First Published: The People’s Tribune, in two parts, Vol. 6, No. 3, March 1974 and Vol. 6, No. 4, April 1974.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In order to defeat the capitalist-imperialists and their running dogs, the revisionist CPUSA and many of their supporters, the Marxist-Leninists must make as their main duty the building of a multinational communist party of a new type that will lead the revolutionary struggle in the USNA. The real revolutionary Communists in this country are struggling to do just that. However, there are people who phrase-monger and holler about being Communists and they are a disgrace to Marxism. They are a disgrace to scientific socialism and they don’t know a thing about the dialectics of history or the dialectics of the development of the revolutionary movement, either in the USNA or in the world. In 1972 Marxists of the USNA and Canada met to set up a conference to organize and unify all of the real revolutionary forces in the USNA, Canada and other sections of North America. These groupings put out a Call, set up a preparatory committee, and began work in order to bring about that conference. This conference took place in May 1973 in Chicago.
Since the fall of 1973, we have received a number of periodicals known as the “Workers’ Daily-News Releases” under the leadership of the so-called Central Organization of U.S. Marxists-Leninists. It is almost incredible how some people can distort truth and facts. It is the distortions and lies that we have read in these sheets that we now want to discuss. The “People’s Tribune” of Vol. 5 No. 4 May, 1973 exposed how the American Communist Workers Movement (M-L) attempted to sabotage the conference. These people are continuing their works of sabotage in the building of a revolutionary communist party in this country. They are proving that they know as much about Marxism as a rabbit does about bagging up a bunch of hound dogs.
We first want to quote from the original resolution or Call for a Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists that was printed in the “North American News Service” with its editor, Hardial S. Bains, and subsequently printed in both the Communist League’s “People’s Tribune” and the official organ of the American Communist Workers Movement (M-L).
On What basis have these organizations united? We can only be united on the basis of the interests of the whole working class, that is, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, which is hostile to any struggle for personal interests or opinions. Marxism-Leninism is the theory of scientific socialism, that is, it is based in objective reality as opposed to a subjective fight for individual ends.
We are united on the basis of Marxism-Leninism to organize a conference to be held sometime in 1973, where all honest revolutionaries would be minimally united on the basis of wanting to struggle for Marxism-Leninism against revisionism, for a Marxist-Leninist party of the working class in the U.S.
The Preparatory Committee of the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists calls on all those who agree in the main with the above points to attend this revolutionary Conference. Those who call themselves Marxist-Leninists must hold themselves accountable in front or the people. There are many differences on the crucial task of building the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of a New Type. But these differences can only be aired in this mass democratic conference. All organizations whatever their size and experience have equal right as well as every obligation to present their views openly for discussion. For among Marxist-Leninists, there is no jockeying for position and fame. Let all Marxist-Leninists unite for the cause of proletarian revolution and the proletarian party.” Signed: Communist Party of Canada (M-L), Communist Party of Quebec (M-L), American Communist Workers Movement (M-L), Association of Communist Workers – Louisville, Kt, Red Collective – New Orleans, La., Red Star – Tampa, Fla, Communist League and M-L Cadre of Durham, N.-C.
Now these are the organizations that originally were in the struggle to build a revolutionary party in this country. However, one of these organizations, the ACWM(M-L), has now stepped out with the call to unify Marxists in this country not for the purpose of building a revolutionary party, but for the purpose of playing with revolution by talking about some kind of Marxist-Leninist center. No where in the history of the struggle for scientific socialism has a party been built in any country out of the mass movement or revolutionary mass movements or so-called mass democracy, etc. Communist movements have been built with people who have been won over to a Marxist understanding of not just talking about the world and trying to interpret it, but as Marx says, of changing the world. And when we talk about changing the world we are talking about changing reality, changing it from the reality of monopoly-capitalist imperialist bandits to the reality of a revolutionary socialist dictatorship which will eliminate the exploitation of man by man. This is the only reason that the Marxist-Leninists met at this conference and it was at this conference at the last minute that the ACWM(M-L) rebelled against carrying out its obligation.
