WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! SPECIAL ISSUE 50ยข
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
May 20, 1981
Volume 11, Number 6
IN THIS ISSUE
| Against Revisionist Liquidationism!................................ | 9 |
| 'CPML' Debates How to Liquidate.................................. | 18 |
| 'CPUSA/ML' Against the 'Left'...................................... | 23 |
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| Militant Unity of PCT and MLP....................................... | 29 |
| PCT: A New Society, A New Party................................... | 31 |
| Transition from MPD to PCT........................................... | 34 |
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| Albania on Soviet Revisionist Congress.......................... | 44 |
| PLA Stand on Events in Kosova...................................... | 50 |
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| Irish People's Struggle...................................................... | 57 |
On the 26th Congress of the CPSU:
The Soviet Revisionists Are Sworn Enemies of the Revolution
SOLIDARITY MESSAGE OF THE CARIBBEAN PROGRESSIVE STUDY GROUP TO THE NEW YORK CITY MAY DAY RALLY
THE COMITE BALDEMIRO CASTRO OF THE PCT IN THE USA GREETS THE MAY DAY RALLY IN NEW YORK
RESOLUTION OF THE UAIS ON THE MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS OF THE MLP,USA
New song sung at May Day celebrations:
U.S. Imperialism, Get Out of El Salvador
'CPML' Debates How to Liquidate
Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement -- Part 8
Why the 'CPUSA/ML' Liquidators Consider the 'Left' the Main Danger
Long live the militant unity between the PCT (Dominican Republic) and the MLP,USA!
For a New Society, a New Party
The transition from the MPD to the PCT
The Congress of the Soviet Revisionists - a Congress of Social and Pacifist Demagogy
WHY WERE POLICE VIOLENCE AND TANKS USED AGAINST THE ALBANIANS OF KOSOVA?
WHO INSTIGATES ENMITY AMONG THE PEOPLES OF YUGOSLAVIA?
Support the struggle of the Irish people against British imperialism!
From February 23 to March 3, the Soviet revisionists gathered together the 26th Congress of the CPSU in Moscow. This congress, like all those since the ultra-renegade Khrushchov's infamous 20th Congress 25 years ago, will go down in history as but another get-together of revisionist hucksters. In the finest traditions of the gatherings of all capitalist political parties, this was a Congress of lies and false promises. This was a Congress of cheap and hypocritical rhetoric to disguise the totally anti-socialist, counter-revolutionary and aggressive policy of the Soviet revisionist new tsars. Nevertheless, from beneath the piles of demagogy, the ugly features of Soviet revisionism, of the crisis-ridden Soviet capitalist society and of aggressive Soviet social-imperialism were unmistakable.
Specifically, the report to the Congress by the General Secretary of the Soviet revisionist party, Leonid Brezhnev, was most revealing. Upon reading this report one cannot but be struck at Brezhnev's skill at avoiding the difficult issues facing the Soviet revisionists by saying so little at such great length. Nonetheless, Brezhnev's report underscores a number of important features of present-day Soviet revisionism and social-imperialism:
It underscores the reality that the revisionist Soviet Union is in the grips of a great economic and social crisis, an all-sided crisis stemming from the fact that today Soviet society has become totally capitalistic and exploitative without a single shred of socialism left.
It underscores that beneath tons of pacifist phrases about "world peace'' and "disarmament," Soviet social-imperialism, like its U.S. imperialist counterpart, is pursuing a policy of feverish war preparations and savage aggression, a policy of brutal subjugation of its revisionist vassal states, a policy of dividing up spheres of influence with U.S. imperialism for the joint domination of the world between the two superpowers.
It underscores the fact that the CPSU is not a party of revolution but of counter-revolution, that the Soviet revisionists are nothing but saboteurs of the world revolutionary movements.
It underscores the fact that the Soviet revisionists are champions of bourgeois reformism and advocates of cooperation with social-democracy and other reformist forces in order to combat the genuine Marxist-Leninist communist parties and the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
It underscores that the Soviet rulers are sworn enemies of the national liberation struggles of the oppressed and are applying a typically neo-colonialist policy against the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
And finally, it underscores that as a result of abandoning Marxism-Leninism, the international current of Soviet revisionism is in sharp crisis, disunited and in disarray while remaining among the bitterest enemies of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement.
Brezhnev's "Developed Socialism'' Is in Fact Crisis-Ridden Capitalism
Brezhnev's report is sprinkled with bombastic claims about the "advances" of so-called "developed socialism" and "building communism" in the Soviet Union. But along with these fantastic claims of "victories," Brezhnev's report provides a glimpse of the severity of the all-sided crisis gripping the Soviet capitalist society.
Brezhnev could not avoid mentioning the major economic failures, the problem of unfulfilled plans and the "disproportions in the national economy." The economic stagnation is growing particularly acute in agriculture, which is in such terribly bad shape that according to Brezhnev "difficulties in supplying the population with food still exist." The acute housing shortage is also referred to as "not a simple problem." The report dwells at length on the problem of labor shortages, while at the same time indicating that in some regions there is "a surplus of manpower, particularly in the countryside" and a problem of unemployment among the rural youth.
The social decay of Soviet revisionist society is also strikingly reflected in Brezhnev's report. Among other things, he bemoans repeatedly such phenomena as the rise of "egoism," greed and "avarice" among the Soviet people. As well, widespread alcoholism Brezhnev confesses to be a "serious problem" which "inflicts considerable damage on society."
Of course, all of these phenomena are not the products of "developed socialism" as Brezhnev pretends.
Rather they are all a manifestation of the all-sided capitalist restoration which has taken place in the Soviet Union. They are a product of the revisionist counterrevolution which since the death of Stalin 28 years ago has completely overthrown the socialist relations of production, reintroducing typically capitalist relations down to every cell of Soviet society. Brezhnev tries to portray the all-sided crisis gripping the Soviet Union as natural problems arising from "objective factors, of circumstances beyond our control." But first and foremost this crisis stems from the objective fact that capitalism and all the terrible ills which accompany it have been restored where yesterday socialism was being successfully built by the Soviet workers and peasants under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin.
"Concrete concern for the individual person" according to Brezhnev, "is the alpha and omega" of the Soviet leaders' economic policy. And, of course, the individual he is most concerned about is himself and the rest of his class of bureaucratic-revisionist overlords. It is this new bourgeoisie which, mainly through the means of state monopoly capitalism, sits on the backs of the Russian working class and people, cruelly exploiting them to the bone and suppressing all opposition with a tyrannical system of fascist repression. And it is the insatiable hunger for rubles and profits of this new ruling class which is the source of the aggressive, warmongering policy of Soviet social-imperialism.
A "Peace Policy'' to Cloak Brutal Aggression and Feverish Preparations for War
On the international plane, Brezhnev's report dwelt primarily on the so-called "peace policy" of Soviet social-imperialism. From the rostrum of the 26th Congress came a flood of self-righteous and hypocritical appeals for "world peace," for "international security" and for "curbing the arms race." With this deafening pacifist racket the new tsars of the Kremlin want to hide their aggressive activities on a world scale. They want to cover up the fact that they, along with U.S. imperialism, are arming to the teeth for war.
At great length Brezhnev tried to portray the Soviet Union as the "chief buttress of world peace." But such grandiose boasts can hardly be heard over the clatter of the Russian tanks and the screech of the Russian jets which are massacring the freedom-loving people of Afghanistan, or over the din of the massive Soviet troop maneuvers to threaten Poland.
Moscow's pacifist poison is intended for both domestic consumption as well as for export. Internally the Soviet people are being told that despite all the other unfulfilled promises of the revisionist leaders, if nothing else the "wise" and "Leninist" policy of the Brezhnevites has at least saved them from a nuclear holocaust and for this they should be duly grateful and therefore should be resigned to their terrible plight. As Brezhnev puts it: "If you ask any Soviet person...what has highlighted our Party's path in recent years, the answer will be: It was highlighted above all by the fact that we are managing to preserve peace. And for this people...give thanks to the Party from the bottom of their hearts."
Indeed! What the Soviet people can thank Brezhnev for is sending their sons off to Afghanistan to die in a genocidal war against their Afghan class brothers. They can thank Brezhnev for a lack of food and housing while subordinating the entire Soviet economy to the needs of a monstrous war machine of death and destruction. They can thank Brezhnev and Khrushchov before him for transforming the once socialist Soviet Union which stood firmly opposed to imperialist war, into an imperialist superpower which, along with U.S. imperialism, threatens the people of the entire world with war and aggression.
Externally, the "peaceful" declarations of the Soviet leaders are aimed at lulling the people to sleep before imperialism and social-imperialism. Brezhnev hangs before the peoples the great catastrophe a new world war would bring. But does he do this in order to call on the exploited and oppressed to rise in revolution against their exploiters and oppressors and to wipe out the U.S. imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists and all other enemies which threaten the people with war? Of course not! He does so in order to spread passivity and fear. He is telling the people to get down on their knees and place their fate upon the outcome of the wheelings and dealings among the imperialist and social-imperialist warmakers, their cheap and hypocritical pronouncements about "peace," their fraudulent "disarmament" agreements, "peace committees," etc., etc. And in particular, he is telling the people to place their fate with Brezhnev's "peace policy," hitching the desires of the people for peace to the war chariot of Soviet social-imperialism in its rivalry with the equally warlike U.S. imperialism.
Brezhnev's Appeal for Extending U.S.-Soviet Collaboration for the Domination of the World
A cornerstone of the Soviet so-called "peace policy" is the Brezhnevite policy of "detente" with the United States. This is a policy of open counter-revolutionary collaboration between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism for the division of superpower spheres of influence, for the domination of the world, which is carried out in the name of "easing tensions" and "international security." So-called detente had its heyday in the years of Nixon and Kissinger. And Brezhnev is fully aware that despite Reagan's cold-warrior demagogy against the Soviet Union, what was possible with arch-war criminal Nixon should be tried with Reagan as well.
Therefore the pseudo-"anti-U.S. imperialist" mask of the Soviet revisionists was not worn on the stage of the 26th Congress. On the contrary, Brezhnev used this Congress to openly appeal to the fascist warmonger Reagan to further extend U.S.-Soviet cooperation against the world's people. Brezhnev complained about Carter only to request that Reagan be "more realistic" towards Soviet-U.S. collaboration: "In our relations with the United States we have all these years, as before, followed a principled and constructive line. It is only to be regretted that the former administration in Washington put its stakes on something other than developing relations of mutual understanding....it set to destroying the positive elements that had been achieved with no small effort in Soviet-American relations over the preceding years." In other words, despite Brezhnev's "constructive line" towards U.S. imperialism, Carter reversed some of what had been achieved between Moscow and the fascist Richard Nixon.
"Unfortunately," Brezhnev goes on, "also since the change of leadership in the White House, candidly bellicose calls and statements have resounded from Washington.... We would like to hope, however, that those who shape United States policy today will ultimately manage to see things in a more realistic light." Here, by "realistic light," Brezhnev means to recognize, as Kissinger did in the past, the great profits to be gained for both sides through "practical cooperation" between the two superpowers as the principal world hegemonists and policemen whose say-so the entire world is supposed to obey.
Brezhnev goes so far in this ultra-chauvinist superpower "realism" as to declare that: "It is universally recognized that in many ways the international situation depends on the policy of the USSR and the USA." And, Brezhnev adds, "the crucial factor here is meetings at summit level." Thus, according to this megalomaniac, the very destiny of "humanity as a whole," should be determined in proposed meetings between Reagan and Brezhnev where these two biggest chieftains of world imperialism can plot in secret how best to crush the revolutionary struggles of the people, and can plot how best to carve up the world between themselves. So far, the Reagan administration has expressed its "interest" in the proposals made by Brezhnev at the 26th Congress and a new round of "arms limitation" talks has gotten underway.
According to the Brezhnevite doctrine, it is the two thermonuclear superpowers and the maintenance of the so-called balance of terror between them which provides the key to preventing war. "The military and strategic equilibrium prevailing between the USSR and the USA, between the Warsaw Treaty and NATO," Brezhnev cynically claims, "is objectively a safeguard for world peace." All as if it were not first and foremost U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism with their colossal nuclear war machines which are the ones threatening the world with war and aggression!
Brezhnev takes this craven apology for imperialism even further: "A war danger does exist for the United States," Brezhnev argues, "but it originates...from the arms race and from the tension that still obtains in the world. We are prepared to combat this true and not imaginary danger hand in hand with the United States."
How splendid! The two superpowers are merely innocent angels who by no fault of their own have fallen prey to the evil dangers of the "arms race" and "tension"! And who might be responsible for this "arms race" and "tension"? From Brezhnev's report one might conclude that it must be hobgoblins or sorcerers that are responsible for the nuclear stockpiles and for the bloodshed in El Salvador and Afghanistan and for all the other crimes of world imperialism headed by the two superpowers.
Among other things, this whitewashing of imperialism gives the lie to the "anti-U.S. imperialist" posturing of the Soviet leaders. Brezhnev and co. at times find it useful to denounce U.S. imperialism. But these denunciations are always in the context of an inter-imperialist rivalry between the two superpowers for ensuring a more favorable division of spheres of influence, a more advantageous policy and so forth. The basic attitude towards U.S. imperialism has remained the same since the days of Khrushchov, who lavishly praised Eisenhower and Kennedy as reasonable men. Today too Brezhnev wants to cooperate "hand in hand" with Reagan and U.S. imperialism to realize the domination of the world by these two imperialist superpowers.
It should be noted that at the 26th Congress, Brezhnev also extended his hand of "cooperation" to the other imperialist powers and to the entire world bourgeoisie. West German, French and Japanese imperialism were stressed in particular because of the major role which they have begun to play in the Soviet capitalist economy as well as because of the designs of the Soviet leaders to separate these countries to one degree or another from their pro-U.S. imperialist policy.
As for the Chinese revisionists, Brezhnev has a hand for them as well. Gone are the more bitter condemnations of China as in previous congresses. In fact Brezhnev indicated his pleasure that China has descended deep into the swamp of capitalism and revisionist counter-revolution in its internal policy. His only regret is that in external policy social-imperialist China has lined up with Washington instead of Moscow. Therefore instead of the sharp tone against China which the Soviet revisionists found necessary when China still harbored some sort of revolutionary pretensions, today Brezhnev offers to wheel and deal with Beijing as with the other capitalist states. Hence, among other things, Brezhnev invited China into the "detente" process with a proposal for joint "confidence building" measures in the Far East between China, the USSR, Japan and the USA.
The CPSU Is Not a Party of Revolution But of Counter-Revolution
While singing love songs to his fellow imperialists, Brezhnev's report had not a word to say about the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat and the oppressed. Gus Hall, the revisionist chieftain of the "Communist" Party, USA, proclaimed Brezhnev's report as "a model of Marxist-Leninist thought." (Political Affairs, April, 1981, p. 8) However, it is a telling fact that this so-called "brilliant" leader of a so-called "Leninist Party" did not have one word to say about the proletarian revolution or the national liberation revolutions. It seems that the Soviet revisionists have now abandoned the chore of even paying hypocritical homage at their congresses to the revolution, the class struggle and the revolts of the oppressed. This is a manifestation of the further putrification of Soviet revisionism.
The section of the report entitled "The CPSU and the World Communist Movement" was devoted almost entirely to the practical business of smoothing over the strained relations between the CPSU and many of its revisionist followers. Unlike some previous congresses of the Soviet revisionists, this Congress said nothing about the line to be followed and the tasks facing the various revisionist parties. Brezhnev's primary message was that some degree of loyalty must be maintained to the Soviet revisionist godfathers. But apart from this, Brezhnev so much as declared that the line and activity of the various revisionist parties was of little concern to himself.
In this vein, Brezhnev theorized that: "There had been armed struggle and peaceful forms of passage to the new social system; there had been rapid coming to power and processes that had been dragged out in time." With this Brezhnev is attempting to argue that it is a matter of small consequence which road is adopted in the struggle for socialism as the revolution is no longer an historical law as Marx and Lenin taught. Allegedly the proof of this is that socialism has also been realized through peaceful, parliamentary forms and introduced gradually through a process of reforms. Of course, Brezhnev can not give a single example of where genuine socialism has been realized without bloodshed and revolution as this would expose him for the revisionist charlatan that he is.
Since the days of Khrushchov, the Soviet renegades have been propagating such a typically bourgeois reformist and social-democratic perspective. The Soviet revisionists and their followers are firefighters of the revolution who have long since merged with the forces of social-democracy and bourgeois reformism in corrupting the working class movement and combating the genuine Marxist-Leninist communist parties.
The Brezhnevites Call for a More Intimate Relationship with the Social-Democrats
It is in this context that we find in this same section on "the world communist movement" a major passage on the business relations between the CPSU and the social-democratic parties of the yellow Socialist International. Here Brezhnev issues an appeal for a more intimate relationship with the social-democratic parties. Brezhnev stressed that the Soviet leaders "attach importance to cooperation with Social-Democrats, trade unions, religious circles, and all democratic and peace-loving forces." In other words, the Brezhnevites want to embrace and kiss the social-democratic politicians, the casehardened imperialist hacks of the yellow trade unions, and other similar elements, as an alleged part of the "democratic and peace-loving forces."
