We are living in a time of tumult and disorder, a time of great upheavals. U.S. monopoly capitalism is flailing around in despair, committing innumerable crimes as it tries to overcome its all-round crisis – crisis of over-production, fiscal crisis, utter spiritual decay, political crisis of “confidence”, etc. The whole capitalist and revisionist world is gripped in deep crisis. Socialist revolution in the capitalist (including the revisionist) countries, and national liberation in the oppressed nations, is not a distant prospect, but an urgent problem to be taken up for solution. Revolution is the main trend in the world today.
It is a matter of great joy that the U. S. monopoly capitalist dictators are meeting opposition everywhere. The last few years have seen a glorious festival of national liberation. Domestically, there is a protracted upsurge in the U.S. workers’ movement, heralding a far larger storm to come. The heroic Afro-American people have given the state-organized fascist anti-busing movement a good thrashing. Other revolutionary mass movements, among students, oppressed nationalities and immigrants, have also stirred.
However, this is no time for complacency. No matter how deep the crisis, U. S. monopoly capitalism will not perish of its own accord. The weaker the U.S. ruling class becomes, the more vicious it gets in its deathbed struggles. The monopoly capitalists are launching a fascist offensive against the people. They are preparing for war. They are seeking to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the American working class and oppressed nationalities at home and onto the oppressed countries abroad. In 1976 they made big profits by intense speed-ups and wide-scale lay-offs. They are continuing to make large cuts in the real hourly wage, mainly through increases in taxation, licenses and fees of all kinds and through the run-away inflation in such necessities as energy, health care, transportation, and food.
Internationally, U. S. imperialism will remain aggressive as long as it has a single tooth left in its head. It is pursuing a savagely aggressive policy towards the bastions of world revolution, China and Albania, both threatening them with military pressure and attempting to subvert them from within in conjunction with the local capitalist-roaders. The U.S. still occupies China’s province of Taiwan and colludes with social-imperialism to encircle Albania. The U.S. imperialists are desperately trying to win back lost positions and capture new ones in Asia, Africa and Latin America: The U. S. is carrying on an intense campaign to subvert the national liberation struggles in southern Africa; it is utilizing the Soviet neo-colonial government in Angola to push its hand into Angola again; it directed the bloody coup in Thailand; and, along with the Soviet Union, it instigated the slaughter in Lebanon. The U. S. imperialists seek to subject the whole world to their domination, bullying and hegemony.
The U.S. imperialists are preparing for war with the New Tsars of the Soviet Union, who are challenging the U. S. for world domination. The Soviet Union once was a bright red land of socialism under the great leaders Lenin and Stalin. It has become a dark fascist, capitalist state under first Khrushchov and now Kosygin and Brezhnev. Capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union, and the New Tsars are nothing but a bunch of social-imperialists, socialists in words and imperialists in deeds. The two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, are the leaders of the world system of imperialism. They are both colluding and contending, but whether they work together or they fight each other, it is the people of the world who pay the bill. Their rivalry is leading to a new world war, more terrible than the last. But no matter how sharp the contention among the imperialists, the fundamental and main division in the world remains that between the forces of imperialism and slavery on one hand and the forces of freedom and socialism on the other. The superpowers aim their attack first and foremost at the revolution. One cannot rely on either superpower to fight the other, and one cannot join the sham “anti-U. S. imperialist front” of the Soviet New Tsars or take part in the sham “anti-Soviet social-imperialism” of the U.S. imperialists without becoming a pawn in the imperialist intrigues.
In order to increase exploitation at home and continue their frenzied war-mongering abroad, the U. S. monopoly capitalists are fascizing the state to the maximum. The big bourgeoisie has been arming itself to the teeth. The major industrial city of Detroit, the site of the greatest Afro-American rebellion in 1967, was forced into bankruptcy and fiscal crisis mainly over vastly increased expenses for the police. The capitalists are using the state to organize fascist mass movements, such as the fascist anti-busing movement and the hysteria on the question of social crime. In all the attempts to create fascist mass movements, attacks on the Afro-American people are the cutting edge of the campaign.
The capitalists rule not just by force, but also by political deception. They seek to divert the workers’ movement with social-democracy and revisionism, which is spread by the trade union big-wigs and the opportunists and finds fertile soil among the labor aristocracy. The election of Carter is a big part of the capitalists’ fascist offensive and preparations for war. The Democratic Party presents itself as the “party of the workers and the minorities”, yet it has the same program as the Republican Party of fascist Nixon. During this winter’s fake “natural gas shortage”, Carter called for the masses to turn their thermostats down and freeze while paying higher and higher prices to the oil monopolies, just as Nixon did before him during the fake “energy crisis” of 1973-4. The main way the Democratic Party tries to regain the “confidence” of the people and lull them to sleep is by presenting their program as of “full employment” and “jobs”. But the Democrats do propaganda for “national economic planning” in order to pave the way for that inseparable part of all capitalist economic planning, wage controls, and to further integrate the trade unions into the government apparatus and force workers to take slave-labor jobs under the hoax of “putting America back to work” and getting people off welfare. Beware! The Carter-Democratic Party criticism of the Republicans was only for lacking the “strong leadership” necessary to force the Nixonite fascist program down the throats of the American people.
We are thus facing a period of intense class struggle. The workers’ movement is surging forward. The capitalists have launched a fascist offensive against the working class and oppressed nationalities. They are preparing to split the coming revolutionary people’s movements by increasing their political deception via the Carter government and also by installing some “fighting” social-democratic hacks in the trade union bureaucracy.
In this complex situation, the fundamental point is that the revolutionaries cannot rely on spontaneity. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. For this resistance to be successful, for all the mass movements to grow and not be liquidated, for them to merge into one irresistible storm of antifascist, proletarian socialist revolution, there must be a genuine communist party based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Only the Party of the proletariat can lead the struggle of the American working and oppressed people to victory.
Today the communist party has still not been rebuilt. The question on everyone’s mind is: how will the Party be built? What is preventing unity? There is a Marxist-Leninist movement. Inside this movement a number of trends and organizations have taken shape. While there are many views and many voices being raised, fundamentally all the conflicts boil down to a struggle between Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on the one hand and revisionism and opportunism on the other. The main danger in the U. S. communist movement, as in the world communist movement, is still modern Khroshchovite revisionism. It is the prevalence of opportunism and the influence of revisionism that has prevented the unity of the Marxist-Leninists. Revisionism and opportunism are synonymous with splits, lack of unity and social-chauvinism. Today neo-revisionism (revisionism falsely flying the banner of Mao Tsetung Thought) has sickened to the point where it has given rise to an open social-chauvinist trend, a trend of arrogant superpower chauvinism bumbling around trying to quote the Marxist-Leninist classics. This Anglo-American chauvinist trend is represented in a concentrated fashion by the political line of the October League (Marxist-Leninist) and its Browderite leaders, such as the long-time rightist Mike Klonsky. The OL seeks to rally the American workers behind the U. S. monopoly capitalists under the banner of striking the “main blow” at the Soviet social-imperialists. The OL is inciting the U.S. workers to slaughter the Soviet workers in a future imperialist world war, thus splitting the international proletariat. The OL has proposed its solution to the question of building the party – that there should be quick organizational consolidation behind the social-chauvinism of the OL, that the Marxist-Leninist movement should give up the struggle against all forms of revisionism, such as social-chauvinism, in order to join the group allegedly “recognized” as “official” by certain other parties.
The COUSML calls on all upright Marxist-Leninists to oppose the party building plan of the OL and to reconsider and discard all other party building plans that detach party building from opposing social-chauvinism and carrying out the historic tasks needed to advance the American revolution and that thus degrade party building to being an allegedly purely “organizational” question of the organizational fusion of idlers, wanderers and dubious elements. The OL has stated in their 1977 New Year’s Editorial of The Call that: “While the task of uniting the Marxist-Leninists and winning the advanced workers will go on long after the first Congress, the organizational building of the party is the most crucial step at this point. ” According to the OL, “The growing trend of communist unity made its greatest gains yet in the U. S. the last year. Although the new Marxist-Leninist party was not formed in 1976,..., the conditions for its founding in 1977 were firmly laid. Most importantly, communist groups, including the October League, united together into the Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party (OC). “It is quite clear that the OL regards the task of party building in 1977 as simply being a brief period of “organizational building of the party” prior to the first Congress, during which an ill-assorted mish-mash of groups will fuse together. And after the first Congress, OL regards the task of continuing to unite the Marxist-Leninists as also just being a question of adding more numbers. Fusion of an ill-assorted mish-mash, this is the profound essence of the OL’s plan. By this “organizational building of the party”, the OL hopes to put a lid on the very vigorous situation of debate and discussion among the masses of activists on social-chauvinism and other questions of political line.