The Central Organization, just like its creator, the ACWM(M-L), will not fool anybody and neither will the “Internationalists” and its organizer, Hardial S. Bains (Communist Party of Canada (M-L)). This group of people have as yet not gotten off the campus grounds, just like the old Internationalists. They go from one university to another trying to organize students to lead the working class, but this is not going to happen. The students are not going to lead the working class because on the university and college campuses of capitalist countries, whether in Canada or the USNA, or anywhere else, there are various ideas among the students that belong to different classes. When we talk about building a revolutionary communist movement, we are talking about building a communist movement from the working class. As Marx says, of all the classes that stand face to face to capitalism, the only consistent revolutionary class is the working class. It’s the only class that is capable of carrying on a dynamic struggle against imperialism, to overthrow imperialism, and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nobody is kicking against the student. We know that from the campus ground also will come some fine communists. But, nobody is going to successfully organize the revolution from the campus grounds. It has to be based in the working class – in the shops, the mills, the mines, the factories, the sweat shops and communities in the USNA. And that is precisely where communists have to work. If the ACWM (M-L) and Bains want to keep on working on the campus ground and are afraid of the working class, then let their campus “gods” carry them forward because we are going to speed along the revolutionary road of Marxism and we are not going to be returning.
The Marxist-Leninists of this country and of the whole world know that the only way the unification of the world’s communist movement could ever have taken place was that there were dedicated communists who helped organize the world revolution. The world revolution has gone a long way because it is not just one sixth of the earth that has bean taken out of the hands of the capitalist class since 1917 by the revolutionary Bolshevik party of the Soviet Union. As of now, one third of the world’s surface has been taken away from the imperialists and a billion people, one third of the world’s population, have gone through the socialist process. The Central Organization can’t see that the revolutionary movement is growing, that a revolutionary party will have to be built in the USNA. They want to continue to carry on this foolish idea of mass democracy and central organizations.
What kind of central organizations have communists talked about and built in the world? The fact is that the First International built by Marx and Engels was a central organization of the world’s communist movement. So was the Second International. The Third International built by Lenin and Stalin and the rest of the revolutionary communists was a center of the communist movements of the world. What can be a center of the communists within the USNA? The only center for the communists of the USNA can be nothing more or less than a revolutionary, multi-national, communist party. This party will have a central committee able to carry out, under democratic centralism, the policies and the programs of this revolutionary party to get rid of, once and for all, the exploitation of man by man in the USNA and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Now if this is what the Central Organization wants, they certainly are distorting, lying and going about it in the wrong way. No communist should sit quietly by and let this go on. It is alright for people who do not claim to be Marxist-Leninists to talk and to have their own opinion about whatever they like, but whenever they try to quote this as being Marxism-Leninism, then it is necessary for all Marxist-Leninists – all revolutionary communists – to come out openly and blast such reactionary undemocratic, un-Marxist principals and actions and expose them not only to the working class of this country but to even the students on the campus grounds.
The ACWM(M-L) or we should say the name they go under now, the Central Organization, will cry to the high heavens that they are not sabotaging or not trying to split the Marxist-Leninists in this country. But if you just take some quotations from their periodical, the “Workers Daily News Release”, you will see that this is precisely what they are doing, and what they will continue to do if they keep following the un-Marxist line that they are pursuing now. Take for example the following quotes taken from Vol. I No. 6, Sept. 19, 1973 of the “Workers Daily News Release” discussing a sham conference they held in Aug.-Sept., 1973:
What is the stage of the proletarian revolution in the united States? A Workers’ Daily Commentary – Boston, September 19 – What is the stage of the proletarian revolution? What are the tasks of the Marxist-Leninist at this time? Great discussions and debates are taking place all over the U.S. on these and other closely related questions. Is now the time to build up the Marxist-Leninist party or to build “pre-party formations, rank and file caucuses”, etc? Is the primary task to develop the unity of the Marxist-Leninists in one national CENTER or to develop the unity of the “mass movement”? Is the main obstacle facing the Marxist-Leninists modern revisionism or is it “sectarianism and dogmatism”? Should the Marxist-Leninists develop the instruments of working class propaganda or lead reformist struggles at the “point of production”?
Here are some answers to those questions from the same issue:
1. Struggling to re-enunciate the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought amongst the working masses, 2. Struggling against the reformism, liquidation and right-wing sectarianism caused by the modern revisionists and opportunists as the main obstacle in the Marxist-Leninist movement and the revolutionary mass movement of the working class, 3. Struggling to build up democratic centralist organization and communist apparatus in their own areas, and 4. Struggling on the national basis to develop the trend of Marxist-Leninist unity and solidarity and oppose the splittist and anti-Marxist-Leninist counter-current represented by the sham anti-revisionists of the so-called Communist League and certain notorious ex-’leaders’ of the student movement. The fact that the Conference united comrades from six organizations and from all parts of the country on the basis of building one MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER shows that the proletarian revolution has advanced to a higher and new stage. In the 1960’s and ’70’s the key task was the dissemination of proletarian ideology, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought. It is a historical fact that wherever this line was executed material conditions for proletarian revolution were advanced... Today the political work has advanced to the stage of building one united MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER as the LEADER AND PATHFINDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT.