Brezhnev makes the assessment that "Present-day social democracy has considerable political weight," only to pontificate that "It could do more for the defense of the vital interests of the peoples and, above all, for the consolidation of peace, for improving the international situation, repulsing fascism and racism, and the reactionary offensive on the political rights of the working people. In practice, however, the social-democratic leaders do not always act along these lines."
This is how Brezhnev appeals to the social-democratic leaders, as though the social-democrats had not proved themselves a thousand and one times over as the most fervent servants of the bourgeoisie and as diehard imperialists and warmongers in their own right. This is how Brezhnev prettifies the social-democrats who in many countries control the governments or share power and are therefore in the very forefront of the monopoly capitalist offensive to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers, develop fascism and prepare for war.
Brezhnev politely chastises his social-democratic colleagues for getting "drawn into campaigns organized by imperialism" against the Soviet Union. But Brezhnev is fully in accord with the broad campaign of monopoly capital to activate social-democracy in order to keep the working class under bourgeois influence, to subvert the resistance of the working people to fascism and war, to undermine the national liberation struggles of the people in Latin America and elsewhere, and to combat the influence of the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties. In fact, for such a campaign Brezhnev promises to actively support the social-democrats.
On the one hand, Brezhnev's appeal for a more intimate cooperation with the social-democrats is another cog in his "detente" policy, part of his wheeling and dealing with the imperialists. This is why Brezhnev notes with glee that: "Further advances were registered, in particular, in our ties with the socialist and social- democratic parties of Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, Spain, and a number of other countries -- and this chiefly on questions of struggle against the war danger. Of high importance here were our contacts with the leadership of the Socialist International." To work closely with West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the other social-democratic bosses of the European and world bourgeoisie is part and parcel of the Brezhnevian counter-revolutionary strategy to deceive the people with pacifist demagogy and to combat the proletarian revolution.
And on the other hand, Brezhnev is calling on the pro-Soviet revisionist parties to take further steps towards fusion with social-democracy. It was the arch-renegade Khrushchov who gave the call for rapprochement with the reactionary leaders of social-democracy. This was a building block of the platform for the Soviet revisionist betrayal adopted at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. By the early 60's, from within the Italian and other formerly communist parties which adopted Khrushchov's line came open demands for the organizational merger with the social-democratic parties. They denounced the Leninist teachings on the proletarian party and floated liquidationist schemes for fusion with the social-democrats. This rapprochement with social-democracy was part of the Khrushchovite strategy to convert the former communist parties of the working class into reformist parties, into bourgeois parties, into new social-democratic parties.
Gus Hall's revisionist "Communist" Party, USA, is a model of such a party. The "C"PUSA has long since lost any resemblance of a Leninist party of the class struggle and the revolution. Rather it is a party of reformism and bourgeois respectability. The "CPUSA takes as its first principle unity with the social-democratic politicians; that is with the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, with the sellout trade union bosses, with the religious leaders, and so forth. Gus Hall is even horrified at the idea of possibly offending Michael Harrington, the ultra-reactionary chieftain of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and loyal member of the Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party. (See the article "The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement Requires a Stern Struggle Against Social-Democracy and Liquidationism," The Workers' Advocate, Vol. 11, No. 3, March 10, 1981.) Following this line of fusion with the social-democratic forces, the strength of the "C"PUSA is no longer derived from the working masses and the solidity of its own organization but from its extensive and loose network among the Democratic Party politicians, trade union hacks, the poverty pimps and other sellout elements among the black people, and other sectors of the liberal-labor marsh. In short, Gus Hall's "C"PUSA is a typical example of a party of social-democratic liquidators, a typical result of the Soviet revisionist line of fusion with social-democracy.
Merger with social-democracy is, however, not the private property of the Soviet revisionists. The Brezhnevites are not alone when they call for a closer fusion with the social-democrats because all the revisionist currents are doing the same thing. Recently, for example, Chinese revisionist chieftain Deng Xiaoping established formal "fraternal relations" between the CPC and their "comrades" of the French Socialist Party of Francois Mitterand. Meanwhile the Maoist and "three worldist" groupings all over the world are galloping headlong towards merger with the social-democrats. The followers of all the revisionist trends, including the Soviet, Chinese, Yugoslav and "Eurocommunist" trends, are more than ever showing themselves to be out-and-out social-democratic liquidators.
The Soviet New Tsars -- Brutal Neo-Colonialists and Sworn Enemies of the National Liberation Struggles of the Peoples
Just as the Soviet revisionists are firefighters of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat, they are equally sworn enemies of the national liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples.
At the 26th Congress, Brezhnev puffed up his chest and boasted of the supposedly great assistance the Soviet Union has provided the people of "many of the newly free countries." But did Brezhnev express solidarity with the oppressed peoples who are rising in revolt to smash imperialist and neo-colonialist slavery? Did he express sympathy with the people's struggles to overthrow the reactionary dictators and exploiters who work hand in glove with the multinational corporations to suck the blood of the toilers? Not a chance! Tsar Brezhnev did not even dare to pay lip service to the revolutionary national liberation struggles against imperialism.
According to the Soviet revisionists, the revolutionary liberation struggle of the working masses against imperialism and internal reaction is no longer necessary or relevant. "In effect," Brezhnev declares, "the seventies witnessed the final collapse of the colonial empires." Of course, the general destruction of old- style colonialism is a great historic advance. But Brezhnev makes this declaration without ever mentioning that to a great extent, old-style colonialism has been replaced by a new slavery, neo-colonialism through which the various imperialist powers enslave hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people. Instead Brezhnev refers to all the formerly colonial countries as "independent," "liberated" and "newly free countries." In this way this wily neo-colonialist wants to whitewash the existence of the neo-colonial empires of the two superpowers and the other imperialist states which have in the main replaced the empires of the old-style colonialists.
Thus, instead of a revolutionary liberation struggle against neo-colonial slavery, Brezhnev presents an idyllic picture of "newly free countries," some of which "have taken their lead from imperialist policy," and some of which have "opted for socialist development."
This Soviet revisionist concept of "socialist oriented states" or "non-capitalist development" is nothing but typical neo-colonialism wearing a pseudo-"socialist" mask. It is "socialism" introduced without revolution under the tender mercies of the exploiting classes. As Brezhnev's report describes, it includes such measures as "gradually reinforcing the state apparatus with national personnel faithful to the people," and so forth and so on. In a word, Brezhnevite "socialist orientation" is the "gradual" perfection of new and more sophisticated neo-colonialist forms to hoodwink and enslave the oppressed masses.
The best exposure of this "non-capitalist road" is to look at those countries which have followed this "road."
India, for example, has allegedly been on this "road" for decades. Meanwhile the Indian workers and peasants continue to face starvation and merciless exploitation and tyranny at the hands of the big capitalists and landlords. The only thing the "non-capitalist road" has brought the Indian people is the added weight of billions of rubles of Soviet investments which provide the Russian social-imperialists fabulous super-profits.
Under the signboard of "Soviet cooperation with the newly-free countries," and assisting the peoples to take the "non-capitalist road," the Soviet social-imperialists are striving to carve out their own neo-colonialist sphere of influence. And towards this aim they resort to all the barbaric methods perfected by the U.S. and other imperialists before them. They enter into agreements with the local tyrants and reactionary ruling cliques. They enter into agreements with the Western imperialists for the joint exploitation of the masses. And in their rivalry for spheres of exploitation the two superpowers organize groups d'etat and instigate civil wars, bringing disaster to the people. The Soviet-Cu- ban intervention in Angola and Ethiopia, for example, shows the typically imperialist methods which were used to bring these two countries onto the "non-capitalist road."
And, as Afghanistan has demonstrated, if the people do not accept "opting for socialist development" realized through such means, the Soviet new tsars have an answer for that as well. Just like the U.S. war of aggression in Viet Nam, the Soviet war against the people of Afghanistan shows that the superpowers will resort to the most genocidal and brutal means to gain and defend their neo-colonial possessions.
Not revolution, but Soviet credits and equipment, Soviet advisors and a pro-Soviet policy is all that is required to steer down the "non-capitalist road." And behind the rubles and diplomacy stand the Soviet tanks to make sure that this "road" of neo-colonial slavery is adhered to.
The Brezhnevite concepts regarding the "newly-free countries" and "non-capitalist development" are based on the ideas of Nikita Khrushchov, who kept a bust of the reactionary pacifist and neo-colonial traitor of the Indian people, Mohatma Gandhi, on his desk. At the same time they are closely related to Mao Zedong's notorious theory of "three worlds." With this ultra-reactionary theory, the Chinese revisionists also wipe out the revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin America by denying the existence of neo-colonialism and by portraying the neo-colonialist governments of the "third world" as a progressive force. In this way, the Chinese revisionists place the oppressed peoples at the tender mercies of the internal reactionaries and their neo-colonialist masters. While the Chinese and Soviet revisionist concepts have their own particularities, they dovetail in their general features of repudiation of the national liberation revolutions. In fact, the Soviet revisionists do not denounce the anti-Leninist "third world" concept, but are even known to write books and articles on "third world development" and so forth.
At the 26th Congress, Brezhnev also gave a nod of approval to the so-called non-aligned movement, claiming that "Its strength stems from its orientation against imperialism and colonialism, and against war and aggression." What hogwash! By its very definition. fighting imperialism is a violation of "non-alignment" whose sole objective is to "ease international tensions" such as those created by anti-imperialist revolutions. The Titoite concept of "non-alignment" is a concept of accommodation with imperialism, a concept in service of imperialism for the liquidation of the national liberation movement. This is why Brezhnev finds Titoite "non-alignment" so agreeable to himself.
A Cutthroat Gang of Revisionist Thieves
Brezhnev's report devoted considerable attention to the innumerable contradictions which are deepening within the Khrushchovite revisionist clan. The centrifugal forces among the "fraternal" revisionist parties are growing stronger and stronger, with each party showing its primary loyalty to its own bourgeoisie, to its own revisionist and corrupt interests. Thus today we find this cutthroat gang of thieves quarreling among themselves like crabs in a basket. Hence at the 26th Congress, the Soviet leaders put forward their current tactics for coping with the situation and keeping their flock together.
Brezhnev could not avoid addressing the total disarray and lack of unity which now prevails among his fellow Khrushchovites as exemplified by the sharp rift between the CPSU and the "Eurocommunist" parties. However he did not rant and rave at his ultra-revisionist "comrades" as in the past, but instead tried to explain away the contradictions as something natural which will pass with time.
"Lenin was absolutely right," Brezhnev theorized, "when he said that many differences can, and unfailingly will vanish; this will result from the logic of the joint struggle against the really formidable enemy, the bourgeoisie....'" Deliberately misquoting from Lenin, however, will never get the Brezhnevites out of their predicament. In fact the full passage from Lenin exposes the root of the evil which is wreaking havoc in the ranks of the revisionist parties.
Having in mind the ardent communists who had broken with the social-democrats but many of whom lacked revolutionary experience, Lenin wrote: I am convinced that the Communists who are agreed on the basic issue (the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariatand for Soviet government) and are implacably hostile to the Scheidemann and the Kautsky groupsin all nations [the social-democratic opportunists -- ed.], could and should have acted in unison. In my opinion, differences on less important issues can, and unfailingly will, vanish; this will result from the logic of the joint struggle against the really formidable enemy, the bourgeoisie, and its overt (Scheidemann) and covert (Kautsky) servitors."(Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 89, emphasis added)
This gets to the very heart of the matter. The Soviet revisionists and their followers have long ago renounced Marxism-Leninism. They have rejected altogether "the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat." And as discussed above, they have joined the company of the heirs of Scheidemann and Kautsky, the social- democratic opportunists. In a word, the Brezhnevites and their "comrades" have abandoned all principles. Herein lies the source of their total lack of unity. Lacking principles, the various revisionists invariably take their own "national" or "specific" roads, going off in different directions and quarreling among themselves.
In recent years the Soviet leaders have tried to clip the wings of the "Eurocommunists" and others who wanted to fly too far and too fast in declaring openly their allegiance to their own bourgeoisie and their independence from the Soviet leaders. Brezhnev has even demagogically criticized them for right opportunism and deviating from principles. This despite the fact that the Italian, French and other revisionists were only putting into effect the revisionist line which Khrushchov and Brezhnev had pioneered.
At the 26th Congress, however, Brezhnev comes out openly in defense of the "national" and "specific roads to socialism" that are advocated by the ultra-revisionists. As Brezhnev puts it: "Some time ago the leaderships of a few Communist Parties put up an energetic defense of the right to specifically national ways and forms of struggle for socialism and building socialism. But if you look at this without prejudice, you will see that no one is imposing any stereotypes or patterns that ignore the distinctions of any country." And Brezhnev concludes further on: "So, as I see it, unless one ignores the actual facts, one cannot speak of any 'uniformity' or contrast Communist Parties by the criterion of recognizing or not recognizing the way they choose to reconstruct society."
In other words, the "Eurocommunists" and others have demanded the right to advance their "specifically national way" to betray socialism, the right to sneer at the Soviet baton, and the right to strike deals with the bourgeoisie in whichever way they wish. The Soviet leaders have been unable to stop this. So today Brezhnev can do no more than try to outdo these ultra-revisionists in sneering at the very idea of any universal principles of the revolution and socialism.
The recognition of the "right to specifically national ways" of the other revisionist parties is a big defeat for the Soviet revisionists. Brezhnev was simply forced to retreat and make concessions. This further tears apart his pseudo-"Leninist" mask. Moreover, far from dampening the fires within their clan, it will only add weight to even greater centrifugal tendencies, divisions and strife. This, however, is the inevitable byproduct of the Soviet revisionist betrayal because, among revisionist hucksters who have trampled the Marxist-Leninist principles into the mud, a solid unity is impossible.
Brezhnev also spoke of the difficulties within the so- called "socialist community" of Soviet revisionist vassal states. However, tsar Brezhnev didn't bring to the 26th Congress any concessions to the "fraternal countries" of the "community." In fact he did not even bother to mention his notorious concept of "limited sovereignty" on which he has theorized in the past. Rather Brezhnev extolled at length the means by which the "fraternal countries" are being integrated into the greater empire of Soviet social-imperialism; from the "integration" of the foreign ministries and national economic plans, down to the regional and local party committees and the management of enterprises.
He boasted that a "fundamental unity of views has taken root" within the "community." But as the whole world knows, this is a very hollow boast. In reality there are gaping cracks in the foundations of the "community" which is held together only by the Brezhnevian dictate. No one has forgotten 1968 and the Soviet social- imperialists' fascist invasion of Czechoslovakia. And today Poland is being threatened with invasion too. The "unity" of these Soviet subjects is based on the tanks and rubles of the new tsars.
For a War to the End Against Soviet Revisionism
The 26th Congress of the CPSU was a demonstration of the crisis and disarray prevailing among the Soviet revisionists and their lackeys. It showed the further internal rot and decay of the Khrushchovites. Among other things, this is a result of the blows delivered by the forces of Marxism-Leninism and the revolution. Nevertheless the Marxist-Leninists must keep up and intensify the fire on the Soviet revisionists and their followers because these counter-revolutionaries have not and never will give up their war against Marxism-Leninism.
"As our Party sees it," Brezhnev declared in his report, "differences of opinion between communists can be overcome, unless, of course, they are fundamental differences of opinion between revolutionaries and reformists, between creative Marxism and dogmatic sectarianism or ultra-left adventurism. In that case, of course, there can be no compromises."
Of course, Brezhnev is only bluffing when he speaks of differences with the reformists because, as we have already discussed, he himself is a casehardened reformist who sees eye to eye even with the reactionary social-democrats. Here Brezhnev is declaring war only against "dogmatic sectarianism or ultra-left adventurism." The Soviet revisionists, along with the Chinese, Yugoslav, and "Eurocommunist" revisionists, are the standard-bearers of the liquidationist crusade against "ultra-left," "adventurist" and "dogmatic" Marxism- Leninism in favor of their "creative" revisionism and betrayal of the revolution.
Brezhnev demands a war in which "there can be no compromises," a war to the death. That suits us just fine, for the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists also demand a war without mercy against the Soviet revisionist traitors. We fight not to achieve a compromise with them, but to destroy them altogether along with the Chinese and all the other revisionist enemies of the proletarian revolution. In this war it is Marxism-Leninism and the world proletariat which will vanquish modern revisionism on the road of overthrowing imperialism and social-imperialism and building genuine socialism and communism.
[Photo: May Day Celebrations see page 2]
In the U.S. this year, as in countries all over the world. May Day, International Working Class Day, was greeted by the marching feet of the working masses in struggle against the capitalist exploiters.
May Day came at a time when 160,000 coal miners were in the midst of a powerful strike against the concession demands of the coal monopolies. The miners are waging a fierce struggle, organizing roving pickets, defying injunctions and fighting the police and goons of the coal operators. This is a shining example to all the workers to rise in struggle against the vicious offensive against the workers' livelihood.
On May 3, over 100,000 people took to the streets in Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco and other cities to demonstrate against the war preparations of the U.S. government and especially to demand that the U.S. get out of El Salvador.
