September 1971
No one can deny that our Party has made significant progress in the recent period. It has grown both in quality and in quantity. It has been active on all political fronts. It hasn’t shirked a single significant issue. On the contrary, it has shown a boldness and readiness to be in the forefront even where it has been most difficult, such as in the Mideast, the Black Panthers, etc.
But the Party now faces enormous political and organizational problems. The Party must make a sharp turn in the direction of the broad mass of the working class – Black, white, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Asian – women and men.
Our Conference could turn into a mere rhetorical exercise. The turn must be carried out in such a way so that it enhances and deepens the revolutionary class consciousness and perspective of the Party as a whole and prepares it for the coming battles in the class struggle which are sure to emerge in the coming period.
Talking about going to the workers is an old, old cry of radical Marxist groupings in this country. It has often led to frustration because of inability to affect the workers. Also it has often resulted in loss of perspective when cadres in the plants get lost there, get completely submerged in day to day plant or union activity, or just get resigned to mere existence.
It may also lead to de-politicization of the Party’s cadres in the unions. Another danger is the tendency toward impatience which results in casualties because of ill-considered, inexperienced and oftentimes premature involvement in the struggle.
The principal problem that the Party faces in making a turn to the workers is to make sure that in the course of making this turn, we do not surrender our vanguard role on the broad political arena. Let me illustrate what I mean.
Late on August 21st, we heard the news of the murder of George Jackson. Certainly he was one of the most, if not the most promising of the revolutionary young Black leaders, and was orienting toward Marxism and the working class. He was in general, a brilliant agitator and propagandist and got his education under the most difficult conditions. Virtually his entire life was spent in prison on trumped-up charges.
The day preceding, I had spoken at a public meeting on Nixon’s economic assault on the working class. Of course, the clear implication of my talk was that we have to direct more of our efforts to the workers.
But what about George Jackson? Within an hour of the news, comrades at the Party headquarters were already tentatively planning some action. Would this not be a diversion from the perspective of the fundamental tasks of deepening our influence among the workers, of whom there are more than 60 million?
The answer of course is no. The real question is, does our Party rank and file know how to combine a profoundly revolutionary issue – such as the assassination of George Jackson – with agitation and propaganda among the workers? Does the Party know how to appeal to the workers on the issue and explain it in clear, simple and elementary language, and in such a way as to get a response – even a minimum response?
That is the issue. The SWP, the CP and PL could not care less about George Jackson. Such issues “interfere” with their work. The CP and the SWP will unquestionably write a nice liberal article about Jackson and of course privately talk about how really nothing can be done about the terrible conditions in the prisons and how these issues have to wait for the revolution or after. But our Party, even with our limited resources, has been in the forefront of such struggles and its only fault has been its small numbers.
We can only get larger numbers and more effective support by trying harder with the workers, without whom no real revolution in America is possible. Trying to raise the George Jackson issue – and I’m using that only as an example – raises a multitude of political and organizational questions which we must solve if we really want to do effective work in the working class movement.
Understanding the enormous political backwardness of the white working class is fundamental. Of course, anyone can tell you how backward the workers are. But this can lead us in two different directions. One to an opportunist adaptation to the prejudices of the workers, or two, to a revolutionary attitude based on realism.
Facts are stubborn things, said Lenin, and they must be faced squarely. Looking at the working class the way it is can easily lead to a political surrender of revolutionary principles. But a genuine revolutionary, who has some historical knowledge of the development of the American working class, will know that the darkest, deepest, grimmest period of American labor is behind us, and has been for a few years.
What we are witnessing today are the first signs of a really true resurgence and revival of the struggle of the workers. What must be remembers, however, is that it is only the first signs – not the second, third and fourth. To mistake the pace of development of the political consciousness of the workers would be a very grave mistake – even in the light of the wage freeze – and even if there should develop tremendous strikes.
Nothing develops as slowly in America as revolutionary class consciousness, and this must be kept steadily in mind to avoid errors, because errors that affect the working class are not as easily rectified as they are in the Party.
