We take the liberty of borrowing the title of one of Lenin’s most important works because, for communists, no analysis can be complete until this question is posed and answered. It is only by addressing the question of what is to be done that Marxists take responsibility for changing the world, not merely commenting on it.
If the crisis of the communist movement is essentially a crisis of political line–and we believe that a thorough analysis points to precisely this conclusion–then the resolution of the crisis also must be focused on the question of political line.
In speaking of political line, we are not talking of the position taken by the contending forces in the communist movement on one or another particular question–important though each of these questions might be in their own right. Rather we are speaking of the movement’s general line, that is, its strategic overview of the direction the working class and oppressed peoples and nations must take to make revolution.
The revisionist general line has two components to its strategic overview: the decisive aspect of advancing the class struggle in the world is maintaining and extending the security interests of the Soviet Union; the transition from capitalism to socialism can now take place in most countries of the world by peaceful, parliamentary means. This is an opportunist general line which shamelessly tampers with the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and makes totally uncalled-for negative concessions to imperialism.
The “left” opportunist general line is based on the thesis that capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union. In its principal expression–the Theory of the Three Worlds–this line calls for a united front of “progressive” forces, including the working class, with US imperialism against the Soviet Union. In a variation, this line calls for a united front against “both superpowers”, a stand which objectively furthers the interests of US imperialism and encourages counterrevolution against socialist countries and national liberation struggles which are supported by the Soviet Union. This is an opportunist general line which actively collaborates with the main enemy of the world’s peoples, US imperialism.
These two opportunist general lines now dominate the world communist movement. Their influence has led to the ideological degeneration of the bulk of communist parties all over the world and to organizational fragmentation and factionalism. Nowhere are the negative political, ideological, and organizational consequences of these opportunist lines’ influence more pronounced than in the US communist movement.
In order for the crisis of the US communist movement to be resolved, these opportunist general lines must be thoroughly analyzed, criticized, and repudiated. They must be replaced by a Marxist-Leninist general line that accurately applies dialectical and historical materialism to the present realities, and points the path forward to revolution.
This process is most precisely characterized as the rectification of the general line of the US communist movement. By posing the question as one of rectification, we locate both the task and the forces required to carry it out firmly within the communist movement’s revolutionary legacy, and thereby reaffirm its historic and contemporary lines of demarcation.
Rectification of the general line is the indispensable precondition for Marxist-Leninists to forge a genuine party and fulfill their responsibilities as the vanguard of the class struggle. (Although party building is a complex task requiring both theoretical and practical work, mass work as well as struggle among communists and the rigorous training of cadre and leadership, rectification of the general line is the centerpiece around which all party-building work must be organized.) In answer to the question, what is to be done, we assert that the central task before US Marxist-Leninists today is rectification of the general line of the US communist movement as the essential precondition for re-establishing a genuine communist party in the United States.
Rectification of the general line is a complex process consisting of a number of interrelated and intertwined aspects.
First is deepening and consolidating the lines of demarcation with the two principal opportunist lines that currently dominate the communist movement. In taking on this task, it is necessary to bear in mind that the lines of demarcation do not emerge in the communist movement over every difference of opinion. They can only emerge over a decisive question and, even then, only when the deviation involved has matured into an all-sided opportunist position ideologically, politically, and organizationally.
To announce a line of demarcation over every difference of opinion– even when some may speak to relatively important political questions– is irresponsible. No genuine proletarian party can be built in such fashion. Contrary to the distortions of democratic centralism which have become a negative aspect of the communist movement’s legacy, a healthy party will inevitably contain divergent views within it. Democratic centralism requires debate and struggle within the communist ranks as well as unity in action against the class enemy. A party built on unity in action is a Leninist party; one based on unity of thought is a sectarian caricature of a Leninist party.
But just as it is irresponsible to declare every difference of opinion a line of demarcation, it is likewise irresponsible to fail to draw lines of demarcation when they become necessary. The very foundations of communism are rooted in its demarcations with other outlooks and political lines.
Objectively, in the real world of politics and class struggle, the lines of demarcation with modern revisionism and “left” opportunism (as well as the historic demarcations with anarchism, social-democracy, and Trotskyism) have already been drawn. The process of reaffirming, deepening and consolidating these demarcations, however, means the struggle for a common summation of the deviations and a thorough analysis of their ideological roots. The emerging Marxist-Leninist trend must take up this task as an important aspect of the rectification of the general line.