As these and many other examples show, the savage capitalist offensive of starvation, fascism and war is calling forth a mighty storm of protest among the working and oppressed people throughout the U.S. There is widespread indignation against the reactionary policies of Reagan, the new chieftain of capitalist reaction. The disgust among the masses continues to grow with both the Republican Party which is in power as well as with the Democratic Party which poses as the party of "working people" but is falling all over itself trying to keep pace with the Reaganites in attacking the working masses.
On the occasion of this year's May Day, the Marxist-Leninist Party organized a broad campaign calling upon the workers to step up the fight against the capitalist offensive. The Party gave The Call to use this campaign as another step in the struggle to Build independent movement of the working class!
In the weeks before May Day arrived, the militants of the Party along with other revolutionary activists held countless discussions and distributed the Special Bulletin of The Workers' Advocate for May Day, setting forth the fighting tasks for the revolutionary workers. This bulletin declared: "The workers must come out on the stage of history in their own right, fighting in their own class interest. The answer to the capitalist offensive is to build the independent movement of the working class." It went on to explain that this means "to organize the working class as a class for itself, independent of and against the capitalists, breaking with their political parties and throwing overboard their entire exploitative program."
The Workers' Advocate bulletin also explained that the building of the independent movement of the working class requires a stern struggle against the social-democrats and liquidators, the flunkeys of the Democratic Party, who try to paint this capitalist party as the "workers' friend." They curse the very idea that the workers must build their own proletarian party. Hence, the bulletin explained that the working class "cannot break free of the influence of the capitalist parties, unless it fight vigorously against the prettifiers and stooges of the Democratic Party."
Thousands and thousands of these leaflets were distributed in the factories, schools and communities from coast to coast. Everywhere the workers showed keen interest in the path being put forward by the Party to fight Reaganite reaction.
On May 2, the MLP organized spirited May Day demonstrations in Buffalo and New York City. In both cities the working masses came out onto the streets to greet the marches. As the bright red banners and portraits of the great international leaders of the working class, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin paraded past, the workers raised their fists in solidarity and eagerly took leaflets. A ferment is brewing deep in the hearts of the oppressed.
As well as the demonstrations, May Day celebrations were held in New York City, Buffalo, Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and Denver. At these events the representatives of the MLP explained in detail the current situation prevailing in the struggles against starvation, fascism and war and showed that the vital necessity of the day is for the workers to break with the Democrats and Republicans, the parties of the capitalist offensive, and to build their own independent movement of the working class. The Party spokesmen pointed out the immediate tasks of advancing the mass struggle, forging revolutionary groups and training the workers in a class policy through the widespread distribution of revolutionary literature. They explained, too, the socialist perspective of this struggle and pointed out the inspirational and mobilizing role of spreading the news about the victories of socialism in Albania, the only genuine socialist country in the world today.
In the exciting revolutionary atmosphere of these meetings, with the jubilant singing of revolutionary songs and the militant shouting of the Party's slogans, the representatives of the MLP addressed the dangerous situation being created today by the social-democrats and by the revisionist and trotskyite liquidators. The history and current stage of this struggle was gone into. All of the revolutionary fighters present were called on to remain ever vigilant and to step up the fight in defense of the party principle, of Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.
A high point of the celebrations was the report on the visit of the delegation of the MLP to the Dominican Republic and the establishment of fraternal relations between the PCT and the MLP. As well, the messages by the Baldemiro Castro Committee of the PCT in the USA, the Caribbean Progressive Study Group and others to the New York meeting made an important contribution. The stirring proletarian internationalist character of the May Day meetings assisted to bring out the spirit of May Day and to inspire all present to rededicate themselves to the great international struggle to emancipate the working class.
Down with Reagan, chieftain capitalist reaction!
Build the independent movement of the working class!
Socialism is the historic mission of the proletariat!
Down with U.S. imperialism, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism and all reaction!
Workers of all countries, unite!
Comrades and friends,
Hail International Working Class Day -- May 1st! On this day throughout the five continents, from country to country, the workers take to the streets in their millions and raise high their common banner of struggle against capitalist wage slavery, tyranny, and brutality. With one voice they promise the complete overthrow of the capitalist and revisionist moneybags, and their barbaric system, as the workers make a magnificent show of the strength and militant unity of working men the world over sending shivers up the spines of the capitalist crooks. On this day the workers call out onto the streets all the downtrodden and oppressed masses to commemorate the past battles and victories against capitalism and reaction, and to prepare for the future victories on the horizons. The workers point to and rejoice at the glorious socialist Republic of Albania, the vigilant eagle guarding the bypass to the new world, the towering example and inspiration that today fires the hearts of the working men the world over. On this day the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties, those parties that have fought valiantly for and remain loyal to the class and the teachers -- Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin -- take up their position in the van of the revolutionary manifestations and put their efforts towards leading and showing the workers and oppressed masses the path along which they must march to bring success to their cause.
CPSG salutes the work of the MLP, the American contingent of the international communist movement, in executing its duty to the class and the internationale precisely in this way, which stands as further testimony of the type of mettle of which the MLP is made. CPSG welcomes the opportunity to speak and participate in this important occasion and to reaffirm its commitment and loyalty to the cause of the working and oppressed. CPSG warmly greets all the comrades and friends participating in today's activities and sends its warm regards to the comrades of the PCT (Partido Comunista del Trabajo) of the Dominican Republic.
The launching of the CPSG in 1978 was an important step forward for the revolutionary and progressive West Indians, and in the fight against the racist and fascist attacks, and was an important victory for the deep feelings of solidarity in our community with the struggles of the peoples in the West Indies to free themselves from the yoke of imperialist bondage and neo-colonial slavery.
The significance of this was that a section of the revolutionary and progressive forces in our community had come to the conclusion that it was only on the basis of the fighting banner and politics of the working class that a consistent struggle could be waged against the attacks of the rich and against the politics of the rich which were represented by [traitorous] politicians, cultural nationalists, poverty pimps and other sold-out elements. Thus, right from the onset CPSG took its stand with the working class, to which our community belongs, and declared its support for the party of the proletariat which was emerging in fierce battle against social-chauvinism and opportunism.
The comrades and supporters of the CPSG have fought defiantly on this basis for the militant path of revolutionary struggle against the government-organized racist attacks and have helped to win among the masses in New York growing prestige for the banner of active resistance to the racist attacks.
The supporters of CPSG have on this basis been holding their own in the face of rapidly changing events in the West Indies, have based themselves on the interests of the working class and people, and have refused to succumb to the deception of the puppet regimes of U.S. and Soviet social-imperialism. refusing to embrace the hated political lackeys and governments despite the various masks they wear.
CPSG has been very widely known by the masses as fighters for revolution and a staunch opponent of sellout and treachery.
Comrades and friends.
Today on the occasion of the May Day celebration CPSG too re-declares and rededicates itself to continue along this path.
The revolutionary and progressive West Indians will always fight in the trenches and under the banner of the proletariat, tempering itself on this basis in the fight against the savage racist and fascist offensive of the government of the Republican and Democratic flunkeys of the rich, and will always uphold proud and aloft the banner of struggle against the imperialist domination of the West Indies.
Workers of all countries, unite!
Hail May 1st, international working class day!
Build the independent movement of the working class!
Wage mass revolutionary struggle against racist and fascist attacks!
Comrades and Friends,
Internationalist and proletarian greetings to all in the name of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo (PCT). We are gathering today to celebrate two events of far reaching historical importance for the international workers' and communist movement, and which put into practice the universal quote of the great communist teacher Karl Marx which says: Workers of all countries, unite! May 3rd marks the anniversary of the sorrowful massacre of Chicago, which took place in the fight for the conquest of the 8-hour working day.
The other historical event is the beginning of fraternal relations between two sister organizations: the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA and the Partido Comunista del Trabajo of the Dominican Republic. These relations are based on common criteria which unite us, which link us as militants of the international communist movement of which we form a part. These relations are characterized by an all-out struggle against revisionism of all hues and as well by the coincidence of views of both parties regarding the revolution in the two countries and the cooperation in every respect concerning the strengthening of the international communist movement, and the mutual respect between both revolutionary organizations.
Regarding another aspect of things, we want to point out that this May 1st is characterized by growing struggle and revolutionary ferment in the countries dominated by Yankee imperialism and by the Soviet social- imperialists. These struggles can be seen in the economic and political disorder in these countries. May 1st sees too the struggle being waged by the American working class against this unjust established social and economic order. This struggle has in the Marxist-Leninist Party its most genuine leader and guide.
Comrades, what we've expressed above reflects itself economically, socially and politically in the situation which our country is undergoing, in which after the coming to power of Guzman and the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (Dominican Revolutionary Party), the economic conditions of the people and the working class have worsened even more. The working class and its progressive organizations have had to fight for their most pressing demands, which are going beyond the national political plane. And the system has not had any other alternative but to drown in blood the mass protests. It is for this reason that we've been holding the view that our role in the Dominican process must be to further consolidate our Party and to further strengthen its ties with the working class and the sections which constitute its natural allies for the purpose of getting rid of the present state of things.
Finally we would like to point out that in this great May 1st, as in others in the last years, Albania is the only country where the workers are really in power, led by their Party of Labor and Comrade Enver Hoxha. For this reason our Party recognizes that Albania is the only real and effective socialist country, which must be the example for the whole international workers' movement.
Long live revolutionary May 1st!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Glory to Marxism-Leninism!
Long live the unity between the MLP and the PCT!
Long live the struggle of the Salvadorian People!
Long live the struggle of the Haitian People!
Workers of all countries, unite!
On Saturday the 2nd of May the Marxist-Leninist Party is organizing a demonstration and rally and a public meeting in Buffalo in celebration of May 1st -- International Working Class Day. In these events, the MLP is raising the slogans:
Down with Reagan, chieftain of capitalist reaction!
Build the independent movement of the working class!
The UAIS is an organization for the struggle against the all-round preparations for war of U.S. imperialism. Its basis of unity is opposition to all imperialism. It works to build the mass movement against the war preparations of U.S. imperialism. This movement can only be built and strengthened in complete independence from the two big capitalist political parties. The Democratic and Republican Parties are both parties of imperialism and war. Just as the current war preparations, which are being pushed ahead by the Reagan administration, were begun by the Democrat Carter, so too the genocidal war against the Indochinese peoples, which was prosecuted with such fervor by the fascist Nixon, was begun and escalated by the Democrats Kennedy and Johnson. In the course of the struggle to build the movement the UAIS has gained rich experience of the wrecking activities carried out in the movement by the agents of the imperialists -- in particular, the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. Our experience has fully confirmed the necessity of putting opposition to imperialism in the center of the struggle against the draft and the war preparations and of building the movement in complete independence from the political parties of the rich.
Across the country the MLP,USA has raised the banner of opposition to imperialism in the struggles against all features of the war preparations. It has vigorously participated in the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements and has constantly stressed the necessity of, and fought to build the movements in, complete independence from the Republican and Democratic Parties. Thus locally a principled unity based on common aims has been forged between the UAIS and the Buffalo Branch of the MLP. For example the May Day celebrations will raise the anti-imperialist slogans:
U.S. imperialism, get out of El Salvador!
U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran and the Middle East!
Soviet social-imperialism, get out of Afghanistan!
Down with NATO and the warmongering U.S.-China alliance!
The UAIS recognizes that the struggle against the war preparations is but one front of the struggle of the masses of people against the general offensive of the imperialists. The fight against the monopoly capitalist attacks on the working class and the fight against the government-organized racist terror campaign including the fascist gangs are other vitally important fronts of this struggle. The UAIS recognizes that these fights, too, must be waged totally independent of the Republican and Democratic Parties and all their flunkeys. Therefore the UAIS unites with the slogan being raised by the MLP in the May Day celebration:
To hell with the Republican and Democratic Parties, parties of the capitalist offensive!
The UAIS supports this May Day celebration as a concrete manifestation of the unity of the workers, oppressed people and progressive youth and students against their common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and as a contribution to building the movement. The UAIS encourages all its members, supporters and all anti-imperialist activists to support and participate in these events.
-- Adopted April 29,1981
(Reprinted from The Buffalo Anti-Imperialist Newsletter of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students, May 1981.)
From the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (Buffalo)
[Sheet music.]
The people of El Salvador
Have raised a mighty storm.
Against the forces of reaction
A revolution has been born.
Workers and peasants, guns in hand,
Rise up in mass to take a stand
To smash the fascist Duarte clique
And drive imperialism from their land.
CHORUS:
So raise a mighty storm
Against aggressive imperialist war.
The people of the world are rising to demand:
U.S., GET OUT OF EL SALVADOR!
Reagan is preparing for war
'Gainst revolution in El Salvador,
To defend the interests of imperialism
Just like Carter did before.
Just as they did in Viet Nam,
U.S. imperialism tries again,
Sending weapons, funds and Green Berets
Again we fight to smash their plans!
CHORUS
(To the tune of 'Union Maid')
The UAW hacks
Cry about severe cutbacks!
The capitalists' sales are down, you see.
We all must sacrifice equally;
If your wages are not cut.
Unemployment will be your lot,
But since they tore the contract up
Unemployment sure has grown!
CHORUS
Fraser, go to hell, no more concessions.
You stole our wages, with lying phrases.
Fraser, go to hell, no more concessions.
No more concessions, to the billionaires!
Well, Chrysler says they're broke
But it really is a joke;
The cars are always being made.
And the bankers' interest sure gets paid;
While the work force it does shrink,
The rich their champagne drink,
They drink a toast to Fraser
Who defends their profits well.
CHORUS
Well, Fraser did deplore
The protests from the floor,
When workers did denounce his lies
He praised the company to the skies;
He said, "The rich are swell,"
"They treat us pretty well!"
"I licked their boots and scraped the floor,
"'Til they put me on the Chrysler Board."
CHORUS
Fraser served the rich
With his strikebreaking tricks,
He tried to keep the union hall empty
So he could fake democracy;
He stuffed the ballot box
Til it overflowed the top.
He figures that his vote on the Chrysler
Board outweighs us all!
CHORUS
At Ford and GM
The rich are looking grim.
They figure it is only fair
If they get more of the loot that there;
But we will not sacrifice.
To protect their easy life,
We'll organize mass struggles
To resist each new attack!
CHORUS
Fraser has complained,
That we do not understand,
Ho hard his job's become today
To give our daily bread away;
To him we will reply,
We cannot tell a lie.
We don't give a damn for his sellout plans
We'll fight to make the rich pay!
CHORUS
[Photos:
May Day demonstration of the MLP marches through a working class neighborhood in New York City;
Meeting organized by the New York Metro Branch to celebrate May Day;
The enthusiastic response of the working masses of New York City to the May Day demonstration;
Revolutionary songs at the May Day celebration in Seattle;
Spirited May Day demonstration organized by the MLP marches up Main Street in downtown Buffalo, New York;
Revolutionary songs at the May Day rally in Buffalo;
Meeting organized by the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the MLP on May 1st;
May Day celebration in Boston included revolutionary speeches, a cultural presentation and a dinner.]
The following is the text of a speech delivered by a representative of the MLP to the May Day celebration held in Buffalo, N. Y. May 12 marked the 12th anniversary of the founding of the ACWM(M-L) the birth of the nucleus of our Marxist-Leninist Party. The speech is devoted to examining the development of the bitter struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism over the past 12 years, placing in historical context the present struggle our Party faces against revisionist liquidationism and merger with social-democracy. The speech has been edited for publication.
Comrades and friends,
May 1st finds the Marxist-Leninist Party holding high the banner of building the independent political movement of the proletariat. Our Party is the champion of the class independence of the proletariat and staunchly defends the necessity for the working class to build its own political party, independent of and opposed to all the capitalist parties. On the other hand, this May 1st finds the social-democrats and revisionists cursing the very idea that the working class must have its own party and insisting instead that the workers must remain a mere tail of the Democratic Party of the capitalist moneybags.
This is by no means the first time that the Marxist-Leninists are facing off against these renegade forces. Neither they nor we are newcomers to the political arena. The struggle between our Party and the opportunists is not a new phenomenon, but something which runs through the turmoil in the revolutionary movement for over a decade.
This history of over a decade of struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and opportunism is filled with important lessons. Today, when the revolutionary movement faces a stern life and death struggle against opportunism in order to build the independent movement of the working class, it is extremely valuable for us to review some of this history. The lessons from this history will assist us to wage our current struggle more effectively and should be studied closely. Every class conscious worker and revolutionary activist coming forward in the mass movements today should acquaint themselves with and learn the lessons of this valuable history.
It is in this context, then, that I would like to make some remarks on the historical development of our struggle against opportunism over the last 10-12 years.
Comrades and friends, if today we can proudly hold high the banner of Marxism-Leninism, if today we can staunchly defend the class interests of the proletariat and hold up our heads as a contingent of the mighty international communist and workers' movement, it is because 12 years ago, on May 12, 1969, a small group of dedicated revolutionaries stood up to defend Marxism-Leninism right here in the United States. This was a historic advance. On that day, with the founding of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), the nucleus of our Party was born.
The ACWM(M-L) emerged at a time when there was no vanguard revolutionary party of the American proletariat. The once revolutionary CPUSA had been corroded and destroyed, first by Browderite revisionism, and later by falling prey to Khrushchovite revisionism. In the 1960's when the comrades who founded the ACWM (M-L) came forward, the "C"PUSA was merely a left- wing party of the bourgeoisie, a social-fascist echo and shadow of the Democratic Party.