To summarize, the present stage of the American working class, beginning with about the year 1947-48 (immediately following on the heels of the post-war strikes), the workers began to descend on the escalator in a political sense, while economically they were making modest gains. Now, after a period of watchful waiting and bewilderment by the political shift to the left in the country as a whole, they have gotten off the descending escalator and are taking the first steps on a slow moving ascending escalator. But it is only the first steps.
They are on the ascending escalator because of the enormous rise in the cost of living, the galloping inflation, cuts in welfare and all other social services, increasing speedup and layoffs in many plants and the virtual closing of others.
In addition to this, a great many of them have learned that the war in Vietnam, which they originally supported, is against their interest. And their so-called labor leaders are now blaming the war for all the troubles the workers have. But they just call it a mistake – not an outgrowth of the imperialist system.
However, the workers are beginning to listen and to examine ideas and prejudices that they have long held. The main thing, however, is that as against what was happening a few years ago, when the workers were not listing to political questions that concerned them – and many were downright hostile – now, they are listening, and at least a portion of them, probably the youngest, are willing to discuss. And the question is whether we can correctly engage them in a dialogue and make ourselves understood.
What’s needed from our Party, if we are to communicate with the workers, is to show above everything else that we are good listeners. Woe to the comrades who go into a plant just to spout – who cannot distinguish a spark from a conflagration.
Again, this is only one of our tremendous problems. An even more acute one is how to help solve trade union problems by first accurately analyzing what is happening, and knowing what to do in the face of a monstrous labor bureaucracy and a giant corporation.
We projected the Labor Center in anticipation of a working class resurgence. Why in the Labor Center necessary? Because we can’t function in the labor movement in the name of the Party or YAWF as openly as we would like to. The trade union movement is bureaucratic and restricted, and it is necessary to have a type of functioning organization where workers from a variety of industries, organized and unorganized, can have a place to come with their problems, and where the Party can function more easily and take initiatives in the name of the Labor Center. Without it such activity would be more restricted or otherwise ineffective or even impossible.
Not every branch has a Labor Center. But those that have, have already found how fruitful it is. Every branch must have the perspective of setting up a Labor Center, even if it’s only a Post Office box. Any worker will be able to see, even with a Post Office box, that there is a national center, with which the local centers are or should be in consultation.
The Party’s program, insofar as it directly affects the workers, and especially the trade unions, may first be initiated through the Labor Center and in that way the Party’s program has a better way of getting a hearing.
The most important aspect of this work is the coordination of the local Labor Centers with the national Labor Center. (Of course, this must also be coordinated politically on the local and national level.) It cannot be stressed sufficiently how important it is to bring to the attention of the Center and the Party press, local working class and oppressed struggles, no matter how insignificant they may appear on a local scale.
While it may not always be utilized for publication, it enables the leadership to see the events within the total framework of the national situation and to perfect its tactics and strategy.
At the Conference we will discuss the condition of the working class, Black, white, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Indian, etc., and how Nixon’s assault in the form of the wage freeze and other measures is affecting it. We will also discuss general proposals.
But nothing will work unless the comrades can tune into the situation and adapt themselves to it in such a way as to become part and parcel of the labor movement without in any way losing political perspective or surrendering on political positions.
In his “Left-Wing Communism,” Lenin said that in order for the Party to win the working class, it may even be necessary to merge with the masses to a certain extent. The terrible betrayals of the CPs and the Social Democrats have cast a pallid shadow on such tactics. Lenin’s remarks are nonetheless valid for revolutionaries who are seriously determined to see to it that the opportunist reactionary labor bureaucracy and their political helpers should not have unchallenged ideological domination over the masses.
Above all, it is utterly impossible for a comrade to function in the trade union movement unless he or she clearly understands the Party position on self-determination for oppressed peoples in this country.
Because the other organizations have virtually abandoned in propaganda, as well as in action, the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination in the U.S., was as a Party have had to do this under circumstances which have made it doubly difficult for the Party.
