Workers World, Vol. 12, No. 4, March 7, 1970
If the Chicago 10 never do anything more for the rest of their lives, they will already have made one of the most remarkable and invaluable contributions to the progress of the movement.
Their contribution is all the more welcome because it comes at a time when the ruling class is relentlessly escalating the repression and a truly vigorous and courageous response was most urgently needed.
The release of the Chicago 10 – although on extortionate bail – is eloquent testimony to the massive character of the response to the foul verdict and unprecedented harshness of the sentences imposed on the defendants by Judge Hoffman. The response also proves the effectiveness and forcefulness of the struggle put up by the defendants in making the courtroom a veritable battleground in their unyielding effort to reach the public in the face of the sternest and most obdurate opposition of judge and prosecution.
Since the dawn of class society, the ruling class of every exploiting system has with undeviating consistency demanded of its subjects “respect for law and order – above all for the courts.” The court, it must never be forgotten, had its origin when the slave-master and later the feudal lord brought into his “court-yard” his subjects to be judged by him -- the master and lord. Contempt shown in his presence was synonymous with contempt of the ruling class and defiance of its authority.
Capitalist jurisprudence has continued and fortified this tradition, masking the rule of the bourgeoisie as the rule of the people – and its court as the repository of justice.
In tearing the veil from this holy of holies, the Chicago defendants not only “de-sanctified” the court, but exposed it for the corrupt and decadent institution it really is. This is not to say that other leaders in the past have not carried out a more consistent and revolutionary exposure of imperialist justice in the courtroom. But the bold and courageous struggle put up by the Chicago 10 served as a medium to rally the broadest sections of public support and make the courtroom the focus of world attention.
From the beginning it was clear that the ruling class through Judge Hoffman had over-reached itself. But the collective efforts of all the defendants and their attorneys took advantage of this to strike back with all the moral and political equipment at their disposal. The response, as we now know from the people, was greater and more intense than anyone could have hoped for at the very beginning of this infamous judicial proceeding.
Now that the defendants are out on bail, it is perhaps appropriate to discuss the relation of some of the political groups that lay claim to Marxism-Leninism and their relation to the trial of the Chicago 10.
To begin with it is well to remember that the CP, SWP and PL were opposed to participation in the demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from which demonstrations the convictions against the defendants spring. This is especially important in the light of their developing attitude towards the conduct of the defendants at the trial and to subsequent events. Each of these groups had its own reasons for opposing participation in the Chicago demonstrations at the time of the Democratic National Convention and none of them participated. The CP would have been very much for the demonstrations had they been staged as a pro-McCarthy nomination rally or as a vigil-type gathering of prayerful protesters. In any case their yearning for a close alliance with the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party ruled out any type of militancy which would offend the sensibilities of McCarthy, McGovern & Co.
The fact that the CP later roundly denounced and deplored the violence of the police, as did PL and the SWP, was no more of a gesture than one would expect from any good liberal.
On the face of it, the opposition of PL and the SWP was seemingly based on firmer ground. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party and a tool of the ruling class. Demonstrating at the Democratic Convention would be interpreted as support for the McCarthyites, who were vying for the presidential nomination, and in any case the demonstration would focus attention on the Democratic Convention and thereby strengthen the influence of capitalist politics on the workers. By boycotting the demonstrations rather than participating in them, more could be done to disillusion the mass of the people with the Democratic Party and its pro-war position than by participating in or encouraging the demonstrations.
These are good sound arguments and they have the old ring of “class truth” behind them. But the real reason why these organizations turned their back on the demonstrations is in direct contradiction to real class truth. It lies in their consistent, their undeviating position of avoiding struggle and confining themselves to bourgeois-reformist electoral politics, as is the case with the SWP, or to posturing as exponents of “proletarianization.”
Of course, no serious working class organizations worthy of its name can fail to firmly base itself on the working class as the fundamental instrument for the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie or deny the validity, in principle, or participating in electoral campaigns when they are timely and the circumstances are proper. To counterpose active, militant and sincere participation in this important struggle to “going to the workers” or “participating in an election campaign,” or for that matter, counterposing the struggle in Chicago at the Democratic Convention to any other form of activity at the time was sheer hypocrisy and falsehood. Both PL and the SWP utilized good sound arguments to deceive the unwary. For their basic orientation was to sidestep what apparently was emerging as a major confrontation growing out of the anti-war struggle and provoked by the ruling class. Their abstention from the demonstrations was reactionary and their revolutionary phrase-mongering a cover-up.
Without in so many words saying so, these very same political groupings were in one way or another hostile to the conduct of the defendants at the trial. Oh, of course they denounced the judge and the courts and the police and repression and all that, but many bourgeois liberals also did that and without calling themselves Marxists. But what these groupings did not do, which would differentiate them from bourgeois liberals in practice and in action, is to show that indispensable solidarity which flows from genuine concern and appreciation of the magnitude of the case and its overall significance for the movement in America.
No one will assert that the defendants, with the exception of Bobby Seale, consider themselves Marxists or Leninists or that the level of their political ideology goes beyond the defense of democratic rights, anti-racism and anti-militarism. But that again is not the issue. The essence of the matter is that the Chicago defendants opened an avenue of struggle against the repression unloosed by the imperialist establishment and fought under conditions which were most difficult for the defendants. They nevertheless doggedly pursued a course of exposure and attack against the judicial frame-up system which around millions of people and awakened many of them to political life and the perils which face all the oppressed.
As a Marxist-Leninist Party, we took a position diametrically opposed to that of the groupings we are discussing. We are proud of our participation in the Chicago demonstrations and are glad that we encouraged them to the widest possible extent. Our annual Party Conference, which followed on the heels of the Chicago demonstration by a bare few days, had as one of its principal items on the agenda for discussion our experiences and lessons learned from the Chicago demonstration. Practically all of the participants emerged from the demonstrations in an optimistic mood fortified by the lessons learned in the struggle.
Our Party has consistently solidarized itself in action with the Chicago defendants. This is particularly true of our young comrades who participated in numerous YAWF demonstrations and almost all the actions, especially in the East, which were designed to defend the Chicago victims and of course the Panther 21.
Our political differences with the Chicago defendants are probably deeper and more profound than those that these alleged Marxist groupings have with them. But that is in the plane of ideology. The supreme test of real meaning of ideological principles is in the crucible of the struggle itself. What kind of Marxism is it that shuns struggle? It is the familiar phenomenon of that Marxism which Lenin so relentlessly fought against, the Marxism that is pedantic, gutless and spineless, the Marxism of the revolutionary in word but pacifist bourgeois liberalism in deed.
Every revolutionary party must utilize all avenues of possible struggle in order to reach the broadest strata of the masses. From this it follows that the party must also utilize a multiplicity and variety of forms in the struggle in order to reach the masses and achieve a flexibility in approaching the masses – with due regard to the level of their development.
This has absolutely nothing in common, however, with a renunciation of militant struggle and self-defense measures – of shirking from the struggle, of in effect, “copping out” – just when it is most necessary to resolutely respond with all the vigor and energy at our disposal. Those who renounce the use of militant and revolutionary methods of struggle when the battle has only begun will never survive the truly great battles which are just beginning to unfold.
Last updated: 11 May 2026