A second aspect of line rectification involves settling those political and theoretical questions which face the international communist movement as a whole. In this area, we would suggest that the two questions highlighted earlier–the political economy of contemporary imperialism and the theory of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat–provide the crucial starting points for rectification work.
It is the absence of a scientific theory of socialism and the resulting proliferation of incorrect views that has had the most immediate and devastating impact on the world communist movement. The incorrect thesis of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union, more than any other single proposition, has thrown the communist movement into ideological and political disarray. This thesis has obscured and distorted the necessary theoretical critique and summation of modern revisionism as well as provided the basis for the class collaborationism of the entire “left” opportunist trend.
The task of replacing the capitalist restoration thesis with a scientific summation of the Soviet experience, therefore, assumes an immediate urgency. A qualitative breakthrough in this area of rectification work is a direct practical requirement for resolving the crisis of the international communist movement.
A significant amount of important work, criticizing the capitalist restoration thesis from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, has in fact already begun. This work focuses on exposing the distortions of Marxist categories found in all versions of the restoration thesis attempting to prove that the laws of capitalist political economy operate in the USSR, as well as disproving the thesis empirically. It has also made progress toward refuting the completely idealist view of socialism that would have us believe capitalism is restored almost immediately and automatically upon an alteration in line by the party in power in a socialist country. Deepening the critique of the capitalist restoration thesis is an important task in itself, as well as the starting point for developing a scientific analysis of Soviet society in particular and a Marxist-Leninist theory of socialism in general.
The particular summation of the Soviet experience necessarily involves making a dialectical analysis of the Stalin period in Soviet history, an overview of Soviet development since 1956, and a thorough exploration of the historical roots of modern revisionism within the CPSU.
Developing a Marxist-Leninist theory of socialism in general will involve addressing such crucial questions as the laws of motion of socialism as a transitional society between capitalism and communism (socialism as the “lower stage of communism”), the exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat in a country where the leading party has adopted an opportunist general line, and the analysis of classes and the nature of class struggle under socialism.
A number of other theoretical tasks are closely associated with the study of the Soviet experience and the development of a general theory of socialism. Crucial among them is the study of the history of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese experience in socialist construction. Such study is important first because the capitalist restoration thesis originated in the course of struggle within the CPC, and because criticizing the thesis involves a summation of the conditions and mode of thought that gave rise to this unscientific view. Second, it is important because of the need to analyze the theories advanced by Mao Zedong concerning the nature of class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat and determine what is correct and incorrect about them. Finally, the study is crucial because the Chinese experience, like that of the Soviet Union, provides crucial lessons and experiences that must be incorporated into any general theory of socialism that Marxist-Leninists develop.
And finally, an uncompleted theoretical task associated with the theory of socialism is analysis of the contradictions between communist parties holding state power as they manifest themselves in the realm of state-to-state relations between socialist countries.
Our movement abounds with views which are dismayed at the emergence of such contradictions and there is no shortage of Pollyannas ready to deplore the fact that these contradictions have, in some cases, become antagonistic and resulted in armed conflict. But until we understand the nature of these contradictions and connect them historically with the main contradictions of our epoch, it will be difficult to arrive at anything but a one-sided, case-by-case view.
If the task of developing a theory of socialism is of immediate importance in resolving the crisis of the communist movement, developing a scientific view of the political economy of contemporary imperialism is central to the communist movement’s regaining a revolutionary vanguard character. On the perspective developed here hinges the ability of parties leading struggles for state power to clearly identify their friends and enemies domestically and internationally and to chart an effective strategy for seizing state power. As we have argued earlier, US imperialism ultimately stands behind every capitalist exploiter in the world, but this is the beginning, not the end of the analysis. What are the forms of imperialist domination over the mode of production in the various “third world” countries? What classes stand allied with imperialism, what classes opposed? What contradictions exist within the camp of imperialism and how can they be exploited to serve the interests of the revolution? How firm and reliable as allies are the various classes and fractions of classes that have contradictions with imperialism? These central questions of world revolution cannot be answered without an analysis of post-World War II imperialism.
Such an analysis begins with Lenin’s “Imperialism–the Highest Stage of Capitalism” but must extend it in two directions. First, summarizing the development of monopoly and finance capital over the last 50 years and the nature of the inter-imperialist contradictions in the present period. Second, analyzing the precise methods and forms of domination of “third world” countries by finance capital headquartered in the advanced capitalist countries.
