In the imperialist and the capitalist countries, the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat are essential for the thorough resolution of the contradictions of capitalist society.
In striving to accomplish this task the proletarian party must under the present circumstances actively lead the working class and the working people in struggles to oppose monopoly capital, to defend democratic rights, to oppose the menace of fascism, to improve living conditions, to oppose imperialist arms expansion and war preparations, to defend world peace and actively to support the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations...
Large-scale mass struggles in the capitalist countries in recent years have shown that the working class and working people are experiencing a new awakening. Their struggles, which are dealing blows at monopoly capital and reaction, have opened bright prospects for the revolutionary cause in their own countries and are also a powerful support for the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African, and Latin American peoples and for the countries of the socialist camp.
The proletarian parties in imperialist or capitalist countries must maintain their own ideological, political and organizational independence in leading revolutionary struggles. At the same time, they must unite all the forces that can be united and build a broad united front against ”monopoly capital and against the imperialist policies of aggression and war.
While actively leading immediate struggles, Communists in the capitalist countries should link them with the struggle for long-range and general interests, educate the masses in a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary spirit, ceaselessly raise their political consciousness and undertake the historical task of the proletarian revolution. If they fail to do so, if they regard the immediate movement as everything, determine their conduct from case to case, adapt themselves to the events of the day and sacrifice the basic interests of the proletariat, that is out-and-out social democracy. – from A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963.
Since the publication of the first RED PAPERS, the Bay Area Revolutionary Union has argued for the United Front against Imperialism as the strategic road for the proletariat of the U.S. in overthrowing the dictatorship of the monopoly bourgeoisie and establishing its own dictatorship. Since we first put forward the concept of the United Front against Imperialism, we have received a number of questions and criticisms.
How does our position differ from the “anti-monopoly coalition” smokescreen of the CPUSA(R)?
Do we base the united front strategy on an intermediate form of state power between the dictatorship of the monopoly bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat?
If not, how can a united front against imperialism – which is the correct strategy for the proletariat in an oppressed country, where an intermediate New Democratic State is necessary – apply in an imperialist country like the U.S.?
What program can be put forward by the proletariat to forge such a united front?
What classes and class segments would enter into a united front with the proletariat?
Won’t the petty bourgeoisie vacillate and betray the proletariat?
How can the proletarian leadership of the United Front be built and consolidated?
How can a united front be built without a Communist Party?
These are the main questions surrounding the United Front against Imperialism. We will try to deal with them in this paper, as we present a beginning outline for building a United Front against Imperialism in the U.S.: the linking up of the immediate struggles of the U.S. working class and people with the liberation struggles of the peoples of the ”third world” and with the long-range objective of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship in the U.S.
In LONG LIVE THE VICTORY OF PEOPLE’S WAR, Lin Piao gives what is probably the most frequently quoted analysis within the mother country anti-imperialist movement: “The contradiction between the revolutionary peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the imperialists headed by the United States is the principal contradiction in the contemporary world.” Underlying Lin Piao’s analysis is the Marxist understanding that the fundamental contradiction running through all class society is that between the exploiters and the exploited. In the era of imperialism, this is an international phenomenon, and the primary aspect of this contradiction today is as Lin Piao puts it. But Lin’s analysis can in no way be used as some have tried to use it in the U.S. movement, to deny the fundamental contradiction in the U.S. and all capitalist society – between the social nature of labor and the private ownership and accumulation of capital – or the class struggle that inevitably develops from this contradiction, or the necessary outcome of that struggle: The revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class by the working class and its allies and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Contradictions, like everything else in life, are subject to process and change: what is primary today may develop, dialectically, into the secondary aspect tomorrow.
The contradiction between the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and the imperialists has become the principal contradiction since World War II. Revolutionaries, in any country, must base their strategy on a world view and a concrete determination of the essential relations of power world wide. In the present epoch this determination certainly includes: The ascendance of U.S. imperialism to the pinnacle of the imperialist dung heap; the permanent militarization of the U.S. imperialist economy; the expansion of the “multi-national” corporations and the intensification of investment by the U.S. monopoly capitalists in foreign countries; the superexploitation of the peoples of the semi-colonial and colonial countries; the bribing of a significant section of the working class in every imperialist country due to this superexploitation; and, finally, the temporary triumph of revisionism and restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. Over this period as a whole, despite a reversal in recent years, the people of the imperialist countries, including even the oppressed classes within them, have enjoyed a rise in the standard of living – certainly beyond the miserable depression levels. But wherever there is oppression there is resistance and conditions turn into their opposites, and the superexploitation of the colonial and semi-colonial world is no exception. From the beginning of the post World War II period, the peoples of these areas have multiplied their resistance and have won many significant victories. With China, Korea, Vietnam, Algeria, Cuba – in fact, throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, it has been increasingly rough going for the imperialists.
In fact, because of the very “instability” created by the resistance of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples, the imperialists are transferring foreign investment in the Third World to Europe, where the volume of U.S, investment, though not the rate of profit return, has been greatest all along. It is still not clear if this turn toward more extensive exploitation of other capitalist countries is a developing pattern or a temporary phenomenon. More investigation needs to be done into the specific industries that are investing in both Europe-Canada and “third world” to determine which areas are most crucial for U.S. imperialism.
But it is clear that the contradictions between the U.S. imperialists on the one hand, and the West German and Japanese ruling classes on the other, are sharpening as these two junior partners of U.S. imperialism are stepping up their drive for top spot in the firm. And with the all-round restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the flowering of Soviet social-imperialism, the contradictions between the New Tsars of the Soviet Union and the robber barons are intensifying, even while they collaborate to carve up the world. The Middle East, India, and Indonesia are but three examples of this U.S.-Soviet imperialist collaboration and collision.
These many new factors, along with the deteriorating conditions of the working class of the imperialist countries, have produced growing rebellions over the past few years. The increasing inability of the imperialists to keep even their home turf in order, especially manifested in increasing financial chaos, runaway inflation, growing unemployment, and heavier taxation of the working and middle classes, all guarantee that the sharpening contradictions will force ever sharper struggles, so that (to quote RED PAPERS 1) “the period of reciprocating domestic and international conflict against U.S. imperialism, mounting in intensity and overcoming difficulties and setbacks, will continue for a relatively long period, but its end result is certain – the destruction of U.S. imperialism.” To minimize the difficulties and setbacks and to hasten the end, revolutionaries must learn to forge unity in struggle and, based on world practice, must become increasingly adept at formulating theory and strategy and their application to changes in circumstance.
In his recent report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Lin Piao mentions four main contradictions in the world today: Between the oppressed nations and imperialism and social-imperialism; between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the imperialist and social-imperialist countries; between the various imperialist countries or between the imperialist and social-imperialist countries; and between imperialist and social-imperialist countries and the socialist countries. Lin emphasizes that any of these contradictions could give rise to a major war, even a world war, involving nuclear weapons, a possibility the Chinese regard as very real. (The twenty-second slogan of the 20th anniversary celebration of the People’s Republic of China urges preparation “right now” to deal with the eventuality of a major war, especially one involving nuclear weapons).
In this report Lin does not specify which of these contradictions is principal. His point is that there are new developments in the international struggle which could lead to a world war, or at least to a major war, in which case a new principal contradiction might emerge. In China, before the Japanese invasion, the principal contradiction was between the Chinese nation and British and U.S. imperialists and the big bourgeoisie and landlords in league with them. But with the occupation of large parts of China, the principal contradiction shifted to that between the Japanese imperialists and die-hard big capitalists and landlords who sided with them, and the anti-Japanese united front, including some sections of the big bourgeoisie and landlord class.