Under these conditions the ACWM(M-L) was founded. The comrades who founded it were ordinary activists in the revolutionary mass movements of the 1960's. They had fought against the U.S. imperialist aggression in Indochina and in the draft resistance and GI movements. They had fought against the brutal oppression of the black people. They had taken part in the workers' movement, the student movement, the women's movement and so forth. And it was from their experience in the mass struggles that the comrades learned to hate social-democracy, revisionism and all opportunism. The comrades rebelled against opportunism and took up Marxism-Leninism and the cause of reconstructing the revolutionary vanguard party of the working class.
Thus the ACWM(M-L) was launched as the single nationwide Marxist-Leninist center. Right from the outset, the ACWM(M-L) declared its determination to rebuild a genuine communist party in the U.S. It proclaimed its unstinting loyalty to the working class as the leading and main force of the American revolution. And it affirmed the task of exposing and combating the treachery of the modern Soviet revisionists and the social-democratic trends. These principles were clearly inscribed in the founding statement of the ACWM (M-L) on May 12, 1969.
But, comrades and friends, it took a complex and arduous struggle, waged for close to 11 years, to finally found the Marxist-Leninist Party on January 1, 1980. The main reason for this delay lay in the emergence of the anti-party trend of neo-revisionism.
In the late 1960's and 1970's, not one but two trends emerged in the anti-revisionist movement. On one hand there was the trend of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, the trend of the ACWM(M-L). On the other hand there was the neo-revisionist trend. The neo-revisionist trend claimed to be Marxist-Leninist. It claimed it supported violent revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and so forth. It claimed to be opposed to Soviet revisionism. This was the trend whose champions were Avakian, Klonsky and so forth, the leading lights of the neo-revisionist groups, the "RCP," the "CPML" and so forth.
But in fact the neo-revisionists were simply new style revisionists, present-day Browderites. They adopted an utterly hostile stand towards the Leninist party principle, towards revolutionary agitation and towards the ACWM(M-L). On the other hand, the neo-revisionists conciliated with the various revisionist currents and with the trotskyites and social-democrats. As far as its international roots, history has shown that U.S. neo-revisionism, new style Browderism, has been in the main nothing but the American expression of the international trend of Chinese revisionism. Chinese revisionism during this period claimed to be opposed to Soviet revisionism, but in fact it conciliated with it and was really just another trend of revisionism.
Thus in the late 60's and into the 70's, to maintain one's revolutionary honor, one had to fight not only Soviet revisionism but also against neo-revisionism as well. Today the neo-revisionists have become nothing but outright renegades hardly distinguishable from their close class brothers of Gus Hall's "C"PUSA.
Comrades and friends,
Let us first look at some features of the struggle waged against the anti-party trend of neo-revisionism. It is extremely interesting that if one examines the stands taken by neo-revisionism in those early days, one sees that many of the ugly features of present-day liquidationism were already present in neo-revisionism right from the very outset, either in embryo or sometimes even in fairly developed form.
The neo-revisionists were opposed to Marxism-Leninism all down the line. However, in the struggle against them, at each stage certain particular questions came to the fore. Let us then go into some of these issues.
The Neo-Revisionists Fought the Party Principle
First, consider the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism on the question of the necessity for and role of the proletarian party. From the first day of its existence, the ACWM(M-L) fought for the principle that the decisive question for the Marxist-Leninists was the building and constant strengthening of the Marxist-Leninist party in the flames of the class struggle. It stressed that the genuine communist party was the highest form of class organization of the proletariat and the indispensable leader of the revolutionary struggle. It held that the reconstruction of such a proletarian party was the absolutely essential task facing the revolutionary movement. Hence it called on all the Marxist-Leninists to unite to build the proletarian party.
But against this, the neo-revisionists advanced the theory of the "pre-party situation'' and of building the "pre-party collective." This theory was bolstered by the thesis that the party would somehow spontaneously emerge from the mass movements. The neo-revisionists had no idea of the Marxist-Leninist conception of the energizing and mobilizing role of the genuine communist party. They did not understand the relation of the party to the class struggle. They counterposed building the mass movement to building the party. In this way, on the one hand they denounced party-building as divisive and sectarian, while on the other hand they reduced party organization to Browderite educational associations.
But what was the result of the neo-revisionist theories? It turned out that it was they who were the greatest splitters and disruptors. It was through their theoryof building dozens of scattered "pre-party collectives" that the Marxist-Leninist movement was factionalized and opened up to all kinds of dubious elements. This even allowed outright social-democratic elements like Barry Weisberg, groomed in the social-democratic Institute for Policy Studies, to masquerade as a Marxist- Leninist and launch his own "pre-party collective." And despite their demagogy about "building the mass movement," life has proven that the neo-revisionists in fact not only opposed the party but they did no service to the consolidation of the mass movements! The treacherous anti-party idea of neo-revisionism only weakened the revolutionary movement.
In contrast to this, the ACWM(M-L) fought vigorously for the party principle. It advocated and applied the Marxist-Leninist concept of building the party in the flames of the class struggle. As a result, the Marxist-Leninists built up a fighting organization on a national scale. They carefully laid the foundations for the party which is marked by a monolithic unity and is capable of providing revolutionary orientation to the class struggle.
The Neo-Revisionists Against Revolutionary Agitation and Organization
Second, consider the fight between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism on the question of the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat. The ACWM(M-L) fought to uphold the working class as the consistently revolutionary class. This was a very important question, for in the 1960's the myriad of opportunist trends, from New Leftism to cultural nationalism, had all written off the working class.
Indeed neo-revisionism too scoffed at the revolutionary capacity of the working class. It propagated that the "third world" was revolutionary but not the proletarians of the capitalist countries. It upheld that, in the U.S., perhaps some "third world" cultural nationalists were revolutionary, but not the working class. This neo-revisionist prejudice was especially seen in the issue of what kind of work to do among the working class. The neo-revisionists swore that the workers were too backward to be organized on a revolutionary basis. They claimed that revolutionary agitation could not be done among the workers -- the workers would allegedly beat you up, and so forth. Instead the workers could only be fed the most condescending, vulgar economist and liberal-labor trash possible. Indeed some neo-revisionists even went so far as to actually deny even the possibility of putting out a nationwide revolutionary Marxist-Leninist newspaper for the working class. They alleged that instead only local economist rags could be produced.
And what have been the results these ideas and prejudices?Over the years, the neo-revisionists have merely flip-flopped from either treating the workers to "pork chops" economism or to giving up the working class totally in despair. Many of the neo-revisionists right from the start worked to get into comfortable positions in the ranks of the trade union bureaucracy.
Meanwhile the Marxist-Leninists worked perseveringly to cut through this anti-working class contempt. Not only did the ACWM(M-L) defend the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the working class, but it went straightaway to organizing the workers not just for the economic struggle but to take part in political affairs and all aspects of the revolutionary movement. And the ACWM (M-L) disseminated Marxism-Leninism widely among the working masses and gave all its agitation and propaganda a genuinely revolutionary character.
The Neo-Revisionists Were for Peace with Opportunism
Third, consider the fight between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism over the necessity to oppose opportunism. The ACWM(M-L) stood implacably opposed to revisionism and opportunism of all shades. It stood for a clear break with social-democracy and revisionism and to win the masses away from the influence of these corrupt trends.
But the neo-revisionists were never seriously interested in breaking with opportunism. They worked to conciliate with the revisionist and opportunist forces. The neo-revisionists denied that revisionism and opportunism were the main dangers facing the communist movement, and instead raised the tattered flag of struggle against the alleged ultra-left. But this had nothing to do with a Marxist-Leninist fight against ultra-leftism, sectarianism, etc. Instead it was simply a screen for their fight against Marxism-Leninism and their theories that the opportunists were really "middle forces" that one had to unite with. Thus they gave credence to the deceptive pretensions of the opportunists and worked to bring the mass movements under the sway of these traitors. Hence they united with every right opportunist element possible -- the pro-Khrushchovites, the cultural nationalists, trotskyites, social- democrats and so forth. All this was justified under the pretext of "uniting all who could be united," which was later called "broadening" the mass movements.
But what have been the results of this policy?For one thing it was this policy that allowed even Titoite elements like the Guardianto pose as Marxist-Leninists. Indeed, all kinds of degenerate elements were given revolutionary credentials. And not surprisingly, the policy of unity with opportunism brought tremendous damage to the mass movements. It meant that the neo-revisionists became the accomplices of the opportunists and aided them in their treacherous work. The damage done by unity with opportunism was seen many times over, whether it was in the workers' movement, the black people's struggle against racial discrimination, the movement of the Mexican nationality people, the solidarity movements with the national liberation struggles or other struggles.
The Neo-Revisionists Were Mired in the Liberal-Labor Swamp
Finally, consider the fight between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism on the attitude to bourgeois liberal-labor politics. Closely related to the neo-revisionist conciliation of opportunism was the fact that the neo-revisionists did not really stand for independent politics from the bourgeoisie. They remained susceptible to and tailed after the liberal-labor policies of the bourgeoisie and indeed quite often after the Democratic Party politicians. A dramatic illustration occurred just before the 1972 national elections, when the October League wrote that the proper use of the "inter-capitalist contradictions" such as that between Nixon and McGovern meant that "at times" the OL would "support one capitalist party against another." Just a year or so later the OL again stressed its loyalty to the imperialist liberals during the Watergate crisis. Instead of seeking to detach the masses from both capitalist parties, the OL sought once again to rally the people behind the Democratic Party. The OL made its famous complaint that the Democratic Party-controlled Congress stood paralyzed and called for "unparalyzing" it. The OL showed quite clearly it was just a faction of the left wing of the Democratic Party.
On the other hand the ACWM(M-L) maintained a genuinely independent position against the two big capitalist parties and the entire monopoly bourgeoisie. The ACWM(M-L) fought Nixonite fascism tooth and nail. At the same time, during the 1972 national elections the ACWM(M-L) exposed the danger to the mass movement of the political deception and imperialist pacifism of McGovern and the Democratic Party. The ACWM(M-L) worked on all questions to develop among the masses a burning hatred for the entire bourgeoisie and its state and political apparatus. As opposed to the neo-revisionists, only the ACWM(M-L) maintained a stand truly independent of the Democratic Party.
Such were some of the principle stands of neo-revisionism that came under sharp fire from the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in the early 1970's. To sum up:
First, there was the question of upholding the party principle -- or opposing it by advocating and building the "pre-party collectives."
Second, there was the question of whether one upheld the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat and gave all agitation and organization a truly revolutionary character or whether one acted as a liberal-labor politician under the hoax that the workers were too "backward."
Third, there was the stand against revisionism and opportunism: whether to fight to the end or to accommodate and conciliate the opportunist trends.
And fourth, there was the question of whether one stood for organizing independent of the Democratic Party or became a mere appendage of the liberal-labor politics.
Neo-Revisionism in the Mid-1970's
Comrades and friends, in the mid-1970's, under the impact of the struggle waged by the Marxist-Leninists against neo-revisionism on these and other questions of principle, the neo-revisionists were forced to shift their positions. I say they shifted. That is, they changed this or that formulation without giving up their opportunist positions, while maintaining their same anti- Marxist stand in essence, particularly on the four cardinal questions I have reviewed. The neo-revisionists did however change some phraseology to avoid being discarded in disgust by the revolutionary activists.
For example, the main neo-revisionists dropped one by one their formulation of ' 'building pre-party collectives" and in words paid lip service to the need for building the party. They declared their sects "parties." But in fact they continued their war against the party and party concept. They still denigrated party-building and regarded it as something incidental to real revolutionary work. Some said that party-building was just a brief period of organizational consolidation prior to declaring a party or a merger. They still thought of the party as something separate from the class struggle, as a Browderite educational sect. They stepped up their work to factionalize the revolutionary movement, only now the form of this activity was declaring many parties, instead of as previously building "pre-party collectives."
Another example of how the neo-revisionists shifted in the mid-70's is that in 1974 Avakian's utterly "three worldist" Revolutionary Union finally figured out that the proletariat was the main force of revolution in the U.S. That is, they temporarily changed a formulation. But in deeds, of course,'they persisted in their opposition to revolutionary work in the working class. In fact they actually increased their vulgar economist, liberal-labor politicking in the working class movement.
The fact that the neo-revisionists were merely shifting in the mid-70's, merely insincerely changing certain formulations to appear more orthodox, dodging to escape the heat of our struggle against them to uphold Marxist-Leninist principle -- this fact is shown in that side by side with this new-found orthodoxy, the neo-revisionists adopted the most renegade and putrid counter-revolutionary theses. They hailed the new campaigns against ultra-leftism launched by the Chinese at this time and were overjoyed at the Chinese elaboration of the "three worlds" theory. This was the heyday of "three worldism," and in 1976 Klonsky openly came forth with the social-chauvinist thesis of "directing the main blow at the Soviet Union."
The Movement Against Social-Chauvinism
The emergence of this ultra-chauvinist thesis in 1976 was the beginning of the total bankruptcy of neo-revisionism. Neo-revisionism had now come forward with open social-chauvinism. What was all along a hidden alliance with the capitalist class was now out in the open: the social-chauvinists were calling openly on the American workers to join on the side of U.S. imperialism in its rivalry with the Soviet social-imperialists!
A tenacious struggle ensued between Marxism-Leninism and social-chauvinism. This fight became the central issue in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. There were two paths put up before the American working class: either to organize for the socialist revolution or to join the U.S. imperialist war front. A powerful movement arose against social-chauvinism, against the counter-revolutionary theory of "three worlds" and eventually against Mao Zedong Thought itself. It was a great merit of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, immediate predecessor of our Party and successor to the ACWM(M-L), that it right from the start recognized the tremendous significance of the movement against social-chauvinism, threw itself into it heart and soul, provided it with guidance and a program of action, and successfully led it.
In the course of this struggle, neo-revisionism went completely bankrupt by 1979 when the "RCP,USA" came out with its gangster attacks on socialism in Albania. Thus all the main neo-revisionists had proven that they were nothing but yellow, anti-socialist and chauvinist forces with absolutely nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism.
Comrades and friends, the movement against social-chauvinism was a powerful expression of anger against the social-chauvinist class traitors by all those who preserved their revolutionary honor. It was a great outpouring of support for revolution and proletarian internationalism. It played the role of being a powerful rallying center to unite all that is alive, honest and loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the revolution. And it finally led to the victorious reconstitution of the Party, without the social-chauvinists and against the social-chauvinists.
So, comrades and friends, what are some of the features of this battle?
First, it is important to recall that the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, by fighting social-chauvinism, did not give up the fight against neo-revisionism. In fact, right from the start, the COUSML raised the question of uprooting all that gave rise to the social-chauvinist treachery. The COUSML said, in the fight against social-chauvinism, one must go into the roots of the matter. And in a vigorous and scientific manner, the Marxist-Leninists showed that the roots of social-chauvinism were to be found in neo-revisionism, which combined the corrupt legacy of Browderite liberal-labor politics with the rotten doctrines of Chinese revisionism. The COUSML called for a thorough repudiation of Browderism. And in the course of this struggle, the COUSML denounced the anti-Marxist and revisionist nature of Mao Zedong Thought, the ideological fountainhead of Chinese revisionism.
With the razor-sharp knife of Marxist science, the Marxist-Leninists completely stripped away the revolutionary pretensions of neo-revisionism and exposed all the corruption it had introduced into the revolutionary movement. In the course of this fight, the COUSML brought to the fore the repudiation of the basic neo-revisionist tenets. In particular, the COUSML again emphasized these issues we have discussed such as the neo-revisionist negation of the party and their war on the party concept, their denial of the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat and complete lack of revolutionary work in the working class, their conciliation with opportunism and revisionism, and their complete immersion in the liberal-labor marsh attached to the Democratic Party. The fight against social-chauvinism was waged with the aim of rooting out the entire evil and not papering it over, with the aim of destroying all the neo-revisionist rot and corrosion, all the Browderism and Chinese revisionism, that lay below and formed the basis for the bankrupt and counter-revolutionary social-chauvinist theses.
Another feature of the struggle against social-chauvinism was that although it hit directly at the pro-Chinese revisionists, it also gave a big impulse to the struggle against all the revisionist and opportunist trends. Indeed all these trends are social-chauvinist to the core. For example, the pro-Soviet "C"PUSA is the official standard-bearer of Browderism. And, as we have seen, in the course of the struggle against social-chauvinism the COUSML deepened the exposure of Browderism and its longstanding corruption of the working class movement. And it may also be pointed out that alongside the struggle against social-chauvinism, the COUSML also systematically developed and strengthened the fight against social-democracy.
Finally, the COUSML stressed that the struggle against social-chauvinism should be waged in inseparable connection with the burning tasks of party-building. There could be no lasting victory in the fight against social-chauvinism other than the consolidation and constant strengthening of the genuine communist party. Thus with the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party on January 1, 1980, the movement against social-chauvinism recorded its greatest victory. This victory showed that the fight against social-chauvinism had been an utter fiasco for the neo-revisionists. The movement against social-chauvinism had succeeded in drawing a clear line of demarcation between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism. In bitter struggle against the anti-party trend of neo-revisionism, through a decade of struggle against capitalist reaction and opportunist sabotage, the political, ideological and organizational foundations for the Party had been laid. It is this history of unyielding struggle that lies at the center of the solidity and vitality that one finds in the Marxist-Leninist Party today.
