First Published: Frontline, Vol. 6, No. 7, September 28, 1988.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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For the last year, Line of March has been engaged in a self-critical review of its history, political line and practice. The purpose of this statement is to inform Frontline readers of this re-examination process and of the current perspective and plans of the Line of March.
This review has enabled us to identify a number of errors in our efforts to help build the working class and communist movements. Our assessment is that those errors are rooted principally in a number of ultra-left conceptions and practices carried over from our formative period in the mid-1970s. We have characterized the coming period for ourselves as one of “Re-Examination, Re-Direction and Democratization,” during which we hope to deepen our summation, correct our errors, and put our organization back on track.
Line of March was founded on the premise that a Marxist-Leninist party is required to provide direction and leadership to the U.S. working class movement. That premise remains a cornerstone of our organization’s unity today. However, we believe that the strategy we have pursued to bring such a party into being is in need of substantial adjustment and correction.
Line of March originated as part of a political trend that broke away from the Maoist “New Communist Movement” in 1976-77. The basis for this break was our criticism of Maoism’s tendency – advanced by virtually all of the forces in that movement – to ally itself with U.S. imperialism under the banner of fighting so-called “Soviet social imperialism.”
This new trend set as its central task the formation of a new communist party in the U.S. The grouping which formed the Line of March argued that the centerpiece of party building was developing a comprehensive political line and strategy based on the application of Marxism-Leninism to the specific conditions of the U.S. As a result, the Line of March initially placed a great deal of emphasis on theoretical analysis of the international situation, U.S. society, and on the nature and role of a Marxist- Leninist party. From 1977 to 1982 this was our main priority, reflected especially in the launching of the Line of March theoretical journal in 1980.
This journal served as the focal point for developing Line of March’s political outlook. Extensive work was done to deepen our initial critique of Maoism, and by the early 1980s Line of March had rejected the Maoist argument that the main parties of the international communist movement, in particular the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, were “revisionist.” Rather, Line of March began to identify with the general outlook of the international communist movement – especially in its emphasis on the struggle for peace and defense of the Soviet Union and socialism. We also came to reject the notion that the Communist Party USA was “revisionist.” At the same time, we retained a number of criticisms of that party’s political perspective and its sectarian practice toward other socialist, Marxist and Marxist-Leninist organizations in the U.S. However, we came to see these criticisms as differences within a single communist movement, and – at least formally – altered our view of party building from creating a “new” party to striving for the unification of all U.S. communists into a single party based upon a revolutionary perspective.
Line of March also developed the initial framework of a political strategy for building the working class movement in this country, which we termed the United Front Against War and Racism. In this perspective, tendencies toward war and racism were identified as structurally central to U.S. capitalism and pillars of capitalist class rule. We saw the struggle against war and racism as the cornerstone of forging a working class united front, a broader people’s front, and building a self-conscious movement for socialism in the U.S.
In 1982, with this set of political views and five years of steady growth, the Line of March began giving greater priority to work in the mass movements. We launched Frontline as a biweekly national newspaper in 1983 and established work in minority communities and the anti-racist movement generally, the trade union movement, the peace and solidarity movements, the women’s movement and the lesbian/gay movement. We actively participated in the 1984 Jesse Jackson presidential campaign and the Rainbow Coalition.
Overall, this shift in emphasis pushed forward the development of the Line of March and contributed to the development of the people’s movement. Other aspects of our work, however, fell off sharply. Our theoretical efforts declined. Institutions which we had built for discussion and debate among our members – theoretical/political conferences, leadership training schools, etc. – fell into disuse. Our previous practice of organizing discussions among socialists, Marxists and Marxist-Leninists was discontinued. And we did not develop overall priorities linking together the many areas of our mass work. Nevertheless, in 1985 we assessed that the Line of March was meeting its objectives, and in fact had matured to the point where it was essentially functioning as a Marxist-Leninist party.
But despite a number of positive achievements in the next few years, problems in the Line of March were steadily accumulating.
With the stagnation of our theoretical work, the Line of March journal came out more and more irregularly; in summer 1987 the decision was made to suspend publication. Further, our work in the mass movements came to be increasingly characterized by overambitious assessments of what could be accomplished and an unsustainable pace of activity by members as they attempted to implement unrealistic plans. The connection which we had prized between gaining mass influence and building the communist movement eroded.
Our practice was also uneven in shedding the sectarian legacy left over from the “New Communist Movement.” We participated in a constructive fashion in a number of coalition and mass activities, and were able at times to play an important unifying role. However, we retained elements of the notion that we had a monopoly on the correct perspective, and missed opportunities to build deeper strategic relationships with others on the left.