The point of all this is not to play guessing games, but to be aware that the question of principal contradiction is not a static one, to be able to change direction, as Lenin said, within 24 hours, with a change of objective circumstances, without changing our basic principles. To be able to do this it is necessary to keep hold of the fundamental contradiction running through capitalist society and all class societies and to be guided by the basic Marxist understanding of class struggle. This emphasizes the necessity, at each stage of the struggle, to develop the leading role of the proletariat and proletarian ideology within the united front and people’s movement. For only the leading role of the proletariat in the inevitable crises of the capitalist system can carry the struggle through, sweep away the old bourgeois order and build a new, socialist society. (For an exposition of our analysis why the leading role of the proletariat, the classical Marxist criterion for the socialist revolution, is still fundamental to present day U.S. imperialism, see our article REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH AND THE ROAD TO THE PROLETARIAT, elsewhere in this issue).
Developing day by day is a worldwide united front against U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. U.S. imperialism, though balancing on the brink of disaster, is still the main prop of world imperialism. But as the liberation struggles of the colonial people are gaining momentum – with the Vietnamese people as their spearhead and the Chinese people as their shield – conditions are good and getting better for forging the broader unity of action against U.S. imperialism not only from the outside but from within the fortress. As Lin Piao put it in LONG LIVE THE VICTORY OF PEOPLE’S WAR:
Just as the Japanese imperialist’s policy of subjugating China made it possible for the Chinese people to form the broadest possible united front against them, so the U.S. imperialists’ policy of seeking world domination makes it possible for the people throughout the world to unite all the forces that can be united and form the broadest possible united front for a converging attack on U.S. imperialism.
The effects of U.S. policy and the defeats it suffers, the consequent increasing burden on U.S. working people and the increasing fascist repression make it possible for an ever widening mass of sisters and brothers to recognize the face of the enemy, to join their strengths, and, together with the peoples of the world, to bring down the ruling imperialists and their reign of terror. To build a domestic united front against U.S. imperialism will certainly support the struggles of the peoples of the world and that is certainly our revolutionary duty. And it is also in the best interest of the working people of the U.S. To fail to unite all who can be united in struggle is to acquiesce to developing fascism, for, increasingly, the imperialists can continue to rule in no other way.
Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. But the word “imperialism” is associated in the popular consciousness primarily with the oppression by the monopolist-ruled country of other external nations and/or peoples. In addition, in our case, the word “imperialism” tends to be understood as describing the oppression internally of the Black and brown peoples.
Our united front strategy, in the United States, is a United Front Against the Monopoly Capitalist Class. The long-term strategic objective of this united front is the overthrow of the monopoly capitalist dictatorship and its replacement with proletarian dictatorship. But (1) the proletariat cannot either win or hold the dictatorship without basic allies, secondary weaker allies, and neutralized elements. And (2) the proletariat cannot be the leader of the United Front today, nor proceed to take power tomorrow, unless its white section is aroused to political consciousness, unites with the more advanced Black proletariat in common struggle, and unless a Communist Party is built primarily from the united proletariat.
The slogan “United Front against Imperialism” has the merit that, because of the popular consciousness of the word “imperialism,” it focuses attention on that important aspect of the United Front that requires support to the revolutionary national liberation movements of the oppressed nations external to the United States and of the internal colonies. Furthermore, it expresses opposition to the ruling class policies of aggression, war budgets, and militarism.
The slogan is scientifically correct, in addition, because imperialism is monopoly capitalism.
What is the difference between our strategy of United Front against our, U.S., imperialism, and that 6f, let us say, Vietnam or Thailand? In the latter case, U.S. imperialism can be beaten and driven out, a new democratic government organized and led by the proletarian party, without the necessity of the programmatic slogans: socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat, all power to the working class, etc. In a sense, then, the United*Front can be broader for a longer period of time and the dictatorship of the proletariat can develop out of the selfless work of the proletarian party in establishing socialist institutions of agriculture, industry, and culture, and relying on the masses to build these institutions and claim them for their own.
In our case, it is a question of overthrowing our domestic tyrants, the monopoly ruling class. We cannot overthrow our ruling class with a “democratic” revolution. The issue will clearly and decisively be ”the working class must rule,” and shifts in the United Front will no doubt take place. Unstable allies of today may become neutral, or hostile, tomorrow. A United Front against monopoly capital will remain, because some non-proletarian classes and strata will support the proletariat’s drive for power, knowing that their particular needs and interests at that time could only be fulfilled in that way. That is exactly why the poor peasants, and other petty-bourgeois strata supported the Bolsheviks in October 1917.
Today the students, fundamentally allies of the proletariat, are following the lead of the Black people’s movement against imperialism ahead of the proletariat as a whole. The vanguard role of today is being exercised by the Black proletariat. It must be recognized that the “United Front against Imperialism,” weak as it is, is a fact of today and must be strengthened and extended. “The United Front against Imperialism, led by the proletariat as a whole,” is a fact of tomorrow. It has to be aimed at and fought for – principally by creating Black and white proletarian unity in common struggle, and by bringing political, anti-imperialist consciousness to white workers. This, of course, cannot be achieved without overcoming white chauvinism among white workers.
The indication of the degree to which white chauvinism has been, or is being, overcome, Is. the degree to which white workers support the struggles of Black and brown peoples for freedom, economic equality, and the right to self-determination as an integral and component part of a common struggle against monopoly capital. We must wage a continuing struggle against white chauvinism within the united front, in the working class, and within the revolutionary organizations.
To the degree that a united revolutionary proletarian vanguard develops, with a corresponding ComŽmunist Party, to that degree, and to that degree only, will the United Front led by the proletariat develop. Students will be an important mass ally, middle strata of the working people (not proletariat) will become a basic ally, and in the course of events the “dictatorship of the proletariat” will become, not just propaganda or political education, but a practical program of struggle.
We certainly have a long way to go. The present united front is fragile, the proletariat is not united and cannot lead it, and has not developed its representative Communist Party. We must develop the united front, foster revolutionary working class unity and leadership in struggle, and build a Communist Party based on Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought. And we must set about all three of these tasks simultaneously. How to begin? We believe that our present best course is to link together the present main spearheads of anti-imperialist struggle, to raise them to higher levels through courageous and persevering work, and to develop the fighters in each spearhead into fighters for all. These five spearheads of struggle are:
1. The national liberation of Black and Mexican American peoples, and support for the democratic demands of all oppressed minorities.
2. Against imperialist aggression, support for colonial liberation.
3. Against fascism, the open terroristic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
4. Against the oppression and exploitation of women under imperialism.
5. Unite the proletariat to resist the attack on living standards by the monopoly capitalists.
We will discuss each of these points separately later in the paper. We believe that they represent the present basis for the united front strategy. But differences have been expressed by comrades and we would like to deal with some of them here.
Four leaders of RYM II have put the question of the united front against imperialism this way:
It must be emphasized that the united front against imperialism can only be a tactical orientation of the proletariat, not a strategy, since strategy means a plan for the basic realignment of class forces, which in the U.S. as a whole can only mean the undivided power of the proletariat, acting in the interests of the overwhelming masses of the world’s people.
We do not agree with this view because it sets up the “undivided power of the proletariat” in opposition to the “United Front,” and diminishes the importance of the United Front by insisting that it is only tactical, not strategic. We agree with the definition of strategy given, “a plan for the basic realignment of class forces,” if it is understood to mean ”a plan for proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship.” Our “plan” or “strategy” for the proletarian revolution in this country is precisely the United Front. The objective of the United Front strategy is not some intermediate type of state, such as people’s democracy, prior to a proletarian state, but the proletarian state itself. Unlike colonial, semi-feudal nations, where the struggle proceeds through people’s democracy to the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, we have only one stage to go through. Capitalism has developed to its ultimate stage; imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. It is rotten ripe. It can only be brought down by replacing it with the dictatorship of the proletariat. One stage! One Strategy!
Perhaps the confusion lies not so much in the question of “tactics or strategy” but in the question of the relation between united front and proletarian dictatorship. Lenin defined the Soviet dictatorship of the proletariat as a special form of the class alliance between the proletariat and the poor peasantry. The “leading role of the proletariat in the United Front” is really closer in essence to the dictatorship of the proletariat (as a concept) than is the “undivided power of the proletariat, etc.” The proletariat is supported by allies both in the “United Front” and in the “Proletarian Dictatorship.”