Making breakthroughs in these areas will require serious study of the economic structure of imperialism since World War II, relations among the advanced capitalist countries, relations between the imperialist countries and those they dominate, and the internal economic structure of the countries exploited and oppressed by imperialism. But as the question is asked for a political purpose–directing the revolutionary struggle–answers cannot be developed solely through economic analysis. The rich experiences, positive and negative, of the revolutionary struggles in Vietnam, Peru, Nicaragua, Portugal, and Zimbabwe–just to name a few–must be studied and the appropriate lessons drawn for a full understanding of the political economy of imperialism.
Questions of the theory of socialism and the political economy of contemporary imperialism are not particular to the US revolution. They are, nevertheless, fundamental to it. Of all revolutions, the US revolution is impacted by international questions in a decisive fashion. The entire history of the US communist movement bears this out; how could it be otherwise for a movement operating in the heartland of the world imperialist system?
While the issues facing the international movement speak to the universal aspects of the US revolution, every revolution is actually carried out in a particular set of circumstances. Analysis of the questions particular to the revolution in the US, therefore, must be a central component of line rectification.
As these particular questions are addressed by Marxist-Leninists, they must be placed in the proper political framework: the key issue for the revolution in the US is the question of state power, seizing it and holding it. It is only by placing the question of power at the center of our vision that we can establish the criteria for determining which theoretical questions before the US communist movement must be addressed, and the framework for addressing them.
For example, it is common to speak of the necessity for a class analysis of US society as one of the principal theoretical tasks of US Marxist-Leninists. But the reason for undertaking such an analysis must be precisely to determine what forces will be pushed by the contradictions of society to come into sharp conflict with capitalism and what forces will find their interests in alliance with the bourgeoisie. Such a determination gives the communists guidance as to where to direct their main organizing and propaganda work, how to utilize contradictions within the ranks of the enemy forces, and where to anticipate active, spontaneous resistance to capitalist exploitation and oppression. Class analysis, for communists, is done to help determine the path to power, and for no other purpose.
In taking up questions particular to the US revolution–such as class analysis–Marxist-Leninists do not begin from scratch. Instead, we encounter a legacy of communist theory concerning these questions, and we directly confront the theories of the dominant opportunist trends in the communist movement at every step of the way. Developing a correct general line for the US revolution is inseparable from the polemic against the opportunist general lines put forward by modern revisionism and “left” opportunism.
The polemic will break out over the issue of the general strategy for the US revolution as well as over every particular question. For example, the revisionists have articulated the “anti-monopoly coalition” as a fullblown strategy for winning proletarian power in the US. This theory targets the main class forces the revisionists believe will act in favor of socialism–the working class, the petit-bourgeoisie, and, at least in the first stage of the “revolutionary process”, non-monopoly and liberal monopoly capitalists. The strategy relies on the ability of anti-monopoly forces to win parliamentary power through elections and effectively free at least the legislative branch of government from the control of the monopoly capitalist class. At this point, the anti-monopoly forces will supposedly be able to initiate a wide-ranging program of reforms that will include breaking up the monopoly corporations–while the monopoly capitalist class is either unable or unwilling to do anything to prevent it. As the monopolies are gradually broken up, the power of the monopoly capitalist class will disappear. Before you know it, socialism.
A revolutionary strategy for the seizure of state power will develop out of the rigorous critique of every aspect of this revisionist line, not only on the basis of its contradicting the general principles of Marxism-Leninism, but by demonstrating that it contradicts the realities of class struggle in the US. It is in the polemic with the revisionist strategy for the seizure of state power that Marxist-Leninists will sharpen our own line and orientation to this central question.
Similarly, the development of a scientific analysis on such questions as racism and the national question in the US today will take place in the course of polemics with opportunist lines. No question lies more at the heart of the problem of mobilizing the US working class for the seizure of power than the workings of racism. Yet there are a host of views influential among communists that objectively downplay the revolutionary significance of the struggle against racism. Fundamentally, these views are rooted in analyses that separate the question of racism from that of US capitalism in one way or another, obscuring the fact that the overthrow of one is inseparable from the overthrow of the other. This error is seen most blatantly in the open reformism of the revisionists, who see racism as a question of democratic reform and not revolution. But there are also serious deviations in the direction of narrow nationalism and dogmatism. It is in polemics against these backward lines that a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the workings of racism and national oppression in the US must be developed.