And continuing their attacks against the Communist League:
...the so-called ’Communist League’ has jumped out for a trial of strength with the Marxist-Leninists in the hopes of smashing the Marxist-Leninist Center and gaining hegemony over the Marxist-Leninist movement. The first Conference of American Marxist-Leninists totally rejected the ’Communist’ League method of demanding unity on the basis of some ’theoretical grasp of Marxism’ or ’agreement with such and such position paper’ while in practice refusing to unite on the political line of building the Marxist-Leninist Canter.”
And further: “The ’Communist’ League consistently agreed to one thing when sitting with the Marxist-Leninists and then turned around and did the exact opposite in practice. They used the method of informality in order to try and cover over their tracks and refused to be held accountable for their erroneous attitude towards the political line of uniting the Marxist-Leninists in one center.”
Why this attack against the Communist League? It is for no other purpose than to hide the fact that the Central Organization is trying to bring confusion as a means to cover up their actions to counter the building of a revolutionary party in the USNA. Further, they know good and well that the Communist League doesn’t have to step out and show its strength. The Communist League was built from the revolutionary and socialist processes in the USNA, as pointed out in the pamphlet, Dialectics of the Development of the Communist League, reprinted in the “North American News Service”, Dec. 15, 1972. The CL has developed from the struggle against revisionism in this country from many different angles. First, of all, many of the leaders of the CL at the present time were previously members or the CPUSA. After the Party was liquidated in 1944, they struggled against the revisionism of the CPUSA and for the reconstitution of the Party. But the Marxists were not successful because the 16th convention of the Communist Party showed that it had reached a stage of no return where the party itself could not be reconstituted. It was the struggle of the Communist caucus in the Communist Party at that time that lead to the development of the Provisional Organizing Committee (POC) when the revisionists kicked out the Marxists in 1959. As of today, the CL has followed through with this struggle against revisionism and we are developing and bringing into the organization real dedicated young communists. The party that we are going to build in the USNA will be a multi-national communist party and it will be a young party.
It has to be a young party because nearly 80% of the USNA working class right now is young. That is precisely where the communist party will be getting most of its forces from, not from the campus ground. We know many students will leave the campuses; many students on the campuses are workers and will become dedicated communists. These working class students will get jobs and later become members of the multi-national communist party and they are absolutely welcome. But we are not going to try to confuse the youth or confuse the students on the campus ground and tell them that they are capable of leading the working class. That is what the Central Organization is doing and this is precisely why they attack the CL. They are trying to say that the CL is of the same “caliber” as the pimples on the backside of the CPUSA, e.g., the Revolutionary Union and the October League. But who is showing its actions to be another pimple on the backside but the Central Organization? And these people know this.
What really was discussed at this “world shaking” 10 day conference that the ACWM(M-L) held in Detroit from the 18th to the 28th of August, 1973? The ACWM(M-L) talks about disseminating Mao Tse-tung’s thought and carrying on the revolutionary struggle in this country. Let us ask these people how is it that the great revolutionary Communist Party of China, with a membership of 28 million people out of a population of 800 million people, was able in only four days to discuss the worldwide questions of developing the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat; to discuss maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat within the interior of China; and to discuss strengthening the party? In addition how were many other discussions held on how the revolutionary party of China will support all communist organizations and communist parties of countries that are today struggling against imperialism for the purpose of once and for all destroying the world’s imperialist system? In four days this great party did all of this.
But the ACWM (ML), who are going to disseminate Mao Tse-tung’s thought, took ten days to do what? The first day was the attack against the Communist League. Then for six days they rambled over a lot of phrase-mongering about “mass democracy”. In the other three days, they ran to Canada to get the approval of Bains in order to come back to the USNA to further disrupt the movement of building the party in the USNA. They made plans to try to make the task of building a revolutionary multi-national communist party more difficult by spreading empty rhetoric and further confusion in the working class and the student movement.
Now, of course, they have yelled that they are not under the influence of the Internationalists; they are not on the campus grounds. Well, it is a well known fact that the Internationalists under the leadership of Mr. Bains with his “Internationalist” organization have built up “communist” parties from the campus grounds in Ireland and in England (although there was already a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in England) and now from the campus grounds in Canada. It is becoming more obvious that the reason Mr. H.S. Bains invited the USNA’s Marxist-Leninists to this conference was in order to put the real Marxist-Leninists in the USNA under the wing of the ACWM(M-L) so that Bains could then control the Marxist-Leninists.