In the first place, we’ve had to combat a legion of political opponents on this question from all directions. And when you consider the size of the Party in the previous period, it made it almost impossible for us to recruit into the Party workers from oppressed nationalities, because most of our time was consumed in demonstrating our political support for Black and other oppressed Liberation organizations that are under extreme pressure and oppression by the government.
It became all the more necessary to show support for the Liberation organizations precisely because all the other so-called Marxist organizations abandoned this and were downright hostile to them.
On the other hand, it made it more difficult for us under these circumstances to recruit, develop and encourage Black, Puerto Rican and Chicano cadres in the Party. The position of our opponent political tendencies is that it is impossible to support independent Liberation organizations and build your own organization at the same time. Taking this as their thesis – which is not a new one by any means – they drew the conclusion that it is necessary to attack and exploit the shortcomings of genuinely militant Liberation groups in order to fortify their own organization. And that in reality has spelled out for them a complete abandonment of the Leninist conception of the national Liberation struggle.
Our Party is now stronger than it has ever been and our cadres are much more mature, particularly in the light of their experiences in the Liberation struggle or in support of it.
Our entire program is geared to the fundamental conception of the role of the working class as the only thoroughgoing revolutionary class that is capable of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, that in order to do this it is necessary to weld the widest and broadest front of the working class of all nationalities and all oppressed people in the U.S.
But the road to this working class unity, to this working class solidarity, does not mean denial of the right of self-determination, including the right of setting up a separate state by an oppressed people. When the government persecutes Liberation groups that hold a separatist position, it is the duty of proletarian revolutionaries, and particularly of the Party, to defend them in action against the persecution and to uphold their right to self-determination.
That does not mean that we as a Party must advocate separatism, secession or federation, nor are we obligated to support the political program of any particular group. We are obligated to give the greatest support to those whose program is most in accord with our own. Above all we must build our own Party, which means to recruit Black workers to the Party.
The acutest problem is generally found in the trade unions, where the struggle against racism is of paramount importance. Our problem there is first of all to fight against racist practices. This is absolutely primary. And it is in this respect that Party comrades have to pay particular attention to the growth and development of Black Caucuses.
That doesn’t mean that white Party comrades in the plant should unfurl the banner and begin the promotion of Black Caucuses. Generally speaking, it is for Black comrades to examine the situation and see if that is a practical correct step under the circumstances.
Where Black Caucuses are in existence, the job of white comrades is first of all to defend its right to existence on the bases of self-determination, but on the simple and elementary basis of necessity, and try to forge an alliance between progressive white workers and Black workers on that basis.
Working class unity in the struggle against the corporations will be more solid and lasting not only because the element of racism will be reduced, but because the power of the Black workers will be increased.
We uphold the right of the oppressed peoples to choose whatever path they determine – but always with a view toward unity ultimately of all the workers vs. the bosses. It is on this path that we will find genuine class solidarity, and above all, genuine proletarian internationalism.
Our Party and the Right to Self-Determination
Is there an inherent contradiction between the right of nations to self-determination and the building of a united working class Party to attract to itself workers of all nationalities from the oppressing nations as well as from the oppressed nations? The answer is, no!
The need of the workers to organize themselves into a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party and to unite them in the struggle against capitalism is an indispensable necessity for a victorious proletarian revolution.
There are many who deny the need for a Marxist-Leninist Party altogether, and with them we have no quarrel because we are going right on building one, since we know of no successful socialist revolution that occurred without one, with the possible exception of Cuba, which can be explained.
There are others, however, who say that each nation within the confines of the U.S. should build their own Party and that since the workers of the oppressing nation and the workers of the oppressed nation have different problems arising from the nature of the oppression, it is impossible at least for now to have a single united Party.
The logical conclusion of this thinking is that the whites should have one organization, Blacks another, Puerto Ricans another, etc. Assume that political evolution in this country favored such a development, the result then would be that we would have several Marxist-Leninist organizations. And if each had a generally Marxist-Leninist program, it would evolve from a loose alliance of these Marxist-Leninist organizations into a federation and finally into a unified multinational political Party.
