First Published: As a letter to the editor in The Organizer, Vol. 7, No. 5, June 1981.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Comrades of the white, petty bourgeoisie:
An honest look at my own practice reveals my weaknesses around not putting out my views in the OCIC or becoming demoralized and not doing my party building or mass work because of defensiveness around being criticized for white chauvinism. This has held back the process of party building. I don’t think I am exceptional. I think these errors of defensiveness leading to immobilization or flight characterize the reaction to the struggle against racism.
I think it’s time we white folks broke from this childish approach of being defensive around a real problem, racism, and begin to take up our party building tasks with more seriousness.
C. Newlin’s article in the Organizer 2 months ago exposed the seriousness of the errors of the forces that are defending white chauvinism in our movement. The 1st crisis in the anti-revisionist movement, when the Angolan revolution and the choosing up of sides, with the people, or US imperialism took place was a breakaway movement of a sector of the anti-revisionists from the ultra-lefts. It was not a movement for a new political form. Our unity was against the ultra-left sects.
The fence sitters between ultra-leftism and Pt. 18 who eventually the OC forced a break with over principle 18 were able to have free reign in our tendency for a long time because of the lack of a center that could clarify the issues.
The second crisis is different. In the meantime we have deepened the process of organizing an ideological center process for our tendency. Today it is not various individuals or small circles that are leading the struggle against opportunism, it is the OCIC, a national process open to all who agree with the 18 points and the need for a single center for our tendency.
The fence sitters in the struggle against white chauvinism and petty bourgeois chauvinism who say they would criticize both racism and the campaign against white chauvinism are pushed quickly into the camp that is openly anti-single center, because they refuse to struggle out their views in the OC – but would sooner leave than fight for their position in the OCIC.
Long ago rectification refused to struggle out their differences with the OC – in the OC. Then last summer a parody of rectification’s flight was acted out by the BAWOC minority and TMLC among others. Now this non-struggle wing is gaining new forces from within the OC who are leaving the OC over vague and unarticulated criticisms of ultra-leftism in the OC’s campaign against white and petty bourgeois chauvinism.
The OCIC in taking up the campaign against white chauvinism is creating the conditions for the development of multinational unity in the party building movement by breaking down the racism and accommodation in those who are taking up the task of organizing the vanguard of the working class. Only by breaking down the white and petty bourgeois chauvinism in the OCIC will we be able to see clearly the working class as it really is, and really see the leading forces in it and the process by which it is moving forward.
The campaign against white chauvinism is not an attack of the NSC on the ranks of the OCIC or on forces in the tendency. It is an attack of the OCIC on bourgeoise ideology. When the battle opened up, many fled from the struggle like the opportunists of the 2nd international who sided with their own bourgeoisies rather than risk the perils of revolution and civil war.
Others moved quickly to take up the struggle against bourgeoise ideology. But white chauvinism did not crumble at the first attack and some of our leading comrades have fallen in the struggle Having left the OCIC rather than deepen the struggle by breaking with their own unity with bourgeoise ideology whether it be racism, petty bourgeois chauvinism or the accommodation to those deviations.
Others moved quickly to take up the struggle against bourgeoise ideology. But white chauvinism did not crumble at the first attack and some of our leading comrades have fallen in the struggle Having left the OCIC rather than deepen the struggle by breaking with their own unity with bourgeoise ideology whether it be racism, petty bourgeois chauvinism or the accommodation to those deviations.
But the new wave of those who want to cancel the campaign claim the fact that leading comrades have fallen proves the campaign is ultra-left, rather than deepening their own commitment to rooting out racism in our ranks that holds the process at its present backward state where even leading comrades hold some unity with racist ideology.
Out of paternalism many whites in our ranks call for a halt to the campaign because there are real casualties in the struggle against racism. Rather than seeing that those who lead the fight might be the first to fall, but our summation of their weaknesses make victory that much closer.
Those of us who were reluctant to take up the fight, myself included, because of our own unity with white chauvinism and petty bourgeoise chauvinism must now take up the campaign and carry on the fight. For only by defeating white chauvinism and petty bourgeoise chauvinism in our movement will we create the conditions for working class forces to take leadership positions in our movement.
At the same time only ideological struggle that challenges the basis of the white flight will make it clear the real enemy is the bourgeoisie and win the whites back into the struggle.
It is not time to withdraw from the struggle – but to carry it to its conclusion. Only sharpening the contradictions can push the process forward by exposing the opportunism of unity with the bourgeois ideology of white and petit bourgeois chauvinism. Only this will show the way forward out of the morass of bourgeois ideology.
Sharpening the struggle means, strengthening our class stand by orienting all our party building work to building unity around anti-racism and anti-petty bourgeois chauvinism; bringing new working class and National Minority forces into the OC who are attracted by the unity expressed in the campaign – allowing ideological leadership that is coming forward in this struggle to take overall leadership for the further development of the movement for an ideological center for our tendency.
Those who cry “leftism” are taking a liberal stand of strategic compromise with the bourgeois ideology of white and petty bourgeoise chauvinism. They have no faith that bourgeoise ideology can be defeated. Their stand will only lead to their becoming irrelevant in the class struggle.
The campaign is having a positive impact on our tendency. It is attracting fighters from the working class who are serious about the fight and not just about a lot of talk. It is also convincing white and national minority petty bourgeoise comrades of the necessity of breaking with their own view of themselves as the natural leadership of the process based on their warped view of themselves and of more seriously taking up the class struggle. It is these fighters who together will make history by pushing the ideological center process forward out of the morass of bourgeoise ideology that has comdemned the anti-revisionist movement to isolation from the class struggle for the last 20 years.
Until victory,
Joe Haaglund