Especially during periods of intensifying crisis, both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie try to win the allegiance of the classes and strata between them. If the proletariat fails to wage a consistent and thorough battle in the interests of the middle classes and strata, against the oppression of the ruling class, and learn to consolidate this fight under its revolutionary leadership, it will not be able to defeat the imperialist enemy, or to successfully resist increasing fascization.
In short, the proletarian dictatorship can neither be achieved nor maintained without the support of the majority of the American people. To think of the united front as merely a tactic reduces it to a gimmick through which the proletariat suckers other classes and strata. No. The united front is built and led by the proletariat in its own interest against its imperialist oppressor. Other classes and strata who join the united front (and try to take over its leadership) do so in their own interest also based on their intensifying contradiction with imperialism. If united front is not the strategy to-defeat imperialism, what is?
The revisionist adherents of a phony anti-monopoly alliance have developed the “two stage” theory in imperialist U.S., probably because they dread the thought of dictatorship of the proletariat, certainly because they are not willing to fight for it.
Others have openly attacked the united front. For example, in the now-famous “Weatherman” paper, prepared by the present leaders of SDS, we find the following statement:
Along with no two stages, there is no united front with the petit bourgeoisie because its interests as a class aren’t for replacing imperialism with socialism.. .their class position isn’t against imperialism as a system.” (“Weatherman,” Section V, Anti-Imperialist Revolution and the United Front).
We agree that there are no two stages. We do not agree that there cannot be a united front with the petty bourgeoisie, and we do not agree that building a united front with the petty bourgeoisie means there will be two stages. The petty bourgeoisie can be brought into a united front against imperialism because they have contradictions with imperialism; sometimes very sharp ones. We are living in such a period of intensifying contradiction at this moment. Their growing opposition and activity against the Vietnam War, based on escalating taxes, inflation, profit squeeze or death of a brother or son, etc., is a prime example. Of course, very few could be listed as wholehearted supporters of the Liberation Front, and things will probably have to get much worse for them before they, in general, get much better. But as the contradictions intensify, their involvement will become more thorough. And if the proletariat does its work well, as the crisis of imperialism degenerates to near anarchy, they will recognize that their interest at that time lies in supporting the working class to power, just as they did in Russia in October 1917. The working class cannot come to power without the support, vacillating or otherwise, from the non-proletarian strata, including at least parts of the petty bourgeoisie.
As opposed to both the Weatherman and RYM II formulations, we put the question this way: The United Front Against Imperialism is the strategic road for the proletariat in establishing its dictatorship. The tactics of the united front – including the program put forward by the proletariat and its allies – will change, but not the strategy of uniting all who can be united on the basis of a program directed against the imperialist ruling class. A minimum program, short of the dictatorship of the proletariat, provides the basis at this time for struggle against imperialism. Communists, of course, also have a maximum program – socialism and communism – which we always advocate and propagate, but our basis for uniting in this period is the minimum anti-imperialist program. Communists must take the lead in putting the program forward and in uniting all who can be united around it.
In order to carry the struggle through to the destruction of imperialism, the leading force in the united front must be the proletariat. By proletariat, we mean the workers directly involved in the creation of surplus value – workers in agriculture, mining, transportation, construction, utilities and manufacturing. Without this broad grouping – making up over 30 million workers – there are several strata and, of course, contradictions between them, especially between the lowest paid unskilled workers and the much higher paid skilled tradesmen. And even among the former there are advanced, intermediate, and backward workers. The Communist Party must be based on the most oppressed sectors of the working class, built among the most advanced, representing the advanced interests of the proletariat as a whole. In this way the minority of labor aristocrats, who do actually benefit from imperialism by acquiring enough to own stock or a little real estate, can be neutralized and, parts of it, won over. Even for these highly skilled workers, so long as they cannot live without creating surplus value for someone else, there is no real security under the capitalist system – as is shown by the shutdown of many large plants and the loss of employment and livelihood for even the skilled workers.
We include in the basic proletariat the “reserve army of labor,” the millions of unemployed, who work irregularly, but work nevertheless, and, when they are out of work, seek employment. This group remains a part of the overall class whose collective relation to the means of production mark it as the potentially most powerful class in modern society. It is differentiated from the true lumpenproletariat, which lives parasitically from the labor of the proletariat. We don’t mean to deny altogether the revolutionary potential of parts of the lumpenproletariat, but the tendency to confuse this declassed mass with the proletarian army of the unemployed and then to declare the “lumpenproletariat” the “vanguard” is a serious error. It is more understandable within the Black and other “third world” movements, where the number of unemployed is far greater, including a large number of permanently unemployed, and the distinction between the “reserve army of labor” and the lumpenproletariat not as clear cut. Still to lump the unemployed with the lumpen and on this basis to make the lumpen the vanguard, is to fail to grasp fully the true vanguard role of the Black proletariat, especially its most oppressed sectors who are hardest hit by unemployment. This Black leadership within the proletariat as a whole is being established through the increasing concentration of Black and brown workers in basic industry – where they often make up 50 % of the work force – and by the militant struggles of Black and brown workers, who are progressively developing a more advanced political line and beginning to unite around them larger numbers of white workers. (We touch briefly on the lumpenproletariat in this paper, but we recommend Comrade Franklin’s article on the lumpenproletariat, elsewhere in this issue, for a more thorough, if still beginning, analysis of this important group).
The basic allies of the U.S. proletariat are: workers whose function is to enable the capitalist class to realize the profit from the surplus value created by the labor of the proletariat, whose wages are derived from the labor of the proletariat – waitresses, sales personnel, other employees in trade; other working people whose livelihood depends primarily on their own labor – such as small dirt farmers, small shopkeepers, many social workers, teachers, and lower level civil service and government employees; the remaining proletariat can be won over as allies, as can a number of artists and intellectuals. Petty bourgeois housewives who through their struggle for women’s liberation realize their interests lie on the side of the proletariat, can be won over as allies, often more easily than their husbands. All these allies can be won today, not only to the united front but to the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party and its maximum program: socialism and communism. The stronger the proletarian movement, the broader the section of people who can be won over as basic allies. The decay of imperialism continually pushes these strata down and in time of acute crisis throws them into ruin. While they may occasionally day-dream about getting rich, theirs is a daily struggle for survival, close to and in some cases below that of the oppressed sections of the proletariat.
Secondary anti-imperialist allies will be won from among the petty bourgeoisie – including ”independent professionals,” like doctors in hospital corporations and lawyers in large firms, whose positions are being increasingly socialized; small-scale capitalists, who are continually being pushed out of business by the monopolies and forced to bear a heavy burden of the costs of imperialism; small contractors, etc. Their unity with the proletariat will tend to be very shaky and have an “off and on” character.
The enemies of the proletariat are the monopoly capitalists, those sections of capital close to monopoly and subservient to it, upper level managers, and, of course, all the bureaucrats, functionaries, pigs and other parasites who owe their positions to the imperialists.
The task of the proletariat is to consolidate around its leadership the first group of allies, basic allies, and to win over the second group in the course of the struggle.
The strategy of the united front provides the concrete basis for determining friends from enemies. Presently, all those who unite on the basis of a minimum program – short of the overthrow of the imperialist ruling class – in opposition to monopoly imperialism – are friends of the proletariat. All those who oppose the program, side with the imperialists, are enemies of the proletariat. As the ruling class is weakened and the proletariat and its basic allies gather strength and momentum, the fundamental contradiction between the proletariat and its basic allies and the monopoly capitalists and their basic allies will come to the fore. This will happen in revolutionary crisis, when the proletariat and its allies must fight for power in order to meet the immediate urgent needs of the people. Then the basis for determining friends from enemies – the program of the united front – will be the question of socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat. At that point many middle forces will split, although most will continue to vacillate up to and even beyond the seizure of power by the proletariat and its allies. But, at the present time, to make the basis for determining friends from enemies the dictatorship of the proletariat, or Marxism-Leninism, is to push potential friends into the camp of the enemy, to rob the proletariat of allies, to set back the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. No one can predict exactly when or how the dictatorship of the proletariat will come to the fore in the mass movement, but we can say that it will develop dialectically through the struggles led by the proletariat around the united front line and program. We begin to formulate this program under five main divisions.