Comrades and friends, what does this decade of struggle against neo-revisionism and social-chauvinism prove?
It proves that Marxism-Leninism has made it with flying colors through the stormy period of the late 1960's and early 1970's and through the relative ebb in the struggle during the greater part of the 1970's. Only Marxism-Leninism knew how to maintain a consistent stand, a revolutionary stand. Only Marxism-Leninism has allowed for a really oppositional stand, a truly independent politics with respect to the capitalist parties. Only Marxism-Leninism provided the guidance to found the Party on the rock-solid foundations which will be a powerful force to orient the great class battles over the next decade. Marxism-Leninism has trained a generation of revolutionaries, unstintingly loyal to the proletariat and its glorious historic mission of socialism and communism! Everlasting glory to Marxism-Leninism!
Maoism in Ruins
And what on the other hand is the fate of the followers of Chinese revisionism? Neo-revisionism proved to be totally unstable and unable to maintain any consistent stand on the burning questions of the revolution. It proved to be totally fragmented and splintered, unable to unite even its own forces. It proved to be totally incapable of leading the revolutionary movement. Indeed, Maoism is today in ruins!
Today we are witnessing the rapid disintegration of Maoism not only in the U.S. but on an international scale. Everywhere the Maoist groups are literally falling to pieces. In some countries, like Germany and Portugal, "three worldist" groups have disbanded, and in all countries the Maoists are suffering splits and are in crisis.
Comrades and friends, there are several factors responsible for the decay of Maoism. Not the least of these factors has been the bitter struggle of the world's Marxist-Leninists against Maoism and the Chinese revisionist betrayal. And part of this struggle has been the struggle waged here by our Party and its predecessor, the COUSML, against social-chauvinism and Maoism.
Another factor for the decay of Maoism is that Chinese revisionism itself has sunk deep into the mire of counter-revolution. Of course such things as forming a warmongering alliance with U.S. imperialism has greatly discredited its followers. As well, the crisis within the Deng/Hua clique has meant that even the name of Mao has been spat upon by the very disciples of Mao.
And finally the Maoist ideology itself has proved that it is bankrupt and impotent. On a world scale those who have been guided by Maoism have found themselves at a dead end or completely off the rails of revolution with each turn in the revolutionary movement. For example, in the U.S. during the high tide of struggle of the 1960's and early 70's, Maoism gained influence and had its disorganizing effect. At that time, Maoism did tremendous harm and was incapable of utilizing the upsurge to build solid revolutionary organization, to reconstitute the proletarian party and to establish a legacy of struggle against the liberal-labor marsh. Instead, in this period Maoism proved itself incapable of adhering to principle and showed itself to be a slave to any passing fashion. And then later on, in the face of the growing capitalist offensive which demanded scientific Marxist- Leninist work to organize the working class for the coming revolutionary storms, Maoism suffered a total fiasco. The inner rot lay exposed for all to see. Unable to deal either with the revolutionary upsurge or with the capitalist offensive, Maoism lay in ruins.
Therefore, comrades and friends, today out of the stinking marsh of Maoist decay a new phenomenon has emerged. This is the phenomenon of open liquidationism; of direct merger with social-democracy; and of an open renegade spirit.
The essential features of this liquidationism have marked the neo-revisionists from the beginning. And from the beginning the predecessors of our Party bitterly fought the neo-revisionists on these very issues. What is new is that these features have become more open and more pronounced than ever before.
Let us examine some of the basic features of the present-day liquidators.
The Liquidators Against the Party
First and foremost, liquidationism means liquidation of the Marxist-Leninist communist party. The neo-revisionist liquidators have thrown overboard their past lip service to the party principle and are coming out openly to renounce the Leninist concept of the vanguard party.
Take for example the "CPML," or more precisely, let's take what little remains of the Klonskyite "CP ML," which is presently on the verge of complete dissolution. Today the leaders (and former leaders) of the "CPML" are having a debate in their press over whether or not the "CPML" should disband altogether. And as part of this debate they are openly weighing the merits and demerits of whether or not the vanguard party is even needed at all. So far they have only unity on one conclusion, and that is that the "CPML" is not the vanguard party. Well, at least the Klonskyites have gotten something right!
So if they don't claim to be the party then what do they claim to be? In the April issue of The Call, they declare that they have not even reached the stage of "preparty organization"! No joke! They say they are working to establish in the future what they claim will only "approximate a pre-party organization and not the party itself." Can you imagine that! In all these years, the Klonskyites have only succeeded in going backwards from a pre-party situation to a pre-pre-party situation!
In the early 1970's these people often argued that in the so-called pre-party situation of that time, Leninist organizational norms such as democratic centralism were not possible to apply. Later they pretended they were building a party with Leninist organization. But now they have again reverted to the old theme declaring that "a highly centralized party type of organization is unlikely for the immediate future." Indeed, Leninist type of organization is a question of the far, far distant future for these anti-party liquidators!!
In this, as always, the "CPML" has a faithful echo in Mr. Barry Weisberg's "CPUSA/ML." Like Klonsky, Weisberg floated his so-called party not because he had abandoned in the slightest his own "pre-party" stand. Far from it. Rather he tacked the label "party" over his social-democratic sect as a pragmatic maneuver, a desperate gamble, for the purpose of infiltrating the movement and fighting those who were building the genuine Marxist-Leninist party. But the totally anti-party stand of Barry Weisberg can be seen in his recent declaration that "there is no Marxist-Leninist center in the U.S." Thus by his own self-confession, the so-called "CPUSA/ML" is a cynical fraud, a mere anti-party sect.
Meanwhile Bob Avakian's "RCP" has been wracked with crisis. Wracked by the struggle against Chinese revisionism it suffered heavy losses. The Revolutionary Workers Headquarters which broke from the "RCP" has virtually disbanded. The "RCP" itself has been reduced to an empty shell despite its continued claims that it is the party of the proletariat. In this they are truly loyal disciples of Maoism. Mao tried to maintain the signboard that the Communist Party of China was leading the situation while in fact the party organization was liquidated. Mao's anti-partyism is what inspires Avakian to write his books condemning Stalin and Enver Hoxha for upholding the leading role of the proletarian party. After all, upholding the party, according to Avakian's Maoist ravings, means "putting a strait-jacket on the masses.''
In a word, these liquidators are bitterly fighting against the party principle. Treatises are being written against the evils of the vanguard party concept. The "pre-party" situation has been pulled out of the mothballs. And some have taken this anti-party liquidationism to its logical conclusion and are on the verge of disbanding or have already done so. It is this feature of liquidationism that gives it its name. Liquidation of the party and merger with social-democracy -- these are the essence, the central points and the characteristic features of liquidationism.
The Liquidators Against the Revolution
Comrades and friends, the second marked feature of the neo-revisionist liquidators is that they are openly ridiculing the prospects for revolution. And in particular they are openly mocking the revolutionary capacity of the working class. This is an expression of the spirit of renegacy that has gripped the liquidators.
They are pontificating from their armchairs: we have tried to make revolution and we have failed. There is no party nor immediate prospects for one. But no great loss, because the revolutionary class battles are not on the agenda anyhow. The workers are insufferably backward and will never be interested in anything but reforms. Therefore all talk of waging revolutionary struggle should be abandoned for better days. In the meantime let's sit back and do self-criticism for not abandoning even our false pretenses of being revolutionaries sooner than we did. Such is the "realism" of the liquidators. Such is the liquidators' lament.
Thus, as incredible as this may seem to those who remember the days when OL would tell our comrades that we were "insane" to bring revolutionary agitation to the workers, today the Klonskyites are doing self-criticism for "exaggerating the openness of the workers to the red flag of communism"! Of course they do not explain how it is they know anything about the workers' response to the red flag of communism, when all they have had to offer the workers is the yellow flag of social-chauvinism. Nevertheless the "CPML" has taken to moaning that it "saw the masses as more advanced than they are."
The "CPUSA/ML" too has proclaimed that the "masses are moving to the right," and Barry Weisberg has implied that it is the workers who comprise a major social base of Reaganite fascism.
As for the "RCP," they are reverting to their New Leftist and "primeval three worldist" positions of a decade ago, according to which it is not the workers but the de-classed elements, the lumpens and so forth which are the real revolutionary force. Recently Bob Avakian has disclosed that ever since the time of Lenin, the world's Marxists have been hung up on the supposedly dogmatic idea that the industrial proletariat is the standard-bearer of the socialist revolution. In fact the "RCP" leaders say that they are going to take the term "industrial proletariat" out of their party program as the industrial workers are allegedly non-revolutionary and bought off. And in practice the "RCP" has already abandoned the factories.
Thus the liquidators have repudiated all prospects of the revolutionary working class struggle. And from this conclusion, the "CPML" and others have repudiated all but the most narrow and timid struggles for reforms, while from the same conclusion, the "RCP" has thrown up its hands in the air in anarchist despair.
The Liquidators Are for Reconciliation with Revisionism
The third marked feature of these neo-revisionist liquidators is that they have completely abandoned even their past pretenses of anti-revisionism. In a single chorus, the various liquidators are shouting themselves hoarse against the "ultra-left," that is revolutionary Marxism-Leninism as exemplified by the MLP, as the principal danger. They are moaning about the great harm done by their alleged ultra-left sins of the past. And among such sins they include even their hypocritical phrasemongering of days gone by against the revisionists.
The "CPML" is doing self-criticism for only now recognizing that the Soviet revisionists and their followers are really ultra-leftists who supposedly advocate "armed struggle," "Leninism" and "revolution"! And they allege that right opportunism was only a feature of Soviet revisionism in the past. At the same time the "CP ML" sees something good in the ultra-rightist "Euro- communist" parties which are nothing but social-democratic parties of the European bourgeoisie.
In fact any type of criticism of the revisionists, even the most feeble and conciliatory, has been in the main erased from the pages of the neo-revisionist press. At one time, the Klonskyites and others postured that they would not accept unity with Gus Hall's revisionist party or the trotskyites. But today the revisionist party and the trots have become just more of the "progressive and democratic forces" to be united with. In this regard, Barry Weisberg's appeals for a "united labor front" with the revisionist "C''PUSA is one of the most shameless examples of throwing overboard the anti-revisionist struggle.
The Liquidators Enslaved by the Democratic Party
And finally, the fourth marked feature of the neo-revisionist liquidators is that they are running headlong into the arms of the liberal-labor politicians. Unity with the Democratic Party hacks, the social-democratic and trade union honchos is the direct corollary to the liquidators' opposition to the Leninist party concept and the denial of the revolutionary capacity of the working class. They weigh on their pragmatic scale the weight of the working masses and the Marxist-Leninists on the one hand, against the weight of the vast army of liberal- labor politicians and of the bourgeoisie which stands behind them, on the other hand. And taking into account the money and cozy positions that the liberal-labor politicians can provide, the choice between the two is obvious for these champions of "realism." Thus the liquidators have thrown in their lot with the most corrupt forces against the Marxist-Leninists and the working and oppressed masses.
Unity with the Democratic Party hacks, the strikebreaking trade union chiefs, and so forth goes under various signboards such as the "unity of the progressive and labor" forces. Subordinating the masses and their struggles to this liberal-labor marsh is the common Browderite strategy of all the liquidators.
The various factions of the "CPML," for example, are all united on the urgent necessity to work for the creation of such a "progressive labor unity." Both factions agree that they should work not only in the Democratic Party but even in the Republican Party to bring this about. The only difference among them is whether or not the "CPML" has any role to play as a vehicle for forming a liberal-labor coalition.
Such a so-called party for the purpose of effecting a merger with social-democracy is a model formula for a Browderite liquidators' party. This is what all the neo-revisionist liquidators are striving for.
Comrades and friends,
This only touches upon some of the most glaring and pronounced features of the neo-revisionist liquidators because the depth of their renegacy is such that it can not possibly all be touched on in one evening. But from this it can be seen that in a sense the neo-revisionists have come full circle, reverting to the most discredited positions of a decade past. Only now these positions are even more pronounced and disgusting and have been confirmed long ago as completely bankrupt.
The Pro-Soviet "C"PUSA -- A Model of a Social-Democratic Liquidators' Party
The neo-revisionists have placed themselves on the path of open liquidationism and merger with social- democracy, the same liquidationist path charted by the arch-renegade Earl Browder. In fact the neo-revisionist liquidators have been reduced in their essentials to the level of the grand masters of liquidationism, the revisionist "C"PUSA, the direct heirs of Browder.
It was long ago that Gus Hall and the other present- day leaders of the "C"PUSA rejected altogether the Leninist concept of the vanguard party. Of course they say Browder went too far when he disbanded the Party outright in 1944. In fact for decades, since the CPUSA fell completely under the sway of Khrushchovism and Browderism in the mid-1950's, they have been trying to reassure themselves that the revisionist party has some role to play. This role is not to lead the revolutionary working class movement, but, as they put it, to champion "labor unity" or "left-center unity" or "anti-monopoly unity." Indeed by their own description they see themselves as some sort of coagulent to congeal into one whole the Browderite liberal-labor marsh.
Thus Gus Hall's "C"PUSA is not a party based on its own organization but on a network of ties with the Democratic Party politicians, labor hacks, so-called civil rights leaders, ministers, and other corrupt elements.
This party long ago renounced the revolution and revolutionary struggle. Rather it is a typical reformist and pacifist party of bourgeois respectability and capitalist law and order.
And of course the "C"PUSA not only does not oppose revisionism, but is the standard-bearer of modern Soviet revisionism in the U.S., the most elaborated and an extremely dangerous revisionism. In the recent period Gus Hall and co. have taken to criticizing a number of their fraternal revisionists for "right opportunism." What a farce! Clearly this is not a fight over questions of principle but because some of their friends refuse to follow Soviet social-imperialism's revisionist baton with sufficient loyalty. It is a falling out of thieves inside the liquidator camp.
The Trotskyite Liquidators -- Little Brothers of the "C"PUSA
Along with the "C"PUSA revisionists come their little brothers, the countless variety of trotskyite sects. While different trotskyites may use different rhetoric at different times -- from hailing the fascist Russian invasion of Afghanistan to the most extreme pacifist belly-crawling before the imperialist liberals, labor hacks, etc. -- all trotskyites have a common denominator of liquidationism. They all curse the Marxist-Leninist party concept and the struggle against opportunism in general and against social-democracy in particular. And in the main they all work in parallel with the revisionist "C"PUSA and pursue a very similar liquidationist policy.
Uphold the Red Banners of Marxism-Leninism and the Revolution Against Revisionist Liquidationism!
In conclusion, comrades and friends, today we are faced with a new phase in our struggle. With Maoism in ruins and with the decay of neo-revisionism into open liquidationism, the struggle over the questions of Marxist-Leninist principles is no longer centered on the question of social-chauvinism as it was and had to be in the past period. Rather today we must fight liquidationism head on and with all our might. Much as the struggle against social-chauvinism came very much to the fore in the struggle between neo-revisionism and Marxism-Leninism in the 1976-1980 period, so today the struggle against liquidationism has now come to the fore as the pivotal issue in the fight against revisionism as a whole. This struggle must be waged against the pro-Chinese revisionists, the pro-Soviet revisionists, the trotskyites and all the other revisionist liquidators.
It must be stressed that the struggle against social- chauvinism has not gone away. Indeed the vigorous development of the anti-imperialist movement has given new scope to the fight against social-chauvinism and brought it to wider circles of activists. Social-chauvinism is as disgusting and rabid as ever. We must keep up our fire on it at all times.
But today liquidationism and the advocacy and practice of merger with social-democracy has become the central feature of the bitter revisionist crusade against Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary movement. The fight against social-chauvinism and against the various other crimes of revisionism will be unfolded around the struggle against liquidationism. Today the life and death struggle against revisionism centers on the fight against liquidationism and merger with social- democracy. This is a struggle for the party, a struggle for the class independence of the proletariat, a struggle which is absolutely essential to advance the revolutionary movement.
Comrades and friends, our Marxist-Leninist Party is prepared to wage this struggle with the fierce determination which will be necessary to defeat revisionist liquidationism with the same militant tenacity with which we fought neo-revisionism and social-chauvinism over the past twelve years.
And on this celebration of May Day, the holiday of the international working class, there is a particular factor to be kept in mind which gives us confidence in this struggle. This is the knowledge that we are not fighting alone but as part of a great international confrontation. In countries all over the world, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries are fighting to build up their Marxist- Leninist communist parties in the face of a bitter struggle with the revisionist enemies of the party. They are fighting to win the masses over to the revolutionary position and away from the influence of the revisionists, the social-democrats and the bourgeoisie. This struggle is necessarily a long and complex one with its own particularities from country to country.
But there is one thing which we can be absolutely certain of, and that is that if we adhere to the invincible ideas of Marxism-Leninism and to a path of uncompromising struggle against all the hidden and open enemies of our cause, Marxism-Leninism will definitely win out. As Marx and Engels pointed out long ago, the triumph of the proletarian revolution and communism are inevitable.