Party-building cannot be separated from the clarification of political line for the American revolution. Today the situation is rather lively inside the U. S. Marxist-Leninist movement. The emergence of the open social-chauvinist line of directing the “main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism is the beginning of the total bankruptcy of neo-revisionism. All fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism are being passionately debated, investigated and fought over among the masses of activists. Experience is being summed up. In a sense, a situation exists today very much like that of the period of the great debates against Khrushchovite revisionism in the early 1960’s. Only today we have great Mao Tsetung Thought and the experience of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to guide us! In such a period, it would produce truly tragic results to confuse the question of party building with that of organizational fusion. If the Marxist-Leninists do not seize the time to intensify the work of party building by providing political clarification and repudiating revisionism and opportunism, then opportunism and social-chauvinism will win a stranglehold on the revolutionary mass movement that will last for a long time. Today, to advance the urgent task of party building, one must carry the struggle against revisionism through to the end and clarify the political line for the American revolution. Unity can be won only by fighting the forces of disunity, only by defeating revisionism.
We are opposed to the method of organizational fusion, but we are not opposed to individuals and groups uniting. On the contrary, it is only political clarification and repudiation of revisionism and opportunism that will lead to the unity of all revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and to building a Communist Party that is steeled and consolidated on all fronts, politically, organizationally and ideologically. We have never been in favor of the line of forming “pre-party collectives” and we have not changed our minds now. We think it is a good thing when Marxist-Leninist individuals or groups take a conscious attitude to the different trends and then enthusiastically take part in the historical process of uniting the Marxist-Leninists by taking responsibility for their views and uniting with other Marxist-Leninists. In this, we are totally opposed to the opportunist attitude of petty-minded characters like the leaders of the OL, who continually exhibit petty-bourgeois competitiveness and jealousy. The double-dealers of the OL ranted and raved against the formation of the Revolutionary Communist Party, calling it premature and a “get-rich-quick” scheme in order to be able to turn around and do the same thing themselves. For our part, there are two points in our attitude towards the formation of the RCP: (1) We opposed it when the Revolutionary Union called the Congress to found the RCP because this act did damage to the Marxist-Leninist movement, was carried out as the practical consequence of the theory that party building is only an important task for a brief period prior to the Party Congress, and was an attempt to bring an end to the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism by consolidating a neo-revisionist trend. It is for the same reasons that we oppose OL’s call for a founding Congress, except that with OL, neo-revisionism has now degenerated into open social-chauvinism; (2) But it was the attempt to do damage to the Marxist-Leninist movement that we opposed, not RCP’s organizational consolidation per se. In fact, we think that the RCP’s development is not a bad thing, but a good thing, in that independently of the will of the leaders of the RCP – who had wished to end the struggle for political clarification with their Congress – it has only intensified that struggle.
It is significant that those who are advocating organizational fusion behind social-chauvinism under the signboard of the “organizational building of the party” do not even understand the strictly organizational side of party building. It is no secret that for OL the Party is just a loose Browderite educational association with some special sectarian principles tacked on, while the “Organizing Committee” is just a pretext for building cliques and organizing conspiracies with dubious elements. A number of organizations which still had soft ears for OL have complained of the arbitrary and high-handed manner in which OL has refused to even try to sort out its differences with them. We stress that the formation of the Party will not end the period of party building, even on the organizational side, but will instead usher in a period of more intense consolidation and steeling of the Party. The question at this time is not fusion of the various groups. Nor is the question one of drawing innumerable paper “dividing lines” that supposedly throw various organizations out of the Marxist-Leninist movement. The question is to wage vigorously the struggle inside the Marxist-Leninist movement against opportunism and revisionism and in favor of unity of all revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. It is not a bad thing, but a good thing that opportunism and social-chauvinism have come out of hiding and are trying to openly stand on their own feet – if swaggering around drunk with the support of international opportunism can be counted as standing on one’s own feet – for this gives rise to the maximum possibilities of repudiating the opportunist rot and to the maximum discussion among the widest circles of revolutionary activists and politically-minded workers on the burning issues of the revolution.
The COUSML holds that the Party comes about as the result of a historical process and is not the property of one sect or a few individuals. When someone wants to organize the Party, they should consult with other Marxist-Leninists. This is the method we have consistently followed. When the Cleveland Workers Action Committee decided to take up the historical tasks facing the American Marxist-Leninists by organizing in 1969 the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), the first national center for the dissemination of Mao Tsetung Thought, it consulted with the other Marxist-Leninists and sought to unite them. Some Marxist-Leninists united. Others called themselves “Marxist-Leninist” but refused to unite because they wished to build local pre-party collectives or else they wished ACWM(M-L) to take up special sectarian principles as the price of unity; in short, opportunism and neo-revisionism prevented unity. The organizations and individuals contacted included the Bay Area Revolutionary Union, the California Communist League, and Mike Klonsky. The “Call for a Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists” was issued in 1972 in the same manner. It was a general call and the Preparatory Committee for the Conference sought to consult with and unite with all the Marxist-Leninist organizations.
In order to study seriously the method of uniting the Marxist-Leninists, it will be quite worthwhile to review the lessons from the campaign “Marxist-Leninists, Unite!” that was centered around the “Call for a Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists”, issued in November, 1972.
The campaign “Marxist-Leninists, Unite!” played a decisive role in bringing to the masses of activists consciousness of the importance of party building and smashing the theory of the party emerging spontaneously from the mass movement. Prior to the “Call for a Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists”, the theory of “pre-party collectives” was dominant. Let us recall the political atmosphere of those times by looking at OL’s line in 1973, particularly because OL has created the myth that it allegedly “always” stood for party building. As late as March-May 1973 the OL published in its paper The Call a three-part article entitled “Building a New Communist Party in the United States”. This article gave lip-service to the party, while proposing a plan of building local collectives that merge through their practical work. The OL did not anywhere in these articles call for unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism or for the Marxist-Leninists to take up the historic national tasks of the American revolution. Instead the plan of building local collectives would keep the Marxist-Leninists scattered, divided and weak, and they would then have little choice but to engage in marriages of convenience on the basis of “practical cooperation”. The article stated: “To help forge unity, as much practical cooperation as possible between the different groups should be encouraged. As they begin to develop unity in the course of practical work, organizational unity will become more of a reality. They must consult and work jointly in the united front and factory work whenever possible... “As to the type of practical work that these groups were to unite on, the article emphasizes the “united front” tasks of “pushing forward the work in the plants of organizing strikes, working in the unions and building up the caucuses and other rank-and-file movements,...” and “... the daily work of building the rank-and-file caucuses and intermediate or city-wide organizations...” The collectives were not to be built on the basis of opposing revisionism, but of opposing “ultra-leftism”. The article stated: “However, while modern revisionism, or right opportunism is the main ideological enemy which confronts the world revolutionary movement, within the newly-emerging communist movement here, the main danger is ’leftism’ and sectarianism. Without a staunch struggle against sectarianism, dogmatism and ultra-’leftism’ in general, all the cries for a new party won’t mean a thing.” As to what was wrong with the “ultra-leftists”, OL stated “Most importantly, the present-day ultra-’leftists’ oppose the strategy of the united front against imperialism.” At that time the “united front against imperialism” had not yet degenerated into the “united front against Soviet social-imperialism”. The OL set “united front” work, which they conceived as narrow trade unionism as quoted above, against party building, and they opposed communist revolutionary propaganda as “ultra-left” and “dry, stale dogma”. The OL used these ideas as its yellow banner for refusing to even try to sort out political line with the Preparatory Committee, for denouncing The Call “Marxist-Leninists, Unite!”, and for perpetuating splits and opportunism among the Marxist-Leninists.
It was the campaign to unite the Marxist-Leninists that went against the neo-revisionist negation of the party concept. The “Call for a Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists” ushered in a period of motion and re-alignment, a period of vigorous political discussion on the basic points of Marxism, among the Marxist-Leninists. The struggles around this call dominated Marxist-Leninist politics in the U.S. until 1974 or even early 1975. It is from the time of this call that the question of party building has come to the fore as the most burning issue in the Marxist-Leninist movement. The COUSML was founded during this campaign in August, 1973, in order to further contribute to the unity of the Marxist-Leninists and to continue to hold high the banner of Marxist-Leninist unity.
The chief weakness of the campaign “Marxist-Leninists, Unite!” was that it laid an incorrect emphasis on organizational consolidation. Comrades who are following the Marxist-Leninist political line are already united, and will readily respond to the general call to build the Party. The political and theoretical level of the American communist movement is very low, and to defeat the opportunism that keeps the Marxist-Leninists divided it is necessary to lay emphasis on repudiating revisionism and elaborating the Marxist-Leninist political line for the American revolution. Theoretical work is necessary. In so far as the campaign to unite the Marxist-Leninists engaged in wide-scale dissemination of political line, it succeeded – in so far as it tried organizational fusion, it failed. During the campaign, there were various plans to fuse groups. This reflected our enthusiastic sentiment to unite and then to use the united Marxist-Leninist organization to further the struggle against revisionism, as well as our disdain to maintain special sectarian principles of our own. But while our sentiment was good, our judgment was wrong. As a result of our mistake on the question of organizational fusion, various alien forces tried to use the campaign in order to infiltrate the Marxist-Leninist movement.