The role of the oppressed peoples’ movements in this country, led by the Black liberation movement, will play a special and leading role in both the overall struggle of the proletariat and in the united front. Many theories are being brought forward on the exact position of Black people in the United States. In general, they fall into two camps: those that deny the national oppression of Black people and reduce the Black peoples’ movement to a subordinate position in the class struggle; and those that recognize that the Black liberation struggle is both a national and a class question. We hold the second view. We recognize it as the key to understanding the dynamics of proletarian revolution in the U.S. But among those who share this position, there are sharp differences. Some argue that the highest form of the Black national struggle will be a people’s war to liberate the “Black Belt” of the south, the historic homeland of the Black people in the U.S. A few even go so far as to insist that the liberation of the “Black Belt colony” is the prerequisite to proletarian revolution in the U.S.
We see real dangers in this position, especially when it is put forward by whites, standing outside the struggle of Black people. We uphold the right of Black people to form a separate state in the “Black Belt” area. We also recognize that their claim to a separate state in another part of the country – for example, the area including New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Baltimore – would be equally legitimate, since Black people have been concentrated there for several generations and it is in large part the back-breaking labor of Black people that has built up the powerful industrial centers of the north.
The Black nation is not the only oppressed nation within the borders of the U.S. The Mexican-American people of the Southwest are also a nation oppressed by U.S. imperialism. The Southwest is territory conquered from Mexico, and the land subsequently stolen from its inhabitants. The language in the countryside is Spanish. The culture and history are closely tied to Mexico. Mexican Americans, even in the northern cities, know the history of the Southwest, its heroes and battles. Today there are masses of people living in poverty in the countryside organizing to take back the land stolen from them by the white landlords and capitalists. As communists, it is our duty to support the right of self-determination for the Mexican-American people and for full democratic rights for all brown people.
Puerto Rican people are demanding an end to the colonial rule of Puerto Rico by U.S. imperialism. White workers must also fight for the demand, “Free Puerto Rico!”
The right of an oppressed nation to form an independent state is a democratic demand. While we uphold the right of self-determination, and recognize our responsibility to win support among the white workers for this right, we do not believe that the question of secession – in the ”Black Belt” or in other parts of the country – is at the heart of the Black liberation struggle today.
Those who say that it is, base themselves on a mechanical attempt to apply to Black people, Stalin’s criteria for what does and what does not constitute a nation. In so doing, they actually play down the potential power of the Black people’s movement. They reduce the question of the Black nation to mere geography. Blacks outside the “Black Belt”, the majority of Black people within U.S. borders, become merely a “national minority” within the “white oppressor nation.” Whites in the “Black Belt”, who actually outnumber the Blacks there, become a “national minority” within the “Black Belt” nation. This makes a mockery of Marxism-Leninism. The essence of Stalin’s definition of a nation is the common historical evolution of a people. It is the common oppression of the Black people, and their common resistance, throughout their history in this country and down to today, north as well as south, that established them as a nation. Theirs is obviously distinct from the historical evolution of a southern white, or a northern white.
At the same time he laid out criteria for a nation, Stalin also pointed out that the “national question is in essence a peasant question.” Why? Because in the oppressed nations, the peasantry constituted the overwhelming majority of the country. The “land question” was crucial. The breaking of the feudal fetters, the division of the feudal estates among the peasants, was the key to rallying the peasantry around the leadership of the proletariat in the anti-imperialist struggle. This is the strategic road, first to an independent New Democratic State, led by the party of the proletariat, which can then direct the development of the economy along centralized, collectivized lines, consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat and carry forward socialist construction.
In the “Black Belt” region today, the majority of Blacks live in the urban centers – Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, etc. Even in the rural areas, the rapidly increasing mechanization of agriculture, along with driving most sharecroppers (peasants) off the land, has converted many of those who remain into agricultural workers. This is why black insurrections today, south as well as north, are not peasant uprisings, but urban rebellions. This is why the Black and brown peoples’ movements are centered in the urban areas and focus, not around the right to land and a separate state, but around other democratic demands: an end to police occupation terror of their communities; open admissions to colleges and universities, Black and third world study programs; community control of schools, an end to white supremacy on the job (particularly the white monopoly of skilled trades); the opening of the professions and professional training to Black and brown people; and the right to register, vote and elect public officials.
The Black national question today, in the south as well as the north, is in essence a proletarian question. Exactly because the Black national question is in essence a proletarian question, Marxist-Leninist organizations among the Black people are increasingly playing a leading role in these struggles, directing the main blow clearly against the imperialist enemy and pointing the way to the unity of the entire proletariat. This new fact of Black and brown leadership of the proletarian struggle as a whole is shaking the entire structure of white supremacy which has been a strong prop of the U.S. ruling class in preventing the revolutionary unity of its victims. The success of the ruling class, even during periods of extreme crisis, in getting sections of white workers to support or tolerate the oppression of Black people, beginning with slavery and continuing down to today in the denial of economic equality and democratic rights is a major reason why the monster of U.S. imperialism has been able to prolong its parasitic life and the suffering of the peoples of the world.
But the so-called “privilege” of white workers – the fact that they are less oppressed and exploited than non-white working people – has always been secondary to their own exploitation and oppression. Today, the division and oppression of the working class, based on white supremacy, is being turned into its opposite as the growing strength of the Black liberation movement, linking up with the brown people of the U.S. and the peoples of the world against the same enemy, is winning allies from among the mother country – first among students and increasingly among white workers, especially through the youth. That is why the dual nature of the struggle of Black and Mexican-American workers throughout the U.S. – against oppression as members of subjugated nations and against superexploitation as members of the proletariat as a whole – is key in building the united front and the leadership of the proletariat in the anti-imperialist movement.
It is the special duty of white communists and revolutionaries to arouse white working people to their true class interests, to an understanding of the vanguard role of Black and brown people in the class struggle, to active struggle in unity with the Black and brown people, and to the fulfillment of the historic role of the proletariat as a unified class in smashing imperialism and remaking the world.
Concrete support for the struggles of the semi-colonial and colonial peoples outside this country against our imperialist rulers is an imperative proletarian duty and must be built among the proletariat and among the people generally. In RED PAPERS 1 we say: “As the peoples of the world increasingly seize the initiative in their global confrontation with U.S. imperialism, the ability of monopoly capitalism to resolve its contradictions with the U.S. working class becomes progressively limited, setting the stage for the seizure of state power by the working class.” In this final decline of imperialism, as the U.S. imperialists are pushed closer to the wall and try more to force the U.S. people to support their fascist wars with blood and money, the proletariat will be able to draw around it broader sections of the American people in opposition to U.S. imperialism.
Of course, the immediate central task is to force our imperialists out of Vietnam, to support the National Liberation Front, the Provisional Revolutionary Government, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, but we have many more. Every corner of the world has become subject to imperialist aggression by the United States and the problems of our imperialists multiply with the increasing resistance. And the resistance to this aggression in this country increases sharply in militance as opposition to Vietnam aggression becomes a majority phenomenon, and expresses itself in growing opposition to permanent militarization of our economy, to war spending, and the growing awareness that Vietnam is a repeating phenomenon with Thailand and Laos already hot spots, with aggression against China on the horizon. Still, the awareness of U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the recognition of the very real likelihood of involvement in major aggressive war in this area is little understood. The face of the imperialist enemy has become evident to many, and we must persevere in exposing every one of its hideous features.
