First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 1974.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
In the Communist movement today there are genuine Communists and there are sham Communists. The “Communist” League is a thoroughly sham communist, a Trotskyite organization, whamelesscapitulated to the camp of reaction and counter-revolution. Not only in one or a few places does the “Communist League” come up with its counter-revolutionary, anti-Marxist stuff, but throughout its papers, cover to cover, it has written for several years its diatribes against Communism. On every burning question in the Communist movement the “Communist League” has taken the stand of revisionism and Trotskyism.
Not one instance is there of a glimmer of the proletarian class stand, while with every opportunity it has it puts forth all that is metaphysical and idealist, worn-out and moribund. In this manner the “Communist League” has stopped at nothing to twist and confuse history and the glorious struggle of the proletariat and its allies, falsify truth and reality, and substitute the fantasies of the reactionary bourgeoisie for the revolutionary process of the proletarian revolution.
As we will show, the “Communist League” has consistently adhered to an anti-Marxist line and stand. From its analysis of the international situation to its discussion of dictatorship of the proletariat, the CL puts together a most glaring reflection of counterrevolutionary junk aimed at confusing the ranks of the revolutionary Communist movement. Its whole picture of counter-revolution as the main trend and its whole position against the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania, together with its thoroughgoing anti-Leninist positions on the role of the Party and revolutionary activists, smacks of the revisionist crap the leaders of the CPSU have been peddling for years. The CL, as we will show, unabashedly stands with the worst features of American chauvinism in its outright liquidation of the national question, in its social chauvinist attitude to the national liberation movements which are presently dealing telling death blows to imperialism and all reaction. And in that way, the CL has made its allegiance with Browderite revisionism and the revisionism of the Second International which Lenin condemned as portraying the worst chauvinism and social-imperialism possible. It is no wonder that the CL for all it is worth has turned to the bourgeoisie with all intentions of being its running dog inside the Communist and workers movement.
All these features of the CL line and stand, however, only begin to scratch the surface of revisionism and Trotskyism which plagues our movement and which for the past period has run wild in attempts to curb the development and infusion of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-tung Thought in our young movement. We must thoroughly analyze the problems of our movement, analyze the history of the two-line struggle of the U.S. as well as international Communist movement, and continue to develop and deepen the ideological and theoretical struggle against revisionism and for Marxism-Leninism. In our efforts here, we have only gone as far as to point out some features of CL’s revisionism as it analyzes the real world, and as it attempts to develop its system of metaphysical and idealist concepts and categories for a “revolutionary” program. What must be done as well is to ascertain the degree to which the CL line and stand has supported or created the basis for incorrect lines on various questions, Including the national question in the U.S.. We must “Practice Marxism” and as the Albanian comrades have pointed out, rise against those who have gone against Lenin’s behest that ”without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” It is on this basis, on the basis of turning to revolutionary theory, of taking up this most fundamental task of all Communists at this period, that the likes of the CL will be thoroughly wiped out and its seemingly “left” deviation liquidated.
The “Communist League” is not a new force in our relatively young movement. It is not an organizational form which has only recently reared its head. It is not a political or ideological tendency which has suddenly sprung to life as some people subjectively wish to view it. Nor is it the theoretical error of infantile Communism, as others tend to view it. On the contrary, the Communist League, with all the trappings of “revolutionary” rituals, arose in our movement as an outcome of the rising revolutionary storm of the working and oppressed people in the U.S. Embodying the features and characteristics of modern revisionism and Trotskyism, the CL has stopped at nothing to stir up trouble in the midst of our developing movement in attempts to reverse this irresistible historical trend.
The CL in all its varied forms had gone to great lengths in this direction, and in late 1972 challenged the various Communist organizations of that time to struggle for Marxism-Leninism. Making its cause the “study of classics” and the self-glorification of its organization (“Dialectics of the Development of the “Communist League”), the CL did anything it could to win over honest and sincere revolutionaries to participate in its shameless activity. Under its dark banner of “struggle against revisionism to build the Party”, the CL polemicized against those opportunist tendencies in the Communist movement which glorified “experience” and which in that manner were going against Marxism to one degree or another. Blinded by CL rhetoric and thus displaying their ideological weaknesses, these forces failed to take up the necessary struggle to defend Marxism-Leninism and elaborate its fundamental revolutionary principles and method. Under these conditions, the trial of strength by the Communist League set the tune for its (and can it be said, their) further anti-Marxist activity.
It is this point which we must take to heart in order to clearly grasp the nature of the CL revisionism and the essence of the problem in the two line struggle in our movement today. For as Lenin has pointed out in his work, “Marxism and Revisionism”:
Every more or less ’new’ question,every more or less unexpected and unforeseen turn of events, even though it may change the basic line of development only to an insignificant degree and only for the shortest period of time, will always inevitably give rise to one or another variety of revisionism.
The Communist movement develops in the course of the two line struggle and in the course of the fight against revisionism and opportunism. With every new battle against the defenders of the bourgeoisie springs fresh life, reflecting the general advance of the proletarian revolution. But to secure our victories in the two line struggle, we must thoroughly expose revisionism and rectify its influences within our ranks and wherever it spreads. As Chairman Mao has said, we must Practice Marxism and Criticize revisionism; but in order to practice Marxism, we must study Marxism and be the best pupils of the proletariat.
In 1946, Chairman Mao described the world situation:
On the one hand, US imperialism is indeed preparing a war against the Soviet Union; the current propaganda about an anti-Soviet war, as well as other anti-Soviet propaganda, is political preparation for such a war. On the one hand, this propaganda is a smokescreen put up by the US reactionaries to cover many actual contradictions immediately confronting US imperialism. These are the contradictions between the US reactionaries and the American people and the contradictions of US imperialism with other capitalist countries and with the colonial and semi-colonial countries. At present, the actual significance of the US slogan of waging an anti-Soviet war is the oppression of the American people and the expansion of the US forces of aggression in the rest of the capitalist world.
The United States and the Soviet Union are separated by a vast zone which includes many capitalist, colonial and semi-colonial countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. Before the US reactionaries have subjugated these countries, an attack on the Soviet Union is out of the question.
After World War II and through the fifties, the world was polarized in the “cold war” between the growing socialist camp and the imperialist camp. The oppressed nations and weaker imperialist and capitalist countries then constituted two distinct zones (the first and second intermediary zones) between those camps. What was the basis of the socialist camp? The CL answers:
Thanks to the gigantic size of the Soviet Union, thanks to the heroic self-sacrifice of the peoples, thanks to the unity of the Soviet Republics, the USSR was able to survive the famine, survive the blockade and was forced to develop an economic exchange between the Republics of the USSR. The creation of the Socialist market was the basis, but not the only factor in the development of a Socialist camp.
In exercising their vulgar Marxism, the CL immediately 1iquidates the most essential feature of the socialist camp, which is its class content, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the very first of the revisionist ideas explicitly repudiated by the Chinese:
The following erroneous views should be repudiated on the question of the fundamental contradictions in the contemporary world:
a) the view which blots out the class content of the contradiction between the socialist and the imperialist camps and fails to see this contradiction as one between states under the dictatorship of the proletariat and states under the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalists;
The basis of the socialist camp was the all-round internationalist cooperation between those states under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Their cooperation extended to all fronts; political, economic, cultural, diplomatic and military. Most important was the unity around a correct political program and line. Therefore, the General Line states that all Communist and Workers’ Parties should first of all:
Adhere to the Marxist-Leninist line and pursue correct Marxist-Leninist domestic and foreign policies;...
In addition, because imperialist schemes always come down to some form of aggression or war, the consolidation of that unity in defensive, military agreements was absolutely necessary.
However, during the late fifties and early sixties a capitalist restoration occurred in the Soviet Union. The first socialist country degenerated into a social-imperialist country, a superpower, with its own imperialist bloc, dominating most of the countries of the former socialist camp. Only China and Albania have conducted a thorough and consistent struggle against all social-imperialism and revisionism. While Marxist-Leninist unity exists between these two parties, states and peoples, military agreements are clearly lacking. Moreover, the vast geographical separation of these two countries further limits the scope of their mutual defense And because such defense between the two cannot be fully secured, a true socialist camp no longer exists.
Therefore, while the common socialist economy was an important part, it was by no means “the basis” of the former socialist camp. The CL arbitrarily singles out this one aspect (not even the entire aspect, but just a part, the socialist market], ignoring the whole. And most important, as all revisionists, the CL distorts its class content, “forgetting” that the present Soviet market is not a socialist market, but a social-imperialist market.
But perhaps, in its “socialist camp” the CL intends to include “China, Albania, North Korea, North Vietnam and Cuba” (PT, 5/74, p. 10), all of which it names as socialist countries. But here is a concrete example: If the Soviet Union were to attack China (a very real danger), would Vietnam or Korea, not to mention Cuba, come to the military aid of China? When there is no full political unity between China and these countries on the central question of revisionism and social-imperialism, how can the far broader cooperation of a socialist camp possibly exist? This we leave for those metaphysicians in the CL to answer.