The main attack was launched by the leaders of the so-called “Communist” League (now called the “Communist Labor” Party of the USNA), which would later jump out as open trotskyite agents of Soviet social-imperialism. The “Communist” League opposed the vigorous work of the ACWM(M-L), the Association of Communist Workers and others against neo-revisionism on the grounds that wide-scale dissemination of Marxism was allegedly to “invite everyone off the street to the conference”. The “C”L held that the discussion on political line and the sorting out of differences should take place merely between the leaderships of the organizations, and that the masses of activists had no role to play in the motion and re-alignment in the communist movement. The “C”L parasitized off the Preparatory Committee, learned the entire plan, and then duplicated its own opportunist version of the plan to gain currency in the communist movement. In “C”L’s infiltration of the communist movement it was, of course, aided by the chieftains of the neo-revisionist organizations, who for their own sectarian purposes maintained a conspiracy of silence about the ACWM(M-L) and COUSML while promoting “C”L as allegedly the main organization behind the campaign to unite the Marxist-Leninists. However, we ourselves made another serious error of judgment that aided “C”L’s infiltration by not publicly denouncing “C”L’s political lines till the latter half of 1974 when we issued the thorough-going pamphlet “Dialectics of the Development of Nelson Peery’s Head” and restraining ourselves prior to then to pointing out that “C”L had engaged in splitting activity with regard to the Preparatory Committee and the Conference. Besides “C”L, the U.S. political police also attacked the campaign “Marxist-Leninists, Unite!” and, as part of Operation CHAOS, used agents such as FBI agent Joe Burton. Mr. Burton’s task, as he revealed in April 1975 on the David Susskind TV show, and in interviews with The New York Times, was particularly to sabotage any unity between the American Marxist-Leninists and the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), the first communist party to be reconstituted in North America. Burton’s method was to head up a police-socialist collective in Tampa, Florida, which was far from any city in which we had units, and then to try to present himself on that basis as a leader who should be brought into the plans. During the campaign we and finally the whole Marxist-Leninist movement eventually weeded out “C”L and the other agents, but they did far more damage than they need have. This experience proves the bankruptcy of the method of fusion, even when that method is purged of the intrigues and conspiracies that it degenerates into in the hands of OL and various opportunists. We found that the method of fusion forced us, against our will, to deviate from our practice of judging everyone by deeds and not words. If anyone wishes to join COUSML, they must apply individually. We hold that even if several organizations merge to create a new one, the new organization should sort out its members individually and not as people having status with a previous group.
Perhaps someone may suggest that the problem was not with the line of fusion and organizational consolidation, but with our attempt to sort out differences with such a bad group as “C”L. Such a view would be excessively narrow-minded. It was no more wrong to deal with “C”L prior to their jumping out decisively as pro-Soviet trotskyites, than it was for us in the same campaign to try to sit together with organizations like OL, although Mike Klonsky later jumped out as a raving social-chauvinist. It is necessary to take a very objective attitude towards organizations claiming to be Marxist-Leninist. Sorting out the revisionists, opportunists and anti-communists hiding under the banner of their sort of “Marxism-Leninism” from the actual Marxist-Leninists, including those who may temporarily be adhering to opportunist positions on various issues, is a complicated, painstaking task. The innumerable “dividing lines” that are all the rage today are of no help here. Today a factional attitude is widely promoted, that all Marxist-Leninist organizations should engage in as many factional fights as possible, polemicize with and attack by name all other organizations on the maximum number of different points. This rampant factionalism is only of use to the bourgeoisie – it shields the revisionists and renders the Marxist-Leninist movement open to the provocations of police-socialism. We have, in the main, always held ourselves aloof from this factionalism and taken a serious attitude to judging when it was necessary to criticize by name other organizations claiming to be against revisionism and for Marxism-Leninism.
The rise of open social-chauvinism under the banner of directing the “main blow at Soviet social-imperialism” is the most significant recent event in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. Social-chauvinism is the most concentrated expression of Anglo-American chauvinism in the Marxist-Leninist movement, and its emergence from the neo-revisionist trend is the most striking result of the long-standing inner corrosion of revisionism inside the communist movement. The social-chauvinist line of siding with the U. S. monopoly capitalists in their war preparations against the Soviet New Tsars inevitably reminds one of Browder’s Anglo-American chauvinist line that “Communism is twentieth-century Americanism”, especially when one looks at certain publications of the OL which are printed in red-white-and-blue. Historical experience merits attention. In the U.S., as elsewhere, Marxism has only developed in the struggle against opportunism. To understand the significance of neo-revisionism going bankrupt and giving rise to open social-chauvinism, one must keep in mind the profoundly important historical fact that modern revisionism – revisionism of the Browder, Tito, Khrushchov type – has never been thoroughly repudiated in the U.S.
The question of Browderite revisionism must be taken very seriously. Historically, Browder preceded Tito and Khrushchov as a path-breaker for modern revisionism. Browderism had international significance, and it not only poisoned the Communist Party of the U.S.A., but also contaminated a number of other proletarian parties including in Latin America and Canada. Browder himself acknowledged the close relationship between Browderism and Khrushchovite revisionism and wrote in 1960 that “Khrushchov has now adopted the ’heresy’ for which I was kicked out of the Communist Party in 1945”, and he stated that Khrushchov’s policy “is almost word for word the same line I advocated fifteen years ago. So my crime has become – at least for the moment – the new orthodoxy”. (Earl Browder, “How Stalin Ruined the American Communist Party”, Harper’s Magazine, March 1960.) Browderism first liquidated the political line of the Communist Party of the USA and then liquidated the Party itself in 1944, replacing it by an educational association, the “Communist Political Association”. Although Browderism was opposed by many American communists such as Comrade William Z. Foster and the CPUSA was reconstituted, still Browderism was not thoroughly repudiated and revisionism continued to corrode the CPUSA from within. Thus the CPUSA became an early avid supporter of Khrushchov and degenerated rapidly into a bourgeois, great-power chauvinist, fascist party.
After the degeneration of the CPUSA, the burning question for the American Marxist-Leninists was to repudiate modern revisionism and reconstitute a genuine Communist Party of the American proletariat. In 1962 the Progressive Labor Movement (which became the Progressive Labor Party in 1965) was founded as the first national anti-revisionist center in the U. S. Filled with enthusiasm to split with revisionism, many Marxist-Leninists rallied around PL. For a period, PL strived to uphold Marxism-Leninism, and it did lead some mass struggles and reprint a number of important documents from the international communist movement. But PL was unable to rise to the tasks before it. A careful examination of PL’s documents shows that right from the start PL had an extremely weak grasp of the nature of revisionism. And finally PL reached a point where it stopped fighting revisionism and opportunism altogether and adopted the entire method and style of work of the revisionists, only hidden under “left” phrases. PL was unable to make concrete analysis of the burning questions of the American revolution, and instead adopted its notorious style of worker chauvinism, of crudely and mechanically reducing every question to “the workers versus the bosses”. PL then set itself in opposition to the mass movements, attacked the national liberation struggles including that of the Vietnamese people, took up the U.S. great-power chauvinist line that “all nationalism is reactionary”, attacked the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Mao Tsetung Thought, and degenerated into the trotskyite sect it is today.
Why did PL fail? The first national anti-revisionist center fell because it was unable to settle accounts with revisionism, with Browderism and right opportunism. This fact has profound implications for the present task of re-establishing the Party. Take, for example, PL’s line on the massive student movement of the 60’s. At first PL advocated doing communist work on the campuses and building an anti-imperialist student movement, and it initiated the May 2nd Movement. However, SDS came into national prominence and PL had to deal with SDS’s official ideology of “New Leftism” that was the illegitimate child of social-democracy and revisionism. PL decided to deal with the actual mass motion that was reflected in SDS by giving up the struggle against opportunism. Opportunism, in the form of “New Leftism”, was declared to be “objectively progressive”. On this basis PL liquidated the May 2nd Movement in 1966 and had its members move into SDS and follow the policy of being very quiet about politics and simply being hard workers, the people who volunteered to be on all the committees, to stay up all night with the mimeograph machine, etc. Thus PL sought to gain influence in SDS not on the basis of Marxist-Leninist political line, but on the basis of having capitulated to opportunism. PL did gain some influence and, in 1967, to distinguish itself from the other New Leftists, it then came forward with its sectarian program of opposition to the student movement, under the slogan of the Worker-Student Alliance (originally the Student-Labor Alliance). This is a vivid example of how PL fell not from an “ultra-left” exaggeration of the struggle against revisionism, but from having ceased to struggle against revisionism and opportunism.