In the final analysis, if workers are developing revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideology, it implies proletarian internationalism and class solidarity in the struggle against imperialism. Once the basic assumption is made for the need of all workers to have a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party, the idea that the vanguard elements of all nationalities must unite in a common organization must be seen as the logical outcome, and as an urgent necessity.
Those who would deny the need of all the workers to unite in a common political organization for the overthrow of the oppressive imperialist system, in reality deny the right to revolution. The slogan, “workers of the world unite” was not born out of pure imagination, but was an ideological reflection of the material-historical necessity of the working class to unite against the common class enemy. And from this is derived the necessity for a revolutionary Party of the proletariat which would be the vehicle for the execution of this great task of class emancipation.
When Lenin added to the slogan, “workers of the world unite,” “workers and oppressed peoples of the world,” he summarized the historical needs of the international working class to make the right of oppressed nations to self-determination a basic part of the revolutionary working class program. The working class cannot emancipate itself without at the same time destroying root and branch every form of national oppression.
Nor can there be any unity between the workers of the oppressed and oppressing nation as long as the workers of the oppressing nation do not recognize and do not advocate the right of the oppressed nations to self-determination. The right of self-determination can take the form of secession, federation, a variety of forms of amalgamation or any other forms depending on concrete historical circumstances.
Very often the right of self-determination is completely identified with only one form of its expression – separatism. On the other hand, bourgeois assimilationists who deny the existence of oppressed nations in this country merely confine themselves to advocating unity of the workers, to the utter disregard of the existence of national oppression.
In practice it means to ignore the extra oppression and super-exploitation of the oppressed people. They also deny the progressive character of the liberation struggles carried on by representative organizations of the oppressed masses and pour scorn on their organizations, and exploit the weaknesses of these organizations precisely because they manifest a national consciousness and national will to struggle.
The limited character of the struggle or the correct tactic or strategy employed by any particular liberation organization is quite another matter, but this is not really a serious concern of bourgeois assimilationists (those who impose assimilation or integration of an oppressed nation into an oppressor nation).
The difficulty in finding the correct solution for a working class organization to the national question in its own country, that is, how to advocate the right of nations to self-determination within the framework of a revolutionary class perspective, is by no means an easy one.
It was never very difficult for the English workers to recognize the right of self-determination of the Polish or Ukrainian peoples in the Czarist empire. The French and the Germans never had any difficulty recognizing the right of the Irish people to self-determination in the case of the British empire. And our Canadian friends, who often see the justice of the Black liberation struggle in the U.S., have not shown equal ability in recognizing the right of the Quebecois, Indians or other nationalities in Canada.
These examples in many ways show why it is so necessary for a revolutionary working class organization in this country to firmly uphold the right to self-determination and to support the liberation struggle in action against a host of pseudo-Marxist organizations who deny this right.
Our Party has consistently advocated self-determination under difficult circumstances and has given the liberation struggle its utmost support as much as circumstances possibly permit.
In recent years, our Party has energetically explained why white workers in the Party should make it their main task to fight chauvinism and racism in the white community and to defend the Black liberation struggle against racist repression. The tendency of white radicals has been to “explain the liberation struggle” to Black people while neglecting their main task of fighting racism and defending the Black liberation struggle in the white community.
Our Party, on the other hand, has from the beginning correctly oriented the membership in this respect. For a considerable period it appeared that a coalition of liberation organizations which were oriented to Marxism might develop into a federation in which we could participate as a constituent part. But this does not seem a likely variant of development for a considerable period ahead.
The heavy repression against liberation organizations in this country, splits within the organizations and considerable confusion resulting from all this, has made such a desirable prospect more remote. Nevertheless it remains a hopeful variant of development.
In the meantime, the task of organizing the workers from both the oppressed and oppressing nations into a revolutionary workers’ party remains more urgent than ever. Our Party must give a great deal of attention to this task. To carry this out various forms of Party organization may be necessary. A beginning has been made with the Third World Caucus. Within the framework of the Party a variety of different forms of Party organization specifically calculated to give extra emphasis and attention to this must be developed. If it is correct to have a women’s caucus in the Party to give extra attention because of women’s oppression, then all the more so is it necessary in the case of Black and Third World members.