Likewise, the question of the oppression of women and the strategy for women’s liberation must be taken up in the context of the struggle for state power and in polemics with non-Marxist views. Overall, the development of a mass women’s movement in the recent period, including the development of its theoretical views, is an immensely positive step forward for the working class struggle. But the now-dominant lines in that movement, those associated with radical feminism or “socialist-feminism” must be criticized for their failure to consistently take a class perspective and to root their analysis of the question of women’s oppression firmly in the context of the revolutionary struggle for power. On the other hand, a tendency among Marxist-Leninists to see the “woman question” as an afterthought, and not as a revolutionary question directly related to the struggle to overturn capitalism, must be defeated if our immense theoretical weaknesses in this area are to be taken up and overcome.
It is in this fashion that the other crucial particular questions of the US revolution–the social and political currents within the US working class, forms of ideological and cultural domination and resistance in the US, the specific contradictions within the ruling class, etc.–must be taken up. In each case, the framework for addressing the question is its relation to seizure of state power. In each case, a polemic against opportunist lines on the question will be involved as Marxist-Leninists struggle to break new theoretical ground. In this fashion, the solution to the theoretical questions particular to the US revolution becomes an integral part of the task of rectifying the general line of the communist movement.
Rectification of the general line is the necessary precondition for communist effectiveness in changing the world–but it is not sufficient. For the movement’s general line to become a material force capable of leading the US revolution, it must be taken up, implemented, and refined by an organization of communists. In this sense, the process of rectification must involve not only the development of a leading political line, but the transformation of the presently divided and undeveloped Marxist-Leninist trend into an organized corps of professional revolutionaries, a re-established communist party. This transformation is essentially an ideological one. It is ideological because it involves the Marxist-Leninists’ coming to grips with their role and responsibility to act as the decisive factor in pushing forward the class struggle. While it is the political line developed through the rectification process that provides the direction for the seizure of power, it is the communists’ grasp of their decisive role as the conscious elements in the class struggle that provides the ideological underpinnings of a communist vanguard.
For this outlook to be consolidated among US Marxist-Leninists requires also a rectification of the legacy of the US communist movement. For decades, the US communist movement has had a tendency toward pragmatism which has manifested itself in a profound underestimation of the importance of revolutionary theory, a widespread anti-intellectualism, and a generally mechanical outlook which has underestimated the importance of consciousness in changing reality. While there definitely have been occasional instances of voluntarism-communists substituting their own consciousness and action for that of the masses–overwhelmingly the history of the US communist movement is one of pragmatism, tailing the spontaneous development of the class struggle.
And yet the decisive role of the conscious element in changing reality is the ideological cornerstone of the Leninist concept of the vanguard party. Though it may not be readily apparent, it is a proposition flowing directly from the basic principles of historical materialism.
The cornerstone of historical materialism was concisely expressed in Marx’s famous “Preface to the Critique of Political Economy”: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”
Without this materialist view, it is impossible to understand the actual course of history or the nature of historical development.
But to stop there and go no further–as many people do–is thoroughly to distort Marxism. For Marx and Engels argued again and again that while social being determines consciousness, consciousness in turn can and does change social reality.
Without this “modification” of classical materialist doctrine, no consideration could be given to an historical role to be played by the conscious effort to change society. It was left to Lenin to draw out the full political implications of this thesis half a century later with his concept of the vanguard party based on Marxist ideology as the indispensable ”conscious element” in guiding the struggle of the working class.
Lenin, particularly in “What Is To Be Done?” developed the theory of the modern-day “Leninist” party, the party of “professional revolutionaries” who, by virtue of their revolutionary political line, working-class world outlook and organizational strength would function as the vanguard of the proletarian revolution.
Lenin argued that “All worship of the spontaneity of the working-class movement, all belittling of the role of ’the conscious element,’ means, quite irrespective of whether the belittler wants to or not, strengthening the influence of bourgeois ideology over the workers.” (“What Is To Be Done?”)
How can we explain this seeming paradox in Marxist theory? On one hand, Marxists argue that matter, social being, practice, objective conditions are decisive in history.
On the other hand, Lenin argued that consciousness, “the conscious element,” revolutionary theory, are decisive in revolutionary work.
What links these propositions together is the fact that while “objective conditions” do set the parameters and conditions for all revolutionary work, these objective conditions do not give rise to change all by themselves. It is conscious human activity–what Marx called revolutionizing practice–that leads to social change and social revolution.