The degeneration of PL left the mass movements of the 60’s without leadership. The revisionists and trotskyites actually collaborated with the capitalists in suppressing the people’s movements. Yet a great storm of mass struggle shook the U. S. The question of what path, what orientation for the revolutionary movement was pressing. All sorts of revisionist and opportunist theories were promoted: New Leftism, terrorism, anarchism, reformism, cultural nationalism, etc. The decadent imperialist culture wreaked havoc. It was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that brought Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to the whole world. Many revolutionary activists summed up the lessons of the 60’s and decided that only Mao Tsetung Thought showed the path forward. But this only took place in the course of a bitter struggle against opportunism. The Soviet revisionists promoted Castroism (Debray-ism, Guevara-ism) as the radical-sounding alternative to Marxism-Leninism. The New Leftists jumped from theory to theory, today a Castroite, tomorrow a “Maoist”, and even consented to wave the precious Red Book a little, but remained silent on the significance of Mao Tsetung Thought and tried to suppress with silence the important documents of the international communist movement.
Thus the glorious heritage left us by the revolutionary movements of the 60’s was the recognition of the need to take up Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and to use this scientific theory to guide the American revolution to victory. But accounts had not yet been settled with revisionism, and the trend of neo-revisionism arose on the basis of adapting Marxism-Leninism to New Leftism. For example, a number of New Left leaders rose in SDS on the sole basis of opposing PL – and since it was soon found that PL could not be successfully opposed on the basis of open anti-communism, the New Left had to put forward “communists” who would denounce PL as “ultra-left”. This was how the rightist Mike Klonsky rose to national prominence, became leader of SDS in 1968, and promptly led SDS into total destruction in 1969. Instead of correcting themselves and moving forward, a number of leaders who had made serious errors in the 60’s simply adapted themselves to the new situation in which Marxism-Leninism had high prestige, gave lip-service to it, and continued to oppose it, only now they called the consistent Marxist-Leninists “dogmatic”, “sectarian”, “ultra-left”, or “Cleveland crazies”. Neo-revisionism counterposed building the mass movement to building the Party (although we have seen how successful such leaders as Klonsky were in “building” SDS), holding that the party would emerge from the mass movements and local collectives. They held that PL was “ultra-left” in order to oppose fighting opportunism and carrying through the repudiation of revisionism and to promote “ultra-leftism” as the main danger. They in general adopted a vulgar “left economist” style of work that negated the role of consciousness among the masses. The neo-revisionists brought New Leftism into the working class movement and called it Marxism-Leninism.
Neo-revisionism had a chance to show what it could accomplish in the early 70’s. Its leaders were the most prominent ones among the American Marxist-Leninists. Its organizations were relatively large. It lacked for nothing. And it proved totally incapable of dealing with the upsurge of the workers’ movement in the 70’s, just as New Leftism itself proved bankrupt in the period of upsurge of the youth and student movement in the 60’s. In the “storm-and-stress” period of the 60’s, contradictions were breaking out everywhere. People’s lives were in turmoil. In this period, monopoly capitalism promoted on a wide-scale fake alternatives like hippy-ism, drugs, terrorism, anarchism, and the lives of the activists were very turbulent. Acts of self-sacrifice and heroism were commonplace among the masses. But in the relatively peaceful period of the 70’s, neo-revisionism prepared conditions for the rise of a strata of quiet, “respectable” communists, who have turned Marxism-Leninism not into a guide for being more revolutionary, more stern, more unyielding than was possible with the sham, fake alternatives, but instead into a way of justifying leading a quiet, “respectable” life that seeks to avoid the contradictions of society. The quiet communists lead a bourgeois life in the midst of the working class. For them, integration into the working class was to become “respectable” and not to enter into the most revolutionary, most self-sacrificing, most heroic class ever known in the history of mankind, a class which is racked with unemployment, misery, disease, etc., but just for that reason has nothing to hold on to in this society, has nothing to lose but its chains, and is the most determined to make a radical rupture with the past. The bourgeois sows his oats in a college fraternity and then shaves off his beard to become a corporate executive; the opportunist wing of the “radical” leaders of the 60’s, have turned into the respectable communists of the early 70’s, waving the flag against Soviet social-imperialism, calling the militants “ultra-left” and “CIA agents”, bickering over who is “officially recognized” and leading calm, bourgeois lives. These philistines have their own three-point tactical line: they have a liberal attitude towards the alleged “two aspects” of the state machine, worship before courts and legal struggle, and have a touching faith in the nursery fairytale of American liberal “bourgeois democracy”: they still negate the Party and wish to turn the trade unions into the “revolutionary” class organizations of the proletariat; and they regard themselves as exceptionally bold when they take part in mass peaceful demonstrations led by’ broad “left-liberal” coalitions under slogans that are, generally speaking, acceptable to the most timid liberal. They can see no further than their beloved “bourgeois democracy”, the capitalist trade unions and the legal demonstrations – and they are experts in squeezing the revolutionary content out of even the restricted activity they do engage in. This strata has not one ounce of revolutionary energy and is Anglo-American chauvinist to the core.
Now is the time to sum up the experience of the American Marxist-Leninists in fighting modern revisionism and social-chauvinist Browderism. All Marxist-Leninists should place emphasis on this task. In doing this, we must keep in mind that even though the revisionist “CPUSA is no longer itself in the communist movement, nevertheless its political line remains the concentrated expression of the revisionism wreaking havoc inside the Marxist-Leninist movement. In the coming period, the COUSML will take up the repudiation of revisionism and opportunism on a number of key questions of political line and will analyze the political line of certain key representatives of trends, such as: ”C”PUSA, the concentrated expression of revisionism; the evolution of PL, the first anti-revisionist center; and OL, the example of neo-revisionism gone bankrupt and coming out as a raving defender of U. S. world domination.
Clarification of political line and repudiation of revisionism and Browderite social-chauvinism must be done, not on the basis of disconnected ideas or some new theory, but on the firm foundation of Marxism-Leninism. We hold that the theoretical basis of the Party is Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Mao Tsetung Thought is the Marxism-Leninism of our era. Theoretical work to establish the strategy and tactics of the American revolution must be done on the basis of integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought with the concrete practice of the American revolution.
Today it is Comrade Enver Hoxha who is following in the footsteps of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Chairman Mao. Following the tragic death of Chairman Mao, Comrade Enver Hoxha took up responsibility to lead the international communist movement. His historic “REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE SEVENTH CONGRESS OF THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA” is a Marxist-Leninist classic. The report staunchly upholds the theory of continuing the class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat. It emphasizes the leading role of the Party in all work. At a time when maximum confusion exists concerning the international situation, Comrade Enver Hoxha has stepped forward to clarify the orientation and direction for the world’s communists. His report denounces the opportunist nature of the theory of “Three Worlds”, condemns the two imperialist superpowers, the reactionary international bourgeoisie and the militarist blocs of NATO, the European Common Market, the Warsaw Pact and COMECON, and exposes the growing danger of fascism. It gives a stirring call to all communists everywhere to continue the polemics against Khrushchovite revisionism and it gives energetic support to the growth of new Marxist-Leninist parties around the world. This report deserves to be studied and restudied by every serious progressive person in the U. S. Let all Marxist-Leninists pledge to be forever faithful to the international communist movement and to follow closely Comrade Enver Hoxha’s teachings.
Whether or not to unite on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought has always been a burning question in the Marxist-Leninist movement. In November 1975 in their first “unity call”, the OL did not even mention Marxism-Leninism as one of the “basic principles of unity around which we call on all Marxist-Leninists to unite in the new party”. The October League, in order to replace Marxism-Leninism with their social-chauvinist Browderism, has resorted to political blackmail. Now that Chairman Mao is dead, they are trying to cash in on his great prestige and authority and on the prestige of Chairman Mao’s China, to present themselves as the “officially” recognized party. They have sunk to the level of recruiting cadres on the basis of their international connections. The Marxist stand, viewpoint and method requires one to investigate all issues in a scientific spirit: a question must be investigated in and of itself; also its history and relationships with other things must be studied; as well the teachings of the Marxist-Leninist classics and of the international communist movement on the subject must be studied. The OL replaces this whole process by fiat, presenting themselves as having some special “inside” knowledge from its connections. Everyone knows that at this time there is tremendous discussion taking place inside the international communist movement, that the struggle between international opportunism and Marxism-Leninism is heating up. Just at this time, OL presents its views as the “official”, “unanimous” views which only a trotskyite or a revisionist could doubt. What a farce! Thus in the current issue #6 of OL’s theoretical journal Class Struggle, Dan Burstein, editor of The Call presents OL’s Titoite version of Teng Hsiao-ping’s opportunist theory of “Three Worlds”. But OL does not have the courage to put forward their views openly and clearly as any honest Marxist-Leninist would do. Instead, without a shred of evidence, the OL self-righteously attributes its views to Chairman Mao. Then in various articles and on numerous occasions, the OL rises up in righteous anger to condemn anyone who raises a question about their Browderite line as “revisionist and Trotskyite”, as “opposing China” and even as “CIA agents”. What a disgusting performance!
