The following article introduced the March 10, 1977 special issue of The Workers’ Advocate and reviewed its content.
This special issue of The Workers’ Advocate is devoted to the burning questions in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. With the intensification of the frenzied preparations of U.S. imperialism for war against its rival for world hegemony, Soviet social-imperialism, and the deepening of the economic crisis, and with the increasingly rapid fascization of the U.S. state, the class struggle in the U.S. has been sharpening and this is reflected inside the Marxist-Leninist movement. A trend of open Browderite social-chauvinism has emerged among those claiming to be anti-revisionist. This trend is represented in concentrated fashion by the ultra-rightist leaders of the October League. U. S. social-chauvinism is socialism in words, but Anglo-American superpower imperialist chauvinism in deeds. It is defense of U.S. world hegemony, of the U. S. imperialist heartland, of U. S. colonies and neo-colonies, against both “theft” by another superpower and also against true liberation by revolution. This open social-chauvinism defends not only the interests of the U. S. monopoly capitalist class in general, not only the profits of “our own” monopoly capitalist dictators, but also precisely the interests of the monopoly capitalist state itself. As U. S. imperialism prepares for an imperialist third world war, more terrible than the last two, social-chauvinism comes up to defend the imperialist state machine and its main component, the armed forces. This social-chauvinism is waving the red-white-and-blue against the New Tsars of the Soviet Union, directing the “main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism, denying proletarian revolution in the U.S. and joining U.S. imperialism’s sham “anti-Soviet social-imperialist front”.
In the U.S. true proletarian internationalism is only expressed by the resolute struggle for revolution against “our own” exploiters, the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators. Once revolution is thrown out the window, proletarian internationalism goes too. Those who anxiously worry about maintaining the “balance of power” between the superpowers allegedly to maintain peace have openly betrayed revolution out of fear of war. They are bold and “Marxist” when it comes to exposing the fascist nature of Soviet social-imperialism, but are weak-kneed, blindfolded liberals when it comes to exposing the fascist nature of U.S. imperialism. The U.S. monopoly capitalist blood-suckers not only savagely exploit the oppressed masses in the U.S., but U.S. imperialism is also the biggest neo-colonial power in the world. Only by fighting to overthrow the criminal rule of the U. S. monopoly capitalists can the American proletariat express its solidarity with the fighting peoples of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, with the oppressed masses groaning under revisionist rule in the Soviet Union, with the downtrodden masses in all the other capitalist and revisionist countries, and with the proletarian state power in the socialist countries.
The rise of open social-chauvinism is not an accident. Conditions have been prepared for it by the long corrosion of neo-revisionism (revisionism falsely flying the flag of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought) inside the Marxist-Leninist movement. Neo-revisionism comes from adapting New Leftism to Marxism-Leninism. The opportunist lines that corrupted the student movement were transferred into the workers’ movement – that is neo-revisionism. Yesterday’s New Leftist, today’s trade unionists. Neo-revisionism negated the Party by setting building the Party against building the mass movement. It denied the role of consciousness among the masses and adopted the vulgar “left economist” approach to the masses. It denied that revisionism was the main danger at present in the communist movement and instead sought to stop the struggle between Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and revisionism by advocating in one form or other that “ultra-leftism” was the main danger. It prettified the imperialist state and the growing fascism and went into raptures over “bourgeois democracy”. The rise of open social-chauvinism from the neo-revisionist trend is the beginning of the bankruptcy of neo-revisionism.
Open Browderism is trying to fly the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. This fact must be given full weight. In order to oppose social-chauvinism, it is necessary to settle accounts with modern revisionism and particularly Browderism. Now is a time very much like that of the open debates against Khrushchovite revisionism of the early 1960’s. If the Marxist-Leninists do not seize the time to repudiate revisionism and opportunism and clarify political line for the American revolution, then social-chauvinism and opportunism will seize a stranglehold that will last a long time on the revolutionary mass movements and the storm that is about to erupt.
This issue of The Workers’ Advocate contains the article entitled “Marxist-Leninists, Unite! Denounce Social-Chauvinism! Build the Party Through the Repudiation of Revisionism and Opportunism!” This article sets forth the fighting task of the American Marxist-Leninists to build the Party through struggle against social-chauvinism. It opposes the clique-building schemes of the Browderite leaders of the OL to have a short period of so-called “organizational consolidation” of the Party in order to stop the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism and to consolidate social-chauvinism. The article points out that modern revisionism was never thoroughly repudiated in the U.S. and sets forth the urgent task of settling accounts with revisionism. It outlines a number of burning issues in the revolutionary movement, mainly centering around the question of the attitude towards the monopoly capitalist state machine, towards which social-chauvinism has been shamelessly promoting the most craven capitulation and outright alliance.
