First Published: In Struggle! No. 172, September 18, 1979
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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Last week, the Appeal of our Organization For the political and organizational unity of the international communist movement was made public. This document is a concrete proposal of our Organization to all Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations of the world in order to strengthen their militant unity in the struggle for proletarian revolution. The newspaper is going to use this document as a guide in its coverage of the developments of the communist international movement. The newspaper has had important weaknesses at this level until very recently, as many’ readers have quite correctly pointed out.
The main weakness of the newspaper on this question is undoubtedly the fact that it published very little information on the actions and declarations of the communist international movement. As a result, many of our readers know almost nothing about these parties and organizations. Yet, in spite of great difficulties, the Marxist-Leninist movement does indeed exist in several countries of the world, it has influence among the proletariat and popular strata and represents a real alternative for the masses in revolt, not to mention the Party of Labour of Albania, which leads the people of Albania in the construction of socialism.
On the theoretical level, the Marxist-Leninist movement’s contribution is far more than the criticism of the three worlds theory. More and more, the polemic is centered around several fundamental points of the communist programme: the question of class it alliances, and particularly that of alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the struggle against imperialism; the question of fascism and of anti-fascist united fronts; the role of the State, the proletarian party and the masses in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat; democratic centralism and the internal life of the proletarian party; and many others.
The newspaper has done very little reporting on these theoretical and practical contributions of the international communist movement. We intend to look into this and change this situation in the coming months. We started rectifying this situation in August, with the regular publication of the positions of various parties and organizations (the Communist Party of New Zealand, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Austria, etc).
We must point out that the newspaper has made certain errors of judgement in its reporting on Marxist-Leninist organizations in the world. A good example of this is our attitude towards the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States. There are many organizations in the United States which claim to be Marxist-Leninist and which are actively working, in one degree or another, to apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of their country. Yet, in practice, we have for several months now mentioned only the actions and statements of the RCP, thus giving many of our readers the impression that we recognize it as the only Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States.
Let us make a few points clear on this question. The RCP is indeed a Marxist-Leninist organization which has made, and is still making contributions to the struggle against revisionism. We consider, however, that there are several other organizations,like the Communist Party U.S. (M-L), which publishes the newspaper Unite, and many Marxist-Leninist collectives which are also involved in this struggle.
We intend to improve our reporting on their activities in the coming months. If we are not careful, errors such as this are just as possible with regard to other countries where there are several Marxist-Leninist organizations and parties, as is the case In Europe.
This brief evaluation of the newspaper’s weaknesses on the question of the international communist movement indicates one thing: the reality of the movement is extremely complex. We need rigorous methods in order to progress from the present situation, characterized by isolated efforts and considerable division, to a situation in which the entire movement will be able to act as one to lead the world proletariat. This is what the Appeal for the political and organizational unity of the international communist movement proposes. The basic proposal is to wage frank and open polemic on all questions of programme in order to rebuild an authentic Communist International.
Note: The Appeal for the political and organizational unity of the international communist movement is published in full in the special issue of the journal, PROLETARIAN UNITY (No. 17-18), along with all the other documents of our Third Congress.