As the crisis in U.S. imperialism intensifies with the mounting victories of national liberation movements throughout the world, the monopoly beast turns inward with fascist convulsion, “to place the whole burden of the crisis on the backs of the toilers.” Central to the united front against imperialism is the struggle against fascist terror, in defense of all organized forces of the oppressed and exploited people. Today, fascist attacks on the Black Panther Party – police terror and harassment, legalized murder, the trumped-up charges against scores of political prisoners, witchhunting – are designed to remove the only defense Black people have against increased subjugation and misery. The defense of the Panthers, the fight against union-busting, the struggle to maintain and increase bourgeois-democratic liberties, the struggle for control of the police BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY, are essential to the fight against fascism. “Whoever does not fight the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory.” (Dimitroff, United Front Against Fascism).
The fight against fascism, as Dimitroff points out, must be developed into a united front against the imperialist monopolies. Fascism is not a basic realignment of class forces; in the U.S., the ”most reactionary, most chauvinistic, most imperialist elements of finance capital” are already in power. The dominant form of class rule, the bourgeois “democratic” dictatorship, is rapidly turning more and more into “open terroristic dictatorship.” This is fascism.
The crisis in US imperialism is now so severe that it directly affects the profits of the biggest corporate powers in the world. The imperialist bourgeoisie, a tiny section of the American population, is in conflict within itself over control of the increasingly limited spoils they reap from their system of exploitation and oppression. Different, conflicting imperialist strategies emerge: to continue the concentration in the imperialism of extraction of raw materials, or to base imperialist expansion on the “multi-national” (cut out a chunk, a little chunk, for the comprador bourgeoisie) corporations, based on the development of subsidiary production plants for the new consumer markets in oppressed nations, and based on the friendly rivalry and economic inter-penetration with the social-imperialist oppressors. This conflict has taken shape over Vietnam, and Peru and Bolivia, where reactionary governments expropriated American extractive companies. The profit grab has sharpened conflict among the profiteers, and it cannot be resolved strictly within the ruling class and the “elective” method of the bourgeois “democratic” dictatorship. The conflict within the class sharpens, and surfaces: Nixon, in his speech November 3 begins the appeal, from the highest ranks of government on down, for the “silent majority” to take to the streets and make its voice heard, i.e., to close ranks behind Dick and Spiro. Spiro follows a few days later by focusing the attention of Brownshirts, Inc., on the “liberal” media (CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, etc., all representatives of the so-called “multi-national” corporations). Why? For “unfairness to the President” and “dishonesty to the public”, (meaning, for lack of ruling class solidarity behind the Administration’s line). The media responds by describing this as totalitarianism, something close to fascism. And they thumb their noses at the censorship they’ve willingly accepted since 1966, lifting the wraps off a story in their files for well over a year – Song My Massacre, a story extremely damaging to the Administration line. In doing so they promote bourgeois pacifism, developing the “liberal” bourgeoisie’s ideology for the anti-war movement – a line vigorously promoted by many of the same forces since Vietnam Summer, through the McCarthy campaign, on into the Moratorium. The American Legion, taking up Nixon’s “silent majority” banner, began waving it in support of the massacre. And so on, dialectically, the meaning of events turn into their opposite.
What does this mean? Every period of severe crisis triggers the intensification of contradictions on many levels – between classes, within classes. In the current crisis, the most dramatic push toward fascization of the state apparatus is coming from the most reactionary, most chauvinistic of the imperialistic giants. ”In its agitation, fascism, desirous of winning these masses (middle strata) to its own side, tries to set the toiling masses of the cities and the countryside against the revolutionary proletariat, intimidating the petty-bourgeoisie with the bugaboo of the ’Red danger.’ We must turn the spearpoint in the opposite direction...” (Dimitroff, UFAF). The base of fascism are those strata of the people which comprise the potential allies of the proletariat, the forces which must be won over to the anti-fascist united front under leadership of the proletariat if fascism is to be averted and crushed.
Does this mean that we must also ally with the most “liberal” of the monopoly imperialists, or depend upon them in any way? Much of the “peaceful transition” literature and one-sided legalistic orientation of the modern-day revisionist CPUSA tries to convince us of this. Why is it important to understand this contradiction among the imperialists, if we are not promoting alliance with the “better” part of the bourgeoisie? Because without understanding the relationship of the imperialists’ crisis to the growth of fascism, it is impossible for proletarian revolutionaries to develop the strategy to exploit this inner-bourgeois contradiction, build a united front to destroy fascism and imperialism, and lay the groundwork for proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. “The Communist International attaches no conditions to unity of action except one, and that an elementary condition acceptable for all workers, viz., that the unity of action be directed against fascism, against the offensive of capital, against the threat of war, against the class enemy. This is our condition.” (Dimitroff).
One final thing: To concentrate on legal work among the masses to the exclusion of illegal work, is to transform our strategically defensive position into a matter of principle. Social-pacifism clothed “in the most revolutionary rhetoric remains exactly that – socialist in name but pacifist in reality, an objective betrayal of the revolutionary interests of the proletariat. To build the mass movement against fascism without preparing for offensive, illegal action, is to lead the masses into an ambush.
The oppression and exploitation of women arose with the introduction of private property and the division of society into classes. As such, the fight for women’s liberation is an integral part of the fight for proletarian revolution and the abolition of private ownership of the means of production. Until the material basis for male supremacy and male chauvinism is destroyed, and “liberation” attained will be illusory. But the fight against women’s oppression can neither be put off until the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship nor waged within the working class and its organizations alone. Lenin wrote: “...we are conscious of the privileged position of the man and ... we hate – yes, hate – and want to remove whatever oppresses and harasses the working woman, the wife of the worker, the peasant woman, the wife of the little man, and even in many respects the woman of the propertied classes.” If today’s communists fail to actively support the struggles of women against their oppressors, we will fail in our duty to unite all those who can be united and deprive the united front of one of its basic forces.
Male supremacy is an integral part of U.S. imperialism. The stagnant economy of monopoly capitalism cannot provide full employment. The chauvinist idea that “a woman’s place is in the home” helps keep the majority of women out of the labor market, and enables capitalists to superexploit working women and to channel them into menial jobs which parallel their subservient role in the home. During total mobilization for the wars which are an inevitable feature of imperialism, the reserve army of women plays an essential part in maintaining production, stepping into roles normally barred to them. But once the wars are over, propaganda glorifying the domestic and sexual role of women is turned up full blast to drown out their demands for equality.
Black and brown women in the United States are especially oppressed. They are the objects of vicious propaganda and genocidal population control programs including forced sterilization. Their families are systematically destroyed through welfare, which places them and their children under the direct control of the state, in the hopes of suppressing revolutionary consciousness and activity. In addition, non-white women workers are triply oppressed – as members of an oppressed nation or national minority, as workers, and as women. They have the lowest median income in the country and the highest unemployment rate.
On the other hand, as members of oppressed nations or national minorities these Black and brown women provide a key link in joining the struggle for women’s liberation with the anti-imperialist national liberation struggles. These women will certainly play a leading role in the struggle against the oppression and exploitation of women as well as in the overall United Front against Imperialism.
The women’s liberation movement of today arose in the midst of the intensification of the contradictions of imperialism and the growing struggle of oppressed nations and people against it at home and abroad, much as the original movement for women’s rights in the U.S. was a product of the struggle against slavery. Masses of women – most of them white, the wives of non-proletarian working men and petty-bourgeois students – are rising up against their degradation and subordinate position, demanding relief from the burdens of housework and child care, equality on the job, a meaningful education and control over their own bodies and personal relationships. At this point in the struggle against women’s oppression we must be uncompromising in our insistence that the woman’s liberation movement be guided by proletarian ideology, directed to meet the needs of the most oppressed and exploited women, and be led by those women. This is particularly important now that the bourgeoisie is moving to co-opt the women’s liberation movement.
Lenin calls on communists to put forward and fight for demands for the benefit of women, “depending on the existing conditions, and naturally always in association with the general interests of the proletariat.” We must not stop at a demand for free, legal abortions but must insist that forced sterilization of poor women be stopped; we must demand that protective labor legislation be extended and applied to all male and female workers, not abolished as some “women’s rights” groups have advocated; that with any demand for free access to birth control methods we must demand that medical and hospital care be free and available to all poor and working people so that women can be assured of their own and their children’s safety. We must make clear that the interests of the vast majority of women are inseparably bound up with the interests of the proletariat, and that it is necessary to join the struggles of the most oppressed and exploited people. Communists must actively support the struggle for women’s liberation, link it with the struggles of the peoples of the world against the imperialist aggressors, and unite the millions of oppressed and exploited women in the U.S. in the United Front.