Finally, there were severe problems of lack of democracy within the Line of March. Officially, Line of March claimed to function on the principles of democratic centralism, which call for democratic discussion of policy questions among the membership and unity in action based on the will of the majority. In fact, policy was made almost exclusively by the central leadership and the notion of unity of action became subverted into a premium being placed on conformity of thought. No transition was ever made from the initial primitive and “informal” structures of the Line of March and no mechanisms were ever put in place for election or accountability of leadership.
Over the past year, our entire organization has taken up a forthright discussion of these problems. Our conclusion was that we had uncovered what amounted to a political crisis in the Line of March and that an incomplete break with the ultra-leftism which had dominated the New Communist Movement lay at the root of our problems.
The communist movement has had long experience with the problem of ultra-leftism (also termed infantile leftism or petty bourgeois revolutionism). Its typical characteristics are “more revolutionary than thou” political posturing and sectarianism; impatience about the pace of historical change; oversimplification of the complexity of what it takes to actually lead the class struggle; voluntarism in carrying out political activity, and tendencies to downplay the importance of mass democracy and idealize the role of individual leaders. Ideologically, infantile leftism is rooted in idealism: in the notion that objective conditions, no matter what their level of development, can be transformed, and mass movements can be built, by the willful, intense activity of the revolutionaries, if only they have the correct line. This kind of idealist outlook pervaded the Maoist New Communist Movement of the early 1970s, whose main social base was among young, disproportionately non-working class activists coming out of the mass movement against the Vietnam War and the mass movements of oppressed racial and national minorities.
Although our break with Maoism’s international line was profound, we did not take up a thorough critique of Maoism’s ultra-left notions about party building or democratic centralism. Nor did we fully examine and critique the idealist philosophical positions that lay at the heart of Maoism in particular and ultra-left deviations in general. This failure led to both a simplistic, ungrounded approach to party building and to significant mis-assessments of our own level of development. These errors were, in our opinion, less blatant than those made by the ultra-left groups of the seventies. But in many respects, the essential policy we pursued was the same and led to our current problems.
The new period we are entering is designed to take our initial assessment of our shortcomings further, to fully tap the energies and talents of our membership and find ways to correct the problems which have accumulated. A process of reexamination, re-direction and democratization is already underway. It entails internal study and debate of such matters as the appropriate strategy for building a Marxist-Leninist party, the state of the working class movement as the era of Ronald Reagan draws to a close, and the impact of the “new way of thinking” in the international communist movement on the U.S. left. Our plan also calls for continued involvement in mass struggles, and for continued publication of Frontline.
The process through which we decided on the need for a period of re-examination, re-direction and democratization was neither smooth nor unanimous. The immediate incident which sparked our re- evaluation was the discovery in September 1987 that the chair of our national executive committee, Bruce Occena, had a serious substance abuse problem which led to his suspension from the Line of March.
Then, as we explored our history, a minority of the leadership and membership, led by Melinda Paras, developed a position opposed to the proposal for reexamination, re-direction and democratization. This grouping argued that our previous approach to party building and to democratic centralism had been qualitatively sound and that Line of March was in fact a Marxist-Leninist party poised to lead the class struggle in the U.S. This position was rejected and, by a vote of 85 in a series of membership conferences, the proposal for re-examination, re-direction and democratization was approved. Shortly thereafter, most members who had supported the minority view, including Paras, resigned from the Line of March.
Our membership also reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to Marxism-Leninism as Line of March’s underlying ideology and theoretical framework, and our unity around the United Front Against War and Racism perspective and the political goal of constructing a Marxist-Leninist party in the U.S.. Based on these unities, as well as the accumulated experience of our membership in over a decade of involvement in communist and mass work, we believe that the prospects for overcoming our current crisis are good. We believe that Line of March retains a distinct theoretical and political perspective which can play a vital role in the continuing struggle to develop both the U.S. working class movement and the U.S. communist movement.
In the year ahead, we will convene the organization’s first-ever delegated national conference. A new national board and national executive committee have been elected to serve as the leadership of the organization until that conference.
Besides our internal processes and continuing work in the mass movements, Line of March hopes to engage in political dialogue and interaction with other organizations and activists on the U.S. left over the next year. Our own crisis aside, we believe that recent developments in the mass movement-most especially the 1984 and 1988 Jesse Jackson campaigns have created more favorable conditions for constructive relations between various left forces. We believe we have much to learn from the experience of others, and that the lessons of our own experience, both positive and negative, can help contribute to the maturation of the broader progressive movement.