This issue also contains an article “Once Again on OL’s Social-Chauvinist Theory of Directing the Main Blow at Soviet Social-Imperialism”. This article explodes OL’s clumsy attempt to turn Comrade Stalin into a social-chauvinist in order to give its social-chauvinism a theoretical justification and thus “render more profound” its opportunism. OL turns somersaults and transforms dialectics into lying sophistry in order to “explain” how one can direct the “main blow” at the foreign enemy, at the other imperialist superpower, in the American proletarian revolution. This is the theoretical basis for OL’s constant urging of the U. S. government to drop imperialist pacificism (frenzied but concealed war-mongering) in favor of open war-mongering. But Comrade Stalin’s writings on the direction of the “main blow” are just a powerful reiteration of Lenin’s profound observation that “.. .the fight against imperialism is a sham and a humbug unless it is inseparably linked up with the fight against opportunism. “These Marxist-Leninist teachings are in fact a stirring call for all American Marxist-Leninists to take up the fight against social-chauvinism as an indispensable part of the preparations for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution.
This issue also contains an article on OL’s version of the theory of “Three Worlds”. The essence of OL’s social-chauvinist theory of “Three Worlds” is the denial of revolution, an apology for U. S. neo-colonialism and the denial of the proletarian revolution in the U. S. This theory denies the international forces of socialism and freedom. It seeks to detach the national liberation movement from the world socialist revolutionary movement in order to hitch the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America to the U. S. nuclear umbrella. It calls for an alliance between the “Second World” and “Third World”, thus replacing the Leninist analysis of imperialism with reactionary, wishful thinking about the big powers in Western Europe and Japan changing their imperialist “policies”. OL’s theory of “Three Worlds” as a “great strategic concept” of world revolution is in fact a theory of all-round capitulation to the reactionary international big bourgeoisie and particularly to U. S.-led western imperialism, a theory of mobilizing the “Second World” and “Third World” behind the U.S. imperialist war front against the Soviet social-imperialists.
The American communist movement is but one contingent in the international communist movement. In the international communist movement, there is struggle between opportunism and Marxism-Leninism. Comrade Enver Hoxha has stepped forward in these turbulent times following the death of the great leader Chairman Mao to lead the international communist movement. He is following in the footsteps of Marx, En-gels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tsetung. His “REPORT TO THE SEVENTH CONGRESS OF THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA” is a Marxist-Leninist classic that must be read over and over again. We reprint in this issue a number of documents from the international communist movement, such as: “Joint Statement of the Delegations of Marxist-Leninist Parties of Latin America”, “Internationalist Rally Held on the Occasion of the Closing of the Third Congress of the Communist Party of Germany (Marxist-Leninist)” and “Grand Internationalist Rally of the Communist Party of Italy (Marxist-Leninist)”. And we print the program of the rally for the closing of the 3rd Congress of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). The 3rd Congress will be a Congress of international significance. The CPC(M-L) is the first party to be reconstituted on the Marxist-Leninist basis in North America. It is waging a valiant fight against constant attacks by the state and by the opportunists. In order to disrupt the 3rd Congress and the Party, the reactionary Canadian state has started a big despicable frame-up against the CPC(M-L)’s Chairman, Comrade Hardial Bains. We denounce the reactionary Canadian government that, at the baton of U. S. imperialism and domestic monopoly capitalism is attacking the Party of the Canadian proletariat and its Chairman. Every true Marxist-Leninist should rally to the defense of CPC(M-L) and Comrade Hardial Bains and those who can should attend this historic rally.
Marxism has always developed in the struggle against opportunism. The rise of open social-chauvinism is of course a bad thing. But we are confident that the struggle against social-chauvinism will cleanse the Marxist-Leninist ranks of the opportunist filth that has been accumulating for some time and help forge unity behind the Marxist-Leninist political line. It will lead towards the reconstitution of the Party in the U.S. Thus a bad thing will be turned into a good thing. Let all Marxist-Leninists unite to lead the American proletarian revolution as our sacred proletarian internationalist duty and as part of the world proletarian revolution! Let all American Marxist-Leninists fight as a loyal contingent in the international communist movement, forever loyal to our leader Comrade Enver Hoxha, and guided by the immortal teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha. Marxist-Leninists – unite in the struggle against social-chauvinism!