But the CL, which has gone to great lengths to couch their rhetoric behind the “existence” of a socialist camp, resorts to the blatant trotskyite attack against the CPC. In their May Day speech CL, with their astonishing Aristotelian logic, pronounced their indignation that China had eliminated the socialist camp by the stroke of a pen. “It was”, says the CL, “the fact that it was outside of the sphere of imperialism that makes it impossible to deny the existence of such a camp.” That is, since the October Revolution, there has been an external contradiction to imperialism, which, as CL claims will exist as long as imperialism exists. Thus, as socialism is an external contradiction to imperialism, so also the camp, thus, so also the absolute existence of such a camp.
So reality has been placed on its head by the CL. Instead of pointing their finger squarely at Soviet social-imperialism – who is responsible for disintegrating the socialist camp – the CL blames China for stating that the socialist camp no longer exists. This is the extent of CL’s class collaboration and social-imperialism, which will be much further illustrated in the next section.
However, on the basis of its “External-Internal” to imperialism dichotomy, the CL creates the biggest hoax since the profundity of the Progressive Labor Party, who, in all its efforts, likewise attempted to simply invent “new” – non-existing, contradictions. This point we further expound on in the section on CL’ s dictatorship of the proletariat.
But to get back to our discussion on the socialist camp and the problems that we have, analyzed and which prevent its existence at this time, we must attempt to grasp the significance of this change, which poses many new problems in the international struggle. Among these is the three-world concept which the CL has also vehemently opposed and slandered many times. Here is how they put it:
As the struggle for the hegemony of the world proletariat becomes more and more intense, the maneuvers of the revisionists become more and more difficult to unearth and refute (let us say, so they think). There is a concept arising today that we are in a new era, an era of the sundering of the world into three separate worlds, (again wrong, but interesting enough since they maintain the “separation” of two “camps”).
When the socialist camp still existed, the efforts of the U.S. to enslave the intermediary zones fell first on the oppressed nations, and in turn met with sharp resistance. Therefore, at the same time that social-imperialism was emerging in the Soviet Union, the struggles of the oppressed nations were developing tremendously, so that by the early sixties the world was no longer polarized between the socialist and imperialist camps, but between the oppressed nations and imperialism. The latter contradiction became the principal contradiction in the world, the oppressed nations constituting the storm center of world revolution.
In addition, today even the weaker imperialist and capitalist countries (Europe and Japan) are justly opposing the bullying and hegemonism of the two superpowers (the U.S. and U.S.S.R.). The U.S. dominated NATO bloc is disintegrating, while the same thing is happening within the Soviet-control 1ed Warsaw Pact.
The Chinese therefore state: “Judging from the changes in international relations, the world today actually consists of three parts, or three worlds, that are both interconnected and in contradiction to one another. The United States and the Soviet Union make up the First World. The developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other regions make up the Third World. The developing countries between the two make up the Second World.” (Speech by Teng Hsiao-ping, Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, April 10, 1974)
The three-world concept is the most advanced formulation of the international united front strategy in the present situation. It does not replace the four fundamental contradictions in the world. All those contradictions – the contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism, the contradiction among the imperialists and among monopoly capitalist groups, the contradiction between the socialist countries and imperialism, and the contradiction between the proletariat and bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries still exist, and together present the world class relations in all their basic forms. The full revolutionary trend of these contradictions is summed up in the slogan, ”Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and people want revolution.”
The three-world slogan, however, reflects and promotes one feature of these contradictions which is now particularly significant, focusing on those struggles of oppressed countries which have emerged in the state-to-state front. The three-world slogan does not address itself directly to the movements for “national liberation” and “peoples’ revolution”, instead focusing on the state struggles for “countries’ independence.”
The Third World state-battles involving national-bourgeois and patriotic-feudal classes are the tremendously important and newest feature of the struggles of oppressed nations. The state-to-state front includes all state-to-state struggles in the international superstructure, as in the organizations of the United Nations. The socialist countries lead the united front in these struggles by examining the state battles according to the four fundamental contradictions in the world, repeatedly studying their interrelations and picking out the principal trend, differentiating it from superficial phenomena and promoting this correct trend through mass slogans and propaganda. In the realm of the international class struggles between states, these slogans are not derived “from the masses to the masses”, but “from the oppressed countries to the oppressed countries.” The vanguard of the world proletariat thus picks out the objectively anti-imperialist and progressive demands of the oppressed countries and peoples in the many complicated state issues (as in the 200 nautical-mile struggle, the battle for control of natural resources, such as oil, coffee, bauxite, etc.) and then promotes them by drawing the vast majority of the oppressed states into action against the imperialists, into the international united front against imperialism.
As for the developed countries that are being bullied by the superpowers, Chairman Mao wrote during the period of the Anti-Japanese United Front the CPC policy:
With regard to our different allies in the united front, our attitude should be one of both alliance and criticism, and there should be different kinds of alliance and different kinds of criticism. We support them in their resistance to Japan and praise them for any achievement. But if they are not active in the War of Resistance, we should criticize them.
Following this method of struggle, Teng Hsiao-ping stated:
The case of the developed countries in between the superpowers and the developing countries is a complicated one. Some of them stil1 retain colonialist relations , in one form or another with Third World countries, and a country like Portugal even continues with its barbarous colonial rule. An end must be put to this state of affairs. At the same time all these developed countries are in varying degrees controlled, threatened or bullied by the one superpower or the other. Some of them have in fact been reduced by a superpower to the position of dependencies under the signboard of its so-called “family”. In varying degrees, all these countries have the desire of shaking off superpower enslavement or control and safeguarding their national independence and the integrity of their sovereignty.
Hence: “Unite the many, isolate the few, defeat the enemies one by one.” This is the basic principle behind the united front strategy of the proletariat for the international United Front Against Imperialism.
And as Lenin has pointed out in his thesis on the revolutionary process of utilizing and employing to the advantage of the proletariat the various contradictions that exist for the enemy camp:
To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted and complex than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states...The most powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skillful and obligatory (Lenin’s emphasis) use of any, even the smallest rifts between the enemies, and conflicts of interest among the bourgeoisie of various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general. (Lenin’s emphasis)
Thus in implementing the united front strategy the communist forces leading and guiding must correctly appraise all the forces and contradictions in the world, all the means at the disposal of the international proletariat and of their own proletariat. In the implementation of the united front strategy, the socialist countries, hence, must engage in struggles on many fronts: the state to state front, the people to people front, etc. And as we have seen, the three-world slogan for the state to state front correctly reflects the present major polarization of the would between the oppressed countries and imperialism and the struggle amongst the imperialists.
But for the CL all this talk about United Front Strategy Against Imperialism is too sacrosanct and out of bounds. By maintaining its absolute categorization of “Socialist camp-Imperialist camp”, and through every means to relegate struggle under “absolute hegemony” of the proletariat and its Party, the CL in effect liquidates the contradiction and struggle between imperialism and the oppressed countries. In this manner, it totally disregards the possibility of the oppressed countries from rising up, as of the Third World countries, against imperialism. This we see quite clearly in the next section. But what this act of CL amounts to is the trotskyite liquidation of the varied, rich, new forms of struggle that constantly arise in the course of the international and national class and national struggle. For the CL recognizes the truth of class struggle is elementary; but what is difficult is to extend this recognition to that of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which if done sincerely, would broaden their scope and understanding of reality.
One characteristic feature of revisionism is its liquidation of the national-colonial question and the substitution in its place of the most blatant social chauvinist theories and policies against the oppressed peoples and countries. The “Communist” League for all it is worth has not failed to take its side with revisionism and Trotskyism in this sphere, and while going so far as to vulgarize even further (if that can be done) these notorious anti-Marxist positions, it has made itself pretty clear that it is a “better defender of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself ”.(Lenin)
The “Communist” League puts it this way: What should the communist attitude be towards the national interests of the oppressed people? Should the leading factor be to support the national interest, which can only be bourgeois interest, or should the leading factor be proletarian international interest? and as to the reason why, the CL goes on to say:
for the nature of national interests compel the various bourgeois leaders to rely on imperialism in one degree or another.
For the sake of tackling this thoroughly bourgeois notion of reality and the proletarian struggle against all forms of oppression and aggression, we will first clarify the nature of the contradiction between the oppressor and the oppressed nations, between, that is, imperialism and the oppressed nations. Following this, we will look into whether or not CL has come even near to understanding the “nature of national bourgeoisie, for whom it so uncanningly speak of; and lastly, we will make an analysis on the basis of CL’s own characterization of the revolutionary process in the seizure of state power, of what in fact CL policy means for the revolutionary activities in the U.S. This will allow us a look into how the CL has parroted the modern revisionist song and dance in regard to line and support of national liberation movements, and how, on this basis, revisionism stops at nothing in its attempt to prove Marxism-Leninism outdated.
