The Bolshevik Tendency states that the principal task facing our movement is Party-building. This is a fine realization on their part, but does not raise the real issues involved in the debate on the Party, nor express the content of their position. The necessity of a workers’ Party is not a question. Nor is it a question that when there is no Marxist-Leninist Party, the central task facing the movement is to build one. These two points are elementary for anyone with the slightest familiarity with Marxism-Leninism and the state of our movement. The real questions are: what kind of Party, what functions will it serve, what is necessary for its creation, and how should we go about building it. Why, then, does the Bolshevik Tendency introduce its position with a commonplace? Precisely because in raising Party-building as a ’new’ question it is able to introduce a new and quite uncommon content, its own unique shade of opportunism: ’Left’ economism.
The Bolshevik Tendency makes the ’appropriate’ appeals to Lenin and Stalin to lay the theoretical foundation for the role of the Party. But the real authorities on Party-building barely have a chance to speak before the Bolshevik Tendency rudely interrupts with its own ’creative’ conclusions. Where Lenin saw a “constantly growing urge to fuse socialism with the working class movement”, and depicted the Party as the “higher form of the socialist workers’ movement” expressing this fusion, the Bolshevik Tendency sees something entirely different. The Bolshevik Tendency’s ’creative’ analysis is that:
Socialism is the idea, and the workers’ movement is the reality of today. The two are separated by a raging river. As theory must be linked with practice, so socialism must be fused with the workers’ movement. There is only one way to accomplish this, and that is by building the bridge between them; there is only one bridge, and that is the Party of the proletariat; there is only’ one method of building that bridge, and that method is Marxism-Leninism. Ibid. p.49-50.
Elsewhere, dropping the metaphor, the Bolshevik Tendency argues:
In order to realize the objective of our theory we must have a method of bridging the gap between the idea of socialism and the movement of the workers. That method is the Party. Ibid. p.45.
Regardless of what the Bolshevik Tendency may say to cover its tracks, this position is the ’essence’ of its view on the role of the Party. The Party is no longer the expression of the fusion between two movements, its elevation into a higher form. Not at all. The Party is now a ’bridge’, the ’method’ by which this fusion occurs. This alleged ’gap’ and the proposed method of resolution is entirely the creation of the Bolshevik Tendency. It is, however unintentionally, an accurate reflection, not of the objective relation between socialism and the workers movement, but of the objective relation, the ’raging river’, between the declassed, but still aspiring petty bourgeois intellectual and the ’reality of today’, the proletarian movement. The more anxious our intellectuals become, the less chance they have of fulfilling their narrow ambitions, the less willing they become to abandon those ambitions and side with the working class, the more violently does the ’river’ they see between themselves and the proletariat ’rage’. The ’solution’ for our ’Bolsheviks’ is not to simply abandon their petty bourgeois standpoint and give themselves completely over to the working class. No. They must build a ’bridge’ over the contradiction of class interests, so as to cross over with their narrowness intact.
This conception of the Party underlies their entire Party-building analysis and leads the Bolshevik Tendency to conclude that building the Party is our primary task since we cannot begin our ’work’ without it. In combating what they call the ’Economists’, i.e. those implanted in the workplace prior to the Party who attempt to build class consciousness, and the ’dogmatists’, i.e. those who formulate political line prior to the Party, our ’Bolsheviks’ tell us that:
For both groups, the Party needs to be built but essential work can be properly done in its absence and hence Party-building can take back seat to certain other tasks. Ibid. p.46.
Previously, the entire history of the international communist movement had taught us that the correct and principled handling of our communist work prior to the creation of the Party was precisely what laid the basis for and foundations of the Party. The Party is built, not through formal declarations, but through systematic ideological and practical work, through the development of political line and fusion with the advanced workers, which culminates at a certain point with the actual declaration of the Party. Without this practical and ideological content, the Party is nothing. Now, however, the Bolshevik Tendency has determined that this is all wrong, and instead has chosen to counter-pose “essential work” to “Party-building”. According to our ’theoreticians’, then, we have some comrades, the so-called Economists and dogmatists, who are quite wrongly doing “essential work”, while our ’Bolshevik’ Party-builders, on the other hand, are out building the Party. We are encouraged to believe, then, that our fate lies with the Bolshevik Tendency, since only our ’Bolsheviks’ are not wasting time with “essential work” but are plunging right into the principal task. But, we may ask, if our ’Party-builders’ are not building class consciousness of the workers and are not developing political line, i.e., are not building the real content of the Party, then what exactly is it they’re creating? If the Party is purged of its content, is not built on systematic organization within the working class and is not based on political line, then all that remains is its form. Our ’Bolshevik’ Party-builders can only be building the most formal aspects of the Party: an ’organization’, a newspaper, a journal, and so on. Contrary to what our ’Bolsheviks’ may claim, the question is not whether essential work can be done properly in the absence of the Party, but whether Party-building can be done in the absence of this essential work. It is not at all a question of juxtaposing “essential work” to “Party-building”. It is precisely a question of insuring that the entire Party-building process, including all the different facets of work essential to laying the foundation for the Party, is conducted on a firm basis of Marxist-Leninist principle.
The Bolshevik Tendency is not calling for the actual construction of the Party, but simply a superficial ’formation’ as our principal task. When we talk of building the Party, we are dealing with a process that goes on both before and after the Party is formed. The actual formation, adoption of a programme and rules, is but one stage in the over-all construction. This formation takes place only because its organizational and political foundations have been previously laid. The establishment of the Party should show a qualitative advance for the movement in that it indicates a new, higher, and more substantial level of ideological and practical unity. The formation of the Party expresses the fusion of the communist and working class movements, the solidification of the various activities of the movement at a certain stage in its development, the material consolidation of ideological unity around a common programme and strategy. The Party is not at all the starting point nor the originator of the various forms of work as the Bolshevik Tendency would have us believe, but rather their result. The Party grows out of the movement, is called forth by the tasks before the movement. When the Party initiates new forms of work it is a continuation of the same force which brought it forward, i.e., the fusion of the working class and communist movements. The Bolshevik Tendency’s one-sided, formalistic understanding of the Party and Party-building amounts to nothing more than the systematic liquidation of the Party’s true content.
