First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 5, No. 6, July 1973.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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August, 1973 marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Communist League. With the coming of this occasion and in light of the work ahead, we should seriously look at what has brought us in the Communist League to this point in history and what tasks are now ahead of us.
Starting out five years ago with only eleven comrades in Watts, California, we have now grown into a national organization of over 200 Marxist-Leninists. This has been possible for one reason: the consistent struggle for clarity on the line of Marxism-Leninism applied to the situation in the USNA. From our inception, this struggle has been waged both by the CL and by the “new left.” The two lines, on Party building have from the beginning been in opposition to one another. On the one hand, the line of the CL is the line of Lenin which states that the Party is built of conscious elements, and on the other hand, the line of the “new left” Menshevics states that the party arises from the mass spontaneous movement. The line of Marxism-Leninism, which five years ago was the line of the minority, is now beginning to emerge as the line of the majority.
The tremendous success the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists this past May was further proof of this. That deeply theoretical meeting around the line of Marxism-Leninism marked a new stage in the development of a Marxist-Leninist party of a new type. That growing victory was due in part to the objective situation; the worsening economic situation and the political crisis as represented by Watergate. The “left” in the absence of a revolutionary political party is now being forced to defend the working class in these conditions. Every aspect of the class struggle, especially the unorganised workers, working class women and youth, is showing us the need for a revolutionary political party; a Marxist-Leninist party that can unite the class into a force powerful enough to overthrow the rotten and corrupt capitalist class.
This victory was also due in part to and clearly proved the correctness of the Communist League’s line on Party Building. This line states that “education is the main political task in this period of Party Building”. As Lenin states, “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary party.” This is best represented in the theoretical contributions made by the CL. Some of the areas in which these contributions have been made are the National Colonial Question, Party Building, the struggle against Revisionism, the Woman Question and the Question of Trade Unions. We do not take credit for discovering new theories, but for the resurrection of Leninism, especially in the aforementioned aspects of the class struggle.
The Bolshevic fractional method of work has enabled the comrades in the CL to get into important areas of activity. It provided the necessary base for the conference in May to represent different sections of the class. It must now enable us to establish an even wider base before the Congress and to fulfill the task of the next period of time: “win the vanguard of the proletariat to the cause of Communism,” the unemployed, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, that section that is most hit by the growing economic crisis and as a result being hurled into confrontation with the capitalist class. We can fulfill this task by getting our comrades into the political struggle, by influencing the movement of the working class.
We can master politics, the art of class struggle, only by revolutionary experience guided by revolutionary theory. The People’s Tribune, as in the past, is an important weapon in the hands of the class. It provides political clarity to the most salient questions facing the working class. We must use the pages of the Tribune. As the masthead states, it is “the political paper of the Communist League” and must “react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression.” It is our scaffolding for the building of a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party that will unite all local issues and struggles into a national political struggle, linked with the international struggle against imperialism.
If the Communist League is going to continue its contribution in the building of a Party of a New Type, we must not slacken, but increase and tighten both our education and our activities. We must now begin to act as a political party of the class, Stalin in Foundations of Leninism clearly states how such a party of the working class acts. It must be “...a militant party, a revolution party, one bold enough to lead the proletarians in the struggle for power, sufficiently flexible to steer clear of all submerged rocks in the path to its goal.”[1]
Comrades, our tasks are clear. The objective conditions continue to ripen; we must not falter. The working class in the USNA will have its Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, just as it is inevitable that they will have a dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.
WIN THE VANGUARD OP THE PROLETARIAT TO THE CAUSE OF COMMUNISM!
[1] Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, FLPP, p. 102.