But how do we advocate the right of self-determination to the masses? Doesn’t the term itself imply separation, whereas the need is for unity among the workers?
The right to self-determination is a political right which oppressed nations may use in whatever form they may ultimately decide as a nation. We must advocate and support that right. But we do not advocate separation, secession, federation, or amalgamation. That is for the oppressed nation to decide.
Our continuing propaganda for self-determination is aimed at helping the oppressed nations in whatever decision they make. The building of a workers’ party is not to be confused with the exercise of self-determination. We’re building a Party of the workers and the workers in our Party (white, Black, Puerto Rican, Chicano, etc.) will support whatever decision is made or will be made by the oppressed nations. And foremost of the tasks of the Party is the struggle against racism, repression and for self-determination.
To carry out this task effectively, we must strive to make our Party a multinational organization, drawing workers from all nationalities.
It should also be noted that in the Party, just as there are some women who may choose not to participate in the activities of the Women’s Caucus, so it may be also reasonable to expect that Black or Third World comrades may not always choose to be in any particular caucus, but be active in the Party generally. That too is an expression of self-determination.
Even in order to effectuate a workable alliance with any liberation organization ultimately, it is very important for the Party to have in its ranks Marxist-Leninist cadre from the oppressed nations to more effectively communicate with liberation organizations.
No matter how difficult or complicated the task may seem on how to best approach the national question, our tasks are relatively clear especially when compared to such principled distortion as made by the CPUSA on this question.
Here is the opening paragraph by Gus Hall, national secretary of the CP, in a preface to Claude M. Lightfoot’s “Ghetto Rebellion to Black Liberation”:
“History is full of examples of nations and peoples that were diverted from the path of human progress by unique internal factors. In most cases, such nations were dominated by forces of reaction which would not permit the removal of the relics of the past. These relics thus became the stumbling blocks to progress. As a nation it can also happen to us. We, too, can be sidetracked.”
First of all, the reader should notice that Hall (who is white) speaks of “a nation,” as the reader can see. He thus erases the difference between the oppressed nations and the oppressor nation in this country, thereby perpetuating the same myth that the bourgeoisie cultivates, that this country is “one nation, indivisible,” etc.
This in itself is a distortion of the principle of self-determination as formulated by Lenin, whom Hall claims to follow. Hall also speaks of “nations and peoples that were diverted from the path of human progress by unique internal factors.” By unique internal factors, we presume he means the oppressed nations, subjugated by an oppressor nation.
The relation between oppressed nations and oppressor nations is a principle feature of the imperialist era, but here Hall reduces it to a “unique factor” when it is a worldwide characteristic.
Hall also erases the class struggle in this paragraph as well, lumping the exploiting class and the exploited class together when he says, “History is full of examples of nations and peoples that were diverted from the path of human progress by unique internal factors.” What is the meaning of this? If by “nations” he means capitalist nations, and if by “unique internal factors” he means the struggle of oppressed nations to free themselves, he’s providing a false formulation of the issue. First of all the capitalist nation didn’t get “diverted from human progress by internal factors” of national oppression.
Hall fails to ask himself – progress for which class and which nation? The bourgeoisie made great progress precisely by oppressing, exploiting and subject to super-exploitation, national minorities in this country and abroad. That’s exactly how they made their progress, right?
It’s the oppressed nations that get diverted from their normal course of development. Is this not the meaning of the slave trade, and the kidnappings to America, the enslavement of Puerto Rico, the genocide of the Indians, etc., etc.? After this bewildering confusion of the relationship between an imperialist oppressing nation and an oppressed nation, and the barbaric and inhumane treatment of the latter, Hall tops off his paragraph by adding, “As a nation it can also happen to us.” Again we ask, who does he mean by “us”? Further comment unnecessary.
S.M. – September 1971
Last updated: 11 May 2026