First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 4, No. 6, July 1972.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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During the last week of May, L. Brezhnev of the USSR, and R. Nixon of the USNA, met like thieves in the night, to plan world-wide counter-revolution. This meeting represented a serious affront to all workers and peasants throughout the world. These representatives of international finance capital agreed to 1) secure the counter-revolution in Eastern Europe, 2) attempt to monopolize nuclear arms, space travel and biological weapons of war among the “superpowers” and 3) attack the revolutionary wars of national liberation, especially in the Middle East and in Indochina.
Just as sickening as the conference itself was the response of the lapdogs of counter-revolution, particularly the CPUSA. In their newspaper, the Daily World, June 8, 1972, the CPUSA fawned over the conference calling it “...a victory for the peoples of the world...” and even worse, they tried to drag V.I. Lenin through the mud by claiming that this collaboration with the imperialists is the legitimate Leninist policy of “peaceful co-existence”. To the revisionists this meeting was “...a relaxation of world tension...” and “....helps the cause of the liberation forces because it weakens the cause of imperialism....” This stand is in complete opposition to the truth, the collaboration of these “superpowers” against revolution, at the time when the U.S. government is carrying on some of the most savage violence against the people of Vietnam, is a temporary strengthening of the imperialists. This is confirmed by the united praise of the conference coming from all the bourgeois parties and politicians.
Further on this article points out that the war in Vietnam must be ended “because this is our moral duty and because life in our own country is blighted as long as the slaughter in Indo-China continues.” Such wretched white chauvinism! The CPUSA does not want to remove the imperialist class, only the “blight”. They are not outraged at the transgressions of imperialism against the people of Vietnam, only that it makes them look bad. A fig for the Vietnamese, a fig for proletarian revolution, we must preserve our appearance of democracy! This attitude of the revisionists does not support the Vietnamese revolution as the correct path for the people of Vietnam, nor does it expose the white chauvinist aggression of the U.S. imperialists as a ball and chain around the necks of the Anglo-American workers.
The anti-Marxist nature of the CPUSA is again exposed in their program which calls not for revolution against the capitalist class and a dictatorship of the proletariat, but for impeaching Nixon. They say “For the welfare of our nation, therefore, the unseating of Richard Nixon from public office is as urgent a task as it was before the summit.”
“It would serve our people, and world peace, if the campaign to impeach Nixon meets with resounding success.” This coincides with the CPUSA’s policy that the imperialist policies are not the product of a capitalist class who must be overthrown, but the policies of a “reactionary leader” who must be replaced by a “progressive” leader. They say further on, “It is our historic duty to seek out candidates who are willing to move the country in the direction of alliance of anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist forces.”, and further “We must try to nominate a presidential candidate who would make peace in the world and prosperity for the American people his central platform.” Here the revisionists clearly expose themselves as agents of the capitalist class. They don’t want a socialist revolution they want to place a “people’s representative in the capitalist government”. This again is in direct opposition to the line of Marx and Lenin on the state. Lenin points out in State and Revolution, “According to Marx the state is an organ of class domination, an organ of oppression of one class by another; its aim is the creation of ’order’ which legalises and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the collisions between the classes. But in the opinion of the petty-bourgeois politicians, order means reconciliation of the classes, and not oppression of one class by another; to moderate collisions does not mean they say, to deprive the oppressed class of certain definite means and methods of struggle for overthrowing the oppressors, but to practice reconciliation.” (Lenin, V.I., State and Revolution. 10 Classics of Marxism, Int. Pub., N.Y., 1940, p. 9)
After suggesting that dog of dogs Gus Hall as a presidential candidate they say, “Under such office holders the American people could really reap the fruits of peace. We could end the war in Indochina and reject all foreign adventures that endanger peace. We could trade with all nations and find employment in peaceful pursuits. We could join other nations in exploring space, fighting disease and protecting the environment. Above all, we could build a decent life with dignity for all Americans.” According to this the revisionists want “peaceful imperialism”. Lenin made it clear that imperialism by its very nature was aggression, reaction and expansion, and he said that it was the Social Democrats who yearned for the impossible, imperialism without war.
Lenin makes clear the communist line on the state in State and Revolution: “A Marxist is one who extends the acceptance of class struggle to the acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Herein lies the deepest difference between a Marxist and an ordinary petty or big bourgeois.” (V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution. 10 Classics of Marxism, Int. Pub., N.Y. 1940, p.30) It is not merely a mistake that the CPUSA talks about elections instead of revolution, Gus Hall for President instead of dictatorship of the proletariat, and anti-monopoly coalition instead of socialism. They do this in order to confuse and mislead the proletariat. Again Lenin clearly nailed these revisionists to the wall when he said, “Far from inculcating into the workers’ minds the idea that the time is near when they are to rise up and smash the old state machinery and substitute for it a new one, thereby making their political domination the foundation for a Socialist reconstruction of society, they have actually taught the workers the direct opposite of this, and represented the ’conquest of power’ in a way that left thousands of loopholes for opportunism.” (Ibid, page 100)
The Communist League recognizes that the battle against revisionism is not just “nit-picking” or squabbling, but the most necessary fight in the realm of theory. We are pledged to all out theoretical, political and ideological war on the CPUSA, the representatives of international revisionism and imperialism, a fundamental part of party building in the USNA.