We discuss this last, not because we think it least important. Rather, we regard it as the fulcrum for communists and the proletariat as a whole. At present, despite the vanguard role of Black and brown revolutionaries, it is obvious that the proletariat is not now the leading force in the people’s movement. By joining with the working class and fighting in its ranks against the moves by monopoly to crush the proletariat into the dirt, communists will be able to build working class organization under revolutionary leadership, will be able to demonstrate that only through unity with the peoples of the world and Black and brown peoples at home, only through fighting against the oppression of women, only through determined and militant struggle to turn back fascist repression can the proletariat and its allies survive today and gain strength for tomorrow’s struggle to strip the power from the imperialist enemy in order to fully safeguard the living standards of the proletariat and the future security of the proletariat and the people.
As the crisis of imperialism deepens it tries to save its skin by putting the burden of their defeats on the backs of working people. To throw this burden off, to make the imperialists disgorge, a determined struggle against monopoly profits is required. This struggle comprises many struggles – against speed-ups, lay-offs, and plant shut-downs and runaways; welfare cuts, rotten hospitals and cuts in health care; “defense” and space budgets; tax robbery, wage freezes, price increases and the pollution of the air, the earth, the water, and the educational system by corporate monopoly. By attacking the state apparatus at every turn, we can help to revolutionize the proletariat and help build and consolidate a vanguard party. Militant economic struggles alone will not build a revolutionary proletariat. Neither will propaganda and agitation isolated from the day-to-day class struggle. We must not wait for the ruling class to depress our living standards even more before we react. We must help launch an offensive at every opportunity and build a class conscious and united proletariat, Black, white, and brown, male and female.
A major roadblock to the achievement of this unity is the ideology of white chauvinism and the structure of white national supremacy, both in the ranks of communist organizations and in the white working class as a whole.
A primary manifestation of white chauvinism among revolutionaries is the marked tendency to consider armed struggle the domain of Blacks and ideological struggle the domain of whites. Somehow, white skins are assumed to be too valuable to sacrifice to a pig’s bullet, while Black and brown minds are seen as unable to cope with the theory of Marxism-Leninism. In building the United Front Against Imperialism, white communists must listen to, learn from and engage in struggle with the theoretical contributions of Black and brown communists in order that unity will be achieved and leadership of the United Front be consolidated. Further, white revolutionaries must join now with Black and brown revolutionaries in armed self-defense and other forms of armed struggle, and to help prepare the masses of people for the eventual culmination of the United Front: armed struggle that will topple once and for all the monopoly capitalists and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Just as crucial to the achievement of unity of Black, brown, and white proletariat is the struggle to end white national supremacy and chauvinism among the working class as a whole. Such white privilege and chauvinism is largely exploited by the ruling class to further divide the proletariat. White workers are made to see Blacks as dangerous challengers to their relatively privileged positions in factories and in their communities, while Black and brown people’s rage is diverted from the real enemy: the imperialist ruling class. In order to fight white supremacy and chauvinism in the working class and therefore to pave the way for Black, brown and white unity among the proletariat, communists must ceaselessly raise among the white workers the right of Black and Mexican-American people to self-determination and for full democratic rights for oppressed minorities. White workers must come to understand that their white privileges are ruinous privileges, for they prevent the unity of the proletariat necessary for its final victory over the imperialists and for the consolidation of its own dictatorship.
But Black, brown and white proletarian unity cannot be achieved with the proletariat shot full of male supremacy and chauvinism, split down the middle, deprived of valiant fighters and many potential leaders. The oppression of women is essentially a working class question, and the liberation of women is part and parcel of proletarian devolution. It is of utmost importance that a struggle against the oppression of women be mounted by proletarian organizations, a struggle that includes: equal work for equal pay, company-financed child care centers to free women for work, free laundries, full employment for women, increases rather than cuts in welfare and medical benefits, and other questions of great importance to working women. This is certainly very important, and resources and cadre to fight for these demands must be developed. But the much more difficult problem, but very crucial task, is to struggle against the oppression of working class women by working class men, to develop ideological struggle in the working class so that the drudgery that now falls on women alone can be shared and lightened, and women, freed of male domination, can develop into proletarian fighters and proletarian leaders, independent in thought and action.
To this end, communist organizations must become models for the working class. We must eradicate the male supremacy and male chauvinism which still exist within our own ranks, relying on the weapons of criticism and self-criticism, and the comradely concern of the collective that cures the disease to save the patient. Every effort must be made to develop the leadership of women to the highest degree, and, liberated by revolutionary ideology and practice, communist men and women will inspire working class men and women to equality in the revolution.
In is much easier, of course, to write this down than to live it. Conscientious application to the task and summing up experience in achievement will certainly improve the work of any communist collective.
Communists must pursue the policy of isolating labor bureaucrats in unions and the flunkies of Capital within the working class generally by fighting for a program that meets the immediate needs of the working class, on the job and in the community, and develops these struggles into all-ground political struggle against the imperialist state. But that is not enough: Communists must also consistently carry on around our full political program – socialism and communism – and in this way raise the general level of consciousness in the working class and find the most advanced workers who can form the basis of a workers movement intermediate between the trade unions and the communist collectives, and who can be developed through these intermediate organizations into communist cadre.
The program of these intermediate organizations must be the program of the United Front against Imperialism; their leaders must be communists and militant activists who oppose anti-communism.
These anti-imperialist organizations of the working class, leading the fight of working people around day-to-day issues on the job and in the community, and linking these up with other struggles against the imperialist bosses, are the key to building both the united front and the communist party as the leading force. In the process of the battles waged by these organizations, involving large numbers of working people, the already advanced workers will come to grasp more fully the importance of Marxism-Leninism and new leaders of the working class, potential communist cadre will rise from the ranks of the proletariat. This will happen, of course, only as communists carry on patient political work, pay attention especially to developing the most advanced, while, at the same time, practicing the mass line and helping to lead the struggles so that the broadest numbers of people are actively involved and learn from their own experience.
This is the way to convert our present organization in the working class – skeleton anti-imperialist organizations, made up of a handful of advanced workers and communists – into mass organizations, based on the united front program and led by communists and other revolutionary workers. This is also the way our present collectives, made up largely of students and ex-students, can be transformed into true communist organizations of the working class, capable of uniting together to form a single vanguard party of the proletariat.
In the past few months, the Black Panther Party has called for a united front against fascism. Although the program of this united front is very limited it nevertheless represents the first conscious attempt by proletarian revolutionaries in the recent history of the U.S. movement, to develop a united front against the ruling class on more than an ad hoc basis. In the past, and even today, temporary, tactical united fronts are created, often unconsciously, in the course of immediate struggles. San Francisco State is one example, as are most of the demonstrations in recent years against the Vietnam war. But as the present “Moratorium on Vietnam” points out, organized essentially under the leadership of the so-called “liberal bourgeoisie,” unless Marxist-Leninists and proletarian organizations take the lead in organizing a united front against monopoly imperialism it will be impossible to prevent such a united front from being co-opted by the ruling class. The work of revolutionaries is to build the united front around a program which will isolate the imperialist enemy and its agents, by continually directing our fire against the source of all the sufferings of the people: the U.S. imperialist ruling class. We believe that proletarian organizations should join with the Panthers in building a united front against fascism and, in the course of building it, to broaden it into an all-around United Front Against Imperialism around the five-point program we have outlined. To do this, and to build the United Front against Imperialism through all the movements and struggles of the people will, however, require a real determination on the part of communists to serve the people, to avoid subjectivity and to practice the mass line.