OL’s method of political blackmail is not unprecedented in the international communist movement. It is the old familiar method of Khrushchov himself. Khrushchov used the prestige of the Party of Lenin and Stalin and the fervent support of the international proletariat for the first socialist state in order to impose his revisionist views on the whole communist movement. When the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania opposed Khrushchov’s wrong views, they were labelled “Trotskyite”, “anti-Soviet”, as having sold out to imperialism “for thirty pieces of gold” and as “splitting the international communist movement”. All honest Marxist-Leninists should study the struggle waged against Khrushchovite revisionism back in the late 50’s and early 60’s so as to be able to recognize and repudiate not only the revisionist political line, but also the Khrushchovite methods. Here again the Albanian comrades have come forward at a crucial time by reprinting a little over a year ago “THROUGH THE PAGES OF VOLUME XIX OF THE WORKS OF COMRADE ENVER HOXHA”, which deals with the victorious struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania against Khrushchovite revisionism and its despicable methods of political blackmail, particularly at the Bucharest and Moscow Meetings of 1960. The publication of this work was very timely and it should be carefully studied in order to help the struggle against revisionist political blackmail.
Of course, OL’s political blackmail and its new-found “orthodoxy” are simply sheer hypocrisy. It wasn’t so long ago that OL was attacking the COUSML for “sounding like Peking Review”. OL does not follow Chairman Mao’s political line, but the line of international opportunism. Recall for example OL’s line on Lin Piao’s alleged “ultra-leftism”. At the time of the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, OL printed in the October 1973 Call sections of that Congress’ political report, carefully excerpted to omit the denunciation of “the ultra-Rightist nature of the Lin Piao anti-Party clique”. The Call then stated that “The Congress took place in a great spirit of unity and marked the victory of the important struggle against the anti-Party group of ultra-’leftists’ led by Lin Piao... Lin’s ultra-’left’ line which attacked the united front strategy against imperialism, was defeated after the Ninth Party Congress. The Tenth Congress placed the task of criticizing this ultra-’left’ line and rectifying the party’s style of work above all else.” Thus, “above all else”, the OL committed a clumsy forgery on the documents from the Tenth Congress in order to promote OL’s line of that time that the main danger was from the “ultra-left”. In this forgery OL simply attributes all its views to the Communist Party of China. For example, the Tenth Congress pointed out that Lin Piao was a “superspy” for Soviet social-imperialism, but there is not one word in it about Lin Piao’s opposition to the “united front strategy against imperialism”. OL needed this forgery to back up its line that “Most importantly, the present-day ultra-’leftists’ oppose the strategy of the united front against imperialism.” (The Call, April 1973) Now the OL could label anyone who questioned its opportunism as “Lin Piaoists”. The Guardian used the same method. In their issue of September 12, 1973 they also made a forgery on the “Political Report to the Tenth National Congress” to make Lin Piao into an “ultra-leftist”. And in Jack Smith’s articles on Lin Piao, the Guardian arbitrarily attributed to Lin Piao what the Guardian regarded as the “ultra-left” line, namely, “in regard to foreign affairs, largely continue the tactical policy of the cultural revolution, fight both enemies (U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism – ed.) at the same time with equal force and spread revolution and ’Maoism’ on the basis of supporting revolutionary struggles wherever and whenever they break out....” (Guardian, Aug. 23, 1972) When OL and the Guardian concocted their forgeries of the Tenth Congress, whose lines were they giving? Clearly not Chairman Mao’s! We can let OL speak for itself. In the May 1, 1976 issue of The Call, it stated: “Teng (Teng Hsiao-ping – ed.) described Lin as an ’ultra-leftist’. This was a way of covering up the fact that Lin was a rightist”. Thus OL, which today is playing at being the “defender of China”, is itself admitting that it altered the “Political Report of the Tenth National Congress” in order to give Teng Hsiao-ping’s line for capitalist restoration.
The key question facing the Marxist-Leninists today, in a period of intense preparations by both superpowers for a third imperialist world war, is the fight against social-chauvinism. Political clarification and repudiation of revisionism and opportunism must be undertaken in order to unite the Marxist-Leninists against social-chauvinism and clear the ground ideologically and politically for the Party. In the next four sections we briefly discuss some of the burning issues agitating the Marxist-Leninist movement. It will be noted that many of these questions revolve about the question of attitude to the state. This is no accident – social-chauvinism makes a shameful capitulation to the interests of the monopoly capitalist state itself and an apology for or even glorification of its main component, the armed forces. We are confident that the struggle against social-chauvinism will strengthen and steel the forces of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, purge them of the opportunism that has been accumulating for some time, of the revisionist filth and of the non-revolutionary philistinism that is so arrogant towards the revolutionary fighters and so tame and submissive towards the state, and prepare the Marxist-Leninists for the historic task of leading the coming revolutionary storms.
The October League’s line of directing “the main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism is the most concentrated expression of social-chauvinism (socialism in words, but Anglo-American superpower chauvinism in deeds) in the American Marxist-Leninist movement. At a time when the U. S. monopoly capitalist class is frantically preparing for a new imperialist world war to redivide the world with the Soviet New Tsars, at a time when the masses are being bled white to pay for bombers, tanks and battleships, at a time when the U. S. government is preparing more and more prisons and political police in order to keep a quiet “home front”, the OL is focusing the attention of the American workers on the “foreign enemy”. It has displayed its flag-waving patriotism by printing some of its publications in the red-white-and-blue. It is using as an excuse the need to expose the sham “socialism” of the New Tsars, but the social-chauvinist style of “exposing” the New Tsars grows everyday less and less distinguishable from the warmongering propaganda of the big bourgeois mass media. The OL has become such a plaything in the hands of capitalist deception, such a shameless member of the U.S. imperialist “anti-Soviet social-imperialist front”, that it actually criticizes capitalist politicians for downplaying the Soviet threat and for having the gall to bicker a little over the size of the escalating military budget. The OL – which still preserves a superstitious faith in the truthfulness of the American government – believes that the imperialist pacifism of the Carter administration is not an instrument for deception of the people and for preparation for imperialist war, but is a sign of “appeasement”, of weakness in the face of the foreign fascist threat. True proletarian internationalism requires the U.S. proletariat to struggle for the world proletarian revolution, to wage the most uncompromising struggle against the U. S. monopoly capitalist class and its state machine, to overthrow ”our own” oppressors as our contribution to world revolution. The OL would fight for revolution in the U.S... but only when it first receives a guarantee that the balance of power between the superpowers will not be upset and that the Soviet social-imperialists won’t try to take advantage of the class struggle in the U.S. The social-chauvinists try to intimidate the American working class with big headlines blaring ”USSR Leading in Superpower War Race” (The Call, Feb. 21,’77), painting a picture of Soviet military might as if to say: “Just imagine” – tremble, tremble – “what it would be like if those fascist New Tsars occupy even one inch of our sacred ’bourgeois democratic’ superpower!”
Social-chauvinism seeks to dull the consciousness of the working class concerning the U. S. imperialist military jackboot which stands astride much of the world. The social-chauvinists are real apologists of neo-colonialism and defenders of U.S. imperialist world domination. One example of this may be worth a dozen pages of theoretical arguments. The OL has gone to such extremes to prettify U. S. imperialism that it claims that in Latin America the Soviet Union is the main danger! Listen to this: “In this struggle (struggle by the ̶-;Latin American governments and peoples” against the two superpowers – ed.) Soviet social-imperialism, posing as the ’natural ally’ of third world peoples, is more dangerous than U. S. imperialism. Under the cover of ’socialism’ in words, and taking advantage of the low credibility of the U.S. government, the Soviet Union is pursuing a far more aggressive policy on the continent (Latin America–ed.) than its rival.” (The Call, Jan. 10, 1977, underlining added.) What jingo rubbish! What servile bootlicking and belly-crawling before the Yankee exploiters and murderers of the Latin American people! The Call continues: “While the gunboat diplomacy of the U.S. has aroused the anger of the Latin American peoples for over a century, the Soviet Union is now embarked on the same course of military expansion, surrounding the continent with bases on all sides.” Truly OL has performed a real revolution – if not in social system, at least in military science. According to the imperialist apologetics of OL, the Soviet Union is more dangerous to Latin America precisely because the U.S. has been strengthening its positions, grooming lackeys and developing military networks for over a century. This theory will prove of service to every imperialist exploiter - whether the U. S. in Latin America or the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe – who is defending “his” colonies and neo-colonies, “his” spheres of influence, ”his” status quo, from his competitors. This is truly Marxism revised in the interests of imperialism. The U. S. has far more capital in Latin America and is bleeding the people white. No matter, says the jingo liberals of the OL, the U.S. has “low credibility”. The U.S. has military bases or networks in every single Latin American country without exception, including Cuba (Guantanamo Naval Base). No matter, says the OL, the Soviet Union has bases in Angola, Cuba and Antarctica. There are U. S. neo-colonial governments all through Latin America. Neo-colonialism? Fascist oligarchies ruling on behalf of U. S. imperialism? Never heard of them, says OL, which entitles its article “Latin America Rebuffs Superpower Schemes” and never even uses the word neo-colonialism in the whole article. The important thing, for OL, is that the New Tsars are trying to expand in Latin America and subheads scream “TSARS EXPAND EMPIRE” and “CUBA A MILITARY BASE”. But, strangely enough, even if we restrict our attention to the Soviet neo-colony of Cuba, there is not a word about Guantanamo Naval Base nor about the U.S. imperialists trying to expand back into Cuba, ”normalize relations” with the traitor Castro, and once again exploit the Cuban economy on a massive scale. And how should Latin America fight imperialism? Well, in this full-page article of 27 paragraphs, there is only one sentence about the new Marxist-Leninist parties, and no mention at all of the armed struggles led by some of these parties against the neo-colonialist governments and U. S. imperialism. In fact, there is no mention whatsoever of armed struggle or national liberation via new-democratic revolution. In this way the OL not only defends the U. S. domination of Latin America and reserves its sharpest condemnations for U.S.’s rival Russia, but the OL also gives a penetrating insight into the practical consequences of OL’s theory of “Three Worlds” as “a strategic view of the world revolution” (Class Struggle, #6, p.42).