Our ’theoreticians’ claim to be arguing against “elevating the narrowest forms of practical activity to the level of theory”. Their example of this ’economism’ is the argument that “one cannot be a true Marxist-Leninist if one does not have a working-class job”. The Bolshevik Tendency has singled out one obviously incorrect line, but in opposition to this false conception they pose an equally erroneous view: that those who aren’t ’building the Party’ as our ’Bolsheviks’ define it and who are in the workplace are necessarily Economist. The Bolshevik Tendency thus equates workplace organizing, of whatever form, with Economism. Only the Party, according to our opportunists, has the ’right’ to correctly organize the working class. All practical organizing prior to the Party’s creation, then, falls under the heading of “narrowest forms of practical activity”. The logic of the ’Bolshevik’s’ argument is that the main source of Economism is the workplace itself, and it will surely corrupt anyone who is not safeguarded by Party membership. Therefore. To fight Economism in the workplace it is necessary to have...the Party. It seems that nothing can be done until our ’Bolsheviks’ form the Party and give us the go-ahead. In reality, all that the Bolshevik Tendency has done is to raise not being in the workplace “to the level of theory”. Here we find them in all their splendor:
Having read extensively into the biographical material available on Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, we have not encountered any evidence whatsoever that these great Marxist-Leninists ever worked at a working class job. Certainly nowhere can it be found in their writings that to become a Marxist-Leninist, let alone a leader of the revolution, one must work at a working class job. Many of the other leaders of the Bolshevik and Chinese Communist Parties as well never implanted themselves in the workplace; where they did work, they generally did so to survive. As for our favorite ’ultra-Leftist’ Lenin, his initial organizing efforts among the working class did not consist in working at a job, but rather in reading sections of Capital at workers’ meetings...and raising workers’ consciousness of their historical mission....Ibid p.13.
As if there was no distinction between theoretical and practical workers, and that these indeed great theoretical leaders were not inseparably bound to the practical workers inside the factories; as if, on principle they refused to enter the working class for fear of being contaminated by all those “real, live, lunch-bucket workers” ’inevitably’ laden with ’economism’; as if these truly revolutionary intellectuals bore any resemblance to our penny-ante petty bourgeois ’Bolsheviks’. It goes without saying that anyone who claims that ’to be a Marxist-Leninist one must have a working class job’ is reducing Marxism-Leninism to an absurdity. It goes equally without saying that when the Bolshevik Tendency holds that ’anyone in the workplace is Economist’ our ’Bolsheviks’ are committing the same absurdity. In reality, being a Marxist-Leninist has nothing at all to do with being within or without the workplace, just as Economism is not at all dependent on one’s proximity to the factory. What is essential is the class content of our work in all areas. It should be obvious to anyone who has given serious thought to our tasks that the building of a Marxist-Leninist movement and the Party it creates involves a wide variety of work, demands that some concentrate their efforts on ideological and theoretical tasks, while others concentrate on practical and organizational tasks. To oppose these facets to each other, as our ’Bolsheviks’ have done, to argue in a simpleminded way about being within or without the workplace, is to completely negate the content of our work and engage in ’debate’ for the purpose of saying nothing.
The Bolshevik Tendency’s geography lesson completely obscures the real class basis of Economism. Economism is a manifestation of bourgeois ideology which attempts to separate the working class movement from the communist movement, attempts to limit the working class to the struggle for better wages and working conditions, and rallies the workers behind the liberal bourgeoisie for political reforms. This theory does not stem from the workplace, from the fact of having a ’working class job’, but is brought in wholesale by the social props of the bourgeoisie, the trade union bureaucrats, labor aristocracy, social-democrats, revisionists, Trotskyites, and opportunists of all stripes. It makes little difference whether Economism is brought in in its Right, openly reformist form, which attempts to separate the class from the Party; or is brought in in a ’Left’ form, which attempts to separate the Party from the class. The objective result is the same. The communist movement and the working class movement remain separate, the communist movement crumbles from lack of firm roots in the class, and the workers movement continues in the daily drudge of the economic struggle alone.
By attributing Economism to workplace struggles, the Bolshevik Tendency must conclude that Economism does not exist outside the workplace. Following from this, those outside the workplace must be automatically exempt from this disease. This being the case, if our present workplace ’economists’ merely departed from their jobs and joined our ’Bolsheviks’ in building the Party, they would no longer be subject to Economism. By labelling workplace struggles Economist our ’theoreticians’ must in fact call for a wholesale emigration of the movement’s practical workers from the workplace until the Party has been ’built’. But this ’plan’ of our ’Bolsheviks’ is nothing but the rankest Economism itself, prettified in a ’Left’ form. The Bolshevik Tendency steers the communist movement away from the working class entirely, fully separating the political from the economic struggle. All we are given is the promise that this union will be restored after the ’party’ has been ’built’. How this is to occur in practice remains a mystery.
Instead of identifying and critiquing actual Economist tendencies revealed by groups and organizations in our movement who are engaged in practical work, the Bolshevik Tendency ’simplifies’ this responsibility by boldly stating that all workplace organizing = Economism prior to the Party. Instead of showing what communist workplace practice should consist of, how such practice must be the means of fusion with the advanced workers, how such practice should lay a real organizational and ideological foundation for future Party work, our ’Bolsheviks’ simply deny its possibility.
Communist work consists in combining the economic and political struggle, in fusing both into a nationwide class struggle for state power. We should in no way encourage our practical workers to withdraw from the workplace. We should instead encourage them to raise and systematize their work to the level of consistent communist work: to seek out and win over the advanced workers, to propagandize to raise the level of the average workers, to raise not only the question of better wages but the question of the wages system itself, to explain not only the relation between labour and capital but the relation of the working class to all other classes and strata, to explain the role of the state and the absolute necessity for a revolutionary workers movement to seize state power, and so on. It is only by developing such practical work, by extending and deepening it, and putting it under the direction of a central, leading, principled Marxist-Leninist centre that we can in fact win the advanced workers to communism and create a solid foundation for our Party. There is no question that our present practical work suffers from isolation, amateurishness, lack of coordination, principled leadership, and so often falls into Economism. But the solution is not to abandon such work, but rather to raise and strengthen it.
The authors argue that it is Economist to build class consciousness without a Party. But any child can see, even if our ’Bolsheviks’ cannot, that the mere existence of a Party apparatus does not guarantee that its mass work will be Marxist-Leninist. The only outcome of our ’Bolshevik’s’ Party-building ’plan’ is a ’party’ along the lines of the CPC or the CPC(ML). The CPC(ML), after all, was the first to lay down this ’plan’ and the first to fully demonstrate its utter bankruptcy. It in fact ’built the Party’ in isolation from the working class, in fact ’worried’ about class consciousness only after the fact, did indeed formulate ’basic ideology and strategy’ in the course of the ’party’ struggle. It had all the formal requirements: a name, an ’organization’ of sorts, a newspaper, journal and so on. It even has ’mass work’, suited to the class interests it represents. All that is lacking in the CPC(ML), as well as in the Bolshevik Tendency’s ’plan’, is Marxism-Leninism.
