This paper was written by a group of about a dozen members of the Boston Local Center who oppose the political line of the OCIC’s Campaign against White and Petit Bourgeois Chauvinism. Time did not allow for coming to a completely unified perspective. However this paper does represent the leading line of the BLC opposition, and we are united behind its essential thrust.
During the preparation of this paper, we received a note from the LSC [Local Steering Committee – EROL] which gave directions as to what the LSC wanted us to address in the paper. We quote:
...in organizing an exchange of views around the 2-line struggle in the BLC, comrades should speak concretely to their analysis of the errors made in relation to uniting with wc and nm comrades who have joined the LC – i.e., comrades C., B., W., and more recently F., L., & O’L. (Comrade G. will be interviewed soon), and put forward a view on how we can struggle to build further unity with these comrades....in this same context we would ask comrades to address their view of the process of emerging wc leadership in NE, in particular to their view of Comrade D. and the role he is playing – an important point raised at the LC meeting and never addressed there.
We have rejected the LSC’s directions in the interest of moving forward the two-line struggle around the campaign. We rejected the directions for several reasons.
First, the LSC’s directions are framed in a way so as to make it appear that the opponents of the campaign do not believe that white and petit bourgeois chauvinism are serious obstacles to uniting the tendency and to drawing national minority and working class comrades into it. But this is not the issue. Contrary to assertions to the contrary, we do not oppose the struggle against white and petit bourgeois chauvinism. What we oppose is the particular approach which the OCIC has adopted in waging this struggle, and the OCIC’s Campaign against White and Petit Bourgeois Chauvinism.
Second, it should be clear that the LSC’s request for us to address our view of the role which Comrade D. is playing is simply an attempt to speculate on petit bourgeois chauvinism. Since at that time Comrade D. was playing a leading role in “intensifying the campaign”, it should be clear that we think that he was playing a backward role. It is safe to assume that his resignation indicates that he has a certain amount of unity with this view of his role at that time.
We also think it should at least be noted that the LSC calls only for an analysis of errors made in relation to those who have joined the OCIC.
The two-line struggle presently underway in the BLC is over the issue of uniting the tendency and drawing national minorities and workers into it and how to take up the struggle against white and petit bourgeois chauvinism in this context.
Focusing on errors made within the local center only would considerably narrow the focus of the struggle. Many other national minority and working class comrades have refused to join the OCIC primarily because of the campaign itself.
And many members of the OCIC. including some who say they support the campaign, have essentially abandoned winning some comrades to the OCIC because of the disaster which the campaign has transformed the OCIC into. In making a concrete assessment of the political impact of the campaign, as it actually exists in the real world, we must look not only at the impact on those who have joined the OCIC and stuck it out, but on those who reject becoming directly involved in the infantile leftism of the campaign.
The LSC’s instructions to us place what our paper should address on the terms of the campaign which we oppose. It is designed to give as little room as possible for us to lay out our position. Therefore, it is politically sound for us to reject their instructions so that ideological struggle can proceed within the BLC.
We have been criticized for not developing a full blown, alternative to the present campaign. We believe that this is an opportunist method of argumentation. In the first place, comrades who raise this criticism forget that the NSC has never elaborated an overall plan for the campaign and the political line guiding the campaign has evolved gradually over the last year in the course of the campaign itself. In the second place, it is ludicrous to ask for a detailed alternative if there is no agreement on the main errors to the present campaign. We all know that if unity can be reached on the extent and character of present errors, a new approach could then be developed on that basis.
In our view, the criticisms of the campaign which we will lay out in the following pages offer a sound foundation for beginning to elaborate a different approach to the struggle against white and petit bourgeois chauvinism. If broad unity can be reached on the essentially “left” character of the present campaign, we have no doubt that a new struggle can be taken up and developed on a sound foundation.