The main weakness of proletarian revolutionaries and revolutionary organizations, especially in the mother country, is our infantilism, our newness to the communist movement and the class struggle. This tends to produce two related errors: dogmatism and sectarianism. The first is seen in our tendency to conduct the class struggle largely on paper, to phrasemonger about the working class, even to use the working class and proletarian line as a club to beat down struggles led by other forces, to try to force “anti-working class” forces in the movement to shape up by preaching the correct line to them rather than putting it into practice ourselves.
The second related error is the refusal to unite with all who can be united, to treat as enemies forces whose class stand is not thoroughly proletarian, is in fact in some ways anti-proletarian, but who can still play a very important role in the anti-imperialist movement. So long as much of the anti-imperialist movement and nearly all of it in the mother country is petty bourgeois it is silly to think that it will not contain anti-proletarian forces and ideas. These forces and their petty bourgeois ideology should not be allowed to lead the anti-imperialist movement nothing we have said here should suggest that we are against sharp ideological struggle. But at least as long as the principal contradiction in the world is between the oppressed peoples and U.S. imperialism and Soviet social imperialism, the proletariat, and all those who would speak in its name, must unite all anti-imperialist forces and carry on ideological struggle within the context of this, unity. We don’t say that this is an easy task. In fact it is a very difficult task. But to fail to do it is a real betrayal of the proletariat and the peoples of the world.
To be specific: within SDS for some time now the largest, most important anti-imperialist organization in the mother country “Weatherman” is in control of the national office, the newspaper and, in general, the formal apparatus of the organization. In another part of the RED PAPERS we go into our basic differences with at least part of the “Weatherman” line of the proletariat, imperialism and the revolutionary movement in the U.S. (See “Revolutionary Youth and the Road to the Proletariat.”) At the same time that we are sharply critical of major parts of their line and their practice we recognize that there is much to admire and even emulate in “Weatherman”: their militant spirit of internationalism, their willingness to stand up to the pigs and the system, and their determination to bring down the beast. The job of true Marxist-Leninists is to unite with these good aspects of “Weatherman” while carrying out sharp struggle, in both the ideological and practical spheres, against the anti-working class aspects of their line and practice, without allowing the contradiction to become antagonistic.
To fail to do this is to abandon SDS, which over the past year – before sectarianism became primary within the organization had been playing a very important role in laying the foundation for a united front led by the proletariat. In this period it firmly established itself as an anti-imperialist force, gave great material support to Black and “third world” struggles in this country, made contact with workers and developed a significant number of people striving to learn and apply Marxism Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought. Now SDS is in danger of being destroyed and a real setback suffered by the whole movement. It is the duty of Marxist-Leninists to do their utmost to prevent this by sticking firmly to the attack against U.S. imperialism and its real agents the main enemy instead of elevating the contradiction between RYM II and “Weatherman” not only to the level of antagonism, but to the level of principal contradiction in the U.S. struggle today.
Our stand is as follows: We neither agree with the tendency toward social pacificism coming to the fore in RYM II nor with the one-sided approach to revolution and revolutionary forces as exemplified by “Weatherman”. We can admire the willingness to sacrifice life and limb – certainly one of the attributes of true revolutionaries – but we just can’t buy the line that one form of struggle can build a Red Army or overthrow the beast.
We would like to cooperate in rebuilding SDS to contain all those who genuinely oppose imperialism. The mark of genuineness in this period is the willingness to support in deeds the National Liberation Front and liberation of Black and brown peoples, by any means necessary. It would base itself on all forms of struggle and attempt to unite youth and students in direct support of all resistance to imperialism within the borders and over the world. One reason we would like to maintain and strengthen SDS is because, in the working class, it has come to be synonymous with communism, much more than the revisionist and trotzkyist parties.
We’d like to cooperate with all forces in such a rebuilding. There are certainly many contributions that youth and students will make in the continuing battles, not the least of which will be helping to develop a truly revolutionary communist party.
While we reject the idea that “Weatherman” is an agent of the enemy within the ranks of the people there are such forces, and they must be mercilessly struggled against and defeated. Mao says: expand the united front and isolate all enemy agents. Who are these enemy agents posing as part of the people movement? They are those people and organizations who refuse to concretely oppose the imperialist enemy, covering over their objective unity with the imperialist by left phrasemongering; and those who always push the line of “unity” but unite only to sabotage the united front and serve the ruling class.
In RED PAPERS 1 we rundown the role of Progressive Labor Party, both ideologically and practically, in wrecking, or trying to wreck, the anti-imperialist struggles of the people. Their role today is essentially the same as the “metaphysicsmongerers” and Trotskyites that Mao attacked for doing the dirty work of the reactionaries in disrupting the united front.
To the extent that PL has already been isolated within the movement and among the people, it is because their role as left opportunist wreckers has been only to obvious in struggle after struggle. But the right opportunists, led by the so-called Communist Party, USA (Revisionist), are more difficult to isolate because they continually call for “unity” and “united front.” What they mean is ̴unity” with the imperialists and “united front” behind the so-called “liberals” in the ruling class like Kennedy, McCarthy, Fulbright. They join with the people’s forces only to lead them from the path of anti-imperialist struggle and proletarian revolution to the swamp of class collaboration and social imperialism. In their “New Program of the Communist Party, U.S.A., second draft,” (published in 1968), they call for an anti-monopoly alliance which sounds like a united front against imperialism. But they never once mention the need for proletarian leadership and the vanguard role of a Marxist-Leninist party in the united front they blur over contradictions between the potential forces in the united front – particularly between the proletariat on the one hand and the petty bourgeoisie, including middle-sized capitalists and farmers, on the other; and they never once discuss the dictatorship of the proletariat as the revolutionary goal of the proletariat. In fact, they even go so far in the opposite direction as stating that “We believe and advocate that American socialism will guarantee all the liberties contained in the Bill of Rights, including the right of the people to express themselves freely through organizations of their choice, through different parties and competing candidates.” Rockefeller, Ford, and the rest of their criminal gang will indeed be comforted to know that under this brand of “socialism” they will be allowed all their “liberties”, including no doubt the “liberty” to mercilessly exploit the people of the U.S. and the world. Nowhere in the CP draft Program can you find a statement about the need for armed struggle to overthrow the imperialist ruling class – in fact nowhere is the point even made that “monopoly” means the highest, imperialist stage of capitalism and inevitably produces wars and violence. Instead the CP wails on and on about the dangers of nuclear war and the absolute importance of “peace” in the abstract – abstracted from class struggle – which is nothing if it is not a betrayal of the liberation struggles of the peoples of the world and the struggle of the proletariat for its dictatorship.
In calling for an anti-monopoly alliance, the CP mutters something about the leadership of “labor and the Negro people.” But it is clear from the practice of these traitors that what they mean is an alliance behind the “liberal” imperialists, with labor fat cats and black bootlickers as the front men. For years in the anti-war movement, the CP,USA (R) pushed the line of negotiations in opposition to the growing support for immediate withdrawal. Now, when millions of people have been won to the demand for immediate withdrawal, they are working hand in hand with the Fulbrights and the rest of the section of the ruling class that has decided that the present imperialist aggression in Vietnam is too costly, to co-opt the demand for immediate withdrawal and divert the anti-war movement back into the camp of “loyal opposition” to imperialism. This is exactly the purpose of the CP’s work on the “Vietnam Moratorium,” where imperialist “doves” – many of them “hawks” until recently – are put forward as the leaders of the anti-war movement. This points up the need for genuine Marxist-Leninists to get into the ”Moratorium” and fight for a line and program of action that will establish proletarian leadership by isolating the real enemy of the Vietnamese and U.S. people, that unites real friends against real enemies.
In the labor movement, the CP continues to build support for “progressives” like Walter Reuther. In fact their entire draft program, while piling a deserved stream of abuse on George Meany (and even this is far too mild!), does not contain one word of even mild criticism of Reuther or any of the other “liberal” hatchetmen in the labor bureaucracy.