From the above, we see that the Bolshevik Tendency’s opposition to what it calls ’economism’ (workplace practice prior to the Party) is in fact nothing but a cheap expression of petty bourgeois opposition to the working class. Through such innovative ’additions’ to Marxism-Leninism, our ’theoreticians’ have laid a granite foundation for a ’workers’ party without the working class. This is concisely expressed in the Bolshevik Tendency’s view of who forms the Party:
Note that Lenin does not see the party as being formed out of the struggles in the workplace, by the most advanced leaders of workplace struggles, according to Lenin the Communist party is formed by polemical and theoretical struggle among the most advanced elements of the socialist movement and by the establishment of a central post for all elements of the movement. Ibid. p.12
Our staunch ’Leninists’ take the liberty of not only speaking on behalf of Lenin, but also of putting words into his mouth. In order to arrive at its conclusion, the authors have had to completely ignore large sections of the articles they refer to, and in a most straightforwardly dishonest display directly misquote key passages that they do use. Never is this practice more apparent than at this point in their position. The most glaring misquote, pivotal for their entire argument, is when they cut Lenin off in mid-sentence when he is explaining that the fusion of the communist and workers movements results in “a higher form of the socialist workers’ movement”, the Party. Our ’Bolshevik’ editors simply leave off the part of the passage indicating that fusion leads to the Party, not vice-versa. They can then proceed to argue that it is the Party that brings about fusion. Having so thoroughly ’proven’ the premise of their argument, the Bolshevik Tendency then elaborates their conclusion about the “advanced leaders of workplace struggles” having nothing to do with Party-building. Yet it is precisely in the article, A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy, used extensively by our ’theoreticians’, that Lenin quite clearly indicates the role of the advanced workers in the Party-building process, underscores their essential role in developing and extending communist work, and states that they “...as always and everywhere, determined the character of the movement”. By simply ignoring this passage of the article, the Bolshevik Tendency is able to identify Lenin’s scientific conception of the advanced workers with its own “the most advanced leaders of workplace struggles”. It is then able to ’skip’ over the conception of advanced worker altogether and boldly declare: Lenin never said the Party was formed by militant trade unionists! A boldly put, and entirely false, argument. Indeed, Lenin fought against the idea of the Party becoming a centre of militant trade unionism. Lenin in fact never proposed that the Party be formed “out of the struggles of the workplace”. But it is also a fact that Lenin never proposed, and in fact fought against, the idea of the Party being formed apart from the working class. It is a fact that Lenin conceived the Party as a product of fusion with the advanced workers, not its initiator. It is a fact that Lenin fought to have the struggle for the Party carried into the factories, urged not only the advanced workers, but the broad masses of workers to take an active role in the pre-Party debate. It is a fact that the Iskra centre formed, as the organizational network for a principled and professional Party, the widest connections among the existing workers’ circles and encouraged the creation of others. The Leninist conception of the Party is distinguished precisely by its emphasis on fusion with the advanced workers and unity around firm and unbreakable principles as essential preconditions for truly communist Party work. And it is this Leninist conception of the Party that our ’Leninists’ of the Bolshevik Tendency flatly reject.
Our opportunists prefer to imagine that the Party is a ’bridge’ that spans a ’raging river’ between the communist and workers movements. From this revealing metaphor, it follows that in order for socialism to reach the working class, it must pack its bags and stroll across the ’river’. And, of course, in order to do this, the ’bridge’ must first be in place. But if the ’bridge’ must already be constructed before socialism can go visiting the working class, then it falls to the socialists to do the actual bridge-work. The workers, seeings how there are no advanced, have no idea that there is in fact a ’raging river’, let alone that a ’bridge’ should cross it. If they knew that the Bolshevik Tendency was visiting, why, they might at least make some preparations. The Bolshevik Tendency is, in effect, saying to the working class: Workers, both ’advanced’ (we hang you in quotes since we don’t at all believe you exist) and ’relatively uninformed’ (we hang you in quotes out of sheer contempt), leave this job of Party-building, of political organization, to us ’advanced’ (we hang ourselves in quotes, believing in our brilliance) petty bourgeois intellectuals. When we have finished debating and have formed our Party, we’ll come to you for some proletarian content. In the meantime, you just go about your everyday (ho-hum) economic struggle. We simply cannot taint ourselves with it now. Remember to steer clear of those economists and forget about political knowledge, forget about socialism, until we’re ready for you. Yours very truly, B.T.
Far from being the ’essence of Leninism’, the Bolshevik Tendency’s line is, in fact, the essence of Economism. It is the separation of the economic and political struggles. It limits the working class to the trade union struggle and guarantees the domination of bourgeois ideology within the working class. It completely denies the role of the advanced workers in the Party-building process, and thereby relegates the Party to an isolated sect of ’intellectual’ petty bourgeois bankrupts. It builds a ’bridge’, but a ’bridge’ leading nowhere. A river, after all, divides two separate bodies of land, two separate entities; in our ’theoreticians’ example, the working class and socialism. A bridge is built, providing a link between the two separate pieces of land, but the land on both sides still remain separated. A bridge does not fuse, nor combine. It only provides a cross-over point. And that is precisely what the Bolshevik Tendency needs: a ’party’ that spans the real gap between their petty bourgeois class interests and the working class, that simultaneously allows those interests to remain intact. It is only with such a ’bridge’ that the aspiring petty bourgeois elements can hope to rally sections of the proletariat behind their narrow interests. This has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, which demands, as a precondition for serving the working class, that petty bourgeois elements completely reject their own narrow interests and take up the standpoint and interests of the proletariat. The Bolshevik Tendency’s line has everything in common with Trotskyism, with opportunism and Economism, which on the contrary demands that the working class abandon its class interests and take up the standpoint and interests of the petty bourgeoisie. The world-historical experience of the communist movement teaches us what attitude we should take towards such opportunist efforts. Class conscious workers will know what to do with the Bolshevik Tendency’s ’bridge-work’ when and if it ever sets down into the working class.
The advanced workers are striving for working class socialism; the ’most advanced elements of the socialist movement’ are seeking out the advanced workers, constantly maintaining their propaganda and agitation at the level of the advanced workers, striving to raise it ever higher. The process of fusion of the two movements does not result in the advanced workers being drawn out of the class into an absolutely separate movement, the ’party’. On the contrary, the Party becomes the advanced detachment of the class precisely because it embodies the fusion of the highest interests of the proletariat with the proletariat’s foremost representatives. Scientific socialism is drawn into the class by this fusion.
On its own, the working class cannot develop the historical perspective necessary to see the rule of capital as a passing historical phase, as a system that can and must be overthrown. The working class lacks knowledge of the position and interests of other classes and strata in society, and of its own collective experience and historic mission. Through its spontaneous struggle, the working class does not possess or gain the political knowledge and experience necessary to fulfill this mission. It is the task of the communist movement to bring this knowledge to the working class, to analyze and define the interests of the class and determine correct strategy and tactics for the class struggle. The Communist Party is the expression of the fusion of the two movements. Its existence reveals that scientific socialism has fused with the advanced workers of the class, and has thus achieved the means by which it can be fused with the broad masses of workers.