If Mr. Bains tries to deny this we will have to ask him why it is that in Vol. I, No. 16, Oct. 2, 1973 of the “Workers Daily” they have an article from the “Peoples Canada Daily News” that hails the formation of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists. Now remember this is October and the real conference of North American Marxist-Leninists had taken place in May. This Commentary states:
This Commentary announces the formation of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists on August 28, 1973 in Detroit.
The formation of the Central Organization and the publication of its organ, Workers’ Daily, are great victories for the American proletariat. The PCDN regards these events as great victories for two reasons: 1) for many years now the American working class has been in need of and has been waiting for the rebirth of a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in the United States; 2) the American working class is demanding that Marxist-Leninists unite, that they sit together and sort out their differences and unite to build a Party.
The formation of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and the publication of Workers’ Daily are both concrete steps towards the building of unity among the U.S. Marxist-Leninists and the reconstitution of the Communist Party in the United States.
Since the betrayal of the American proletariat by the revisionists in the CPUSA advanced elements of the working class have been fighting against revisionism and all the bourgeois theories which compromise with or prettify revisionism. The goal of this fight has been to rebuild the CPUSA as a Marxist-Leninist and not a revisionist party. Since August 28th, the working class is one step closer to that goal because genuine Marxist-Leninists have united for the cause of the Party and of proletarian revolution.
We Canadian revolutionaries are profoundly happy at these events. Deep bounds of history and friendship unite the American and Canadian peoples. Our country’s destiny and the destiny of the people of the world is very much tied down with the success or failure of the American proletariat to carry out its historic task of burying, once and for all, the most decadent, the most reactionary and the most anti-people and anti-working class of all imperialisms, U.S. imperialism. We are confident that the efforts of the American proletariat will be crowned with success. We are confident that the anti-fascist, proletarian revolution of the American working class will bring the world system of imperialism crashing down in utter ruin.
Mr. Bains, we must say to you that you are wrong. The Marxist-Leninists of North America today are not fighting to reconstitute the revisionist Communist Party of the USA. The revisionist CPUSA is dead as a revolutionary party. The CPUSA is supporting in every instance bourgeois reformism. We are not trying to rebuild this old communist party. We are trying to build a party in the USNA of a new type, that same type of party that Lenin and Stalin built; that same type of party that defeated the revisionists of the Second International, the Kautsky’s and the Bernstein’s and a host of others; the same revolutionary Bolshevik party that defeated not only the revisionist Second International, but went on to build a new International in its place – the Third International. On this basis the Party set up principals - 19 points for each party in every country to carry out under the leadership of the Third International. This is the duty of the Communists at the present time, not to reconstitute the old broken down revisionist party of the USNA, but to build a multinational revolutionary party of a new type in this country – this is the job of the North American communists.
Further, the North American proletariat is not interested in just carrying on an anti-fascist revolution. Fascism is itself a product of monopoly capitalism, of the most reactionary section of the capitalist class. The duty of the proletariat of the USNA is to carry on a revolutionary struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat; to destroy not only the possibilities of developing fascism out of this reactionary capitalist system (which has been proving it is on its way out from the Watergate incident) but to destroy the imperialist system and the exploitation of man by man. It is our duty to set up a revolutionary communist party that will join in the world’s movement to destroy imperialism. Fascism, yes, must be defeated, because the working class must struggle to maintain as much of bourgeois democracy as it can until they are able to destroy the causes of fascism. But we know that this democracy itself is a portion of the state, and the bourgeois state is definitely an enemy of the working class.
What should we say about “Marxists” who talk about anti-fascism, but don’t want to carry on this struggle to the extent of getting rid of the causes of fascism and who don’t see that the most reactionary sections of the monopoly capitalists want to carry out more vicious exploitation, robbery and murder throughout the world?
