected Works, vol. 21. p. 96.
[13] Klehr in Class Struggle #8, p. 42.
[14] “Political Report”, p. 40.
[15] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 276, in “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War”.
[16] J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 11, p. 209.
[17] “Political Report”, p. 40.
[18] Ibid.
[19] This interview is analyzed in the article “Andrew Young, Mouthpiece for Imperialist Pacifism”, The Workers’ Advocate, vol. 7 #4. August 1,1977.
[20] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 253.
[21] “The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchov’s Revisionism”, Eighth Comment on the Open Letter of the CC of the CPSU in The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement, p. 398.
[22] V.I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 23. p. 215.
[23] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 18, p. 24.
[24] “Political Report”, p. 45.
[25] Ibid. p. 30.
[26] V.I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 21. p. 275.
[27] History of the CPSU(B) 1939 edition, p. 136.
[28] Mao Tsetung, Selected Works, vol. 4. p. 11.
[29] J.V. Stalin. On the Opposition, p. 204, or Works, vol. 7. p. 108.
[30] J.V. Stalin. On the Opposition, p. 658, or Works, vol. 9. p. 255.
[31] J.V. Stalin. Works, vol. 7. pp. 71-72.
[32] J.V. Stalin. Works, vol. 7. p. 225.