There is no ’raging river’ between the proletariat and the knowledge of its objective interests. As soon as the revolutionary intellectuals in the communist movement have in fact transformed their class outlook, consistently and correctly apply Marxism-Leninism, bring true scientific socialism to the working class, and build a groundwork of principled communist organization, the advanced workers will come forth and join them, thus beginning the fusion of the two movements. It is not the Party that begins the linking of communism with the working class, but the consistent application of Marxism-Leninism in theory and practice by the pre-Party communist movement. The Russian Social-Democrats did not first build a ’bridge’, a party, and then go amongst the workers to ’test’ out its line. On the contrary, they analyzed the concrete conditions, drew up their plan of action, consistently struggled against and defeated the dominance of opportunism, formed study circles and organization, conducted economic and political propaganda and agitation, drew out the advanced workers into their organization, and so on, all as a simultaneous process. And it was this work that “...evolved into a higher form of the socialist workers’ movement – the independent working-class Social-Democratic Party.” V.I. Lenin A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy CW Vol. 4 p. 257.
Or again, on the development of the circles and their relation to the Party:
From propaganda they began to go over to widespread agitation. Widespread agitation, naturally, brought to the forefront a growing number of class conscious advanced workers; revolutionary organizations began to take form... These organizations naturally tended to merge and, eventually, they succeeded: they united and laid the foundations of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. V.I. Lenin Ibid. p. 279.
Clear it would seem. But of course the Bolshevik Tendency will have nothing to do with this ’fetishism’ of Marxism-Leninism. In our ’Bolsheviks’ realm nothing is clear save the self-righteous arrogance of the petty bourgeois intelligentsia attempting to attach itself to the workers’ movement. Our ’theoreticians’ of the Bolshevik Tendency constantly prove themselves to be little more than ’Marxist-Leninist’ pedants, know-nothings who bring to mind Lenin’s caution:
If the study of communism consisted solely in assimilating what is contained in communist books or pamphlets, we might all too easily obtain communist text-jugglers or braggarts, and this would very often do us harm, because such people, after learning by rote what is set forth in communist books and pamphlets, would prove incapable of combining the various branches of knowledge, and would be unable to act in the way communism really demands. V.I, Lenin The Tasks of the Youth Leagues CW Vol. 31 p.285.
It is perhaps giving the Bolshevik Tendency more than their due to put them in the same category with those who have ’learned by rote’, as they show no sign of having learned anything, even by rote. All they have accomplished is to juggle the terms of Marxism-Leninism to suit their own needs. On the point at hand their peculiar ’needs’ have led them to liquidation of the role of the advanced workers, liquidation of fusion, and thus liquidation of the Party. Such is the Bolshevik Tendency’s ’opposition’ to Economism. From here we proceed to see how the Bolshevik Tendency liquidates another integral aspect of the Party: revolutionary theory.
As we remember, aside from our workplace ’economists’ and our ’party-builders’, the Bolshevik Tendency has determined a third category for our movement: the ’dogmatists’. The Bolshevik Tendency identifies these poor souls as all those left-over comrades who are, “in varying degrees”, formulating scientific political line as the principal task facing the movement. Just as the Bolshevik Tendency attacked going amongst the workers in general by opposing the most moronic form of ’economism’, here it attacks the development of scientific line in general as being ’dogmatist’ by opposing the most extreme, dogmatic approach to developing political line. The Bolshevik Tendency singles out its match in those who hold for ’complete’ and ’correct’ line prior to any organizational unity, even that of a small group. But it also lumps this actual case of dogmatism together with an alleged “less extreme form”, i.e. those “line fetishists” who “shirk from uniting into a Party because they do not have the correct line down pat...”. That is, the Bolshevik Tendency lumps real dogmatism together with the struggle of principled Marxist-Leninists to develop a revolutionary scientific theory that would provide the necessary foundation for Party unity. By its very ’dialectical’ combination the Bolshevik Tendency has made room for its own deviation: the ’necessity’ for the total lack of political line prior to the formation of the ’party’, and the ’impossibility’ of scientifically developing political line in general. It has raised the bogey of ’complete correct line’ in order to relieve itself of the task of developing any scientific political lines whatsoever, whether before or after formation of its much-touted ’party’ of petty bourgeois intellectuals.
The Bolshevik Tendency accomplishes this relief mission through two ’tremendous’ theoretical ’advances’: first, its conception of testing a line in practice and the role of the ’party’ in this process; and second, completely undercutting all the mummery over its ’adherence to Marxist-Leninist principle’ and its demand for ’ideological unity’ as the basis of the ’party’, it has developed a theory of the absolute relativity of knowledge.
Our ’theoreticians’ claim to possess a “radically different” understanding of theory and practice than the hum-drum rank and file Marxist-Leninists throughout Canada and Quebec. In fact, their understanding is so ’advanced’ that they have grown “weary” of repeating the same ’elementary’ points of their voluminous knowledge to us plebian undergraduates. However, upon investigation, this claim proves to be just one more instance of ’humble’ stupidity on their part. The Bolshevik Tendency holds that to know anything about the correctness of a line, it must first be put ’into practice’. Contrary to its quotations from Mao, its own argument is that since direct practice is the ’ultimate test’ of any theory, we need not concern ourselves with scientific analysis to begin with; it wall all come out in the wash anyway. The alleged ’dogmatists’ who see the necessity of developing political line as a precondition for Party unity are accused of having a “fetishism of political line”, of being “blind empiricists”, and so on. According to the Bolshevik Tendency’s argument, it follows that the common link between all these ’dogmatists’ is their insistence on correct line, to “varying degrees” prior to “varying degrees” of organizational unity. For the Bolshevik Tendency, all those developing political line prior to any level of organization, and especially the Party, are suffering from some sort of obsession. But let us see who is really obsessed, and with what.
It goes without saying that there can be no such metaphysical ’complete lines’ as our ’theoreticians’ are supposedly arguing against. However, there is scientific, dialectical materialist analysis, the scientific investigation of concrete conditions, which does provide us with a correct reflection of objective reality. In practice, these reflections constitute comprehensive lines from which we operate, irrespective of the existence or non-existence of the Party. For example, the correct resolution of the question of the principal contradiction in Canada will provide a ’complete’, i.e. a correct and comprehensive, line, an accurate estimation of the practice of the various classes of Canada and Quebec, their economic and political interests and strivings, the relations between them, which are on the rise and which are declining, which are the objective allies of the working class and which are not, and so on. The solution to this question provides a ’complete’ line which, though deepened through practice, will remain perfectly correct and valid for the present set of conditions. In the same way, the correct estimation of the conditions of Russia provided a ’complete correct line on the nature of the Russian revolution, i.e. that capitalism was developing, that the immediate aim of the revolution was the overthrow of the autocracy, that the main force was the proletariat, and so on. This line, just as our determination of the principal contradiction, was determined long before the Party was formed, long before it could be ’properly tested’ according to our ’theoreticians’ criteria, and yet it proved good for the period it dealt with: to the February Revolution. By saying that only the direct practice of the Party can prove the correctness or incorrectness of a political line, and that we should therefore drop this business of political line until after the Party is formed, the Bolshevik Tendency is in fact rejecting the scientific validity of Marxist-Leninist theory and its ability to correctly assess objective conditions. Despite what our pragmatists may hold, direct social practice is not the only means to prove the correctness of a political line. If that were the case there could be no science nor scientific method, every investigation would rest on our ’Bolsheviks’ direct practice. We determine the truth of things not only by our direct experience, but by whether or not the “sum total of facts, without a single exception relating to the question” (Lenin) have been accurately taken into consideration. The RSDLP in fact proved out Lenin’s conclusions on the development of capitalism in Russia and class relations, but Lenin’s scientific investigations were already completely valid, accurate and true before the Party came about. Such scientific investigation and the political conclusions that are drawn from it, political lines, are an absolute precondition for the creation of a principled Marxist-Leninist Party. That is precisely the function of the programme that the Party’s formation is based upon. If the programme is not complete, if it does not answer the fundamental questions posed by the country’s objective conditions, if it does not draw the line of march for every major area of Party work, then in fact the Party’s basis of unity is likewise incomplete and allows for, by omission, the development of opportunist lines. The ’theory’ of the Bolshevik Tendency is indeed a “radically different” one, radically different from Marxism-Leninism, and radically opportunist. Following the Bolshevik Tendency’s view, we would have no political line, no programme to embody it, no real Party unity or direction, and thus no real Party.