And further, Mr. Bains, if you want to deny that you were working to stop the development of a Marxist-Leninist Party in the USNA by putting the Marxist-Leninists under the ACWM and your leadership, please answer the following: In the Journal of the North American News Service of which you are the editor there is an article entitled: “Unity Among Marxist-Leninists is the Main Trend in Canada and the World”, by Joseph Redpath, and we quote, “The Conference of the North American Marxist-Leninists will be held soon. This conference will certainly sum up the trend of unity amongst the Marxist-Leninists in Canada and the U.S. and will develop guidelines to further develop it. The conference will further seal the fate of the Holy Alliance of the ’Left’ and their monopoly capitalist masters who will certainly be pushed into the dust bin of history where they belong.” Mr. Bain, if you will notice, this statement comes from the paper of July 30th-August 12th, 1973. This statement came long after the conference held in May by USNA Marxist-Leninists, so that proves that you do not recognize that a Marxist-Leninist Conference was held in May – the one which you originally helped organize. All Marxists must see that any actions on the part of certain people today who “talk” about Marxism, who “talk” about building the Party, who talk” about disseminating Mao Tse-tung’s thought are at the same time betraying Marxism. What is Mao Tse-tung’s thought, but Marxism-Leninism applied to the conditions of China and at the same time, developing the whole struggle of the Chinese Revolution in its relationship to the world’s revolution?
To the Central Organization and to its father and mother, the North American News Service and its adjutant general, the following is the way Communists do business in promoting the revolution throughout the world, and carry on struggle in the interest of the proletariat. I now quote from the first meeting of the first congress of the Communist International on March 2, 1919 on the question of setting up a presidium, and the opening up of the convention by Comrade Lenin, and here is what he said:
In the name of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. I declare the first International Communist Congress open. First of all, I will ask all those present to rise in honour of the memory of the best representatives of the Third International: Karl Liebknechk and Rosa Luxemburg, (all rise) after the events in Russia, after the January struggle in Germany it is particularly important to note that in other countries also the latest form of the proletarian movement is coming to life and assuming predominance. For example, today I read a report in an anti-socialist newspaper that the British government had met the Birmingham Council of Workers’ Deputies and had expressed its readiness to recognize the Councils as industrial organizations. The Soviet system has conquered not only in backward Russia but also in the most developed country of Europe – Germany, and in the oldest capitalist country – Great Britain.
Let the bourgeoisie continue to rage, let it slaughter more thousands of workers – victory is ours; the victory of the world Communist revolution is assured.
And further let us see what Lenin says in the closing speech:
The fact that we have succeeded in gathering together in spite of all police obstacles and persecution, the fact that we have succeeded without serious differences and in a brief space of time in adopting important decisions on all the urgent problems of the present revolutionary epoch, is due to the proletarian masses of the world having placed all these problems on the order of the day by their actions, and to their having begun to solve them in a practical manner.
We, here, have merely had to register what the masses have already won in their revolutionary struggle.
The movement in favor of Soviets is spreading wider and wider, not only in the East European, but also in the West European countries, not only in the vanquished, but also in the victorious countries, for example, in Great Britain; and this movement is nothing more nor less than a movement which has for its object the creation of a new proletarian democracy – it is the most important step towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, towards the complete victory of Communism.
Let the bourgeoisie of the whole world continue to rage, let it deport, imprison and even kill the Spartacists and Bolsheviks – this will help it no longer. It will merely serve to enlighten the masses, to liberate them from the old bourgeois democratic prejudices, and to harden them in the struggle. The victory of the proletarian revolution all over the world is assured. The foundation of the international Soviet Republic is impending. (Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. x)
Central Organization, please take note; this first congress of the world’s Communist International was carried out and the procedures and business of this congress were also done in just four days. How do you account for these “ten days that shook the world” that you had in Detroit? Very “funny” isn’t it?
On the question of building a party of a new type how did the Communist International put this question to the whole world’s communist movement? We quote:
The First Inaugural Congress of the Communist International did not draw up definite conditions of affiliation for individual parties to the Third International. At the time the First Congress was convened only Communist trends and groups existed in the majority of countries.
The Second World Congress of the Communist International is meeting under different conditions. Now, in the majority of countries, there exist not only Communist trends and groups but Communist Parties and organizations.
More and more frequently parties and groups which only recently were affiliated to the Second International, but which have not yet really become Communist, are applying for affiliation to the Third International. The Second International is completely smashed. The intermediate parties and groups of the “Centre”, realizing that the Second International is hopeless, are trying to lean on the Communist International, which is becoming stronger and stronger, hoping, however, to retain such ’autonomy’ as will enable them to pursue their former opportunist or “Centrist” policy. To a certain degree, the Communist International is becoming the fashion.
The desire of certain leading groups of the ’Centre’ to join the Third International at the present time is in direct confirmation of the fact that the Communist International has won the sympathy of the overwhelming majority of the class-conscious workers all over the world and day by day is more and more becoming a force.
