First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 4, May 24, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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This statement was written by the Bridgeport Workers Organization (Marxist-Leninist). The Bridgeport, Conn, collective is one of several organizations which has joined in the unity efforts to build a new Marxist-Leninist party.
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The Bridgeport Workers Organization (Marxist-Leninist) has studied the Call to Unite published last November, and the revised plan of organization published this March, both by the October League (M-L). We warmly support these unifying efforts. The question of party building has become a matter of immediate urgency.
We see that, on the whole, the ideological level of the Marxist-Leninist movement has moved forward rapidly over the past few years. Beyond this, the struggle to build the new communist party will greatly deepen and broaden our ideological preparation.
Furthermore, through the mass work of the past few years, a stable and experienced body of cadres has developed within the Marxist-Leninist movement. This body of cadres will be the backbone of our new party. We believe that all honest and class conscious cadres, regardless of organizational affiliation, presently demand the formation of the new communist party. Unity is the main trend in the Marxist-Leninist movement. It is the next step in the development of Marxism-Leninism in our country. Some organizations and individuals want to maintain the present disorganization of our movement. But all attempts to obstruct progress under the cover of “going against the tide” will only lead to isolation and wasted effort.
For local collectives such as ours, and for individual communists, the Call to Unite is of special significance. Our work will be tremendously advanced through the struggle to build the new communist party. Among the benefits of this struggle, the following are the most important:
Through the struggle for ideological and programmatic unity, mistaken and onesided views will be discarded, dogmatism combatted, and the ideological level of our movement will be greatly advanced.
Building the new communist party makes possible a rapid ideological development through the struggle for programmatic unity. Each local collective and individual communist has the opportunity and the obligation to play a leading role in the struggle for a common program. We must increase our study, sum up our practice, and be prepared to wage struggles within the coming unity discussions for a correct program.
The new party will struggle against all forms of localism and small-circle mentality. No present organization, whether large or small, will exist within the new communist party.
We need a national newspaper capable of organizing through political exposures at the national level, yet being an instrument of local agitation and action. In our work, we successfully use The Call. It is easy for us to sell and stimulates discussion because it successfully combines propaganda and a agitation at the international, national and local levels.
Through our struggle for correct practice, we have found that chauvinist, sexist and economist errors and an inadequate understanding of party-building represent an incomplete break with revisionism. The main way to eliminate these errors is through ideological struggle, strengthening of democratic centralism, raising communist politics within our mass work, and recruitment of workers and people of oppressed nationalities.
In this next period, we Marxist-Leninists must do our part to strengthen the world wide united front against imperialism. Concretely that means expanding our mass influence and our understanding of the tasks before us. Central to this is the struggle for the new communist party. Marxist-Leninists, Unite to Build the New Party!