The era of imperialism is characterized by the striving for hegemonism of various imperialist countries for control and domination, plunder and pillage of the colonial and developing countries. Imperialism by its very nature means hegemonism, war and aggression; every where it goes it seeks to control the political, economic and military life of the oppressed countries in order to ruthlessly exploit their raw materials and feed off a cheap labor force. Thus, imperialism means subjugation of the oppressed country and peoples; it means the bare faced rule of imperialist country to rid itself of the oppressor at all costs. Contrary to the belief of revisionist and opportunists of all stripes, imperialism means antagonism and contradiction between themselves and the oppressed country and peoples. Hence, the national interests of the oppressed country and people under the yoke of imperialism and hegemonism is that of independence and self-determination over their own destinies. This means developing their own economy and political and cultural life and securing their national sovereignty through means most appropriate and necessary, especially in the spheres of unity of anti-imperialist countries and creation of a military apparatus to guarantee its independence.
Lenin and Stalin have long ago repudiated the social chauvinism of the opportunist leaders of the Second International, and extended the significance of the national question beyond the “civilized” nations of Europe to the colonies and neo-colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Even the feudalists and national bourgeoisie, which represent the worst self-interests, as Lenin and Stalin have made clear, can be objectively revolutionary, anti-imperialist, when they fight against imperialism. Stalin said that now national struggle “is part of the general question of proletarian revolution.” (Stalin, Foundations of Leninism) Further:
The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary (his emphasis) struggle, despite the monarchist view of Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates, and undermines imperialism. And similarly:
the struggle that the Egyptian merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively revolutionary (his emphasis) struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of the Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to Socialism.
But for CL and their like who have so much difficulty in realizing that what they say runs counter to Marxism and is fundamentally the expression of the revisionism and Trotskyism – that their “national interest, which can only be bourgeois interests” is bankrupt and nothing but the fallacy of the bourgeoisie itself. We will further quote Stalin who goes out of his way to point out that for the national struggles in the second period, dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which along the road to liberation, even if it run counter (our emphasis) to the demand of formal democracy, is a steam hammer blow at imperialism, i.e. is undoubtedly a revolutionary (his emphasis) step.”
Can there be unity of the various national interests of the developing and oppressed countries? Of course, but for revisionists, there can not. Let us see why.
The present day international situation is, among many aspects, most strongly characterized by the rising tide of the Third World countries struggle for independence and self-determination. For the past years this development in the Third World, of the international United Front against imperialism, led and initiated by the Communist Party of China and Albania, has given rise to not one or a few but many forms of fronts of struggle of the various Third World countries to safe guard and win back their national rights and secure their independence both politically and economically. Hence, there is unity of the ”various national interests” against imperialism. For example, the most powerful expression of this unity recently was expressed in the action of the OPEC countries in using oil as a ’weapon’ against the super-powers. But even further, the many and diverse forms of union and organization of the oppressed countries all add up to the broadening and deepening fight on the part of Third World countries against imperialism. Here such groupings as the Organization of Coffee Exporting Countries, the “seventy-seven ” non-aligned trade bloc countries(whose membership is well over a hundred now), organizations and associations of copper, bauxite, and other raw material exporting countries, the various regional economic blocs and formations such as the Caribbean trade bloc, the North Africa and Mediterranean trade bloc, the coastal countries who are fighting for their fishing rights and their rights to exploit their own resources, lying off-shore on their continental shelves, etc. All these formations and fronts reflect the emerging new factor in the international situation today. And as an indication of their developing political stance against the super-powers and imperialist countries, let us quote a resolution of the summit conference of Islamic countries (with many bourgeoisie and even feudal rulers) on the Middle East and the Palestinian question:
The restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people is a fundamental preliminary condition for the re-establishment of a just and permanent peace. The Palestinian Liberation Organization is the only representative of the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle. (Albania Today, 2/15/74)
As an example of the anti-imperialist content of the various formations arising from the Third World countries, this powerfully demonstrates that not only is the rise of the Third World countries a significant factor in the international class struggle, but that for those who are so die-hard as to peddle the trash of imperialism, there is getting to be no room left but to blanketly come out with the most bizarre notions of reality in hopes of tricking the most naive or politically insincere to carry out a defense of the bourgeoisie, for how else could such a notion as that “it is impossible to unite the various national interests against imperialism” stand water?
But the CL must make this attempt: that the national bourgeoisie cannot unite against imperialism because “the nature of national interests compels the various leaders to rely on imperialism in one way or another.” And so there it is, there they let the cat out of the bag. What is this “nature of national interests” which “compels” various leaders to capitulate? Isn’t it the interests of the national bourgeoisie which the CL speaks of? No, they don’t speak of the comprador bourgeoisie, but the national bourgeoisie. Let us examine this.
The nature of the national interests of the national bourgeoisie is quite different from that of the imperialist and its comprador bourgeois lackeys. In fact, it is fundamentally different from that of the comprador bourgeoisie, for it is this bourgeoisie that must “in one way or another” rely upon imperialism for its livelihood . The national bourgeoisie, with its national interests and aspirations to develop its class, has real conflicting interests with those of the imperialist and its lackey. While imperialism wants nothing better than to have complete domination over the political, economic, and military, as well as cultural and social life of the dependent country or colony, the national bourgeoisie to the contrary aims and fights for control of its countries’ national economy, political life, military apparatus, etc., in order to develop as a class and to secure its interests which imperialism constantly threatens to devour. Though at times the national bourgeoisie must compromise its position in the face of the reactionary imperialist and comprador maneuvers which threatens its existence on certain spheres, this does not eliminate the fundamental contradiction nor antagonistic interests between the national bourgeoisie and the oppressor-imperialist power, between the oppressed (of which the national bourgeoisie belongs) and the oppressor(of which the comprador bourgeoisie belongs) nations.
But for CL, there is no recognition of these aspects of contradiction and struggle, nor we add, the recognition that the various national bourgeoisie can (and do) rely upon one another “in one way or another” And to the extent that they can (and do) rely upon one another, isn’t this anti-imperialist? or, is it as the CL would have us believe, but a plot to “fool the people” and the trap through which the CPC and PLA have fallen victim as the CL maintains? We repeat again, no, this is not the case, but rather the CL has gone topsy turvy in its attempt to put forth a metaphysical schema of reality and in that way has surpassed even the modern revisionists and trotskyites upon whom they rely so heavily for their counter-revolutionary junk.
To sum up so far, the CL commits; three fundamental errors: 1) violation of one of the cardinal principles of Marxism-Leninism on the distinction between the oppressed and oppressor nations, hence, CL, an American “communist” organization jumps into the arms of American chauvinists echoing the call of American imperialism; 2) dismissal of the task of making and analysis of concrete international conditions, its failure to discern the fundamental trend within the rise of the Third World countries, and hence, its demagoguery of the tasks of communists in so far as correct support and grasp of the essence of the Third World struggle and the national liberation struggles throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and 3) the liquidation of the potential of utilizing the national struggles and the national bourgeoisie in Third World countries as a reserve in the interests of the proletariat in the international united front against imperialism, hence, out-right trotskyite position of isolating the proletariat from its allies and reserve.
It is with this in mind that the CL initiates its discussion on the correct policy for communists in support of the national liberation struggle. Starting with the concocted theory on “the only real path on to emancipation” for the proletariat and oppressed peoples “to overthrew all capital, including the national capital”, the CI ignominiously ends with the familiar trotskyite position of “critical support” for these struggles. Let us go into this aspect of the CLism for the purpose of learning the method through which revisionism has always and historically adopted for its “own” offense against Marxism.
Since “national interests can only be bourgeois interests”, are not revolutionary and cannot lead in practice to the liberation of the oppressed nation, as the CL contends, the CL concludes that “the only real path on to emancipation. .. can only be accomplished by the overthrow of all imperialism and all capital, including the national capital.” (People’s Tribune, 5/74). And to add to the credibility of this statement, the CL just lies: “This is the experience of China, Albania, North Korea and North Vietnam”.
The Chinese comrades, as anyone who has read Mao or some basic text on Chinese history knows, didn’t seize power through “the overthrow of all capital, including national capital.” The Chinese revolution passed through two stages, the new democratic revolution and on the basis of the consolidation of this revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, through to the socialist revolution, of which the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a most revolutionary form and struggle to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat. But prior to the seizure of state power during the new democratic stage of the Chinese revolution, the Communist Party of China took special measures to protect “national capital” in order to prevent the national capital from flowing abroad, to the side of imperialists, which would have definitely been detrimental to the interests of the proletariat. Mao Tsetung, years before liberation of China gave specific instructions to the CCP that;
In the new democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat, the state enterprises will be one of a socialist character and will constitute the fading force in the whole national economy, but the republic will neither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of such capitalist production as does not dominate the livelihood of the people, for China’s economy is still very backward.” (Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 353.)