In the Black people’s movement, the CP for years pushed the line of “integration” and backed outright lackeys of the ruling class as leaders of the Black people. Then they raised the chauvinist argument that Black people had already decided on self-determination, and they had gone for “integration” into the imperialist system! Now that the black people have repudiated this form of national genocide, the CP has begun to prattle about “Black liberation.” Although their tune has changed, the meaning is the same. Although they now support, in words and some concrete assistance, some of the vital revolutionary struggles of Black people, they use every attempt to confine the struggle to legal means, thus taking away with one hand what they give with the other.
The phony anti-monopoly alliance of the CP,USA (R), led by the nice guys among the monopoly imperialists bears nothing in common with a true united front against imperialism, led by a revolutionary internationalist proletariat and its Communist Party (M-L) against all sections of the ruling class. The CP’s so-called strategy of peaceful transition, full democratic rights for the bourgeoisie, their liquidation of the basic Marxist-Leninist concepts of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the vanguard role of the Communist Party, mark them as agents of the imperialist ruling class, pure and simple. Of course, the very nature of right opportunism – tailing after the people, desperately trying to pull them back, but changing tack when it cannot stop the surging movement of the masses – makes it more difficult to isolate and defeat than open left opportunist sabotage. But this only makes right opportunism all the more dangerous and the need to mercilessly struggle against it ail the more pressing.
As far as our policy towards the revisionist party in the U.S. and the question of its role in the United Front against Imperialism, we take the same stand as our Chinese comrades take toward the Soviet revisionist social imperialists:
Some people ask why is it that the Marxist-Leninists and the revolutionary people cannot take united action with the new leaders of the CPSU, yet can unite with personages from the upper strata in the nationalist countries, and strive for united action with them in the anti-imperialist struggle, and can even exploit contradictions among the imperialist countries in the struggle against the United States? The reason is that in the contemporary world opposition to or alliance with U.S. imperialism constitutes the hallmark for deciding whether or not a political force can be included in the united front against the United States. The crux of the matter is that, so far from opposing U.S. imperialism, the new leaders of the CPSU are allying themselves and collaborating with it to dominate the world. They have thus set themselves in opposition to the united front against U.S. imperialism. (“Refutation of the New Leaders of the CPSU on “United Action,” published by Peking Foreign Language Press, 1965).
While isolating the “left” and right opportunist agents of the enemy, communists must go all out to build the united front. Right now revolutionaries are carrying on political propaganda, agitation, and struggle among women, G.I.s, workers – both organized and unorganized, including the unemployed – students and youth, increasingly among the working class. Although this work has a common anti-imperialist perspective, it is not put forward as part of a united front against imperialism. Communists must intensify this work and, at the same time, through all these struggles, consistently put forward the line of united fcont around the program we have outlined. The tactics of carrying out this line and program will, of course, differ in each struggle, and we are by no means trying to lay down the line or provide a blueprint. But we are convinced that this general program is the correct basis for isolating the main enemy and its agents and moving the struggle forward.
Mao points out that the program of the united front in China represented the minimum program of tine Communist Party and was, in fact, the necessary bridge to the maximum program of socialism and communism. He goes on to say:
Beyond all doubt, now is the time to spread communist ideas more widely and put more energy into the study of Marxism-Leninism, or otherwise we shall not only be unable to lead the Chinese revolution forward to the future stage of socialism but shall be unable to guide the present democratic revolution to victory. (On New Democracy, section XIV, “Some Wrong Ideas About the Nature of Culture”).
In the U.S. today, although there can be no New Democratic State and our united front cannot include the so-called “liberal bourgeoisie,” Mao’s general guidelines are generally applicable for our present period of struggle, in order to reach the stage of proletarian dictatorship. The dialectics of the struggle dictate that only communists, grasping Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought and having clearly before them the maximum goal of socialism and communism will be able to maintain the strength and unity to lead the fight for the minimum anti-imperialist program and thereby pave the way for socialism.
This emphasizes the need to build a Communist Party, based on the most oppressed section of the proletariat, at the earliest possible time. A Marxist-Leninist party practices criticism and self-criticism in summing up its work and the work of the united front and the people’s movement, organizes its work through a rational division of labor, carries on communist propaganda and agitation among the masses and finds and trains revolutionaries in the course of the struggle. Without this Communist Party it will be impossible to consolidate our victories, minimize our losses and overcome setbacks, to sustain activity through all the periods of ebb in the struggle, to take full advantage of weaknesses and contradictions in the enemy camp and to wage a thorough fight for the united front and, through the united front, for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In RED PAPERS l we outline what we believe is the correct road to the building of a single, unified communist party in the U.S., based on Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought: the building of local communist collectives and the increasing exchange of experience between them, leading to closer cooperation and ideological struggle to achieve political and organizational unity. We emphasized that a major section of the communist party, including much of its leadership, will be drawn from the Black liberation movement where the Panthers and other Marxist-Leninists are making the greatest advances in integrating Marxism-Leninism with the mass movement. In summing up the recent developments in the movement, with the formation and growth of many new communist collectives, basing themselves on Mao’s Thought, and with the emergence of some political differences among them already, it is clear that we underestimated the importance of ideological struggle, even at the early stages of development. Still, we are very encouraged by the development of these communist collectives and we believe that the primary task now is to actually take Mao’s Thought to the working class, integrate it with their struggles, and raise the level of political consciousness and the strength of the workers movement while finding and training communist cadre. Central to this task is the fight against white supremacy, as well as the fight against male supremacy. This emphasizes again the need to work closely with and build support and defense for the Black and Latin proletarian organizations and to make an all-out effort to root out the oppression of women among the proletariat and even among its leading organizations, to take collective responsibility for finding and training women comrades and for sharing the burden of work that spontaneously, and by design, falls like an anchor on them.
While the building of a Communist Party at the earliest possible time is key to building the united front, work to begin building the united front should not wait for the formation of a Communist Party: in fact, building the united front is dialectically related to building a real vanguard party of the proletariat. At present the Black and brown proletarian organizations that do have real ties with the masses can take the lead in the united front, and to some extent they already are. But in order to forge the maximum unity of the proletariat, the organizations playing a vanguard role must draw around them the largest numbers of proletarian fighters as well as basic allies from other classes and strata and unite with as many middle forces as possible on the basis of united front program to isolate the monopoly capitalist ruling class. As the strength of the united front grows, so will the strength of the proletariat, as the more backward workers are drawn into motion by the gathering momentum of the movement. And, as the workers movement gains impetus and more and more workers are brought into active struggle, the building of a vanguard party of the proletariat as a whole will be the order of the day. This party, firmly rooted among the masses of working people, will be able to consolidate the united front among the proletariat and its allies, win over still broader sections of the middle forces, and establish its leading role. This is not a magic formula, or a straight-line process: it is a dialectical process, full of difficulties and pitfalls, ebbs and flows, but with all that it is the road to victory.
Communist organizations must actively and boldly call for the united front and begin to build it. But we must maintain our ideological and organizational independence within the united front, and strive to become the proletarian vanguard in developing the proletariat’s leading role. We must spread communist education among the proletariat and build its political class consciousness, educating the working class to its historic role, so that at one and the same time it can provide strong leadership to the united front and have a good grasp of the fact that the immediate needs of the people, expressed in the minimum program of the united front, can ultimately only be fully realized with the fight for the communists’ maximum program: dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.
The fact that we have outlined a strategy and program for the united front on paper does not mean that it will be easy to implement. But we hope we have provided at least some direction and we urge, comrades to join us in the work of building the united front, and through this struggle to develop our theoretical and strategic understanding. We have emphasized over and over the need for the proletariat to constantly focus the attack on the main enemy: U.S. imperialism and its agents, collaborators and partners in crime. The ability to unite all who can be united against this main enemy, through all the twists and turns of the struggle, while maintaining the independence and initiative of communists, this is the essence of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought. It is the key to moving the entire struggle forward, to establishing the leadership of the proletariat and its vanguard party and to carrying out the fight against the imperialist enemy through to the end of imperialism and the beginning of a new epoch in human history.