In the first place, objective conditions do not impose themselves on the world fully known; they do not announce their essential nature to humanity spontaneously. The very act of assessing objective conditions is itself an act of consciousness. If the methodology employed is shallow, superficial, unconnected, in a word–empirical–the knowledge of that objective reality will likewise be shallow and superficial and, therefore, inaccurate. If the methodology employed is dogmatic, attempting to fit reality into preconceived patterns without regard for its particularity, then the knowledge of that objective reality will likewise be flawed and ultimately useless.
Nowhere is this of greater importance than in the work of communists. Far from belittling the significance of objective conditions, communists are obliged to make every effort to know objective reality as thoroughly, deeply and all-sidedly as they possibly can.
Further, the correct analysis of objective conditions is only the first half of the work of the conscious element. From there, the conscious forces must project this scientific understanding before the masses, struggling to broaden the political horizons of the working class so that the entire class grasps its essence as a revolutionary force. This requires the most rigorous struggle on the part of communists against the bourgeois ideology reproduced day to day in the working class.
Communists must apply their grasp of objective conditions to determine plans and policies for concrete agitation, propaganda and organizing in the working class to make scientific socialism a material force among the masses. And in the course of this work, the general outlook and line of the conscious elements is refined, amplified and altered as it is tested in the class struggle.
This is the essential dialectic between the conscious element and the spontaneous movement, between the vanguard party and the working class. The conscious element–conscious because it is based on the science of Marxism-Leninism–must analyze objective reality correctly. The conscious element must bring that analysis to the spontaneous working class movement and struggle to make Marxist-Leninist theory a material force–refining and deepening the theory at every step. For while the impetus for proletarian revolution stems from the objective class contradictions of capitalism, the direction and ultimate triumph of that revolution is dependent upon the leadership of a conscious vanguard force, capable of constant analysis and reassessment of social and political phenomena, which will undertake to train and guide the working class in the science of revolution.
This is the ideological outlook at the heart of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the vanguard party. Given the youth of the emerging Marxist-Leninist trend and its broken continuity with the history of the world communist movement, it is understandable that views which belittle the role of the conscious element have credibility and influence. But crucial to the ideological transformation of the communist movement is rooting these views out as rapidly and thoroughly as possible. The immense theoretical and practical tasks before us–in the rectification process and later in the struggle to lead the working class to power–require US communists to take on tasks and responsibilities which will only be accomplished through the utmost exertion of the conscious element.
The political task of line rectification and the associated ideological transformation of the communist forces requires a wide-ranging rectification movement that draws on the capacities of the entire Marxist-Leninist trend. The substance of rectification must be rigorous struggle over the unsettled political and theoretical questions facing the communist movement. Discussion and debate within the trend must become the dominant feature of our interaction with one another. In the course of rigorous line struggle, the trend will forge its unity as well as carve out its identity in opposition to the opportunist trends. As the rectification movement proceeds, the emerging Marxist-Leninist trend will distinguish itself from opportunist forces not only by lines of demarcation, but also by the quality of internal struggle within it. The rectification movement allows Marxist-Leninists to discuss the lines and programs of every other trend–as well as the lines we are developing–at a level of rigor and thoroughness unheard of among the opportunist forces. In this sense, the emerging Marxist-Leninist trend must establish the vanguard character of communists in the intellectual and theoretical life of the country in the process of the rectification of the general line.
Line of March–A Marxist-Leninist Journal of Rectification has been brought into being precisely to make a contribution to this rectification movement. By the regular publication and distribution of theoretical materials and advanced views on the outstanding political and theoretical questions before communists, Line of March hopes to serve as a focal point for communist discussion and struggle which can involve the entire emerging Marxist-Leninist trend. In conjunction with the journal itself, editors have organized a network of local Line of March committees, which will sponsor forums and discussions on the materials in Line of March as well as other questions, thereby creating a concrete organizational mechanism for the broad range of Marxist-Leninists in the trend to take up rectification work.
Line of March makes up one building block of the developing rectification movement. It provides a vehicle for communists to focus their main attention on the rectification of the general line of the US communist movement, and the ideological transformation required to transform our trend into a genuine communist party. In this sense, the establishment of this theoretical journal is an eminently practical step toward answering the question of what is to be done and resolving the crisis of the US communist movement.
Whether this practical step bears fruit depends not only upon the editors and present contributors to Line of March, but on the entire anti-revisionist, anti-“left” opportunist trend. It is on this trend that the future of Marxism-Leninism and the US revolution now depends. For the trend to take up the immense theoretical tasks before it and begin the process of its ideological transformation is indeed the recognition of historical necessity that is required of communists if they are to construct a party capable of leading the working class to freedom.