And again in March, 1948, Mao wrote in “On the Question of the National Bourgeoisie and the Enlightened Gentry”,
the national bourgeoisie is a class which is politically very weak and vacillating, but the majority of its members have either joined the people’s democratic revolution or take a neutral stand, because they too are persecuted and fettered by imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic-capitalism. However, because they are important economically and may either join the struggle against the United States and Chiang Kai-Shek or remain neutral in that struggle, it is possible and necessarily for us to unite with them. ... To achieve this aim, we should be prudent in dealing with economic position of this class and in principle should adopt a blanket policy of protection. Otherwise we shall commit political errors.”
In Albania, in 1945, after the victory over the Italian and German fascists, the PLA also did not have a policy of the ”overthrow of all capital, including the national capital” as the CL claims. To the contrary the PLA enacted the Law on Extraordinary Taxation on war profits and in this manner aimed at facilitating the socialist sector of the economy. They didn’t have a “confiscate all capital” policy.
The only capitalists whose assets they confiscated were the ones that hid their assets, (see, History of the PLA, p. 261-262).
And as far as Vietnam goes, Trotskyite sects all objected to the fact that the Vietnamese revolutionary program was not socialization of all means of production, nor the “overthrow of all capital, including the national capital”. So, can there be any more room for misinterpretation on this question, and especially after its validity has been tested in all the national Liberation struggles around the world for a half century?
To distort the revolutionary policy of China, Albania, Vietnam and Korea is an unscrupulous as any bourgeois apologist can get. This is absolutely not allowed within the communist movement, and that is why CL is revisionist, counterrevolutionary, and agents of the bourgeoisie.
However, the CL, as with all trotskyite and revisionist groupings, “define” their support, make conditions for it, but actually in practice go to every sort of excuse not to support the revolutionary struggle against imperialism, hegemonism, racism and for national liberation and socialism under the banner of “critical support.” This they do by means of the cover of the trotskyite notion that only if the national liberation struggle is lead by a proletarian party or by the working class will they “lend” it support. As early as February, 1973 the CL was trumpeting this tune loud and clear in its bizarre formulation that:
Take out the working class, and you have nothing – take out the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist communist Party and you have nothing.
In the final analysis, yes! But as a means to attack national liberation struggles going on now without a proletarian party or a significant number of proletarians, NO! However many times this notion crops up, so will it be necessary to deal it a blow but only on the basis that it must be again refuted. Stalin had defeated this trotskyite view quite some time ago. He pointed out that,
the revolutionary character of the national movement under the condition of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of the proletarian element in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or republican program of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement. (Foundations of Leninism)
Hence, communists are the staunchest fighters in the defense of national independence regardless of whether the state is presently header by a prince, king, or feudalist, as long as they are objectively anti-imperialist. In the war of liberation, it is the duty of the communists to be the best patriots, to draw the masses into the anti-imperialist struggle and to lead them to victory. This is precisely how communists win the masses of people, non-proletarians over to the side of the revolutionary proletariat to continue the class struggle after the victory of the anti-imperialist struggle. As the Chinese comrades unequivocally so id on the tasks confronting the oppressed nations and peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America:
Generally speaking, the bourgeoisie in these countries have a dual character. When a United Front Is formed with the bourgeoisie, the policy of the proletarian party should be one of both unity and struggle. The policy should be to unite with the bourgeoisie in so far as they tend to be progressive, anti-imperialist, and anti-feudal, but to struggle against their reactionary tendencies to compromise and collaborate with imperialism and the forces of feudalism. “On the national question the world outlook, of the proletarian party is internationalism, not nationalism. In the revolutionary struggle it supports progressive nationalism and opposes reactionary nationalism. It must always draw a clear line of demarcation between itself and bourgeois nationalism to which it must never fall captive. (A Proposal Concerning the General Line..., 1963)
Thus, for the communist forces in the oppressor nation, they must lend unqualified support to the national liberation struggles, the struggles of the Third World countries for independence and against imperialism and expose the rotten system of imperialism as it attempts to confuse (through its agents) its own proletariat from realizing its proletarian internationalist duty to support these struggles. To stand on the sidelines, poke fun at the struggle as “one boss against another” or to throw the counterrevolutionary hoax to the wind that the struggle is “not revolutionary enough” (all of which the CL and their likes practice), amounts to siding with imperialism and reaction and being their greatest apologists. As Lenin said, the bourgeoisie understands that ”the active people in the working class movement who adhere to the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself.” (from “The International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International”, quoted from #VII of the open letter series of polemics by the CCP). The CL certainly has earned the title of “better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself.”
In the 1960’s, the question of whether the national liberation struggle was the rising trend and of how it should be treated was one of the several fronts where the line of demarcation was drawn between the genuine Marxist-Leninist CCP, and the revisionist CPSU. The CPSU, under the guise of peaceful coexistence, invented a ”new period” in trying to undermine the revolutionary thrust of the national liberation struggles. The CL, no different in essence from the revisionist CPSU, has also tried to liquidate the revolutionary potential of the national liberation struggle under the cover of supporting the “proletarian international interest” instead of the bourgeois “national interest.”
In 1963, The Chinese comrades had already pointed out the general characteristics of the present period and the increasingly larger role the national liberation struggles were to play in the defeat of imperialism. Before war engulfed in Indochina, they stated:
that the various types of contradictions in this world are concentrated in the vast area of Asia, Africa and Latin America; these are the most vulnerable areas under the imperialist rule and the storm centers of world revolution dealing direct blows at imperialism (p. 12)...The national democratic revolution in these areas and the international socialist revolutionary movement are the two historical currents of our time. The national democratic movement in these areas is an important component of the contemporary proletarian world revolution...The anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the people...are pounding and undermining the foundations and rules of imperialism and colonialism. In a sense, therefore, the whole cause of the international proletarian revolution hinges on the outcome of the revolutionary struggle of the people in these areas... (A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, p. 13)
In diametrical opposition to this line is the Khruschev-Brezhnev revisionist line that the world is defined by an immutable principal contradiction, that between socialism and imperialism.
In diametrical opposition to this line is the Khruschev-Brezhnev line that the world situation is defined by an immutable, “good for all time”, principal contradiction that between socialism and imperialism. The revisionist CPSU stated:
...according to the new theory the main contradiction of our time is, you see, the contradiction not between socialism and imperialism, but between the national liberation movement and imperialism, the Chinese comrades hold, is not the world system of socialism, not struggle of the international working class, but again the national liberation movement”, (p. 16) and further, “the Chinese comrades want to “correct” Lenin and prove that hegemony in the world struggle against imperialism should go not to the working class, but to the petty bourgeoisies or the national bourgeoisie, even to ’certain patriotically minded kings, princes, and aristocrats.” (Apologists of Neo-colonialism, p.16)
Doesn’t this sound exactly like the CL? Like son to father, the CL questions: “...national interest of the oppressed people? Should the leading factor be to support the national interest, which can only be bourgeois interest, or should the leading factor be proletarian international interest: and their battle cry ”to overthrow” all capital, including national capital.” What a discovery! What familiarity!! It is clear that the CL is trying to reverse history’s verdict on revisionism with all hopes to revive the already petrified corpse of the revisionist CPSU. And, let us repeat, what outright mockery of Marxism-Leninism.
One of the pillars of the CL’s analysis of the international situation is its thesis that “USNA imperialism (is) expanding its hegemony and tightening its grip on the dependent areas of the world.” (5/74) And that China’s struggle against Soviet social-imperialism “makes it possible” for the US imperialists to consolidate. Here is how they put it:
Today everyone must admit that the situation between the USSR and China, which is daily growing more dangerous, makes it possible for the USNA imperialists to consolidate. And consolidate they have. It is not that the imperialists have been able to create situations that are favorable them, but the situations that occur in the course of the struggle are more easily turned to serve the imperialists because of their hegemony.... However, it should be kept in mind that a good part of the ability of the imperialists to secure their hegemony has been the pursuance of an incorrect line on the part of some revolutionaries.
What are the examples that CL puts forth to prove their point? CL’s thesis is that “this is most easily proven by the growth of USNA’s share in the world market.” Following this, the CL, like all bourgeois scholars who are out to deceive the people, puts out a long list of statistics on the balance of trade which shows nothing but a relatively favorable balance of trade by the U.S. But that’s the only proof of how ”USNA imperialism (is) expanding its hegemony and tightening its grip on the dependent areas of the world”.!!