If we speak of truly communist leadership, and not the ’leadership’ of evasive opportunists, then we must speak very ’dogmatically’ of the absolute necessity for the most comprehensive scientifically determined lines. These lines are a precondition for the Party. They are ’incomplete’ only in that the basic strategy indicated by such lines must be fleshed out by tactics. They are put into practice, not to test their validity, but precisely because their validity is already accepted. The practical application of such scientifically determined line is the condition for its further development, its deepening and broadening, its application to more specific conditions. Practice is the means by which theory becomes a material force, is advanced and refined, and thus insures that the material force achieves the correct results. The starting point of political line is not direct practice alone; the starting point is the summation and scientific investigation of the objective conditions, the totality of the experience of the class struggle. Only once those lines have been drawn can we then direct our practice accurately, elaborate and fulfill the line. That is precisely the function of communist leadership: to indicate the line of march before the march gets underway. Communists do not say: Well let’s get on with it, we’ll find out where we’re going, and ’prove’ it, along the way. That is, communists do not speak like our ’Bolshevik’ opportunists, who can only follow the aimless ’strategy’ of the petty bourgeoisie.
In developing its argument, the Bolshevik Tendency must conclude that theory (and it follows, our basic guiding lines) is sheer speculation without direct practice, and so follows practice as a sort of theory-as-a-process. The fundamental premise of its position is that the only ’test’ of line is its ’realization’, i.e. direct practice. In spite of all its quotations, by ’testing’ the Bolshevik Tendency means precisely the process of ’full realization’. The only ’test’ is experiment. This conception is succinctly stated in two passages, which also reveal the new role for the Party resulting from this ’creative advancement’. ’Scientific testing’ of a line “...consists in implementing that line in terms of strategy and tactics and studying the results of that implementation.” (Perri & Stover Why Building the Party is the Principal Task Canadian Revolution #1 p.47.)
Thus ’testing’ a line is identical to its implementation and the following sum-up. Only when it has been ’tested’ in this way can we then say whether it was a correct speculation or not. This pragmatic break-through is complemented by other break-throughs on the role of the Party and strategy and tactics:
We hold that it is in the winning of the battles, first on a tactical level and then on a strategic level, that we will find out if our political line on Canada is correct. It is in this way that the theory is tested in practice.Ibid. p.16.
It is of course the Party that wages the battles, and so becomes the means for ’testing’ line. Strategy and tactics are now the standards of measurement. The ’ultimate’ test, if we can venture such a metaphysical proposition: if we ’win’ state power then our line was correct; if we fail, then our line was incorrect.
How would this new ’science’ of the Bolshevik Tendency work out in practice? First our ’Bolsheviks’ assume the ’leadership’ of the working class movement, and without the ’economist’ influence of the advanced workers, declare themselves a ’party’. Then political line is developed in the heat of the class struggle, by incorporating whatever gives ’tactical success’. How success is to be gauged does not enter the spacious caverns of our ’theoreticians’ minds. Of course, any opportunist can smell success, however small, a mile away. If all our little tactical successes pile up to equal a strategic success – well grubbed! If, unfortunately, they lead to strategic defeat – it couldn’t be helped, the line was incorrect, too bad. Our testing ground, after all, was only the working class, and workers, in our ’Bolsheviks’ eyes, are a dime a dozen. Such is their “radically different” line, a line which they are presently running as a ’test’, testing our gullibility and our patience, to see whether it can be passed off as a ’strategic success’ within the movement.
Proletarian strategy and tactics are not and have never been intended as measures for ’testing’ the correctness of a line. Our ’theoreticians’ completely obscure the fact that strategy and tactics stem from and are based on a scientifically determined, i.e. correct, line. The function of strategy and tactics is to direct and lead the movement, and this is impossible unless a correct assessment of the objective conditions has been made and this correctness validated in advance:
Only an objective consideration of the sum total of reciprocal relations of all the classes of a given society without exception, and, consequently a consideration of the objective stage of development of that society and of the reciprocal relations between it and other societies, can serve as a basis for correct tactics of the advanced class. V.I. Lenin Karl Marx CW Vol. 21 p.40.
It is from this scientific study, commonly known as the concrete analysis of concrete conditions, that we determine the nature and aims of the revolution. These are then scientifically formulated in the points of the political programme. It is on this basis that strategy and tactics are determined:
The function of political strategy is primarily...correctly to determine the main direction of the proletarian movement of the given country in the given historical period. p.168
The function of tactics is primarily to determine – in accordance with the requirements of strategy and taking into account the experience of the workers’ revolutionary struggle in all countries – the forms and methods of fighting most appropriate to the concrete situation of the struggle at each given moment. p. 171.
and
...strategy must base itself entirely on the data provided by the theory and programme of Marxism. p.165 J.V. Stalin, Concerning the Question of Strategy and Tactics Works Vol. 5 p. 163.
It is precisely the fact that strategy and tactics are based upon, and not just a means to ’test’, correct political line, it is precisely this that our ’Bolsheviks’ wish to obscure. It is precisely the fact that a truly communist party must be built on the basis of correct political line, embodied in a Party programme, this is what our ’Bolsheviks’ want nothing to do with. They completely deny that a correct political line, comprehensive in scope, serving as a solid guideline for our practice, can even be determined in advance of their ’party’. Instead they pose that “If the theory is incorrect the error will first show up on the tactical level...” (Perri & Stover Why Building the Party is the Principal Task Canadian Revolution #1 p.16.