Long live May Day -- international working class day!
Down with the liquidators!
Long live the Marxist-Leninist Party!
Glory to Marxism-Leninism!
The acute crisis of the "three worldist" sect known as the "CPML" continues to deepen. For many months they have been moaning and groaning about their profound and all-round disintegration. In the March issue of their paper, The Call, they report among other things that their standing committee has collapsed, a number of their leaders have jumped ship, Klonsky has resigned as chairman, and their Central Committee has been shunted aside.1 Now, with the April issue of The Call, an open debate has begun in the pages of their newspaper over whether or not "CPML" should be dissolved outright.
In an effort to save themselves from total collapse the "CPML" has set up an Interim Political Committee (IPC). In the April issue of The Call an article is printed from a member of this IPC, John Martin, which purports to analyze "CPML's" disease and to prescribe a cure. 2 However, Martin's prescription proves to be nothing more than a rehash of many of the liquidationist theories currently fashionable in the "CPML" combined with a resurrection of anti-party theories from "CPML's" dark neo-revisionist past. Nevertheless this article is of interest. It not only reveals the depth of the crisis of "CPML," but it is also very instructive for all class conscious workers who wish to understand the features of present-day liquidationism and merger with social-democracy.
Liquidationism and Renegacy in the Name of a Fight Against "Ultra-Leftism"
For some time "CPML" has been extolling the virtues of liquidationism and merger with social-democracy dressed up in the disguise of a fight against what they claim to be their past "ultra-left" sins. Martin continues this crusade, beginning his article with the assessment that "Any reader of the last few issues of The Call can plainly see the CPML is in the midst of a serious ideological, political and organizational crisis. The basic reason for this crisis is the ultra-left orientation, line and method that held back the CPML's development from a small sect into a political force in the United States."
Any reader who knows "CPML" will of course be astounded by this assessment since "CPML" is most known for its ultra-rightist history, its social-chauvinist call to unite with U.S. imperialism to direct the "main blow" against Soviet social-imperialism, its "three worldism," and so forth. But all of these facts are of no significance to Martin. He declares, "some openly rightist and liquidationist views have emerged and even appeared in the pages of The Call. But the existence of rightist views does not change the fact that it is the ultra-left orientation, line and method that is mainly responsible for our problems today. To blame rightism as the principal reason for our deterioration is to confuse cause and effect." What seems to be confused here is not "cause and effect" but right and left. No, "CPML's" disease is not "ultra-leftism." Instead, it has a terminal case of revisionism, right opportunism. Martin's "analysis" of the ultra-left danger aims to conceal this cancer and to spread it by attacking the very principles of Marxism-Leninism itself.
For example, Martin has special hatred for the Leninist teachings on the proletarian revolutionary party of the new type. He argues that liquidationism is not the problem in the "CPML"; oh no, it's just this "ultra-left notion" of the vanguard party that he is opposed to. Martin mocks at party-building and the party concept in the most virulent terms. He sneers against "This ultra-left notion of 'we are the vanguard party.'" He complains that "the slogan 'party building is the central task' has led to a certain one-sidedness." He pontificates that "a highly centralized party type of organization is unlikely for the immediate future." And he denounces anyone who fights for the organizational unification of the class conscious workers into a party based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism as doing harm to the class struggle because "to expect today a high degree of ideological unity as a precondition to organizational unity only holds back the Marxist-Leninists from having maximum effect on the class and national struggles."
Of course mocking at the party principle and opposing the arduous and constant work to build it is the very heart of liquidationism. The working class must at all costs build its Marxist-Leninist vanguard, its fighting headquarters because there is no other way to train the workers in their own class interests, to organize them as a fighting force, rallying around themselves all of the oppressed and downtrodden and leading them to victory in the class struggle against the capitalists. But the liquidators are opposed to building the party and they want to wipe out the very idea of it from the minds of the workers. With its crusade against "ultra-leftism" this is precisely what "CPML" is trying to do.
Martin also attacks the fight against revisionism and opportunism as an "ultra-left" excess. Writing about the campaign against "ultra-leftism" of the Deng clique in China, Martin remarks enthusiastically, "Particularly criticized has been the tendency to magnify the extent of right revisionism in the Party and over-emphasis on the two-line struggle." The liberal and anarchist theories and practices of the Chinese revisionists, such as that on the inevitability of "two-line struggle" inside the party, were factionalist theories designed to justify coexistence with the ultra-revisionists. 3 But Martin is trying to paint a picture that what was wrong with the past stand of the Chinese leadership towards revisionism was not that it conciliated all the various revisionist currents while elaborating its own bankrupt anti-Marxist-Leninist doctrine, but that it fought revisionism too hard. Today, after the experience of Mao elevating the discredited ultra-revisionist Deng Xiaoping to party leadership, after the spectacle of China welcoming the arch-revisionist Carrillo in 1971 and afterwards, after the exposure of Mao's fondness for Tito and the sight of the Yugoslav-Chinese embraces, after the exposure of the rotten revisionist ideological basis of Mao Zedong Thought itself, to paint such a picture can only be called a whitewash.
Such artistry seems to be Martin's forte. To prove that the struggle against revisionism must be done away with, he goes on to create the utterly fantastic story that even the arch-revisionists of the Soviet Union have now supposedly become "ultra-leftists." He states, "But today the Soviets enjoy military superiority over the West and are globally on the offensive. Correspondingly, 'armed struggle' is replacing 'peaceful transition' in the Soviet lexicon, and the USSR has become the new advocate of 'Leninism' and 'revolution' in the third world -- with, of course, a good dose of Russian arms to pave the way to 'socialism.' " Martin dubs this the "new left posture of the Soviet social-imperialists."
What an amazing fairy tale! Martin would have us believe that the brutal Soviet social-imperialist invasion of Afghanistan, their savage threats against Poland, their exploitation of the Russian workers and the oppressed nationalities in Russia, and so forth, are not the bitter fruits of the right opportunism of the Soviet revisionists but, instead, manifestations of "leftism." Despite Martin's incredible concoctions, even the Soviet revisionists' demagogic posturing is not more "left" today than in the past but most of all turns upon pacifist calls for collaboration with U.S. imperialism against the world's peoples.4 The depths of the rotten opportunism of the "CPML" can be seen by the fact that they place themselves to the right of the Khrushchovite revisionists of the CPSU.
Martin goes so far as to suggest that the utterly state monopoly capitalist Soviet Union is "socialist," although imperialist. He talks of "the numerous unanswered questions about the social and economic systems in Eastern Europe and the USSR itself." This is a diplomatic repetition of the views of the arch-liquidator Jim Hamilton, who complained in the February 1981 issue of The Call: "Isn't there also something wrong when we insist on describing the Soviet Union as 'capitalism restored' even though no one in our movement can offer a coherent proof of that contention?" 5 The CP ML" liquidators are simply trailing in the wake of the Chinese revisionist leadership. The Deng clique in China has already hinted at this reassessment. Their contradiction with the Soviet revisionists has never been one of principle. In their striving to become an imperialist superpower in their own right they have today allied themselves with U.S. imperialism. But tomorrow they may embrace the new tsars of the Soviet Union. To pave the way for this pragmatic maneuvering the Chinese revisionist Deng clique has begun to suggest that the Soviet Union is "still socialist," only suffering from "revisionist tendencies."6
Thus Martin and the "CPML" are dropping even the slightest pretext of any ideological differences with Soviet revisionism. This helps pave the way for "CPML" to work for an accommodation with the pro-Soviet groups in the U.S. as they work in parallel in the liberal-labor marsh. Contradiction or accommodation with the Soviet revisionists will depend on the changing circumstances of cynical international power politics and will even more openly than before, if that is possible, be based simply on the clash of rival imperialisms and rival social-chauvinisms. Thus the stand of "CPML" towards the Soviet revisionists has come to resemble more and more that of, say, various "Eurocommunists."
Martin makes it clear that he wants to put an end not just to the battle against Soviet revisionism, but for that matter to the struggle against any other trend of revisionism or opportunism. He denounces the powerful polemics against revisionism and opportunism from the past and pleads that more sober and realistic minds should prevail and find the way to unity. "While we desire a constructive exchange of views, we do not wish to return to the polemics of the '70s, with the label 'opportunist' hurled carelessly about, forcing differences to harden." What matter is the defense of Marxist-Leninist principle against the revisionist distortions? What matter is the defense of the interests of the workers against the class betrayal of the revisionists and opportunists? This is just so much hardening of difference pleads Martin. And so, down with the "ultra-left" excess of the fight against revisionism and on with "constructive exchange of views."
Besides attacking the party concept and the fight against revisionism, Martin also finds the space to oppose any revolutionary communist work as "classic ultra-leftism." He moans in despair that, "We saw the masses as more advanced than they are and underestimated the strength of anti-communism. Rather than making a sober analysis of the consequences for M-Ls of the resilience of imperialism at home, we saw U.S. imperialism as tottering on the abyss of disaster. " He concludes, "This is classic ultra-leftism. It led us to exaggerate the openness of the advanced workers and other activists to the red flag of communism." In other words, the masses are just too backward, U.S. imperialism's just too strong, so fold up the red flag and get down to the nitty gritty work of seeking cozy positions in the trade union bureaucracy, working inside all of the capitalist political parties, organizing a "constructive, exchange of views" with the revisionists and social-democrats, etc. The only thing classic in these views is the depth of their renegacy.
Here you have some of the features of "CPML's" crusade against ultra-leftism. Renunciation of the party principle, renunciation of the fight against revisionism and opportunism, renunciation of any revolutionary work.
Merger with Social-Democracy Under the Signboard of "to the Masses''
Along with the crusade against "ultra-leftism," Martin argues that "CPML" must put its "main efforts" into a "to the masses orientation." Our Party, ;e revolutionary Marxist-Leninists the world over, has ways laid stress on work among the masses, on wide-spread agitation, on protracted work to draw ever wider masses into revolutionary organization, etc. But the "CPML" every few years rediscovers the slogan of "to the masses" as if it had found a new world. As always, from the mouths of the renegades of the "CPML," "to the masses" becomes a call not for agitation among or organization of the workers but for a rush to merge with social-democracy.
Martin, in the first place, emphasizes that the shift" to a "to the masses orientation" is a call against the building of the party. Martin complains that, in the past, the slogan 'party building is the central task' has led to a certain one-sidedness, of over-emphasizing the tasks of socialist propaganda and 'wining the advanced to communism' in isolation from the need to fuse the M-L cadre into the workers' and nationalities' movements."
Martin is here resurrecting the traditional neo-revisionist theory of counterposing the building of the mass movement against the building of the party. For CPML" there have always been two categories, "party"and "mass movement," that stood in irreconcilable contradiction to each other. They have never been able to understand the conception and work of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists of building the party in the thick of the class struggle. They simply cannot fathom that it is precisely so that the workers can better carry out the class struggle and carry it to victory that they must have organization, and that the Marxist-Leninist party is the highest form of the independent class organization of the proletariat, that organization which is essential to train the workers in their own class interest and to lead them in battle against the capitalists. In an article against the liquidators of his day, Comrade Lenin explains the relationship of the party to the masses in this way:
"The Marxists have a fundamentally different view of the relationship of the unorganized (and unorganizahle for a lengthy period, sometimes decades) masses to the party, to organization. It is to enable the masses of adefinite classto learn to understand its own interests and its position, to learn to conduct its own policy, that there must be an organization of the advanced elements of the class, immediately and at all costs, even though at first these elements constitute only a tiny fraction of the class. To do service to the masses and express theirinterests, having correctly conceived those interests, the advanced contingent, the organization, must carry on all its activity among the masses, drawing from the masses all the best forces without exception, at every step verifying carefully and objectively whether contact with the masses is being maintained and whether it is a live contact. In this way, and onlyin this way, does the advanced contingent train and enlighten the masses, expressing theirinterests, teaching them organization and directing allthe activities of the masses along the path of conscious class politics." 7
All of this seems clear enough. But "CPML" cannot grasp it. For them "to the masses" necessarily means opposition to building the party. It is difficult to understand why "CPML" is such a dimwit until it is seen that when "CPML" says "to the masses," it does not mean to the masses at all but to the trade union bureaucrats, to the "riot stoppers," to the social-democrats. Martin spells this out. Immediately after his call to "fuse the M-L cadre into the workers' and nationalities' movements," Martin explains,"For example, the CPML overestimated our own strength and took an incorrect stance toward the reformist forces in the trade unions and nationalities movements. Instead of seeing these forces as allies to be won over, we aimed our 'main blow' at them. We saw the masses as more advanced than they are and underestimated the strength of anticommunism." So to "fuse with the workers' and nationalities' movements" means to make alliances with the reformists like Doug Fraser, Jesse Jackson, and Hosea Williams. While as to the masses of workers, well they are just too backward to be dealt with.
As far as Martin's tears about the "strength of anticommunism" it is true that among the "reformist forces" of trade union hacks and the sellouts of the oppressed nationalities anti-communism is a byword. Indeed, the very idea of struggle they find abhorrent and they have dedicated their lives to putting out the flames of the mass struggle and tying the working and oppressed masses to the coattails of the capitalist parties, and especially to the Democratic Party. It is no small wonder then that "CPML" finds that building the vanguard party of the proletariat, propagating the party concept and organizing the party among the workers, is an obstacle to unity with the social-democratic sellouts. Here is the answer to "CPML's" confusion over the relationship of the party to the mass movements. It is not that party-building must be opposed in order to achieve a "to the masses orientation." No. Party-building must be opposed in order to unite with the social-democrats against the masses.
"CPML" Debates Whether to Dissolve Outright or Maintain a Social-Democratic Liquidators' Party
With the flourishing of such extreme liquidationist views throughout the "CPML" it comes as no great surprise that a section of their organization has now stepped forward to demand that "CPML" dissolve itself and completely amalgamate with the social-democrats. Various of their leaders have apparently already taken their liquidationist views to their logical conclusion and left "CPML" for the greener pastures of social-democracy and bourgeois journalism. Martin reports that there are "a number of the former top leaders of CPML, including former Call editor Dan Burstein and former Call writer Jim Hamilton, who have left the party rather than continue the struggle for their views." Despite their departure the debate continues to rage in "CPML" and even in The Call one can find appeals for dissolution. For example, in the April issue "CPML" carries without comment a letter from one of their readers which says in part, "I agree that the left needs unity and a searching down-to-earth development of a program for socialism in the real-world USA of the 80's. I suggest that you analyze the impending merger of DSOC and NAM and consider the possibility of fusing with that new group when it emerges as a 'Revolutionary Democratic Socialist' tendency. That's essentially what I will be doing." Here you have stated without embarrassment, without any of the usual demagogic cover, the liquidators' program -- complete amalgamation with social-democracy, with that spineless and always impotent left wing of the Democratic Party. The liquidators will sprinkle some holy water on the Democratic Party marsh and, presto, social-democracy will become "revolutionary" social-democracy.
Martin, in his article, takes up the cudgels against those who want to dissolve "CPML" and argues that their organization has a far nobler role to play. Martin explains that "Other calls to dismantle communist organization and replace it with a 'mass party of labor and progressives' would actually leave us unable to build such a party of give it a multinational or revolutionary character." You see, Martin is not against joining with the social-democrats of the DSOC, NAM, Citizens Party and so forth. In fact, he is in favor of assisting them to divert the mass ferment against the capitalist parties into a "mass party of labor and progressives" composed of the labor bureaucracy and social-democratic chieftains. His only disagreement with those who would dissolve "CPML" is that he believes the existence of "CPML" is essential to carry this out.
To understand the full meaning of Martin's idea one only has to look at how "CPML" "gave a multinational and revolutionary character" to the Citizens Party in last year's election. "CPML" admitted that the Citizens Party wasnothing more than a social-democratic left wing of the Democratic Party. In a Call interview with Barry Commoner, thepresidential candidate for the Citizens Party, it is pointed out, "The Citizens Party, in fact, shares the same basic social-democratic views on replacing capitalism through reforms as, say, the pro-Kennedy Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee." 8 Nevertheless "CPML" praises it "overall as a bold endeavor" and tries to paint up in revolutionary colors the Citizens Party's disgusting Carterite program of support for wage controls, capitalist productivity drives, a "strong" U.S. imperialism, and so forth. The Call calls this "a clear stand opposing corporate power's stranglehold over the lives of the American people," and a "general orientation against war and aggression of the superpowers...." 9 Instead of exposing that the Citizens Party is completely tied to the Democratic Party, having not only the same program but even working to run Democratic Party candidates on the Citizens Party ticket, The Call claims that the Citizens Party "could be the forerunner of a major independent break-away from the two main political parties." 10
The "CPML's" work for the Citizens Party shows what Martin means when he argues that "CPML" still has a role to play. That role is to prettify merger with social-democracy, to paint up the left wing of the Democratic Party in militant and even revolutionary colors while giving unity with the social-democrats a "Marxist" cover. Thus Martin argues don't "dismantle" "CPML." Instead build it as a social-democratic liquidators' party; a party based on the science of how best to cozy up to the social-democrats, the trade union bureaucrats and "riot-stoppers"; a party adept at pouring perfume over the rotten smell of treachery and betrayal of the working class.