First of all, the balance of trade doesn’t show a damn thing about “the growth of USNA’s share in the world market.” Balance of trade and “share” in the world market are two entirely different things. In demagoging the innocent, the CL really shamelessly turns things topsy turvy. As a commonly known fact, the percentage of US exports in the capitalist world has greatly diminished. For example, in the ’40’s, the US occupied over 32% of the total capitalist world’s exports, whereas by 1970, it only accounted for about 15% of the total exports.
Secondly, a favorable balance of trade in part of one year doesn’t say a thing to indicate that the US economy is strengthened, let alone to say: “All in all, the general picture is one of consolidation.” The balance of trade is only a part, a small part, of the balance of payments, which is more significant as a factor since it includes the military expenditures abroad, capital investments abroad, “foreign aid,” trade balance, etc.
But the US balance of payments has been in the red in all the years according to the statistics that we have available (back to 1950), with the exception of 1957. And especially between 1969 and 1972 the deficit of the whole balance of payments is astonishing* Does this speak for the “consolidation” of the US at all? NO. If anything, these figures indicate the inherent irresolvable contradiction of capitalism and capitalism’s deepening general crisis, of overproduction, under-consumption, monetary and financial crisis, trade and tariff wars, etc. These crises of capitalism have in fact been developing with ever increasing speed and proportions, and much against the desires of the bourgeoisie (and should we say its apologists), who, at all times, would like to see itself as “consolidating.”
However, the US hadn’t cared much about its balance of trade or balance of payments problems, even with the beginnings of a serious monetary and gold crisis. Why? Because the US, on the basis of its prospects and military ability to expand its financial and other markets, and thus on the basis that the US dollar, as reserve currency, was worth as much as “instant gold,” would simply print up more money to pay for its deficit spending. This it had done previously in line with Keynesian economic theory. However, by 1972, in the face of serious defeat in Indochina, and hence the narrowing of the prospects for U.S. expansionism, the monetary and financial crisis which had been steadily developing for the past decade came to a head with the whole of the capitalist monetary system based on the US dollar collapsing.
The CL, in anxiously trying to prove its “consolidation of USNA imperialism,” simply “forgot” to mention this general crisis of capitalism, not to mention that this general crisis had been tremendously aggravated by the powerful force of national liberation struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America and other places, as well as by the rise of the Third World countries’ struggle for independence and by the intensification of the inter-imperialist rivalry amongst the superpowers and between them and the Second World countries. These present-day realities in the international situation point to the weakening and decline of US imperialism and the whole of the imperialist system, not their “consolidation and expanding hegemony.” But for the CL, reality makes no difference for its schema of things!
So now everything begins to fall into place. The CL turns away from analyzing the political and economic forces acting in the real world but instead resorts to a clumsy attempt at “statistical” analysis to “prove” their point. In this manner they concoct “facts” and put forth their speculations under the guise of economic analysis to show how the Third World and Second World countries’ struggles are immaterial in combatting the superpowers. Hence they must liquidate the contradictions between the imperialist and oppressed nations, and between the imperialists themselves, and resort to Trotskyite attacks against the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Party of China for struggling against Soviet social-imperialism. What an outright betrayal of Marxism-Leninism and shameless display of vulgar economic determinism!
But it is from this Trotskyite-revisionist perspective that the CL puts forth its evaluation of the strategic area of contention between the superpowers. Contrary to the analysis of the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania, the CL “shows us that it is incorrect to say that the struggle that is going on is for the control of Europe. It is for the control of the colonies that is represented by the control of Europe,” so they say.
One fallacy after another. The whole of the CL argument is based on viewing the world statically, as between “two camps,” that of imperialism and that of socialism, and of taking as its starting point that counter-revolution is the main trend in the world and the consolidation of imperialism is the result of the sell-out of the Third World (their thesis on “national interests”) combined with the “incorrect” line of the CPC and PLA in leading the international united front against imperialism (which the CL is totally oblivious to).
As we have attempted to show, the international situation is very well characterized by what Chou En-lai said in the Tenth Party Congress Report: “They want to devour China, but find it too tough even to bite. Europe and Japan are also hard to bite, not to speak of the vast Third World.” For what this analysis reflects is the strength of the People’s Republic of China and of the Third World, not their weakness. As we have seen, it is the rising tide of the Third World countries’ resistance coming in the wake and following the path of the powerful national liberation fronts which continue to shake imperialism to its knees, that has altered the international balance of forces. The imperialists faced with a deepening general monetary and financial crisis, are locked in ever fiercer struggle amongst themselves for an ever shrinking world. Hence, the contradiction between the imperialists, between the superpowers and the Second World countries, and particularly amongst the superpowers themselves, aggravates to the core any “alliance” between them. Contention is absolute; collusion relative, temporary. With the Third World rising up as a mighty fist and the Second World increasing its resistance, the super-powers find the going rough. It is in this situation that the superpowers must intensify their rivalry and contention for Europe, with its economic (US has over $88 billion investments), political and military significance It is no wonder that the strategic area of contention is Europe, though as the Chinese comrades have pointed out, their expansionism goes on “every place their hands can reach.”
The CL fallacy of “control of the colonies” can only be the smokescreen the Chinese comrades warned of when they characterized the Soviet social-imperialists as “making a feint to the east while attacking in the west.” On our part, we must take this to heart. The CL, with all its false trappings, is nothing more than the agent of modern revisionism attempting to fish in troubled waters.
The “C”L claims in their May Day speech (5/74 People’s Tribune) that “ ...a concrete analysis by the leadership of the Communist League disclosed that far from entering into its immediate doom, USNA imperialism was expanding its hegemony and tightening its grip on the dependent areas of the world. This is most easily proven by the growth of the USNA’s share in the world market.” Following that statement they gave some statistics on a single quarter’s trade balance right after the US dollar devaluation to show how the US imperialism is more consolidated.
The actual figures show, contrary to what the “C”L claims, that the ’USNA’s share in total capitalist world export has shrunk from 32.4% in 1947 to 15.5% in 1970. Iron historical facts proved the “C”L ’leadership’ to be liars.
* * *
Marxism-Leninism holds that on the basis of a concrete analysis of concrete conditions stems the revolutionary strategy of the proletarian revolution, and that this analysis and strategy must illuminate not only the historical features of the struggle of the proletariat and the alignment of class forces against the bourgeoisie, but also indicate the direction and scope of the movement and how, with what means the proletariat must seize power. Hence, strategy of revolution embodies the science of Marxism-Leninism, its methodology and viewpoint, and provides the revolutionary forces the necessary tool by which the successful seizure of state power can be accomplished.
But to the contrary, right in line with its bizarre, anti-Marxist analysis of reality, right in line with its anti-Marxist policy for the revolutionary forces in support of national liberation struggles and in line with its’ metaphysical methodology for examining problems, the CL takes strategy of revolution to be the lifeless, dogmatic formulation of reality and movement. In all their analysis only one clear indication of what they mean by strategy for revolution can be discerned and this is their referral to Comrade Dimitrov, who was one of the leaders of the International United Front Against Fascism during the time of the Third International. But to adopt Dimitrov’s strategy of United Front which was formulated in the 30’s under historical conditions that placed the proletariat on the defensive, is clearly an anachronism, to say the least.
In speaking to this period, for example, Stalin in his report to the 8th Congress of the CPSU outlined the “increasing acuteness of the international political situation, collapse of the post war system of peace treaties, beginning of a new imperialist war,” and pointed out that, in 1935 Italy attacked and seized Abyssinia. In the summer of 1936 Germany and Italy organized military intervention in Spain and in Spanish Morocco, and Italy in the South of Spain and in the Balearic Islands. He further pointed out “In 1937, having seized Manchuria, Japan invaded North and Central China, occupied Peking, Tientsin and Shanghai and began to oust her foreign competitors from the occupied zone. In the beginning of 1938, Germany seized Austria, and in the autumn of 1938 the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia. At the end of 1938 Japan seized Canton, and at the beginning of 1939 the island of Hainan. Thus the war which has stolen so imperceptibly upon the nations, has drawn over five hundred million people into its orbit and has extended its sphere of action over a vast territory, stretching from Tientsin, Shanghai and Canton, through Abyssinia to Gibraltar.”
It was in light of just these prospects that the United Front Against Fascism strategy was formulated. The Soviet Union was relatively weak, whereas German imperialism and the “Entente countries along with other imperialist powers were heightening their rivalry for hegemony. The proletariat and its Party in these countries had suffered set backs in the face of fascism. That is why in May 1935, for example, the Bolsheviks signed a treaty of mutual assistance against possible attack by aggressors with the French imperialists and later with both the U.S. and British imperialists, who were both at “the same time raising a big hullabaloo about “rebellion” and “riots” in the Soviet Union and in no small way taking aggressive stances towards the Soviet Union.
