First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 4, No. 6, July 1972.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The following is a letter received from Comrade Admiral Kilpatrick. Comrade Kilpatrick has been a member of the Communist movement for over 45 years. Comrade Kilpatrick joined the Trade Union Educational League in 1924, and joined the Communist Party in 1927, During the early 1930’s Kilpatrick was sent to the Lenin Institute in the Soviet Union, and upon completing his studies, worked under the direction of the Comintern in some 27 countries. Comrade Kilpatrick travelled widely in Europe, Africa, and the near east. During the Spanish Civil War Comrade Kilpatrick was a Political Commissioner with the International Brigades. Comrade Kilpatrick is widely experienced in the trade union struggles, especially in United Electrical Workers.
Comrade Kilpatrick was one of the first to rally to the defense of Marxism-Leninism. After the 16th Convention of the CPUSA, Kilpatrick organized and was in the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist caucus within the Party. In 1958 Kilpatrick, along with a large number of Marxist-Leninists, left the Party to form the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute A Marxist Leninist Communist Party in the USA.(POC). After ten years of struggle within the POC Kilpatrick left disgusted with the anti-China, anti-Albania, and anti-Stalin course embarked upon by the majority of the leadership. For the next four years Kilpatrick participated in the local struggles in his home town, and was frequently consulted by the young people who were engaged in political activity. A short while ago Comrade Kilpatrick was given an issue of the People’s Tribune, He immediately contacted the Communist League where he found old friends and comrades. Excerpts from his letter for membership follows.
Dear Comrade Nelson,
I received your letter and all the rest of the material. Your letter, the papers, and documents were like a breath of fresh air. After reading the two on labor and the Negro National Question, I am convinced that you comrades, by organizing the Communist League, are on the correct road to really building a revolutionary communist party in the USNA.
Of course you are aware of the recent history of the struggle against revisionism. That struggle became formalized in the splitting of the Party into the various caucuses around the time of the 16th Convention. That convention took place just after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). You know it was at this congress that Khruschev and his gang began the betrayal of Marxism-Leninism. Their theoretical weapons were such nonsense as–imperialist wars are not connected with the political aims of the imperialists, and thus imperialist wars are not inevitable. Tacked on to this was the peaceful co-existence racket which said the oppressed should now peacefully accept their oppression.
In order to make this betrayal stick, this bunch developed a full scale attack on Comrades Malenkov, Kaganovich, Comrades Molotov and Bulganin, and other leading comrades so there would be no stumbling blocks on the revisionist road back to capitalism.
In the original “Marxist-Leninist” caucus there were a number of leaders including Bill Foster, Lannon, Roman and others. As can be seen, we were still under the illusion that we could work inside of the old Party. However, as the 16th Convention got under way it became very obvious to some of us that it would be impossible to resolve the main questions confronting the convention. These questions were:
1) To make a complete turn off the revisionist road and return to the road of scientific socialism, Marxism-Leninism.
2) Re-establish monolithic unity and democratic centralism.
The convention and the old Party could not deal with these questions because it was split wide open. By the end of the convention three revisionist factional groups emerged as the leadership of the Party.
These were the William Z. Foster-Ben Davis group, Gene Dennis and his group and Gates and his gang. Their jockeying around was simply to determine which could put on the best revisionist show. This is precisely what it was, and as a result not one question was solved at the convention. All of these burning questions were turned over to the incoming revisionist national committee. As of today, nothing has been done. On the contrary, under the leadership of Gus Hall the CPUSA has become the worst, most revisionist Party in the capitalist world. Their only aim is to carry out vicious and slanderous attacks against the Party of Labor of Albania and its leader Enver Hoxha, and the Communist Party of China and its leader Comrade Mao Tse Tung. They extend this slander against all of the Leninist Parties and groupings throughout the world.
After your expulsion from the POC, I fought to prevent the destruction of that organization. Today, it is very dead indeed. Any Party or grouping that calls itself communist, gives up the class struggle, and won’t follow the road of Marxism-Leninism is completely out of step with what is going on in the world today. The question of war or peace, of revolution or counterrevolution depends on the class struggle, and not on the resolutions of sectarians or the pronouncements of big heads. These so called “left” gangs talk about the revolution being dead, and the old Party talks about “peaceful co-existence” in order to keep their noses safely in the rear end of the gang of traitors in the USSR. One wonders whether these people are living or dead when they cannot see what is going on in the world today. In Vietnam–all of Indochina, in Latin America, in Africa, the Middle East, India and all over the world–for that matter in the United States of North America (USNA); anyone can see that today the world is in its highest stages of class struggle. And yet, we have asinine people calling themselves communists who yelp for peace, while others shriek that the revolution is dead.
The truth is, the revolution is not dead and there is no peace. On the contrary, United States bloody monopoly capitalist imperialism, over a long historical period, has been carrying on war against other nations and peoples. The USNA imperialists were carrying on war in Vietnam and Indochina long before they kicked the French imperialists out. They conducted their robbery and plunder just waiting for the chance to take over from France.
Gus Hall used to refer to President Eisenhower as a man of peace. Let us see what that warmonger had to say, speaking to the annual Conference of Governors, Eisenhower said, “...you have seen the war in Indochina described variously as an outgrowth of French colonialism and the French refusal to treat indigenous populations decently. You find it described as a war between the communists and the other elements in Southeast Asia...you don’t really know why we are so concerned with the far off southeast corner of Asia. Why is it?...let us assume that we lose Indochina. If Indochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malay peninsula, the last little bit of land hanging on down there, would be scarcely defensible. The tin and tungsten we so greatly value from that area would cease coming...all of that position around there is very ominous to the United States, because finally if we lose all that, how could the free world hold the rich empire of Indonesia..? So you see, somewhere along the line this must be blocked and it must be blocked now, and that is what we are trying to do. So when the U.S. votes $400,000,000 to help that war, we are not voting a giveaway program. We are voting for the cheapest way we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the USA. Our security, our power and ability to get certain things. We need the riches of the Indonesia territory and from Southeast Asia.” (New York Times, August 5, 1953)
The sectarians and revisionists should take another look. The peoples are fighting the imperialist bandits and they will not stop short of victory.
We must continue the fight for the purity of Marxism-Leninism, especially on the question of war and peace. Lenin teaches that “...every war is inseparably connected with the political system which gave rise to it... the politics which a certain country, a certain class in that country pursued for a long period before the war are inevitably pursued by that very same class during the war. It merely changes its form of action.” (War and the Workers)
The revisionists, the scabs and sectarians have no answers to any questions in today’s class struggle.
We have been in the trench together for a good many years. Accept this letter as application to join you in the Communist League and finish the fight together.
Comradely yours,
paragraph
Admiral Kilpatrick
* * *
The decision of the Detroit League of Revolutionary Black Workers to join the Communist League, the decision of Comrade Admiral Kilpatrick to join, all testify to the growing maturity of the League. We invite the revolutionary organizations, the older experienced Marxist-Leninists, the anti-revisionists, to join with us to rapidly construct a Communist Party worthy of the name. The objective conditions are favorable to us–history demands that we develop the subjective expression of this struggle now.
BUILD A COMMUNIST PARTY!!
BULLDOZE THE REVISIONIST CPUSA!!