This is not Marxism-Leninism, but the absolute rejection of it. Our ’Bolsheviks’ would have us believe that a theory, including, of course, their own, must be ’tested in practice’ to determine its correctness. From this it follows that we should rally behind our ’Bolsheviks’, join their ’party’, and then of course, if their ’theory’ is “incorrect the error will first show up on the tactical level”. But, fortunately, we cannot be so generous. We know in fact that their theory is incorrect, not because it has been proven so on the ’tactical level’, but because it has been disproven on the theoretical level. It fails to fulfill, and in fact directly contradicts, the elementary requirements of Marxist-Leninist theory, does not take into account the sum total of objective conditions, but mocks them, does not lay a line for the proletariat, but for the petty bourgeoisie. To follow our ’Bolsheviks’ ’plan’ would amount to following theory-as-a-process, aping after ’tactical successes’, rejecting real strategy and real tactics based on strategy, in short,would amount to Economism and petty self-congratulations, putting petty bourgeois leadership over the working class.
Having laid out this “radically different” concept, the Bolshevik Tendency produces its theoretical justification for principles-as-process:
This is not just hyperbole but comes directly from Anti-Duhring and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. It is an anti-dialectical conception that it is possible to know the complete truth about anything. All truth, according to Engels and Lenin, is relative truth; human knowledge tends to absolute truth but will never reach it. And so it is with lines. We will all be paralyzed from any unity of action if we insist on attaining these Platonic, metaphysical entities called ’complete lines’ before we can build organization... moreover, the constant flux of all things insures that a line which is correct today may be out of date tomorrow, as objective conditions change; and so, line must always be restudied, rethought, tested and retested, and subject to change. Ibid. p.47.
It is, of course, impossible to prohibit anyone from calling themselves ’Bolsheviks’. And the petty bourgeois intelligentsia is especially adapted to just such ’hyperbolic’ flights of fancy, self-embellishment and outright gall as is necessary to affix a name which embodies revolutionary consciousness and planning to such a classic conception of bowing to spontaneity as the Bolshevik Tendency puts forward here. Why yes, Marxism-Leninism is correct today, but only ’relatively’, you see. Why yes, though Marxism-Leninism may be relatively correct today, the “constant flux of all things” – especially of the petty bourgeoisie – ’insures’ that it “may be out of date-tomorrow”! And on this basis, we are certainly forced to draw the conclusion that the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism must be restudied, rethought, tested and retested, and subject to change. Worthy ’theoreticians’: do not blame your own inability to determine basic ideology and strategy for our movement on this petty bourgeois conception of the ’constant flux of all things’! Do not blame your own refusal to scientifically answer the questions facing our movement on the ’relativity of all knowledge’! Do not try to blame your own conscious rejection and revision of Marxism-Leninism on ’objective conditions ’!
Our opportunist ’Bolsheviks’ think they can do anything under the cover of ’relativity’, but they ’forget’ that “For objective dialectics there is an absolute within the relative. For “subjectivism and sophistry the relative is only relative and excludes the absolute.” V.I. Lenin On the Question of Dialectics CW ” Vol. 38 p.360.
Yes, good pedants, ’and so it is with lines’.
Has there ever been another example in the history of the international communist movement of ’Marxist-Leninists’ blaming their own inability to shoulder the tasks before our movement on ’the constant flux of all things’? Has there ever been another example of crying out against belittling this ’constant flux’, the spontaneous element? Anyone familiar with What is to be Done? will recognize this as the argument of the original Economists. The old Economists used to say to those ’dogmatic’ Iskra-ites:
...Iskra gives too little consideration to the material elements and the material environment, whose interaction creates a definite type of labour movement and determines its path, the path from which the ideologists, despite all their efforts, are incapable of diverting it, even if they are inspired by the finest theories and programme. V.I. Lenin A Talk with Defenders of Economism CW Vol. 5 p.313.
Our modern ’Left’ Economists, the Bolshevik Tendency, also cry about ’changes in objective conditions’ taking things out of our hands, harangue against the ideologists who are attempting to lay a line of march prior to the Party, and make ’tactical success’ their starting point. Such is the ’unity of action’ between old and ’Left’ Economism. As Lenin said of the Economists:
They fail to understand that the ’ideologist’ is worthy of the name only when he precedes the spontaneous movement, points out the road, and is able ahead of all others to solve all the theoretical, political, tactical and organizational questions which the ’material elements’ of the movement spontaneously encounter. V.I. Lenin Ibid. p.316.
How very ’dogmatic’ of Lenin to say that our role is to solve the questions in advance of the spontaneous movement, in advance of their implementation in practice.
The old Economists used to attack the ’metaphysical’ Bolsheviks with:
...’tactics-as-plan contradicts the fundamental spirit of Marxism tactics are ’a process of growth of Party tasks, which grow together with the Party’. V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.58.
This very old and very opportunist formulation is identical to the Bolshevik Tendency’s emphasis on the development of “basic ideology and strategy – always within” and not prior to “the framework of a Party”. It is identical to our ’Bolsheviks’ rejection, not only of the bogus ’complete line1 but of all political line prior to practice, prior to the spontaneous movement. It is identical to our ’Bolsheviks’ conception of ’testing’, since this ’testing’ presupposes that tactics are “a process of growth of Party tasks”. As Lenin said, to belittle the importance of striving for the most complete, comprehensive political lines to guide our work, to belittle the importance of settling ’basic ideology and strategy’ in advance of our practical work, to talk up the “constant flux of all things”,
...at a time of confusion, when the Russian ’Critics’ and Economists are degrading ...(communism) to the level of trade unionism, and when the terrorists are strongly advocating the adoption of ’tactics-as-a-plan’ that repeats the old mistakes, at such a time, to confine oneself to such profundities means simply issuing oneself a ’certificate of poverty’. At a time when many Russian (communists) suffer from a lack of initiative and energy, from a lack of ’scope of political propaganda, agitation, and organization’, a lack of ’plans’ for a broader organization of revolutionary work, at such a time, to say that ’tactics-as-a-plan contradicts the fundamental spirit of Marxism’ means not only vulgarizing Marxism in the realm of theory, but also dragging the Party backward in practice. V.I. Lenin What is to be Done? Foreign Languages Press Peking p.60.
How terribly ’metaphysical’ of Lenin to think in such ’rigid’ terms as plans, even within the framework of a Party.
But the most concise expression of the Economists opposition was their charge that the ’antidialectical’ Iskra-ites did not correctly understand the relationship between consciousness and revolutionary work. They argued:
’The task of the revolutionary (communist) is only to accelerate objective development by his conscious work, not to obviate it or substitute his own subjective plans for this development. The Iskra knows all this in theory. But the enormous importance which Marxism quite justly attaches to conscious revolutionary work causes it in practice, owing to its doctrinaire view of tactics, to belittle the significance of the objective or the spontaneous element of development.’ V.I. Lenin Ibid. p. 60.