What possible parallels are there between that period when the main trend was counterrevolution and today when the main trend is revolution? There was then scarcely a sign of the powerful national liberation movements as of those today. At that time, the proletariat in the capitalist countries were weakened and could provide little assistance to the national liberation movements; whereas the national liberation movements in the same sense faced similar problems and were not able to act as a “reserve” force of the proletariat. Should China, for example, sign non-aggression treaties with various imperialist powers, just as the Soviet Union signed various non-aggression pacts with a number of imperialist countries at that period?
Sure, if the Imperialists are willing to. But is it as necessary for China to sign these treaties with imperialists as the Soviet Union needed to in the 1930’s and 40’s? No. And that is the whole difference. United Front Against Fascism was an international strategy. As an integral part of that strategy was the defense of the only socialist country in the world then- the Soviet Union.
But the CL has no principles other than what ever suits its needs. In total disregard of real historical events and with every intention to distort history and reality, the CL concocts its cook-book “ready-made” strategy of United Front Against Fascism. Here is how they put it. In order to substantiate what they mean by “counter-revolution is the main trend in the world and in the U.S. today ”, the CL resorts to illusions of history. From their May Day 1973 speech they ask: “What became of the 1963 declaration by the Chinese that ’We are in battle formation and ready to march’?
Then comes this analysis: “When the revolution was on the upsurge, the CCP was correctly ready to make the maximum sacrifice to further the cause of revolution. To maintain that stance while the revolution is clearly on the decline is nothing less than dogmatism.” Meaning that China had to yield to pressure exerted by the imperialists. Thus, the only conclusion can be that “Today, China is in somewhat the same position as was Lenin” (Brest-Litovsk Treaty in 1918). This is what is meant by taking Marxism-Leninism out of its context of time and place. This is CL’s “History repeats itself” and the whipping board for petty bourgeois-romanticists on revolution. In 1918 the situation in the world was qualitatively different from today, 1974. In 1917 and 1918, the new born Soviet Union had to abandon their support of the right of nations to self-determination in several cases, such as for Poland, Finland and Courland, in order to sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In essence they had to give up territory to buy time to allow their internal consolidation for the survival of the new-born first socialist state. Today, to the contrary, China does not need to buy time nor give up territory for the sake of internal consolidation. As comrade Chou En-lai puts it: “China is an attractive piece of meat coveted by all. But this piece of meat is very tough and for years no one has been able to bite into it.” For under the correct leadership of the CCP, China has not only built up a strong proletarian state apparatus against imperialist invasion and internal subversion, but China has also made tremendous progress in its socialist construction. With the Socialist Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Chinese revolution struck a tremendous blow to revisionism and opportunism and further strengthened and consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat. But as we have read above, the CL, oblivious to the development of Marxism-Leninism, in fact hating the thought of the development and enrichment of Marxism-Leninism by the great Marxist-Leninist Chairman Mao Tse-tung, has resorted to slanderous illusions of “dogmatism” of the CCP and that the 1963 General Line statement of the CCP is incorrect and outdated. This is the same stuff the Khrushchovite revisionists peddled, now being introduced under the banner that “all is lost” – counter-revolution is the main trend, “prepare for fascism.”
Thus in taking as their starting point how everything is “terrible”, the CL can only characterize pessimism and the strength of the bourgeoisie. This constitutes the main theme behind all their Trotskyite petty-bourgeois notions of reality. Such is their typical ”insight” on the bourgeoisie and of the class struggle: ”The cuts in welfare and the rapid rise of unemployed workers are clear examples of the need of the fascists to drive down the standards of the working class.” No word about the proletariat rising up, or even, why the bourgeoisie, needs to drive down the standards of the working class: is it because of the serious crisis that the bourgeoisie has been irreconciliably caught in or the fact that the rising tide of revolution has substantially curbed imperialist plunder? For the CL it is none of these but the ”consolidation” that goes on ”because,” as we have read, ”of the hegemony of the imperialist.” Everything defeatist under the sun and typical of the Trotskyite and revisionist outlook; and typical to “C”L, they don’t talk about the resistance of our people. Typical of the pessimists who represent more of the decaying bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes than of the rising proletariat, the “C”L doesn’t promote resistance of the proletariat and does not understand (or analyze or promote) the fundamental movement and direction of the proletarian struggle.
Where has the “C”L ever talked about the fact that the American working class has fought for and won back about two-thirds of the loss in buying power despite the sellout of labor leadership? Where have they pointed out that, for example, the working class between May 1 and mid-June engaged in 523 strikes compared with two minor strikes against the wage-control during the wage-price freeze? And where have they analyzed or put forward an analysis of the fundamental direction of the working class movement particularly as it has resisted the attacks of the monopoly capitalist class in various forms? Nowhere is this to be seen. We would like to put forward four aspects of the direction and scope of the struggle and resistance of the working class during the past recent period:
1. The focus of the working class struggle is increasingly pointing at the government and the monopoly capitalist class”! such as the New York 1199 hospital workers strike to challenge the government’s Cost of Living Council; the awakening of the working class due to the Watergate events, which as well drew the backward elements into confronting the political realities of the day; the aeronautical industry workers layoffs, and their blaming directly the government; the “energy crisis” and the politicization of the working class by the deeds of the monopoly capitalists; and the truck drivers’ action against the government.
2. Some heroic and record-breaking strikes shows the deepening and broadening of the working class resistance. Such as the construction workers1 strike in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Memphis, etc., which caused the halt of more than ten billion dollars worth of construction projects; the first nationwide strike of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union since 1921, which involved 110,000 workers from over 30 states and 100 cities; a more than six week strike of a DuPont plant in Ohio which is the first in 93 years.
3. The merger of the working class struggle with the anti-racist, anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa. Such as the boycott of the Rhodesian chrome by longshoremen and the recent strike against the Southern Alabama Coal Company, which imports tens of millions of dollars worth of coal from South Africa’s apartheid regime–in this case, on May 22, over 1500 workers from twenty different industries including coal mining, steel, electric power and clothing, and workers in civil service jobs, rallied in Birmingham where the Southern Company was holding its stockholders meeting. On the same day, over 8,000 workers stopped production in several mines in Alabama in support.
4. The intensification of the exposure of the union bureaucrats. Such as the Experimental Negotiating Agreement in Steel where over 6,000 workers demanded cancellation of this agreement and various wildcat strikes took place aimed against the ENA agreements, increasing the exposure of the sell-out union bureaucrats. Another example is the struggle of the workers of the New York Daily News Printers Unions against the agreements for automation and a phase-out of printers with breadcrumb rewards. This kind of “breakthrough” In a management-labor agreement has exposed the labor aristocrats and what they represent.
These trends in the spontaneous workers movement must be studied and analyzed. What is clear is their resistance and attacks on the monopoly capitalists and the government, and as such they should be promoted and supported. But the “C”L prefers to see nothing of reality, but through its simple categorization of ideas and words, makes its only case as that fascism is increasing, and every real movement of the working class is “Terrible.”
Domestically, the danger of fascism is increasing. This is due particularly to the division of the class along national lines and the offensive of the bourgeoisie in the realm of culture and ideology. This represents the political necessity of the ruling class to intensify their divide and rule tactics in the face of mounting economic and social crisis. But, as we have stated earlier, though the danger of fascism Is Increasing, this does not mean that the fight, against the danger of fascism should be the only fight. For this would disarm the working class and stop short of a revolutionary offensive by the working class which is the only way to prevent fascism. Though the bourgeoisie is increasing the spread of its counterrevolutionary culture and ideology, the resistance of the working class is mounting with even greater strength. As we presented in the Guardian’s “Watergate and Fascism Forum”, “It can be concluded that the menace of fascism in this country is increasing. However, we must bear in mind that in this period of heightening social contradictions, all forms of resistance and attack, such as the resistance against the attack on the standard of living, on the rights of the national minorities, etc., are all increasing. And when we speak of a revolutionary program, whether it be the United Front Against Fascism or the United Front Against Monopoly Capital, there must be a concrete analysis with regard to the overall situation of class contradictions and class resistance, and should reflect the essence of the particular epoch.”
The dialectics of the proletarian class struggle today are such that any hesitancy or wavering in taking the offensive, any call to adopt a defensive strategy, amounts to bringing about fascism rather than proletarian revolution and socialism. For that reason, communists must adopt an offensive strategy on all fronts, combined with communist leadership in all those fronts. The unity of the class, the only way to prevent fascism, can only be achieved along this basis and through the development of the day to day struggle of the class against all manifestations of exploitation and oppression. “C”L and their like, who have attempted to infuse Trotskyite and revisionist fantasy for proletarian clarity and analysis of reality into the communist movement, should be answered everywhere with a firmness and resolve to smash any and all attempts to distort and slander Marxism-Leninism.
CL states:
During all previous historical epochs the base arose, at least in part, under the super-structure of the class about to be overthrown. But the dictatorship of the proletariat leaps into existence without any base whatsoever. In fact, the main task of the superstructure – that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is to form the base for it to develop on.