Social-chauvinism means denial of revolution. This is why OL always chokes on Chairman Mao’s solemn Statement of May 20, 1970, where he firmly and with great revolutionary optimism declares that “.. .REVOLUTION IS THE MAIN TREND IN THE WORLD TODAY.” OL sputters that this statement is “no longer fully complete or applicable to the present conditions” and is only “general” and out-dated. (See interview with Klonsky in The Call, May 31, 1976 and Class Struggle, #6, p. 54.) Once revolution flies out the window, there can be no proletarian internationalism. OL goes pale with fear at the possibility of a third world war, renounces revolution as “no longer fully complete or applicable to the present conditions” and regards the fundamental division in the world as that between U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. Therefore OL fabricates the big lie that the opponents of social-chauvinism are agents of the New Tsars who are attacking OL for “concentrating ’too much fire on Soviet social-imperialism’”. (The Call, November 22, 1976) It never even crosses OL’s mind that the real fundamental division in the world today is between, on the one hand, the forces of revolution, of socialism and freedom, consisting of the socialist countries, the national liberation movement and the world proletarian movement, and on the other hand the forces of imperialism and slavery, led by the two superpowers. Let all Marxist-Leninists hold high the banner of the forces of revolution, denounce social-chauvinism and unite to lead the masses to victory over the monopoly capitalist dictators!
Building the Party is not only a question of organizational consolidation, nor even just a question of developing correct political line in the abstract, it is also a question of steeling the cadre and building an organization tempered in all the different fronts of struggle. The Party is built in the midst of the class struggles. There are those who follow the revisionist line of boasting about the great armed insurrection they will carry out on Judgment Day, but for the time being they are all for peace and quiet and denounce resistance as “adventurist”. An organization built on those lines will be totally paralyzed when the decisive hour strikes. The resistance movement is crucial to forging a fighting organization. It cuts through the whole revisionist cowardice, and encourages a militant fighting spirit among the masses and in the Party. The masses themselves are constantly engaged in resistance to the state, but their struggles, though widespread and deep-felt, remain scattered and unsystematic without the Marxist-Leninists concentrating their correct ideas to provide the political line for resistance.
We send a red salute to all the masses who engaged in resistance this past year – especially to the fighting contingents of the Afro-American people and their progressive supporters who smashed numerous onslaughts of the state-organized fascist anti-busing movement and to the millions of proletarians who endured great sacrifices and privations to wage many militant and protracted strikes! We send a red salute to all those of our comrades who pushed forward the movement to actively resist fascism in the last year! We send a red salute to all those comrades who bravely faced the bourgeois courts and jails in Louisville, Boston and Newark! We send an enthusiastic red salute to all Marxist-Leninists of other organizations who also resisted reaction and showed a revolutionary attitude to the state: we declare to you that though we are temporarily organizationally divided, nevertheless our hearts beat as one and our unity, forged in the struggle against capitalist reaction, is only a matter of time. We denounce with the utmost contempt the collaborators with the state hidden in the people’s movement, such as the revisionists of the Guardian who in their issue of Feb. 4, 1976, did the dirty work for the FBI by slandering our Louisville comrades, at a time when they were facing a coordinated attack from the KKK, police and the fascist anti-busing movement, as a “police organization” on the say-so of the notorious police-socialist and FBI agent, Joe Burton!
The resistance movement against the terrorist attacks of the state machine brings up very sharply the question of the attitude to the state. Among politically active people in the working-class movement, there are three stands towards the state: to organize in opposition to the state; to refuse to oppose the state; or to collaborate with the state. The Marxist-Leninist stand is irreconcilable opposition to the state. Those who persist in refusing to oppose the state and refusing to oppose fascism will end up collaborating with the state and contributing to fascism. Among those calling themselves Marxist-Leninists and communists, all three stands are to be found. This shows the influence of revisionism and opportunism. The revisionists oppose active resistance and collaborate with the state. They promote capitulation and defeatism in every struggle, organize to tell the people how “strong” the bourgeoisie is, and seek to split the mass movements and liquidate them. They denounce resistance as “ultra-left”, “crazy” and “provoking” the bourgeoisie. In this way they try to create public opinion in favor of the state suppressing the revolutionaries as well as taking part in this suppression themselves.
We stand for anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution. The proletarian socialist revolution is anti-fascist because it will destroy the growing fascism of the capitalist state machine, abolish the over-grown, oppressive system of a huge standing army, police and arrogant bureaucracy, and replace them by the armed people themselves. At present there is rapid fascization of all aspects of U. S. society. The U. S. is a country with so many prisons that how to pay for them is a public issue for the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie sees and fears the growth of the working-class movement in the 70’s and is preparing to suppress new storms that will be even fiercer than those of the 60’s. The bourgeoisie is summing up the lessons of the storm-and-stress period of the 60’s and increasing its armaments and police forces while it also tries to devise new ways to develop fascist movements and to infiltrate and split the masses. Not to see this, is to be blind. To see it and to hide it from the working class, is to be a traitor in the service of the war-mongering big bourgeoisie. And the revisionists, social-democrats and opportunists are precisely traitors of this type. Every time the capitalist state relies a little more on deception rather than just force, every time there is a little pause in the tempo of revolution, the opportunists seek to reconcile the masses with the state and blunt their consciousness of its oppressive nature. They are using the slogan of “bourgeois democracy” in order to promote the idea of the “two aspects of the state”, i.e., that the U.S. government allegedly has a democratic, pro-people side. During the last presidential election, the revisionists and opportunists sang hymns to American “democracy” and hid the ultra-reactionary essence of the monopoly capitalist state. They gave calls to “defend the Constitution” and insisted that “the right to vote is the basis of U. S. democracy”. At a time when attacks on the Afro-American people are the cutting edge of the state-organized attempts to mobilize a fascist mass movement, the revisionists wished to “outlaw racism” and “abolish all repressive laws”. At a time when the burden of the economic crisis is being shifted onto the workers, a trotskyite party called for a “bill of rights for the workers”. Instead of preparing the masses for the fierce class battles ahead, the revisionists and opportunists are lulling the masses to sleep with fantasies about a democratic, capitalist paradise and disarming them in the face of the capitalists’ fascist offensive and the real capitalist hell.
Social-chauvinism means not just capitulation to the side of the imperialist bourgeoisie in general, but defense of the interests of “one’s own” monopoly capitalist state in particular. Even before the OL degenerated into open social-chauvinism, the OL had always propagated illusions concerning the state and capitulation to it. In Boston, OL called for the police and National Guard to “defend” the Afro-American people by enforcing the law at the very moment that the state was organizing the fascist anti-busing movement and trying to disarm those Afro-Americans who resisted. This shameful capitulation to the state OL calls “.. .taking advantage of contradictions in the enemy camp. .. ” (Class Struggle, #4-5, p. 10) During the “Watergate crisis”, OL gave a call to “Dump Nixon – Stop the Fascist Tide!” Thus the OL regarded fascism in the U.S. as defeated when Nixon fell – and “the fascist tide” receded from OL’s propaganda never to reappear. The meaning of this is clear particularly when one considers OL’s famous complaint that Congress was “paralyzed” during the Watergate crisis. (The Call, Feb. 1974) OL was giving the stock revisionist theory of “two aspects” of the state, of “two opposing power centers” in Washington – the fascist Nixon and the presumably-democratic Congress. This is the same view as that of the Guardian’s Irwin Silber, who talks of a militarist Pentagon and a Congress that represents the people, in statements like “The political pressure (by the Pentagon – ed.) on a Congress which, for a period of time, was beginning to reflect popular aversion to U.S. military aggression in other parts of the world.” (Guardian, June 30, 1976) Both the OL and the Guardian are echoing the revisionist line of Gus Hall, whose prescription for opposing U.S. imperialism’s war of aggression in Viet Nam was to “Padlock the Pentagon”. Now that the OL has come out openly for social-chauvinism, they are fond of contrasting the fascist Soviet Union with the presumably-democratic U. S. They are willing to be “bold” and “Marxist” when it comes to criticizing the Great-Russian state machine but when it comes to the U. S. state machine they get weak knees. Take the current issue, #6, of OL’s theoretical journal Class Struggle. It “boldly” quotes twice Chairman Mao’s correct statement that “THE SOVIET UNION TODAY IS UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE BOURGEOISIE, A DICTATORSHIP OF THE BIG BOURGEOISIE, A DICTATORSHIP OF THE GERMAN FASCIST TYPE, A DICTATORSHIP OF THE HITLER TYPE.” (pp. 43 and 87) But when it comes to the U.S., the OL actually breaks off a quote from Chairman Mao’s May 20th Statement in mid-sentence in order to hide Chairman Mao’s view “... THAT THE FASCIST RULE IN THE U.S. WILL INEVITABLY BE DEFEATED.” The OL is afraid to admit that Chairman Mao talks of “... THE FASCIST RULE IN THE U.S. ...” because it is down on its knees worshipping before the monopoly capitalist state.