The old Economists appealed to the “spontaneous element of development”. Our ’Left’ Economists appeal to the “constant flux of all things”. The old Economists argued against the “doctrinaire view of tactics” which, it claimed, obscured the “enormous importance” attached to “conscious revolutionary work”. Our ’Left’ Economists argue against the “dogmatic line fetishism” which, it claims, discredits the “very important role which line does play...” (C.R. #1 p.49). Thus our ’Bolsheviks’ “radically different” conception of our work ’accidentally’ coincides with the Economist trend which they claim to oppose. Lenin’s answer to the original, old-time Economists holds just as true for our modern ’Bolshevik’ Economists:
Effrontery indeed, and what an overrating of the conscious element – first to find the theoretical solutions to problems, and then to try to prove to the organization, to the Party and to the masses that this solution is correct! How much better it would be to repeat something that has been learned by rote, and, without ’imposing’ anything upon anybody, swing with every ’turn’... what else is the function of (communism) if not to be a ’spirit’ not only hovering over the spontaneous movement, but also raising this movement to the level of ’its program’? Surely, it is not its function to drag at the tail of the movement: at best, this would be of no service to the movement; at worst, it would be very very harmful. The Rabocheye Dyelo, however, not only follows this ’tactics-as-a-process’, but elevates it to a principle... V.I. Lenin Ibid. p.63.
How very ’undialectical’ of Lenin to speak of determining lines that are correct today and not out of date tomorrow. In fact, the Bolshevik Tendency’s ’favorite ultra-Leftist’ is quite determined to show himself a ’dogmatist’ on this question of ’constant flux’. Not only has Lenin come forward with a statement in the realm of philosophy which is completely opposed to the Bolshevik Tendency’s ’absolute relativity’ conception, he also can be found demonstrating this point in practice throughout his work. In relation to the Economists’ appeal to the “constant flux of all things”, Lenin writes:
The tactics of agitation in relation to some special question, or the tactics with regard to some detail of party organization may be changed in twenty-four hours, but only people devoid of all principles are capable of changing in twenty-four hours, or for that matter, in twenty-four months, their view on the necessity – in general, constantly and absolutely – of an organization of struggle and political agitation among the masses... V.I. Lenin Where to Begin? CW Vol. 5 p.18/
The Bolshevik Tendency’s reliance on the ’constant flux’ is precisely the denial of the Party. The Party must be guided by revolutionary theory, “illumined by firm principles”, and carry our a “systematic plan of action”. Such a plan, the basic ideology and strategy, is a precondition for the Party and its work. Such a Party will not have “a line which is correct today” but “out of date tomorrow”. Specific details will change, specific tactics, but ’basic line and ideology’ will not. The role of theory is to provide answers, to point out the line of march, to determine the correct course of action prior to that action. With our “basic ideology and strategy” determined, we will be able to correctly chart the course of proletarian revolution no matter what circumstances and conditions we face. Our ’theoreticians’, however, sing quite a different tune. They degrade the role of theory by denying the necessity of and possibility for providing correct lines prior to the execution of those lines in practice. As a result, their ’revolutionary practice’ is automatically reduced to ’tactical successes’, to reformism, to tailing after the workers movement. In this way they fully liquidate the revolutionary content of the Party. They have not a word to say about the content of the existing political lines in the movement, save for their petty falling-outs with what they define as ’economism’ , ’line fetishism’, and ’dogmatism1. It is in fact a stroke of luck for us that our ’Bolsheviks’ hold to building their ’party’ apart from the working class. Hopefully it will remain outside the working class altogether.
Just as the Bolshevik Tendency held up ’complete correct line’ to justify its own principles-as-process, they also raise it as justification for organizational opportunism:
If Marxist-Leninists shirk from organization – or even, to take the less extreme form of dogmatism, shirk from uniting into a Party – because they do not have the correct line down pat but are still making errors, then rest assured Canada will fall clear into the sea before such organization is formed. Perri & Stover Why Building the Party is the Principal Task Canadian Revolution #1 p.47.
It would be truer to say, if we can borrow our ’Bolsheviks’ catastrophic imagery, that Canada “will fall clear into the sea” before our opportunist ’party-builders’ can successfully peddle this line to any class conscious workers. The Bolshevik Tendency need have no fear of being accused of ’shirking from organization’ with their ’theory’ of relativity, their denial of scientifically determined lines, their reduction of line to a specific detail of tactics. Indeed, “in light of all this evidence”, in light of the sort of ’party’ our opportunists intend on making, what does it matter on what basis unity is established? After all, the “constant flux of all things” insures that the grounds for unity today “may be out of date tomorrow”. We may as well forget about our principles, they are so ’relative’ after all, forget about leading the class struggle by conscious plan, and get down to some ’unity of action’ before we are all ’paralyzed’ by political line or before Canada falls into the sea. Our ’theoreticians’ will protest that this is not what they meant at all, that
The basis for unity for Marxist-Leninists is ’ideological unity without which organizational unity is meaningless’ (Lenin). This is the position we have put forward in this article. The degree of ideological unity that will be necessary will come out of the process of struggle among Marxist-Leninists. To say that certain ideological agreement must be the basis of principled organization, however, is not the same thing as to say that the development of the correct line is the principal task at the present time. Ibid. p. 48
Previously we were told that the necessary ideological unity for ’party-building’ was agreement on “the nature of the principal contradiction in Canada and in the world”, “the correct basic strategy for Canada”, and “a tactical approach to implement this strategy”. Now, however, we are told that the development of these lines is not the principal task at this time. But, by simple logic, how can we agree to the principal contradiction, strategy and tactics prior to organizational unity if we are not determining these things first? Previously our ’Bolsheviks’ laid down specific guidelines for the degree of ideological unity necessary to ’build the party’. Now we are informed that this will be determined ’in struggle’
Canadian Revolution, which the Bolshevik Tendency had a direct hand in founding, is a perfect example of the Bolshevik Tendency’s ’theory’ put into practice. The editorial board expresses precisely the degree of ’ideological unity’ the Bolshevik Tendency demands for ’principled unity’. From the spontaneous ’process of struggle’ of some of the Toronto collectives, it was agreed that ’unity in action’ was necessary to ’stimulate’ debate. Following the commonplace that ideological unity must precede organizational unity, the C.R. organizers ’reached’ unity around the most general, formal statements, around the lowest common denominator. This was, according to the C.R. formers, the degree of ideological unity ’necessary’. Necessary for what? Organization to fulfill the previously agreed to action. Following this line, of course, ’unity’ can be reached at any point in the ’process of struggle’. As the MREQ so aptly put it: “...establish the greatest unity possible at a given moment with those who are ready to move ahead...” (MREQ Towards the Marxist-Leninist Organization C.R. #1 p.23).
To say that “the degree of organizational unity that will be necessary will come out of the process of struggle” is to say that one completely rejects any objective criteria for Party or any Marxist-Leninist organizational unity, is to say that all principle is ’relative’ after all, is to define all criteria for organizational unity in terms of the ’course of the struggle’, is to in fact abandon the ideological content of organizational unity by thus putting it on a subjective basis, is, in short, simply to invent a rationalization for organizational unity prior to the establishment of firm and definite principles. Our ’Bolsheviks’ are apologists for unprincipled unity.