So we see that no anti-socialist ideas can arise out of the dictatorship of the proletariat precisely because, in the early stages, there is no base for these ideas to arise from. On the contrary, the reactionary cultural ideas, the reactionary forms of political activity are all hangovers of capitalism and do not arise on the basis of socialist relations.
Therefore, describing the bourgeoisie that has usurped power by means of an armed coup d’etat as a ’new bourgeoisie’, in the sense of arising on the basis of socialist productive relations in the USSR, is entirely incorrect.” (PT 6/74 p.41)
Prior to the Soviet revolution all the social contradictions – the contradiction between labor and capital, the contradiction between imperialists – were all contradictions internal to the imperialist system. The historic importance of the Soviet revolution is that on Nov. 7, 1917, under the leadership of the great Lenin, a contradiction with imperialism, external to imperialism emerged.
It was the fact that it was outside of the sphere of imperialism that made it impossible to deny the existence of such a camp. These two camps, because they are external to one another are bound to exist until the death of imperialism.” (PT 5/74 p.11)
Now what is the real situation? Marx states explicitly:
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is, therefore, in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes. (Marx, “State and Revolution”) (emphasis in original)
And Lenin explains:
On the basis of what facts, then, can the question of the future development of future communism be dealt with?
On the basis of the fact that it has its origin in capitalism, that it develops historically from capitalism, that it is the result of the action of a social force to which capitalism gave birth. (Ibid.) (emphasis in original)
In the first years of the Soviet Union, for example, there were five distinct types of economy existing together.
Let us enumerate these elements:
1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;
2) small commodity production; (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);
3) private capitalism;
4) state capitalism;
5) socialism. (Lenin, “Left-Wing Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality”)
The dictatorship of the proletariat rests on the last category, socialist economy, which is the large-scale socialized production which the Bolsheviks were able quickly to expropriate after the revolution. That socialized industry was developed by capitalism before the October Revolution. The task of creating such industry is, as Marx wrote, capital’s historic mission. The extension of that base is an important task of the proletarian state, but the initial base, large-scale socialized production, is forged by capitalism and inherited by socialism.
Moreover, the remaining four types of economy are also a base for something. They are a base for the bourgeoisie and for bourgeois ideology. Most dangerous is small commodity production which is the most widespread and which, as Lenin wrote, “engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale.” The revolutionizing of the lives of tens of millions of small producers under socialism is in fact a far more difficult task than the seizure of state power – a task requiring decades of life-and-death struggle under the proletarian dictatorship. Under socialism, reactionaries do draw on past reactionary ideology, as in the present struggle between Confucianism and revolutionary ideology in China. But both a new bourgeoisie and new bourgeois ideologies do continuously arise precisely because a real economic base survives.
Under socialism there are, therefore, both an economic base for the proletarian dictatorship, a base which is forged by capitalism and expropriated and expanded by the proletariat, as well as a surviving economic base for a new bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology. These are the internal bases for the most persistent, ruthless, decades-long class struggle under socialism.
The CL conception of the world brings to mind the picture of a bourgeois professor who in order to prove the validity of his idealist theories, gave students examples like this: “...say that you live on the moon and I live on the earth. Then the problem would look like this....” As all idealist-metaphysicians, the CL views the date November 7, 1917, the date of the Great Russian Revolution, as magic. To them, the whole world suddenly changed at 12:00 o’clock on the dot. A whole new world “external to imperialism” suddenly “emerged.” From a country with a feudal-capitalist economic base emerged a rosy world in which the backward agrarian mode of production suddenly changed into an industrialized socialist mode overnight; thus the “dictatorship of the proletariat leaps into existence without any base whatsoever.”
The dictatorship of the proletariat, as anything else, takes place in a real country with a definite economic and political development and dominant mode of production, a definite history, cultural level, etc. Having mobilized the masses and unleashed their energy, sympathy and understanding, the vanguard party must according to this reality work out the best path for the consolidation of the dictatorship. It must be built with the material received from the old society. For example, the vast base for small capitalism was such a great problem in revolutionary Russia and China that the proletariat for a period helped to build state capitalism against petty capitalism, something which the CL has however rejected as a “hangover.”
The CL continues:
It is also only natural that the enemies of Marxism should also find ways to utilize the writings of Lenin. Such a ploy was used by Lin Piao and is being used by those who yet support him today. One of his favorite quotes was “Lenin also stated that ’the new bourgeoisie’ was arising from among our Soviet government employees...
The Lin Piao gang and their henchmen refer to this quote over and over again in a wild attempt to make it appear as if the capitalists arise out of the socialist bureaus. (People’s Tribune, June 1974)
Who are “those who yet support him (Lin Piao) today”? And who are “the Lin Piao gang and their henchmen” who “refer to this quote over and over again”? The CL is referring to none other than Chairman Mao himself. The quoted report that the CL accused of revisionism indeed was presented, delivered by Lin Piao during the CCP’s Ninth National Party Congress. But in the first item of the “Report to the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” it was stated explicitly that:
As we all know, the political report to the Ninth Congress was drawn up under Chairman Mao’s personal guidance. Prior to the congress, Lin Piao had produced a draft political report in collaboration with Chen Po-ta. They were opposed to continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, contending that the main task after the Ninth Congress was to develop production ... and it was only after his attempts were frustrated that Lin Piao grudgingly accepted the political line of the Central Committee and read its political report to the Congress. (The Tenth National Congress of the CCP)
Where then is the “Lin gang” that the CL wrote of? Who is really the follower and protector of Lin Piao?
But this does not exhaust the scope of the class struggle under socialism. In addition to the internal battle against old and new reactionary classes and ideologies, there is also the struggle against all external enemies. This too is an intense, all-round struggle in the economic, political, military, diplomatic, and ideological spheres. The contradiction between the socialist countries and imperialist countries is a fundamental contradiction, which will not disappear until imperialism is eliminated. Each aspect of the contradiction is entirely locked in struggle with the other, both fighting the other directly and finding allies in the other’s side. It is therefore a pure lie, and pure metaphysics in philosophy, to state that the two are “external to one another,” thus completely liquidating the contradiction and the struggle. And the conclusion, that both camps must therefore exist until the death of imperialism, is pure revisionism. No! A socialist country can turn into its opposite, a social-imperialist country, and a socialist camp can disintegrate, precisely because the two are in no way “external to imperialism,” but are engaged in a fierce and fundamental struggle with it. Such degeneration occurred in the Soviet Union and in the former socialist camp.
Rather than understand the struggle between the two diametrically opposed social systems, the CL imagines two completely divorced worlds. It therefore does not understand the struggle and contradiction, at all. As with all metaphysical views, it sees neither the connection nor the struggles between the phenomena, nor the fact that under certain conditions one can turn into its opposite.
One of the essential lines of demarcation between Marxism-Leninism and modern revisionism is on the question of the continuation of class struggle, and the dictatorship of the proletariat throughout the entire historical period of socialism. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao all denied the existence of and the need for such struggle, and instead pushed their policies of “Party of the whole people,” “State of the whole people,” or alleged that the main task was to develop production rather than to continue the revolution. All revisionist lines liquidate the role of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology which survive throughout the dictatorship of the proletariat. As we have seen, the CL as well has done this.
Lenin explained:
The dictatorship of the proletariat means a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by their overthrow (even if only in a single country), and whose power lies not only in the strength of international capital, the strength and durability of their international connections, but also in the force of habit, in the strength of small-scale production. Unfortunately, small-scale production is still widespread in the world, and small-scale production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. All these reasons make the dictatorship of the proletariat necessary, and victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, stubborn and desperate life-and-death struggle which calls for tenacity, discipline, and a single and inflexible will.
Chairman Mao wrote:
In China, although in the main socialist transformation has been completed with respect to the system of ownership... there still are remnants of the overthrown landlord and comprador classes, there is still ! a bourgeoisie, and the remoulding of the petty bourgeoisie has only just started. The class struggle is by no means over. The class struggle between the proletariat and j the bourgeoisie, the class struggle between| the different political forces, and the class struggle in the ideological field between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie will continue to be long and tortuous and at times will even become very acute...the question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, is still not really settled.
Therefore, the CPC’s basic line for the entire period of socialist revolution is:
Socialist society covers a considerably long historical period. In the historical period of socialism, there are still classes, class contradictions and class struggle, there is the danger of capitalist restoration. We must recognize the protracted and complex nature of this struggle. We must heighten our vigilance. We must conduct socialist education. We must correctly understand and handle class contradictions and class struggle, distinguish the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy from those among the people and handle them correctly. Otherwise a socialist country like ours will turn into its opposite and degenerate, and a capitalist restoration will take place. From now on we must remind ourselves of this every year, every month and every day so that we can retain a rather sober understanding of this problem and have a Marxist-Leninist line.