The intensification of the international capitalist-revisionist economic crisis is lending a particular urgency to the question of orientation for the working-class movement. The bourgeoisie is aware of the upsurge in the working-class movement and is sharpening its swords. Through such means as “labor-management councils”, “national economic planning”, the agitation for the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, etc. , it is striving to integrate still further the trade unions into the state apparatus, tighten the government repression of the workers and institute wage controls. The bourgeoisie is stepping up its subversion of the workers’ movement from within by strengthening that group of social-democratic labor traitors that parade themselves as “fighting” trade union bureaucrats in opposition to the openly-corrupt Meany-style bureaucrats. In this way the capitalists hope to keep the present upsurge in the workers’ movement under their control. To this end the state apparatus itself has intervened in union elections to aid the social-democrats, while the Democratic Party wrote the social-democratic ideas of then United Auto Workers President Leonard Woodcock concerning “national economic planning” and national health insurance into the Democratic platform. The aristocracy of labor, which is a broader section than just the top trade union hacks, is the main social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie in the workers’ movement. The social-democratic and revisionist forces, which represent the political line of the aristocracy of labor, are the political detachments of the bourgeoisie in the workers’ movement, the agents by which the capitalists seek to undermine the workers’ movement from within. To unite the workers’ movement, the key question is to oppose social-democracy and revisionism, to oppose the political line of the aristocracy of labor, and to establish the Party among the masses of workers.
One of the main opportunist lines on the working-class movement is the revisionist and social-democratic line that the capitalist trade unions, possibly with some slight tinkering with their present form, are the revolutionary organizations of the workers. This is the line of “move the trade unions to the left”, of “revolutionize the trade unions”, and of “overthrow the bureaucrats and then the trade unions will be class struggle organizations”. OL’s first draft of their party program formulates this line as “turn the trade unions into revolutionary class struggle organizations which fight for socialism under communist leadership”. (The Call, Jan. 31, 1977) This is also the view that stands behind the mania for “rank-and-file caucuses”, whether these caucuses are given the social-democratic or dual-unionist slant. This line is the application to the workers’ movement of the general neo-revisionist line of negating the Party by counter-posing the mass movements to the Party. The opportunists have read, or claimed to read, Lenin’s brilliant work, Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, but they couldn’t understand a word of it. They converted the line of working for Marxism-Leninism inside the trade unions and appealing to the broadest mass of the workers into its opposite, namely working for trade unionism inside the Marxist-Leninist movement and fencing oneself off from the broadest masses by means of cozy, sectarian, economist cliques. They ignore the facts concerning the integration of the trade unions into the state machine and the use the bourgeoisie makes of the capitalist trade unions to control the workers’ movement and make it submit to a whole series of government rules and regulations. Or rather – it really amounts to the same thing – they childishly suggest that these facts can be swept away prior to developing the class struggle and as a precondition for developing the class struggle by simply overthrowing the bureaucrats or by establishing more perfect “economic” organizations. In this way the Marxist-Leninist line on the necessity for the Party to engage in patient, protracted, even underground, work among the broad masses in reactionary, counter-revolutionary trade unions despite the pin-pricks, insults, treacheries and persecution by the labor traitors is falsified and turned into sweet dreams of revolutionary “pure economic” mass organizations. The line of “revolutionizing the trade unions” wishes to short-cut the class struggle, substitutes the tactical question of denouncing this or that bureaucrat for the political question of the line and orientation needed to develop the class struggle, and does this with the motive of liquidating the Party and falling back with relief into the arms of the capitalist trade unions.
One way trade unionism expresses itself inside the Marxist-Leninist movement is in the desire to compete with the top trade union hacks, to find a niche among the bureaucrats by using one’s “communist” label as political capital, just as every revisionist has done for years. Maximum disruption is done by making the issue one of which bourgeois cliques will run the capitalist trade unions, and not one of promoting the class struggle against the capitalists and strengthening the Party’s influence among the proletariat. The OL thinks that it has taken an extraordinarily bold step forward when it denounces certain social-democratic trade union hacks whom it used to support. Thus previously OL called for all-out support for Arnold Miller in the United Mine Workers and propagated social-democracy inside the Marxist-Leninist movement under the slogan of “’critical support’ (for Arnold Miller – ed.) meant No Support At All!” (The Call, Aug. 1973) This was called “moving the trade unions to the left”. The social-democrats jilted OL after the elections. So OL has gone into a rage and denounced what it calls the “liberals” among the trade union hacks. Hell hath no fury like that of a lover scorned. But this does not indicate any break with trade-unionist ideology. On the contrary, OL is more bogged down than ever in social-democracy and reformism. Now OL no longer calls for the capitalist trade unions to be modestly pushed to the left, but paints them in glowing, communist colors. OL says “the task of communists in the trade unions is to win them (the capitalist trade union – ed.) to the leadership of the party and to transform them into revolutionary organizations which fight for the complete emancipation of the working class”. (“Principles of Unity” of OL’s 2nd “unity” call, July 1976) All this will happen if the opportunists are replaced by OL, i.e., if the workers elect OL to union office. This is the same political line as Miller and Sadlowski advocate. They both denounced the other trade union hacks and promised to revitalize the unions if elected. The OL is still paving the way for the reinforcement of open social-democracy among the workers, for the deception of the workers by the “fighting” social-democratic trade union hacks.
To build the Party among the proletariat, the Marxist-Leninists must oppose the political line of the aristocracy of labor, the line of revisionism and social-democracy. In the last presidential election, the Democratic Party was able to present itself as “the party of the workers” because of its connections with its servile lackeys, the mass of the top trade union bureaucrats. The main way the Democrats tried to restore “confidence” in the government so as to prepare for imperialist world war and to be able to launch increased fascist attacks on the workers’ movement, was through social-democratic talk about “jobs” and “planning under capitalism”. There are those who replace the task of exposing these social-democratic illusions, of opposing the political line of the aristocracy of labor in the course of leading the proletariat into struggle against the capitalist enemy, with instead the creation of the maximum number of squabbles with every single individual “labor aristocrat”. They are oh so busy running here and there attacking individual “social props” or, as OL puts it, “Our work is based upon a consistent struggle to isolate and expel these opportunists from leadership and replace them with revolutionary leadership.” (“Principles of Unity” of OL’s 2nd “unity” call) Thus the OL replaces the struggle against the political line of the aristocracy of labor with the struggle to become part of the aristocracy of labor. This was why OL was so silent about the national presidential elections but made such a fuss about boycotting the Steelworkers election. OL was silent because they had no fundamental disagreement with the line of the Democratic Party, other than urging the Democratic Party to drop imperialist pacificism (concealed war-mongermg) in favor of open war-mongering. (AFL-CIO president Meany has the same “disagreement” with the Democratic Party). The criticism of Carter in the neo-revisionist press was mostly restricted to asserting that Carter was not a small peanut farmer, but in reality a rich, large-scale peanut farmer, and in exposing various reactionary and racist past acts of Carter. Fine, but the fundamental questions of Carter’s political line – such as the key deception of the Democratic Party on the question of “jobs”, “full employment” and “national economic planning” were in the main left aside. Is it right to fight for jobs, against lay-offs, etc? Of course it is. But neo-revisionism is incapable of distinguishing between a fight against the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers that is conducted in a revolutionary way, that hits at the bourgeoisie, and – a social-democratic deception of the workers under the banner of “jobs”. That is why OL “criticized” the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill – this piece of proposed fascist legislation to further integrate the trade unions into the state apparatus and with its unwritten but well-understood condition of wage controls – by complaining that the bill had “no teeth in it”. (The Call, May 24, 1976.) Imagine that! OL criticizes the Democratic Party for not having enough “teeth” in its fascist legislation, just as Carter and the Democratic Party in turn criticized Ford for not being a “strong” leader like Nixon! This is not to oppose social-democracy and revisionism, but to revel in being part of them. The Party will only take root among the proletariat when, in the course of leading the class struggle and leading the masses to fight for the matters of vital concern to them, it isolates the political line of revisionism and social-democracy and thus unites the proletariat.