A Pre-Pre-Party-Collective
In order to pull off the trick of vigorously fighting against the building of the vanguard party of the proletariat while at the same time fighting that "CPML" should not be dissolved but should be maintained with a thin veil of Marxist-sounding rhetoric, Martin has gone back into the dirty neo-revisionist history of the "CPML" and dug up from its grave the thoroughly discredited theory of building "pre-party" collectives. Filled with the despair of a thoroughgoing renegade, Martin argues, "Given the diversity and effects of ultra-leftism, the present theoretical confusion and the conditions of relative ebb in the U.S., a highly centralized party type of organization is unlikely in the immediate future." In place of and against the building of the party Martin argues that "the organization that will be formed through any merger will approximate a preparty organization and not the party itself." After all, Martin goes on, "The task of building a vanguard party is protracted...." Here you have the logic of an extreme liquidator. Martin moans that there is just so much confusion, the mass movements are so small, it is just not possible to build the party now. Furthermore, he cries we must fight against those silly "ultra-leftists" who are actually building the party, don't they know it takes a long time to build the party, they should be "realistic" like us and build what is possible now, a loose social-democratic federation which will only "approximate a pre-party organization."
The resurrection of the theory of "pre-party" collectives is one of those events which Marx once remarked occurs "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."11 The promotion of this theory in the early 70's by the "CPML" (then called the October League) and by other neo-revisionists such as the "RCP,USA" (then called the Revolutionary Union) did great damage to the Marxist-Leninist movement in the U.S. With this theory the neo-revisionists fought tooth and nail against the party concept, opposed the Marxist-Leninists uniting in one national center, factionalized the movement and scattered the Marxist-Leninist forces. It was only after a number of years of arduous work and struggle of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in favor of the party that the neo-revisionists were forced to abandon their anti-party theory of "pre-party collectives." But the "CPML" and other neo-revisionists simply shifted, dubbed their pre-party collectives as parties, and stepped up their splitting and factional activities, acting as diehard wreckers of the Marxist-Leninist movement. Their shameful activity showed that their theory of building "pre-party collectives" was not a line to prepare the grounds for the Marxist- Leninist party at all, but was from the beginning a line against the Party.
After a decade of struggle the genuine vanguard of the working class, the Marxist-Leninist Party, has been formed and continues to advance, building organization in the factories and elsewhere, training the workers in their own independent class politics, and orienting the mass movements in a revolutionary direction. Meanwhile the "CPML" has continued to slide down the incline plane of opportunism, exposing themselves as raving social-chauvinists and "three worlders," degenerating further into out-and-out liquidators, and staring total collapse in the face. Today, after so much water has flowed under the bridge, to try to maintain the fraud that "CPML" has anything to do with Marxism-Leninism by returning to the discredited theory of building "pre-party collectives" is absolutely ridiculous. It shows that after some ten years of activity the "CPML" has been unable to take one step forward. In fact they are going backwards. In the early 1970's they claimed to be building a "pre-party collective." But today the "CPML" has reached the sublime heights of being a pre-pre-party collective. As Martin himself explains, the "pre-party collective" is itself now a matter of the future, for, it will not be until after the "CPML" merges with some other liquidationist sect that it will "approximate a pre-party organization." It is little wonder that their ex-leader Jim Hamilton wrings his hands in despair that "nearly ten years of difficult and dedicated mass work by our hundreds of cadres has yielded little result...." Yes, opportunism means waste and tragedy for those caught in its sway. But if the liquidators have accomplished nothing in the last ten years, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have accomplished a great deal. They have built up a solid, stable, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party of the new Leninist type in close connection with the carrying forward of the burning tasks of the revolution. The fight against "CPML" and the other revisionist liquidators is an indispensable condition for the further fruitful development of the proletarian revolutionary movement.
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1 For more on this report, see The Workers' Advocate, " 'CPML' on the Verge of Dissolution," Vol. 11, No. 3, March 10, 1981, p.17.
2 John Martin, "The Crisis in Marxism and M-L Unity," The Call, April 1981, p. 8.
3 See The Workers' Advocate, "There is not an ounce of anti-revisionism in the inter-imperialist rivalry between Beijing and Moscow," Vol. 9, No. 11, December 5,1979, p. 6.
4 See The Workers' Advocate, "Against Mao Zedong Thought! Part 1: Mao Zedong Thought and the Fight Against Soviet Revisionism," Vol. 10, No. 4, July 10, 1980, and Part 4 "On the Question of Two-Line Struggle," Vol. 10, No. 10 November 30, 1980.
5 See the two articles in this issue on the 26th Congress of the CPSU.
6 Jim Hamilton, "A Message to the Movement," The Call, February 1981, p. 12.
7 Carl Davidson and William DeCosta, "Interview with Barry Commoner, Is the Citizens Party a Real Alternative?'' The Call, August 18-September 7,1980, p. 3.
8 Ibid.
9 Lenin, "How Vera Zasulich Demolishes Liquidationism," Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 409.
10 Carl Davidson, "An Alternative to the Two-Party System? Citizens Party Founding Draws 500," The Call, April 21, 1980, p. 5.
Today open liquidationism has become the common hallmark of the revisionist, neo-revisionist and trotskyite groups. They are opposed to the proletariat building its own vanguard party. They are against the class independence of the proletariat and seek to subordinate the proletariat to the bourgeoisie by reducing the working class movement to a mere "pressure group" or "special interest group" always helplessly tailing behind the Democratic Party liberals.
This program to prettify and unite with the Democratic Party goes hand in hand with denunciation of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism. The liquidators especially curse leftism, dogmatism, etc., as the main danger facing the revolutionary movement. In reality, however, it is the Marxist-Leninists who wage a consistent struggle against left opportunism, sectarianism and adventurism just as they fight right opportunism. But the liquidators' crusade against leftism has nothing in common with the Marxist-Leninist struggle. It is instead a euphemism for the fight against Marxism-Leninism and the revolution. In particular, it is directed against the need for the proletarian party, against revolutionary struggle and against the theory of Marxism-Leninism.
Barry Weisberg's social-democratic MLOC/"CPUSA (ML)" is a liquidationist sect. It has a long history of fighting Marxism-Leninism under the signboard of fighting leftism. In recent years, as the Weisberg sect has stepped up its liquidationist theorizing, it has intensified its crusade against "leftism." In late 1979 it adopted the latest phase of this longstanding crusade with its campaign to "Defeat the Left in Order to Fight the Right." In this article we examine the MLOC/ "CPUSA(ML)'s" struggle against Marxism-Leninism and the revolution under the banner of fighting leftism.
The Liquidators Defend Unity With the Democratic Party and All the Right Opportunists Under the Signboard of Fighting "'Leftism"
The Weisberg sect launched its latest campaign against "the Left" in conjunction with the adoption of its new Browderite strategy two years ago. This strategy is a rehash of Browder's American exceptionalist preachings that U.S. imperialism is an allegedly young and vigorous capitalism. The "CPUSA/ML" considers that the perspective lying before U.S. imperialism for the next 10-20 years is one of peaceful, harmonious and crisis-free development. On this basis, the "CPUSA/ ML" concludes that there are no prospects for revolutionary work and struggle. Instead, all one can "realistically" do is to curse the prospects for revolution and attach oneself to the left wing of the Democratic Party by forming a "united front" with the social-democrats, the Khrushchovite "C"PUSA, trade union bureaucrats, etc.
However in order to pull this off, the "CPUSA/ML" has to deal with a powerful obstacle in its path, that is, Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary forces. Just because Weisberg pulls out his wand and pontificates "Abandon all false hopes of revolution!" does not mean that revolutionary Marxism-Leninism will oblige Mr. Weisberg and commit suicide. Far from it. Marxism-Leninism is a living force and will continue to hold high the banner of revolution and to organize the proletarian and mass movements on a revolutionary basis independent of the Democrats, social-democrats and liquidators. This is why Mr. Weisberg has declared war on "the Left" as his immediate concern.
To the "CPUSA/ML" any opposition to unity with the Democrats and right opportunists generally is a sure sign of "leftism." Any opposition to liquidationism, any upholding of the Party concept, any belief in the prospects for revolution in the U.S., all this is just so much "left" liquidationism, "left" sectarianism, and so on. In short, the "CPUSA/ML's" war on "the Left" is a defense of its unity with all the right opportunists; it is another name for its war on Marxism-Leninism.
Examine for instance the "CPUSA/ML's" attack on our Party's work in the anti-draft movement. Our Party actively participates in the anti-draft movement and puts forward a principled policy to advance the struggle against U.S. imperialist war preparations. We call for putting opposition to imperialism at the center of the fight. We stand for merging the various streams of protest against the U.S. policies of war and aggression, such as the anti-draft struggle, the anti-nuclear protests, the actions against U.S. aggression in El Salvador, etc., into a powerful mass movement against U.S. imperialism. Hence we point to the need for opposition to both the Republican and Democratic Parties, which are equally parties of imperialism and war. And to develop a genuinely anti-imperialist movement, we advocate opposition to all imperialism and fight against the warmongering and aggression of the Soviet and Chinese social-imperialists.
This is the policy our Party promoted at the National Anti-Draft Conference held in Detroit in February 1981. Our Party worked closely with other anti-imperialist groups to advance the anti-imperialist orientation for the movement. Together we introduced three resolutions at the conference and carried out broad discussion with the masses of activists on these and other questions. These resolutions called for: 1) opposition to both the Republican and Democratic Parties as parties of imperialism, aggression and war, 2) fighting against U.S. imperialism and all its bloodthirsty and aggressive activities, and 3) condemnation of the war preparations and aggressive acts of all the imperialist powers, including the Soviet and Chinese social-imperialists. Of these resolutions, only the resolution against the imperialist parties made it to the floor and it was viciously opposed by the conference leadership which was composed of trotskyite, revisionist and social-democratic flunkeys of the Democratic Party. (See Appendix for the resolutions)
The "CPUSA/ML" sent a delegation to the conference which did absolutely nothing. But afterwards, they flew into a frenzy at our Party's work. Just a few weeks later, the March 15, 1981 issue of Unite! launched an attack against our Party for our allegedly "left" politics of opposing "inpractice the tactic of uniting all who can be united in the struggle against war and fascism." In particular, it denounced our "efforts to 'purify' the movement." (Unite!, March 15, 1981, p. 2, col. 5, emphasis as in the original)
Thus our Party is supposed to be "left" because we oppose "uniting all who can be united." But who is it that we are opposed to unity with? This the "CPUSA/ ML" is afraid to say. However it does let the cat out of the bag by sneering at our party for what they describe as trying to "purify" the movement. Oh, how devastating! One can only moan and groan about "purifying" the movement if one seeks to defend corrupt elements in the anti-draft movement. And this is indeed the case. The Weisberg sect is upset because our Party fights the Democratic Party and its apologists in the anti-draft movement.
The "CPUSA/ML" tries to hide its position by demagogically shouting about "unity." But the issue is not one of unity in the abstract but who one unites with. The Weisberg sect is an advocate of unity with the Democratic Party. Such unity sabotages the struggle against the draft and imperialist war preparations. It subordinates the movement to the ambitions of the Democratic Party, which is a party of imperialism. In opposition to such a treacherous policy, our Party stands for unity in action of all honest fighting forces. Indeed, at the Anti-Draft Conference itself, our Party once again showed how to work with other anti-imperialist forces and among the broad masses of activists in order to carry out a militant policy which serves to advance the anti-draft movement.
A further example of how their struggle against "leftism" is simply a cover for unity with corrupt elements was offered in the December 15, 1980 issue of Unite! In an article summing up the work of the "CP USA/ML" at a steel mill in Chicago, the "CPUSA/ ML" denounces for "left" sectarianism some workers it claims to have around them in this factory. And why this charge? Because these workers reportedly refused to go along with the "CPUSA/ML's" urgings to unite with the notorious three worlders and ultra-right social-chauvinists of the "CPML" and LRS. According to Unite!, the Weisberg sect went to the "CPML" and LRS and formed a committee with them over the struggle around various economic questions at the steel mill. Unite! even admits that the "CPML" and the LRS advocated a position of complete subservience to the trade union bureaucracy. Apparently this policy was so corrupt that even the workers around "CPUSA/ML" refused to participate in the committee and formed their own separate group. And what was the "CPUSA/ ML's" policy in the face of this situation? It was to work with both groups in order to try to get its supporters to return to the committee with the social-chauvinists! This did not succeed and hence the Weisberg sect concludes: "during this battle, we did not fully understand our Party's role and responsibility to wage an ideological struggle with workers in order to lead them to overcome their own incorrect ideas. Our closest supporters took a 'left' sectarian position towards both the LRS and CP/ML...." (Unite!, December 15, 1980, p. 3, col. 2)
This illustration speaks volumes for the real nature of the "CPUSA/ML's" "united front tactics." It shows that what they stand for is unity with the trade union bureaucrats, the treacherous social-chauvinists sects, and other anti-worker scum against the workers. Thus the overall conclusion that the "CPUSA/ML" reaches is that the real target of the campaign against "left" sectarianism is the revolutionary proletariat itself. Thus they write: "For our Party, we began to see more clearly that 'left' sectarianism is not an affliction of 'leftists' only. It is a social phenomenon manifested among workers as well." (Ibid., p. 3, col. 2, emphasis added) And the "CPUSA/ML," with its crusade against "the Left," has dedicated itself to fighting tooth and nail against this social phenomenon, in other words, against any opposition to its Browderite liquidationist program of unity with the revisionists, social-democrats and labor traitors, etc.
Interestingly, the "CPUSA/ML's" admission that opposition to unity with the corrupt right opportunist elements is "a social phenomenon manifested among workers" provides a significant example of the class basis of the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and liquidationism. The Weisberg sect's policy of unity with the labor bureaucrats and their flunkeys shows that liquidationism bases itself within the working class movement on the sold-out strata drawn from the labor aristocracy. On the other hand, the basic masses of proletarians who are repelled by the sold-out elements form the social basis for revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. Our Party bases itself on the proletariat. It is the powerful class instinct of the proletariat that gives rise to the "social phenomenon manifested among workers" of seeking true independence from the Democratic Party flunkeys and other class traitors.
The Weisberg sect also makes a variety of demagogical arguments to bolster its claim that the main problem facing the revolutionary movement is "leftism." The rest of this article takes up some of these arguments.
The "CPUSA/ML" Denounces the Fight Against Liquidationism as "Trotskyism"
The basic theses of liquidationism, such as unity with the social-democrats and opposition to the Leninist Party concept, are not only shared by both the pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese revisionists but are also basic tenets of Trotskyism. Indeed, in the Russian revolutionary movement, Trotsky opposed Lenin and the Bolsheviks' struggle against the liquidators and instead advocated a bloc with them. Furthermore, the trotskyites are known for denouncing Stalin's teachings on the role of social-democracy in buttressing capitalist reaction and on the consequent need for uncompromising struggle against it. The main currents of Trotskyism in the U.S. are found in the embraces of the Democratic Party liberals just like the "C"PUSA revisionists. In fact even the most phrasemongering sections of the trotskyites are found bowing and scraping before the trade union bureaucrats and other social-democratic chieftains. The trotskyites all viciously oppose the Leninist party concept which they regard as "Stalinist tyranny." In short, the trotskyites are liquidators.
Nevertheless, for the sake of demagogy, the "CP USA/ML" denounces the Marxist-Leninists who fight liquidationism and unity with the Democrats as "trotskyites." For instance, they wrote recently:
"In our country today there are a number of political organizations who believe that it is wrong in principle to call for the building of a popular front. This ultra-left stand is classic Trotskyism. Other organizations oppose in practice the tactic of uniting all who can be united in the struggle against war and fascism. Such are the 'left' politics of the Marxist-Leninist Party/USA (MLP/USA). Thus it should be no surprise that within the anti-draft movement, the Spartacist League and the MLP/USA have united in their efforts to 'purify' the movement. They believe that building a broad front is reformist and a bowing to the bourgeoisie, offering them leadership of the anti-fascist struggle." (Unite!, March 15, 1981, p. 2, col. 5, emphasis as in the original)
In a previous section of this article, we have exposed that what the "CPUSA/ML" is upset about here is our opposition to unity with the Democrats. Here we would like to deal with the charge of "Trotskyism."
First, it is interesting to note that the "CPUSA/ML" is in such a desperate situation to defend its blatantly liquidationist stands that all it can do is resort to one lie after another. Never mind the fact that with these latest lies, they are in fact admitting that their earlier accusations against us were nothing but lies. Only two months earlier, Unite! editorialized that the MLP "continues with new attacks and slanders against...the principles of Marxist-Leninist tactics" on the united front. (Unite!, January 15, 1981, p. 2, col. 2) Now it is alleged that we uphold these principles but oppose united front tactics "in practice." But shamelessly replacing one lie with another will not serve to defend their rotten positions any better. The issue, as we have pointed out repeatedly, is that Weisberg and co. do not advocate Marxist-Leninist united front tactics but thoroughly Browderite distortions of the united front. Our Party rejects this liquidationist position of unity with the left wing of the Democratic Party and instead stands for and works hard to achieve the unity of the proletariat and other progressive people in struggle against the class enemy, independent of the capitalist parties.