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Listen to this profundity:
...we can fundamentally divide the superstructure into its dialectical entities, both the objective and subjective parts. The objective part of the superstructure is consciously developed by the victorious class after a battle; that fundamentally is the State.
Alongside of the conscious aspects of the superstructure, there arises a reflection of the subconscious class struggle – art, literature, political forms, etc.” (People’s Tribune)
A straight-up revisionist and Trotskyite understanding of the “subconscious class struggle”!
Similarly, on the issue of Solzhenitsyn , the CL, as every revisionist and social-imperialist, jumps to declare the man a “tool of capitalist restoration” (People’s Tribune, August 1973). With the same outlook as the new czars themselves, the CL immediately jumps on the little agent of US imperialism, as a monster will swallow a great land of Lenin already usurped by these ruthless social-imperia1ists.
Chairman Mao wrote that in a class society, everything is branded with the stamp of a definite class. This he said is true in art, culture, unspoken customs, politics and all parts of the superstructure. Trotsky, however, being a thorough-going idealist and bourgeois politician, glorified bourgeois art and culture as the highest form of art and culture of mankind. He believed that the proletariat should adopt and work up to the bourgeois cultural level. The modern revisionists the world over believe the same. Is there any accident that they follow the same line in art and culture? No. The opportunists, revisionists, Trotskyites and reactionaries of all types cannot escape the fact that everything is branded with the stamp of a class. On the question of art and culture all of these “monsters and demons” come out of the woodwork. Is there then a clear relation between the CL’s metaphysical, idealist outlook, their dishonest methodology, and their completely distorted conception of the superstructure, art and culture? Yes, absolutely. The laboring masses who toil for their living, of necessity have a crystal clear consciousness, a close contact with reality. However, the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, as dying classes being left behind by the merciless wheels of history, must have illusions to cover the irresistible current of history. Thus, the CL, as all bourgeois conspirators and renegades, writes about the ”subconscious.” And who preached that literature and art are merely a reflection, and are only a “subconscious class struggle”? It was none other than Master Trotsky himself followed by his royal disciples Liu Shao-chi, Chou Yang and others. These advocates of “subconscious” art and literature inevitable fall back to the questions of “human nature,” “common feelings of mankind,” and the “quest for the true man,” etc. for support.
However, there is nothing “subconscious” about art and culture. In any society the exploiters always shape the world according to their own image, to glorify themselves and use the art and culture to perpetuate their rule. If we examine all the feudal and bourgeois cultural treasures, whether they be printing, music or handicraft, they are all commissioned by Lord so-and-so, Monsieur so-and-so, etc. And although the results of art and cultural workers must be viewed from the standpoint of the wisdom, sweat and creativity of the masses, every brush stroke, every note of melody, was calculated to please the exploiters, to depict their rule, their victory in wars of conquest, their high style of living, etc. There is no art for art’s sake and above-class art, which is exactly what the CL’s art and culture as “a reflection of the subconscious class struggle” is all about. It forsakes the dialectical materialist world outlook. As all the revisionists and Trotskyites who believe in the “subconscious” role of art and culture in the guise of neutrality, the view that it has nothing to do with classes allows the far stronger bourgeois ideology to creep in, to dominate and remould the proletariat according to its image and values. The view of art, culture and ideology in general as mere “reflections” of the class struggle justifies the tailing of the socialist ideology and world outlook behind bourgeois ideology on all questions, making the proletariat subservient to that ideology and method.
Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, this line is nothing but a justification of the bourgeois ideology of the hidden bourgeois’ and millions of small proprietors, a justification of capitalism. Thus, restoration of bourgeois ideology, art and culture is a first step towards revisionism and is the first step towards capitalist restoration. This is what the CL’s line has in common with all the revisionist and Trotskyite lines.
* * *
CL sees the necessity of building the party now on the basis that 1) the mass movement, spontaneous in this period, is confronting the bourgeoisie but suffering a bloody defeat, 2) leading to fascism. We must reject their specious reasoning on this question. Under capitalism, the proletariat always needs its party; whether in a period of bourgeois democracy or of bourgeois fascism, because as Lenin said, each class Is represented by a political party that serves and fights for its interest and leads the class in struggle against the opposing class.
How does CL see the party program? They don’t see as an integral part of the party program the necessity for a clearly drawn line of demarcation theoretically and politically between the revisionists and Marxist-Leninists. We believe that without a complete ideological and political victory over revisionism and opportunism, the program can not be consolidated, Marxism-Leninism cannot be fused with the workers’ movement, and the proletariat cannot carry out its revolution.
It we are to become the forces that build the anti-revisionist Communist party in this country, we must do infinitely more than just “...step up the battle against Revisionism and Opportunism throughout the country,” as the CL says in “Marxist-Leninists Unite!”. We must put this anti-revisionist task on the top of the agenda. Without a clear-cut victory over revisionism, the new party will inevitably be sucked into the revisionist marsh, becoming indistinguishable from its opposite. This victory cannot be won without a thorough grasp of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought gained through ideological struggle against revisionism. It is only on this basis that the correct line on program, strategy, tactics, and organization can be formulated and developed. The anti-revisionist Communist movement has just begun to undertake this task in earnest, and anyone who in the slightest manner pushes the Communist movement away from this crucial undertaking aids the revisionists in sabotaging the very foundations of the new party.
“How is the Leninist Party of A New Type to be constructed in the U.S.” That is the burning question of the day, and CL answers with the following “through democratic centralism, through education, through the party press, and through the battle against opportunism*. What they have done here is to turn things on their head. “A program is indeed more important than tactics, and tactics more important than organization.” Lenin called this a “commonplace” and “rudimentary” in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.
But it seems that the ladies and gentlemen of CL have overlooked this essential aspect in party-building. No, like all revisionists, they are “original” in their formulation – in this case organization being; more important than education, which is more important than the party press, which is more important than the struggle against revisionism and opportunism!
The fundamental contradictions in the world today, so powerfully stimulated by the historically unprecedented wave of national liberation movements, are unfolding in all their various forms and combinations. The crisis of galloping inflation, the rifts caused by the monetary crisis and the successive fall of governments have touched virtually every major capitalist, country, and all of them are attempting to transfer the crisis to the working class.
In response, the proletariat has no alternative but to resist, giving rise to rapidly spreading strike waves and political protests in the capitalist countries. Amidst these mass actions based on the multinational unity of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie is intensifying its efforts to divide and rule. It is working overtime to dope the proletariat and people with racism, pornography, and mysticism of all sorts, precisely to break and disorganize our ranks. Today, to divide and rule is a strategy of critical importance to them in the maintenance of their decadent rule. Division of our multinational proletariat by national oppression and racism paves the way for fascism, so today the danger of fascism is on the rise.
The growing strength of Third World and Second World resistance minimizes the area of superpower contention. Still, the desperate superpowers cause trouble everywhere; yesterday the Middle East, today Cyprus. Hardly has one crisis subsided when another flares up. And as rapidly as the crisis flares, facades of “detente,” “SALT talks” and the “European Security Treaty” get ripped apart one after another, revealing beneath these covers a maddening arms race and naked class interest. Clearly, the danger of world war is also increasing.
But arising with and combatting these dangers are the movements for state independence, national liberation and democratic and socialist revolution In every part of the world. These revolutionary movements, no longer coming in drops or even streams, are pouring forth like a mighty torrent striking at all reaction. Today, therefore, the rising danger of fascism and world war is no longer in question. Now the question is which of the two – the movement for revolution or the movement for reaction – is increasing more rapidly and can overtake the other. The main trend now is revolution.
In a sense, then, this is the best of times and the worst of times. It is the best of times because the people are awakening and are ready to fight. It is the worst of times because the suffering and oppression are also intensified and the working class is agonizing under an increasingly difficult period. But the awakening of the people is the principal trend.
In the light of this rising revolutionary trend, a religious sect like the “C”L can flare briefly, but cannot leave a deep and lasting impact on our movement. As we have seen, the “C”L’s counter-revolutionary nature comes out of every pore, on every issue. Despite its Marxist-Leninist phrasemongering, the “C”L has its feet planted firmly in the worst of two worlds – the worlds of revisionism and Trotskyism. On its right foot, the “C”L wears the notoriously stinking shoe that the social-imperialist Khrushchev once waved in the United Nations, while on its “left” foot the “C”L wears the battered and soiled shoe that Trotsky once wore while trotting around the world demanding his “permanent revolution.” The “C”L today proudly wears both of these shoes, stumbling around the “USNA,” trying to build its “Party.” We polemicize against the “C”L not because we feel that they will be particularly influential in the working class struggle, but because we feel that their line can serve as a good negative example to the Marxist-Leninist movement in its constant struggle against all opportunism in building the new, anti-revisionist Communist Party.