The MPEQ has established itself in the national movement through its attack on the CPC(ML) and its supposed counter-proposal on Party-building. In fact, the MREQ and the CPC(ML) are like two peas in the same pod. What differences there are between them are not due to any fundamental conflict in views, but arise only because of the movement’s spontaneous rejection of the CPC(ML)’s ’party’ declaration. The MREQ must simply find another way.
In ’opposing’ the error of “precipitation”, the MREQ states:
It is...the correctness of the political line, and its application through links with the masses, that determines if a group really constitutes the party of the working class.
Certain people in Canada have already committed the error of proclaiming themselves the party of the working class without fulfilling the above conditions (namely the CPC(ML) and the CPL). Ibid. p.15.
According to this line of reasoning, had the CPC(ML) and the CPL developed “links with the masses” and had their organizations “developed and progressed”, this would have ’proven’ the correctness of their lines; then self-proclamation would have been in order. And needless to say, the same will apply to MREQ’s little group, which will ’justifiably’ lay claim to ’really’ constituting ’the party of the working class’ when it undertakes and accomplishes the tasks it has outlined for itself.
The main theme running throughout the MREQ’s Party-building strategy is that only its ’Marxist-Leninist Organization’ can undertake and accomplish the tasks necessary for the creation of the Party. It is precisely this outlook that stands at the heart of the most narrow circle mentality, a sectarian approach that threatens to split the movement once more and further block the political development of the working class. The MREQ sees the struggle for the Party as a battle among different groups, each vying for the title of ownership to the Party. According to this reasoning, only one of these groups “really constitutes the party of the working class”, only one can ’rightfully’ lay claim to the Party. Thus Party-building is reduced to a fight between those who are ’right’ and those who are ’wrong’ for proclaiming themselves the ’party’.
For the MREQ to ’correctly’ stake its claim, it must define its necessary ’conditions’, immediately take up its ’tasks’, fulfill these ’tasks’ and voila – the ’vanguard party’ of the proletariat. How long all this will take depends to some extent on the level of opposition the MREQ receives from the rest of the movement. But only to some extent. The bulk of the MREQ’s recipe calls simply for “the greatest unity possible at a given moment with those who are ready to move forward”, and we can rest assured that the MREQ will find sufficient elements ’ready to move forward’ to effect its ’party’ regardless of what the movement says about it.
This narrow attitude in our movement has put Party-building on the level of factional quibbling, with each ’pre-Party’ trying to outdo the rest. We cannot overemphasize the harm this brings to the movement’s development. In a situation that demands unity based on firm and definite Marxist-Leninist principles, we are given instead an appeal for unprincipled unity based on factional affiliation. On the plea of building ’the party of the working class’ we are given instead a classic demonstration of how to wreck the Party-building effort. The MREQ’s ’plan’ conveniently omits what is most essential in building a truly Marxist-Leninist Party, takes a sectarian stand towards the rest of the communist movement, and altogether ignores the role of the advanced workers in forging real Party unity. Taking its lead from the CPC(ML), the MREQ is bent on a course of ’party-building’ that in fact encourages the formation of a dozen separate parties. Those who are not prepared to “move forward” with the MREQ are, by implication, encouraged to go off on their own. Each group automatically assumes its lines are correct, creates its own criteria for proving this, declares itself in rapid succession the’centre’, the ’Marxist-Leninist Organization’ and finally the ’Party’. Such is the outcome of the MREQ’s ’plan’. Rather than fostering principled struggle it fosters petty competition, elevating the interests of its faction above those of the movement. What is this if not a crass expression of petty bourgeois hostility towards the working class.
In reality the Party is not the result of one group creating another which in turn transforms itself into the Party at some future date. In reality the Party is the result of the work of the movement as a whole. It is the organized expression of the transformation, not of one group, but of the movement from many scattered, disunited organizations with contending political lines into a single organization fused with the advanced workers and carrying the correct line for direction of the working class movement. It marks the development, not of one or a few groups, but of all the principled sections of the movement from a low level of political unity and practical work to a new, higher level of unity demanding consolidation into a new, higher form. The creation of the Party expresses the fusion of the communist movement with the working class movement on a national scale. As such, it can only be the work and product of the work of the movement as a whole.
This view is totally alien to our petty bourgeois new arrivals. On the one hand, as a typical expression of its inveterate egotism, petty bourgeois elements who attach themselves to Marxism-Leninism without completely rejecting their class narrowness view the movement, the struggle for the Party, the Party – all things of consequence – as stemming from themselves, from their ’precious’ circles. On the other hand, a common feature of petty bourgeois outlook is its rejection of all authority and discipline; a petty bourgeois wants to be his own boss. The motive force of the petty bourgeois is ’independence’, the free market, freedom of competition for his own petty enterprise. The denial of this ’freedom’ by the conditions of monopoly capitalism inspires the petty bourgeois to anti-authoritarian sentiments. The crushing of the petty bourgeois into the working class inspires resentment of proletarian discipline. These two factors account for the vacillations of this class, and its ability to objectify this vacillation by claiming to do one thing while doing the exact opposite. The MREQ claims to be building the Party of the proletariat; it is in fact doing everything in its power to sabotage that Party. It shows by its formulations that what it is in fact aiming for is a means to advance its narrow class interests at the expense of the proletariat.
The working class must exercise strict discipline and dictate to all those who take up the workers cause. The Party is the formalized, organized expression of the will and interests of the working class, enforces discipline and dictates the activities of the revolutionary proletarian movement. Prior to the formation of the Party, all communist work must come under the discipline imposed by the objective needs of the working class and communist movements. Our work must be based on an objective appraisal of these needs, must be in strict correspondence to the interests of the whole movement, and is always subordinate to that whole. But this is a bit much for our petty bourgeois centers of the universe. They must at all costs put their very own precious ’pre-parties’, their own petty enterprises, above the movement as a whole. Only then can they insure their independence, independence from the working class and from true Party discipline, and turn the movement into a market place for their petty competition. Despite their proclamations to the contrary, such ’party-building’ deprives the working class of its needed leadership and actively fights against its interests.
The CPC(ML) and the MREQ merely show us different sides of the same debased coin with which they hope to buy their way into the working class. What binds them together is that both start, as the MREQ so aptly says of the CPC(ML), “...from the interests of its organization rather than from objectively determining the interests of the proletariat and from that elaborating the duty and tasks of communists.” (CPC(ML) A Caricature of Communism p.29).
The MREQ shares with the CPC(ML) its indifference towards the movement; liquidates the movement when it has no use for it; bears the same narrow, factional conception of the ’party’; and presents the ’pre-party’ as an ultimatum to the movement in the same fashion. What distinguishes the MREQ is that it has had the ’good sense’ to launch its Party-building plan minus the CPC(ML)’s ’excesses’. Both were faced with the ’predicament’ of passing intact from student organizations to ’Marxist-Leninist’ organizations. Both employed the same ’change of form’. The CPC(ML) also did not want to ’precipitate’ anything, put forward the need for an “initial analysis” of Canada, and formed its pre-party organization to ’create the material conditions’ for party-building. The CPC(ML) also put forward what it thought was a correct political line, ’proven’ in practice by the ’development’ of its organization. The CPC(ML) even held to the ’correct tactical line’ of implantation, stressing the necessity for communists to carry on agitation and propaganda in the factories for party-building. And, of course, the CPC(ML) established a “certain degree of unity” with “those who were ready to move forward”. The CPC(ML) fulfilled each of the MREQ’s three criteria for party declaration. The MREQ is determined to do the same.