What began as an argument for ’clearly defined principles necessary for building the Party’ has now turned into its opposite. Very dialectical! To perform this trick our ’Bolsheviks’ again turn in vain for assistance to the Chinese Party history:
Actually, Mao says that it took him ten years to formulate a correct line on the peasant question. Since this ten-year period saw the Chinese Party through the Long March, it was very fortunate for the history of the Chinese people that Mao did not take Kumlin’s advice on the subject of line. Perri & Stover Why Building the Party is the Principal Task Canadian Revolution #1 p.48.
And for further aid, this quote from Peking Review:
Building our Party, therefore, involved a process of struggle between correct and erroneous lines. It was precisely in the course of this struggle that the Party achieved its development, growth in strength and consolidation. This is a very important historical experience in building our Party. Ibid. p.48 P.R. March 23, 1975 (their emphasis).
Why the emphasis? Firstly, to try to prove the ’necessity’ of putting the various lines ’into the arena of class struggle’, i.e. to justify their position on principles-as-process. And, secondly, to prove the ’necessity’ of uniting into the ’party’ first in order, to carry on the ’struggle’, i.e. to justify their position on unprincipled unity. How do they follow-up and ’explain’ this quotation?
In other words, the line to which this article refers is the basic ideological framework of struggle within the Party, the fundamental demarcation of basic analysis, strategy and tactics. Ibid. p.48/
Previously this ’line’ was a prerequisite for the Party; now it only occurs, with emphasis, within the Party. Now it occurs only after the ’party’ is formed, in the ’process of struggle’:
It is not a complete, or even nearly complete, analysis of the world situation or even the contradictions of Chinese society. Yet ’It was precisely in the course of this struggle that the Party achieved its development, growth in strength and consolidation’. ...
Notice that this struggle happened within the context of a Party and not in its absence. Notice that the Chinese never speak of political struggle or political line in the absence of a Party.
Mao talks about ’line’ only as something carried by a Party in its struggles, and Lenin and Stalin do not talk much about ’line’ at all! Ibid. p. 48-49/
“Notice” how our ’Bolshevik’ opportunists, regardless of what they advise to the contrary, are themselves engaging in struggle ’in the absence of a Party’. “Notice” that our ’Bolsheviks’, however much they deny the existence or possibility of ’complete lines’, however much they pooh-pooh the concept of ’line’ altogether, are themselves advancing and defending a line that is ’completely’ elaborated and ’completely’ opportunist. This is nothing but a cheap vaudeville act of keeping us distracted with one hand while robbing us blind with the other. The only amusing thing about this stunt is that our ’Bolsheviks’ attempt to pull it off with two right hands. A clumsy technique, and as we have seen, not at all successful. They have in fact only robbed themselves of any credibility before the movement.
Our ’theoreticians’ are rivaling Professor Bains’ erudite thinking. They begin with the rational, the quote from Peking Review, and end in the irrational, the conclusions they reach. It goes without saying that the Chinese don’t speak of political line “in the absence of a Party”. Any child can see that the Chinese already have a Party, and that when they speak of line struggles in their movement, they are naturally line struggles within the CCP. Any child can also understand that the point of the passage from Peking Review is to bring out the important of ideological struggle within the Party, and that the struggle is emphasized precisely because of the present line struggle against revisionism within the CCP. But our ’Bolsheviks’ are operating in another dimension entirely. They have set out with an argument, and it must be ’proven’ at all costs. According to them, the Chinese could give a fig about the internal struggle against modern revisionism. No. According to our ’theoreticians’ the ’Bolsheviks’, the Chinese run these things in Peking Review solely to convince us that the Party must be formed first, and then we can get down to “basic ideology and strategy”. How nice to have the Chinese on your side, penning their every article solely to substantiate your own peculiar interpretation of Marxism-Leninism. How convenient to be able to put words in the Chinese’s mouths with immunity:
Notice that the author {of the P.R. article) does not think that a total analysis of particular aspects of material production in Shanghai, or the role of women, or the national character of minority groups, must be formulated before the Party can function properly. The Party develops lines on these questions in the course of its existence. Ibid. p.49.
“Notice” how easily our authors of the Bolshevik Tendency overstep the bounds of decency and simple logic in order to twist a point to their own benefit. Of course, the author of the Peking Review article also says nothing about opportunists who call themselves ’Bolsheviks’ being the laughing-stock of the movement and deserving only of ridicule and isolation, but that does not at all mean than he “does not think” that our ’Bolsheviks’ should be held as such. But according to our ’Bolsheviks’, what the Chinese do not say, they do not think. The Bolshevik Tendency is piling words in the author’s mouth only to divert us from the issue at hand. We were not discussing whether or not the Party would function properly. We were discussing whether ideological unity on correct ’basic ideology and strategy’ is a pre-requisite for forming the Party; or, whether it is established as-a-process within and through the Party. It is true that the Party develops lines on “particular aspects of material production...” and so on in the course of its existence. But this is not basic ideology and strategy. That was the point of the discussion that our ’Bolsheviks’, through their cheap ventriloquism, attempted to ’resolve’ by simple evasion.
The Bolshevik Tendency’s trump card is always their ’strict adherence’ to what they try to convince us are the principles of Marxism-Leninism. If they ’strictly adhere’ to the Chinese experience, then what can we say?
We take the position that what’s good enough for the Chinese masses is good enough for us. Both during the liberation struggle and under the dictatorship of the proletariat, they formulated basic ideology and strategy – always within the framework of a Party – and declared that that ideological foundation, in the context of a Party, was tantamount to correct leadership of the Chinese revolution. Ibid. p.49.
The Bolshevik Tendency ends up defending organizational unity prior to ideological unity – the exact opposite of their beginning position. It ends up arguing for the necessity of the Party in order to obscure the real content of their own ’party’.
What are we left with? Our ’theoreticians’ tell us that we do not unite on basic ideology and line. But if this is not our basis of unity, then what is?
These dogmatists would do well to note that Mao’s formulation, ’unity-struggle-unity’, begins with unity based not on complete unity of line but on the desire for unity. Ibid. p.47.
Indeed, the ’desire’ for unity is all that is left for the Bolshevik Tendency, since it has already liquidated the content of the proposed unity. Unfortunately, the ’desire’ for unity does not fall within the realm of ideology, so the Bolshevik Tendency is left with forming an organization prior to ideological unity. It is calling for the unity of Marxist-Leninists around an empty shell, to be ’filled in’ during the course of struggle. Our opportunist ’Bolsheviks’ “would do well to note” that the proletariat has no such ’desire’ to unite with Trotskyites who pretend at Marxism-Leninism, who create opportunist theories and opportunist ’parties’. What our movement must not only desire, but insistently demand, is a true Marxist-Leninist Party, formed upon a firm foundation of revolutionary theory, of firm Marxist-Leninist principles, of the most complete and comprehensive lines on the tasks before us.