Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

A draft critique of the present “criticism-self-criticism campaign” in the D.C.-Balt. OCIC local center.


Issued: n.d. [June 1980].
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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1– We are united on the need for communists in our tendency to take up the struggle against racism and white chauvinism and to utilize criticism and self-criticism as a tool for rectifying chauvinist errors. We strongly criticize comrades who have refused to engage in self-criticism around racist or chauvinist errors in spite of serious errors committed by the present leadership around how best to foster such a process.

2– We oppose the current practice and politics of the leadership of the BWLC in taking up the “ideological struggle” against racism as it has been waged since our formation.

3– We distinguish between criticism and self-criticism which seeks to rectify peoples incorrect practice and ideas, and organizational opportunist tactics used to score debating points, crush opponents, and establish hegemony over a collective process.

4– In spite of assertions to the contrary, the present “crit.-self-crit. campaign” is the first stage of a full scale national campaign to rectify white chauvinism within the OCIC in the absence of consolidation of our tendency around a leading line to guide such a campaign. The initiation of a full scale national rectification campaign on this basis complete with expulsions, and official pronunciations of “racism” against any and all critics of the line coming down from the national SC is a expression of organizational hegemonism and opportunism within the OCIC leadership at the expense of the stated objectives of the overall OCIC process, which is to promote and foster tendency wide debate and principled ideological and political struggle in order to develop and consolidate around a unified political perspective. The fact that this process is being negated as regards the struggle against racism is in itself an expression of racism.

5– There exist within the LC and the OCIC nationally differing lines on the essential nature of racism, the relationship between the SAR [struggle against racism – EROL] and the SAS [struggle against sexism – EROL], and how best to carry forward the struggle against racism. The SC is attempting to liquidate this struggle of differing lines and substitute for it a phony “campaign” against white chauvinism based on the leading line of the PWOC.

The approach of the SC to the struggle against racism is one-sided in that it negates necessity of developing a political line to guide the SAR and reduces that struggle to a simple problem of subjective racist attitudes. Furthermore, it is based on the incorrect assumption that white communists can “purge” themselves of white chauvinism without consistently taking up the struggle against racism in practice.

Without combining the development of a political line for pushing forward the struggle against racism with the process of criticism-self-crit. (the present stage of the campaign against white chauvinism), such a campaign become one of moral posturing, and subjective wrangling. It has in fact deteriorated into name calling, character assassination and organizational one-up-manship, rather than principled political struggle.

6– The current method of struggle in the LC is based on bourgeois rather than proletarian ideology.

In bourgeois ideology the struggle of ideas serves only to preserve the status quo, the domination of the bourgeoisie. Scientific method and theory are subjugated to the bourgeoisie’s interest of maintaining their position in class society. The origins of both empiricism and dogmatism in the communist movement are found in bourgeois ideology.

In contrast proletarian ideology is based on the scientific method of dialectical and historical materialism (Marxist-Leninist theory). The interests of the proletariat are not served by covering up the struggle over political lines (which represents the further development and application of M-L theory), nor by abandoning the science of dialectical materialism, and the methods of principled and comradely struggle.