Under certain circumstances, the Communist International may be faced with the danger of becoming diluted with wavering and half-hearted groups which have not yet abandoned the ideology of the Second International.
Moreover, certain big parties (Italy, Sweden), the majority of which adopt the point of view of Communism, still have a fairly large reformist and social-pacifist wing which is only waiting for the opportune moment to raise its head again, to start actively sabotaging the proletarian revolution and thereby assist the bourgeoisie and the Second International.
Not a single Communist must forget the lessons of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Hungarian proletariat had to pay dearly for the amalgamation of the Hungarian Communists with the reformists.
In view of this, the Second World Congress deems it necessary to lay down very definite conditions of affiliation for new parties and also to point out to those parties which have already been received into the Communist International the obligations that rest upon them.
The Second Congress of the Communist International resolves: that the conditions of affiliation to the Communist International be as follows:
1. Everyday propaganda and agitation must bear a genuinely Communist character. All organs of the press belonging to the party must be edited by reliable Communists who have proved their loyalty to the cause of the proletarian revolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat must not be discussed simply as if it were a fashionable formula learned by rote; propaganda for it must be carried on in such a way that every rank and file working man and working woman, every soldier and peasant, shall see that the necessity for it arises from the vital facts which are systematically reported in our press day after day. In the columns of newspapers, at mass meetings, in the trade unions and co-operative societies – wherever the adherents of the Third International have access – it is necessary systematically and ruthlessly to denounce not only the bourgeoisie but their assistants, the reformists of all shades.
2. Every organization that wishes to affiliate to the Communist International must in a planned and systematic manner remove from all positions in the working class-movement that are at all responsible (in the party organization, editorial board, trade unions, parliamentary fractions, cooperative societies, municipalities, etc.) reformists and adherents of the ’Centre’ and put in their place reliable Communists – and they must not be disturbed by the fact that in some cases it may, at first, be necessary to substitute rank and file workers for ’experienced’ leaders. (Ibid.)
Now this is how Communists act. Lenin was not talking about building up a centre in different countries, he was talking about building up a centre for the whole world’s revolution, and that means that all parties in every country must strengthen themselves, must become parties that are able to carry out this action on the part of the revolutionary proletariat. Why? Because we are living in an epoch, not of “peaceful” capitalism, but as Lenin said, we are living in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution. That itself is the “new” creative thing in Marxism of today. We are still living in the period of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Anyone today who phrase-mongers about Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought, but does not understand the whole dialectical and historical development of the communist revolutionary movement since the writing of the Communist Manifesto, which today is still one of the most outstanding historical documents in the world, and does not understand the new creative conditions of the revolutionary class struggle of the present time is not a communist. Nor does he intend to be a communist. He is too frightened to even be a communist because he is not even trying to learn. And it is not the question of just learning by rote. As Lenin said, you can study communist books and communist pamphlets and be able to phrase monger and shoot out phrases, but if you don’t understand the question of putting them into practice, then you are actually not a communist. This is precisely what is being said here. And to further quote from the 19 points:
3. In all countries where as a consequence of the prevalence of a state of siege or of emergency laws the Communists are unable to carry on all their work legally, it is absolutely necessary to combine legal with illegal work. In nearly all countries in Europe and America the class struggle is entering the stage of civil war. Under these circumstances, the Communists can have no confidence in bourgeois legality. They must everywhere create a duplicate illegal apparatus, which, at the decisive moment, could help the Party to perform its duty to the revolution. (Ibid.)
Any communist worker or honest person in the USNA that really remembers the murder and slaughter of the American working class, the deportation of foreign born workers, the Palmer raids, the jailing of communists and the organization of many reactionary laws from Congress and so forth know that this is true. And if the communists in this country realize these things and begin to prepare and unify themselves based on this struggle, they are struggling for the socialist revolution. If not, they are struggling just in the interest of carrying on dialogue, or for showing how intellectual and smart they may be. The fact is that we must realize that we cannot fight the ruling class on this basis; we cannot fight them on their reactionary basis. We must fight the ruling class on our own basis. This means that despite the will of the ruling class in the USNA, the working class, under the leadership of their revolutionary party, has got to make the socialist revolution. For this reason the whole development of the revolutionary socialist movement must be accumulated, assessed and understood. Unless this is done, and unless we understand Marxism from its social, economic, political and theoretical point of view, we will never make revolution in this country. When people begin to talk one way and do another like the ACWM is doing, and then try to blame someone else, they are committing some of the worst fallacies that can happen in a revolutionary movement.