The struggle of the Afro-American people against racial discrimination and violent repression was one of the main currents of the massive revolutionary storm of the 60’s. The Afro-American people shook the imperialist system and smashed a number of barbarous, semi-slave, semi-feudal aspects of the Jim Crow system of racial discrimination. They gave rise to a number of revolutionary martyrs of the American people, such as Malcolm X, George Jackson and Fred Hampton. They inspired the whole youth and student movement and other revolutionary movements of the American people. Chairman Mao’s historic statements entitled “Statement Supporting the Afro-Americans in their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism (August 8, 1963)” and “Statement by Comrade Mao Tsetung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression (April 16, 1968)” cut right to the heart of the matter and should be constantly studied. The Afro-American struggle for freedom and complete emancipation can only win final victory with the overthrow of monopoly capitalism and the system of imperialism and colonialism. The U. S. ruling circles have not become sensible, but are plotting revenge against the Afro-American people. They are developing attacks on the Afro-American people as the cutting edge of the rapidly growing fascism. Thus the U. S. government organized the fascist anti-busing movement in order to develop a fascist mass movement, to drive the Afro-Americans back to the slavery that the bourgeoisie so proudly boasts about on TV these days and to disrupt and attack the workers’ movement. The main brunt of the present hysteria being developed against “crime” is also borne by the Afro-American people and especially the Afro-American youth.
The fascist anti-busing movement was not “spontaneous”, but directly organized by the government as part of the growing fascization of every aspect of U. S. society. The government took up the democratic demand of integrated education and presented it in a distorted and mutilated fashion in order to be able to mobilize a section of the masses against it. At the time when the courts began ordering their busing plans, the mass movements for school integration were dormant. The courts had a free hand in concocting these plans and, when the masses showed enthusiasm for integration despite the short-comings of the plans, re-concocting and further distorting the plans. On the surface, the state machine appeared to present the absurd spectacle of a boxer fighting himself: various courts and agencies seemed to try to enforce busing plans, while other government agencies organized violence against integration. This, however, was political deception. The government had only one aim, which it pursued with counter-revolutionary dual tactics – to organize the fascist mass movement. The courts presented busing in a distorted fashion, constantly making concessions to the open fascists, in order to stir up contradictions among the people to the boiling point, while painting the capitalist state machine as the “friend of the Afro-Americans” and as a would-be “liberal” harassed by the intolerant masses. And when the masses rose up to fight the fascists and racists, the “liberals” (concealed fascists) cheerfully sang songs of “peaceful desegregation” and “obey the law” in order to split the masses in front of the fascists and to provide pretext for more terrorist attacks on the people by the police. That is how the government works: first it organizes terrorist attacks on the people, then it calls for “peace” while it brings in the troops to suppress the masses.
The plans of the government were upset by the rapid development of the anti-fascist mass movement. We in the COUSML took as our central point to lead and encourage the mass movement for active resistance to fascism and to smash the fascist anti-busing movement. We are, like any democratically-minded person, to say nothing of communist, staunchly in favor of integrated education. And busing is only a means of integrating schools when housing patterns are segregated. (Buses, as a modern means of transportation, are routinely used for all sorts of purposes, including busing school children for forced segregation.) But, while firmly supporting any integration that did take place as result of the busing plans, we always opposed any illusions as to what the government was up to and we constantly exposed the intention of the entire government, courts and open fascists alike, to promote the fascist anti-busing movement.
The experience of this struggle showed once again the tremendous revolutionary potential of the Afro-American people and of the movement against racial discrimination and violent repression. It was the anti-fascist mass movement that put the anti-busing movement on the skids in many places. Besides the resistance to the fascist mass movement in itself, there was also shown to be an extremely strong sentiment of the working masses for integrated education. All the demagogy of the politicians to the contrary, it is because school integration by busing was accepted by the masses – who were willing to fight to defend it – that the courts keep altering, distorting and rescinding the busing plans. This struggle is by no means over, and, on the contrary, the capitalist state is increasing segregation in the schools and constantly trying to devise new methods to develop the fascist anti-busing movement.
There are still a number of other important theoretical questions concerning the Afro-American movement and the Afro-American national question that have to be solved. A number of organizations claim to have already solved these questions and have established a number of their own special sectarian principles to divide themselves from the other Marxist-Leninists on this question. The fascist anti-busing movement is consequently a great test for the Marxist-Leninist movement, in which one can see what the practical consequences are of the stands of the various trends. The results are sobering. One organization jumped into bed with the Klan, whimpering that the Klan was “bogarting (hogging – ed.) the leadership” of the fascist movement. The OL, those Knights of the National Question, went into a cold sweat at the sight of a real fascist mass movement in Boston fighting with the anti-fascist resistance movement and implored the very government that was organizing the fascist anti-busing movement to have its police and troops protect the Afro-American people by enforcing the law. Sherman Miller of the OL Central Committee puts it as follows: “What do you do when a fascist lynch mob is attacking the Blacks? Do you promote armed self-defense as the basic strategic line, while at the same time tactically taking advantage of contradictions in the enemy camp by demanding that the police break up the fascist gangs and provide effective legal protection?” (Class Struggle, #4-5, ’76, p. 10, italics as in the original). No liberal will hesitate! Instead of active resistance to fascism, Mr. Miller supported, at a time when the police and the courts themselves were attacking the people, “calling for the actual enforcement of equal rights for Blacks”. Thus OL used the revisionist trick of justifying its capitulation by concocting a “contradiction” in the ruling class and then falling with relief into the arms of the state machine. Some other organizations issued loud calls, denounced everyone else for not having organized more in Boston, and then collapsed. Some strange theories were concocted. It was said by some that the struggle against racial discrimination was a diversion from the “real” struggle against educational cut-backs. Too bad the youth and student movement of the 60’s didn’t have these worthies’ guidance, since it enthusiastically fought racial discrimination and violent repression, denounced the bourgeois educational system and its “quality” education, and still did not find itself diverted from the struggle against the U. S. imperialist war of aggression in Viet Nam and other revolutionary struggles. Thus, unable to apply a Marxist-Leninist analysis, a number of organizations were confused by the counter-revolutionary dual tactics of the government, and some, like OL, fell in behind the “liberals”, while others noted that the “liberals” were in fact covertly attacking the Afro-American people with political deception, but drew from that the strange conclusion that they should openly attack the Afro-American people.
All this opposition to the actual struggle against the fascist anti-busing movement reveals that a number of organizations have never really grasped the nature and significance of the tremendous mass upsurge against racial discrimination and violent repression that swept the country with irresistible force in the 60’s, like a hurricane of revolution, smashing everything that stood in its way and giving an immense moral impetus to the whole revolutionary movement. These organizations have forgotten a “trifle” – the two decades of glorious revolutionary struggle by the Afro-American people since the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956. This is amazing, but nonetheless it is true. The OL, for example, actually never comes out in support of the movement against racial discrimination and violent repression of the Afro-American people in either of its two “unity” calls. It is not part of the “principles of unity” in the November 1975 document “Marxist-Leninists Unite to Build the New Party” nor in the July 1976 “Declaration of the Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party.” But, the naive may say in surprise, doesn’t the OL stand for “full democratic rights for national minorities”? The OL version of “full democratic rights”, which it intentionally leaves vague and unexplained in its “unity calls” so that it may mean all things to all people, is used to avoid giving explicit support to the struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression. Be that as it may, in the OL’s first “unity” call in November 1975, the OL does NOT support “full democratic rights” for the Afro-American people. The second “unity” call is not much better. That call does not support “full democratic rights” for Afro-Americans living in the South, and only by implication at best (that is how little importance the OL gives to the matter), supports “full democratic rights” outside the South. (In reading the second “unity” call, remember the OL explicitly defines the Afro-American national minority as those Afro-Americans living “outside the deep South”.) The OL refuses to talk about the struggle against racial discrimination and uses every subterfuge to avoid this question which has discredited U. S. imperialism in the eyes of millions upon millions of people around the world and which is so embarrassing to the boosters of American “democracy”. And yet the OL has the gall to throw accusations right and left that anyone who doesn’t support OL’s special sectarian formulations on the “national question” is a “white chauvinist” or “racist”. Can a greater mockery than this be found? To maintain a correct stand for the Afro-American people’s movement is thus impossible without repudiating the concrete manifestations of revisionism, without maintaining a revolutionary attitude towards the state and rendering energetic support to all the revolutionary movements of the oppressed and downtrodden masses. On this question, as on the other questions of political line, the repudiation of revisionism and opportunism is decisive.