Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Max Elbaum

Latest Issue of Activists’ Bulletin Focuses on CPUSA-Line of March Contention


First Published: Frontline, Vol. 5, No. 7, September 28, 1987.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The latest issue of Line of March’s activists’ bulletin, Notes: On the Class Struggle and Building the Left #4, focuses on a new development in an area of particular interest to regular readers of this column: the political contention between the Line of March and the Communist Party USA.

The new development is a major article about the Line of March by CPUSA Political Bureau member Jim West, based on a report West made to the CPUSA’s top leadership body last June. West’s paper represents the CPUSA center’s most wide-ranging and definitive attempt yet to make – and popularize – an assessment of the Line of March organization. Entitled “A Caricature of Marxism-Leninism; Wreck-tifiers at Work,” the article advances the thesis that Line of March is not a legitimate left force but a group based on “petty bourgeois revolutionism” that is fundamentally “anti-working class, anti-labor, anti-class unity, anti-CPUSA.” West’s paper maps out a CPUSA campaign explicitly designed to destroy the Line of March, and as the first step in that campaign his article is being circulated privately by CPUSA leaders to a wide range of forces on the left. Notes #4 reprints West’s paper in full.

Following West’s article is a comment on his paper by the author of this column on behalf of the Line of March national executive committee. Entitled“ Sectarianism and Demagogy at Work,” the comment discusses the reasons why the CPUSA center is so preoccupied with a crusade against the Line of March and why it insists on dealing with our differences through distortion and innuendo rather than serious political debate. The comment targets the CPUSA’s sectarian outlook – according to which the party views itself by definition as the only legitimate Marxist party in the U.S. and relegates all other organized groups and tendencies to the category of “phony left” – as the main obstacle to a constructive dialogue that could mature the entire progressive movement and lead to unity among U. S. communists on a principled basis. Finally, the comment restates the real political differences at the heart of the CPUSA-Line of March debate and elaborates the reasons why we believe that sooner or later the CPUSA will have to surrender its sectarian posture and engage in a serious discussion of them.

Filling out the volume is a roundtable discussion reprinted from World Marxist Review, the theoretical and information journal of communist and workers parties throughout the world The exchange of ideas is titled “The Communist Movement in a Changing World: New Potentialities” and focuses on new challenges in the fight for peace; the precise relationship of the struggle for peace and the battle for national liberation, democracy and socialism; the impact on the communists of contemporary changes in society’s social structure due to the scientific and technical revolution, and the correct approach to proletarian internationalism today. Relevant to the main focus of this issue of Notes, it also contains a brief but interesting discussion of the reasons for the existence of two or more communist parties in a number of countries around the world. Finally, besides the article’s value in terms of the specific topics it covers, the roundtable is a striking indication of the new spirit of probing inquiry and frank debate that has been taking hold in the international communist movement over the last few years.

NOTES AUDIENCE

For the most part, the dispute between the Line of March and the CPUSA which is the main theme of Notes #4 focuses on issues which are internal to the U.S. communist movement But the substance of the political differences at stake as well as the impact of the CPUSA’s sectarian campaign against the Line of March will inevitably impact the broader U.S. left, both in its political debates and its efforts to develop the greatest possible cooperation in mass struggles and popular movements. For this reason, this issue of Notes is being made available for sale beyond the Line of March membership and the organization’s close contacts and periphery, who are generally the main audience for this publication.

Even beyond Notes’ current issue, however, this new and broader distribution policy will remain in effect As the Line of March has grown and expanded its influence over the last few years, an increasingly broader audience is interested in the organization’s in-depth evaluations of various mass struggles and currents on the left, as well as in the internal discussions and debates that shape Line of March’s political direction. Since Notes is developing as one of the organization’s key vehicles for communicating those ideas, we have decided to make It more available than it has been up to now.

Previously, issues of Notes could only be purchased at Line of March literature tables at selected events; from now on, each issue and its contents will be mentioned in Frontline and will be available for mail-order sale.

MAIN FEATURES

In general, issues of Notes contain a selection of five types of articles. First are assessments of various developments and events in the mass movements, as well as summations of the work of Line of March activists in those movements. Notes #2, for example, contained articles on the fight for immigrant rights in the era of Simpson/Mazzoli/Rodino, the challenges facing Palestine solidarity work in a country where Zionist influence is so strong, and the controversy surrounding proposed ordinances to ban pornography that has gripped the women’s liberation movement Second are articles evaluating various tendencies on the U.S. left and taking up various aspects of the fight for left and communist unity; as noted above, this theme dominates this current issue.

Third are pieces focusing on theoretical issues that share with readers “work in progress“ in various commissions and study projects established by the Line of March. For example, Notes #2 also contained an initial hypothesis by the organization’s study project on the structure of the U.S. working class regarding the differentiation of the class into an aristocratic upper stratum and broader middle and lower strata which constitute the “basic mass“ of the proletariat. Fourth are articles and documents from national liberation movements and the international communist movement; Notes #3, for instance, reprinted both the July 1986 proposal of the FMLN/FDR for a political solution to the war in El Salvador and an article on the foundations and workings of democratic centralism by a study group established by the World Marxist Review Commission on Problems of Theory. Finally, Notes contains letters and exchanges of opinion on topics raised for discussion and debate by members of the Line of March.