The "CPUSA/ML" tries to bolster its latest lie that we are against the united front "in practice" with the additional lie that we are uniting with the trotskyite Spartacist League in the anti-draft movement. What complete nonsense! Everyone knows that the Spartacist League's main activity in the mass movements is to engage in provocative actions and to be the wildest champions of Soviet social-imperialist aggression with such slogans as "Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan!." The Spartacist League can hardly be happy with our consistent fight against all imperialism, including that of the Soviet Union. Besides, right from the formation of the American Communist Workers' Movement (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, we have waged irreconcilable struggle against the revisionists and trotskyites. It is precisely because we have always fought the Spartacist League and Trotskyism that they attack us in their press as "Stalinoids" and "Albanoids."
However we would like to ask the "CPUSA/ML," do you accept the trotskyites as part of your "united labor front" and "democratic front"? And please do not mumble. Speak loudly and clearly. And for the first time in your career, please try to give an honest answer. We think there is ample evidence to show that you do.
As explained previously, the trotskyites are liquidators and are therefore beholden to the left wing of the Democratic Party. Naturally, all those who support the Democrats such as the "CPUSA/ML" are found in bed with the trotskyites. Thus, when the "CPUSA/ML" attacks our Party's work against the capitalist parties carried out at the Anti-Draft Conference, the Weisberg liquidators are coming forward to defend the policy of the leadership of the conference. This leadership was composed of the social-democratic Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the Socialist Workers Party trotskyites who put the Democrats on their platforms and the Reaganite Libertarians in the leadership of the movement. In addition, there is a good deal of evidence that the "CPUSA/ML" works hard to include the trade union activists of the trotskyite groups within its Browderite "united labor front.'' For instance, last year the Weisberg sect gave ecstatic praise to a "Conference on Union Democracy'' held in Detroit in the fall of 1980, and in particular praised trotskyite organizers. in the Teamsters Union as "progressive forces'' in the labor movement. Many other examples could be given.
Indeed the Weisberg sect has no opposition to the trotskyites at all. Its only interest in the question of Trotskyism is to use it as a false charge against the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. In doing so, they provide a screen for their own unity with the trotskyites.
The "CPUSA/ML" Denies that Right Opportunism Is the Main Danger to the International Workers' and Communist Movement
The Marxist-Leninists hold that modern revisionism, right opportunism is still the main danger to the international workers' and communist movement. But the Weisberg liquidators have taken up Browder, Tito and Khrushchov's yellow banner of attacking Marxism-Leninism by crusading against the left. To carry this out, the "CPUSA/ML" takes to distorting the struggle of the international communist movement over the last several decades in order to present leftism as the main danger. And to back this up further, they continue to demagogically criticize Maoism as too revolutionary, which is nothing but a critique of Maoism from the Khrushchovite angle.
As explained previously Weisberg's crusade against "leftism" is part of the new Browderite strategy of the "CPUSA/ML." According to this strategy, U.S. imperialism is simply too strong and powerful and can look forward to decades of peaceful and crisis-free development. Therefore all ideas that uphold prospects for revolution in the U.S. are simply illusions. Hence the Weisberg liquidators conclude, it is the height of "leftism" to think that U.S. imperialism is moribund and decaying and that great revolutionary collisions are brewing. Indeed the Weisberg sect finds precisely this idea to be a longstanding erroneous tendency in the international communist movement!
Thus at the Second Plenum of the Central Committee of the "CPUSA/ML" held in June 1979 the Weisberg clique argued as part of its unfolding of the new Browderite strategy that "An uncritical view of the all-round decline of U.S. imperialism belittles the strength of U.S. imperialism, which is a long-standing tendency in the international communist movement." (Organize!,October 1979, emphasis added) Continuing on the same theme, the 5th Plenum of their CC in early 1980 declared that "the conscious workers must oppose actively... the Browderite illusions of the decline of U.S. imperialism...." (Unite!, May 15, 1980, p. 4, col. 2)
What rubbish! According to the Weisberg sect, Browder is supposed to have sowed illusions about the "decline" of U.S. imperialism! Until now, it has been commonly accepted that Browderism overestimated the strength of U.S. imperialism. In fact Browder put forward the absurd hoax that American capitalism "retains some of the features of a young capitalism...." (Browder, Teheran: Our Path in War and Peace, 1944 p. 70, emphasis as in original) Browder denounced the socialist revolution as absurd given the allegedly great vigor and youthfulness of American capitalism and cheerfully advised the capitalists on how to set about neo-colonial exploitation of the whole world. We will leave it to the "CPUSA/ML" to speculate as to how much stronger they think U.S. imperialism is today than the way Browder described it.
The "CPUSA/ML" also claims that such underestimation of U.S. imperialism "is the position of Mao Tse-tung Thought, which underestimates the strength of U.S. imperialism." (Unite!, February 2, 1980, p.5, col. 4) But as is well known, the Chinese revisionist talk of the decline of U.S. military might and of "appeasement" of the Soviet Union is nothing but a ruse to fool the naive and hysteria-mongering to promote war. In fact the Chinese revisionists are allying with the U.S. imperialists because they have betrayed the revolution and are mesmerized by the strength of U.S. imperialism. The Chinese revisionists consider that their aim of transforming China into a capitalist superpower could best be served by hitching China to the economic, political, and military power of U.S. imperialism. This was the same reasoning they pursued during World War II, when Mao and the Chinese leadership sought the development of a long-term postwar alliance with U.S. imperialism and the investment in China of American capital. (See Mao, Browder and Social-Democracy,pamphlet by the MLP,USA, pp. 9-12)
As a matter of fact, modern revisionism as a whole is the product of capitulation to the pressure of imperialism. Not just Browder and the Chinese revisionists, but the Titoites too openly joined with U.S. imperialism. Moreover, the Khrushchovites abandoned the anti-imperialist struggle, renounced the revolution and went down on their knees before the U.S. imperialists on the pretext that social revolution and national liberation struggles could "provoke" a nuclear conflagration.
In order to hide their treachery, the various currents of modern revisionism put forth a deafening barrage of pseudo-theories, including both those which underestimate and overestimate imperialism. All revisionism has a demagogical, eclectic and contradictory character. Thus at times, the modern revisionists put forward the idea of the weakening of imperialism. This serves to promote illusions that imperialism can peacefully evolve into socialism without revolution, to corrupt revolutionary vigilance and tone down the anti-imperialist struggle, to provide a pretext for allying with one imperialism against another, or simply as empty boasting. One would think that the nature of such underestimation of imperialism is clear enough.
But the Weisberg social-democratic sect, when it calls underestimation of imperialism a "longstanding tendency," has a sinister motive. It wants to rewrite the history of the international communist movement. They imply that the main problem for the international workers' and communist movement since the rise of Titoite and Khrushchovite revisionism has not been modern revisionism, capitulation to imperialism, but some sort of leftist impetuosity or ultra-leftism. For years the Weisberg sect has tried to condemn the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in the U.S. as "ultra-leftists," "most infantile" and so forth. Now with its theorizings on the "longstanding danger" to the international communist movement, the "CPUSA/ML" claims that it is "leftism" which has also been the main problem plaguing the international movement for a long time.
The "CPUSA/ML" also demagogically criticizes Maoism as "leftism" in order to stress that the longstanding problem in the international communist movement has been "leftism." This is why they accuse Maoism of "underestimating" U.S. imperialism. Thus Barry Weisberg again wrote last fall that "There is nothing more absurd than the wild proclamations of the Maoists ...than that a revolutionary situation can be predicted for the 1980's." (Unite!, October 15, 1980, p. 6, col. 3) As a matter of fact, the Maoists are not promising a revolution in the U.S. in the 80's, unless it is in conjunction with a world war. For that matter, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists are not making promises either, but they are, instead, preparing the proletariat for the great class battles that are imminent. Weisberg is lying about the stand of the Maoists in order to present renegacy to the revolution as merely the repudiation of Maoism. He is using the time-honored old liquidators' trick of renouncing the revolutionary struggle because it isn't yet time for the insurrection. Why, the liquidator gentlemen are all real solid revolutionaries, of course, of course, only they regard that "there is nothing more absurd than" the Marxist-Leninists who are fighting, sacrificing and organizing for the revolution prior to the time when the insurrection is already sweeping to victory.
The "CPUSA/ML" has never yet presented any clear statement on its view of Mao Zedong Thought or even whether it fully condemns it or not. But it has repeatedly hinted that Maoism should be equated with leftism. This, by the way, is one of the reasons why the Weisberg sect cannot come out into the open with its views on Mao Zedong Thought -- it is afraid to present its unscientific views in worked out form. It prefers to take the typical path of a renegade -- by dropping a hint here or there, by creating a mood of renunciation of the revolution in which all kinds of renegade and treacherous ideas can flourish.
Equating Maoism with "leftism" and an excess of revolutionary spirit is the typical trick of the Khrushchovite revisionists. The Soviet revisionists present Mao as too revolutionary in order to present the disgrace of Maoism as the failure of hopes for the revolution. The are especially eager to present the struggle against revisionism as a Maoist deviation and try to drown everything into a philistine and counter-revolutionary unity of social-democrats, Khrushchovites, trade union bureaucrats, etc. The social-democrats also partake of this sort of criticism of Maoism. Indeed even the present ultra-rightist Chinese rulers criticize Mao from this angle. Thus, the Weisberg sect, in equating Maoism with "leftism," is simply trailing behind the Khrushchovites and the Deng-Hua clique in Beijing.
However in actual fact, Maoism, an eclectic brew containing rightist, leftist, liberal, anarchist and centrist deviations, all of which are dangerous to the revolution, is saturated through and through with rightist and social-democratic ideas. And as for the question of the prospects for revolution in the U.S., the "three worlders" and Maoists have not presented the situation in this country as too revolutionary, but in fact have been profoundly skeptical of the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat. In so far as they held to any prospects for revolution in the West, it was as could be presented as something other than proletarian socialist revolution. But when it came to the proletarian movement, the Maoists believed that the proletarian movement was reformist and non-revolutionary. Hence they were reformists inside the working class movement. However at the same time, they had various anarchist theories as well. Since they hold that the working class movement is reformist, certain Maoist sects try to prove their "revolutionary" credentials through anarchist and provocative actions. This is not surprising, since anarchism has always been the cry of despair of the reformist, and the Maoists are nothing if not eclectic.
When Weisberg claims that Maoism holds that a revolutionary situation is rapidly developing in the U.S., he is intentionally lying to preserve the Khrushchovite critique of Maoism. All through the 70's, the followers of Chinese revisionism in the U.S., the neo-revisionists, lectured the movement about the illusion of revolution instead of inspiring the masses with the perspective of revolution. Instead of championing genuinely revolutionary methods of work and struggle and the mobilization of the masses, they denounced it as "ultra-left" and called for subordination to the liberal-labor swamp.
Thus, as can be seen from a serious examination of the issues raised by the "CPUSA/ML," their crusade against "leftism" is the rankest treachery. It is nothing but a signboard for fighting Marxism-Leninism and a screen for promiscuous bed-hopping with the Khrushchovites, Maoists, trotskyites, social-democrats, cultural nationalists and any opportunist force who will bother to stop long enough to take a look at them.
APPENDIX:
The following resolutions were jointly submitted to the National Anti-Draft Conference of February 1981 by the Detroit Branch of the MLP, the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (Buffalo), the Union of Anti-Imperialist Activists (Syracuse) and the Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter.
Resolution # 1
The anti-draft movement stands in firm opposition to the military draft, war hysteria and all imperialist war preparations. In doing so, the movement against the draft and war preparations stands in opposition to the warmongering political parties. In the U.S. the two big capitalist parties, the Republicans and Democrats are parties of imperialist war and frantic war preparations. They have a common program of war, aggression and intervention around the world including Korea, Dominican Republic, Bay of Pigs, the Congo, Indochina, Iran and elsewhere. While it is Nixon who is a notorious war criminal and butcher of the Indochinese people, it must not be forgotten that it was under Kennedy and Johnson that this war of aggression was steadily escalated. While it is Reagan who is carrying out naked warmongering and preparation for war today, it was Carter who called for the reintroduction of the draft, and a 100,000- man strike force for the Persian Gulf and then launched an invasion of Iran. The February 1981 National Anti-Draft Conference condemns the warmongering, aggression and war preparations of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.
Resolution # 2
The United States has been an imperialist country for more than 80 years. Today, U.S. imperialism maintains old-style colonies in Puerto Rico, in the South Pacific and elsewhere. Through neo-colonialism and puppet dictators, the U.S. maintains control over countless countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In order to support the national liberation struggles of the other peoples, first and foremost we must fight against "our own" imperialist government. The February 1981 National Anti-Draft Conference denounces, stands opposed to and urges all activists to vigorously fight against U.S. imperialism and its aggressive, bloodthirsty, colonial activities.
Resolution # 3
Today all the imperialist countries are preparing for war. The U.S. imperialists are reintroducing the draft, frantically building new weapons of destruction and have already invaded Iran once, and now are sending military "advisors" into El Salvador.
The Russian imperialists, who mascarade as socialists have invaded Afghanistan, sent troops from their puppet states into Africa, and are sharpening their swords against the Polish workers.
The Chinese imperialists have joined with the U.S. imperialists in an alliance for war.
The lesser imperialist powers and the imperialists' puppet states, lined up behind the NATO and Warsaw Pact military blocs, are also preparing for war. The February 1981 Anti-Draft Conference condemns and stands opposed to the war preparations of all the imperialists.
Below we are reprinting a speech presented at May Day meetings across the country. It hails the establishment of relations between the Partido del Trabajo (the Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic) and the Marxist-Leninist Party of USA. We are also reprinting two articles fromLucha, organ of the PCT, on the struggle they have waged for the construction of the PCT.
Workers of all countries, unite! is the slogan raised by the proletariat on May 1st, international working class day. And we have raised this fighting slogan in our demonstration today. Our Marxist-Leninist Party and the struggle of the workers in the U.S. are part of an international struggle. We make up one column in the great international army of the working class, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries of the whole world.
It is in this context that I would like to report to you on a recent visit of a delegation of the MLP,USA to the Dominican Republic.
***
At the invitation of the Central Committee of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo (Communist Party of Labor), a delegation of the Central Committee of the MLP visited the Dominican Republic at the beginning of April. This was a very successful visit.
Our two Parties see eye to eye on the pressing problems facing the working class and revolutionary movement in our countries and in the whole world. This is because we share a common Marxist-Leninist ideology. This common stand is reflected in the Joint Communique signed between our two Parties in Santo Domingo. In this Communique it points out that our fraternal relations have been formalized and active and militant cooperation has been initiated between our two Parties. This is an important achievement because these are part of the ties binding the international Marxist-Leninist and workers' movement into a powerful united force.
Moreover, this event has important regional significance for the revolution in the Americas, in the Western Hemisphere. It is very important that the revolutionary forces fighting in the heart of the U.S. imperialist beast coordinate their activities with the revolutionaries fighting in Latin America, in Yankee imperialism's so-called "backyard." U.S. imperialism and its flunkeys work very closely together against the revolution. So do the Khrushchovite revisionists and social-democrats throughout Latin America. Therefore it is very important that the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries should also work very closely together. The Joint Communique signed between the MLP and the PCT in solidarity with the struggle of the people of El Salvador and condemning U.S. aggression there is but one expression of the regional cooperation which is needed in this common struggle.
***
I would like to say a word or two about the activities of the delegation during its brief visit. The delegation brought back many stories so I will try to keep this brief.
During its ten day stay, the delegation was given the opportunity to meet with the comrades at the base of the PCT. It met with workers in Santo Domingo as well as with members of the student front "Flavio Suero." It also travelled to several towns across the country and got to speak to worker, peasant and student comrades who are working in the factories, fields and schools.
Everywhere the delegation was greeted with enormous warmth for the MLP and the U.S. proletariat and people. For the delegation one of the most marked things about these discussions was that it was very much like being at home talking to our comrades here. While our countries are quite different, the similarity of may features of the struggle is what is so striking. Capitalists everywhere have the same man-eating nature. And of course, in a country such as the Dominican Republic, the people face the very same multinational colorations which we face here. These include Gulf and Western, General Electric, American Standard and so on. As well, the social-democratic party in power in the Dominican Republic has been a close friend of the Carter administration and the American social-democratic politicians. Furthermore our comrades in the Dominican Republic are waging a bitter struggle against their own Chinese revisionist "three worlders" who have for years had close relations with the "CPML" and resemble the Klonskyites in all their disgusting treachery.
The comrades told our delegation about the struggle they are waging to strengthen their Party, to raise its theoretical level, to strengthen the Leninist organizational norms, and to strengthen its links with the working masses. The worker comrades told the delegation about t|he work to build the Party's Red Cells and about the work in the trade unions in the factories. The peasant comrades discussed the work among the landless and poor peasants and the work to build their peasant associations. At the moment the Party is making efforts to unite all the many local associations into the first national peasant center. On all the mass fronts the PCT has very broad influence and a great deal of experience to share with their American comrades.
It should also be pointed out that the comrades there were very eager to learn of the struggle in the U.S.: the struggle for the Party; the struggle against Chinese revisionism; the struggle against the reactionary-trade union chieftains; the questions facing the student movement; and so forth. In fact, many of their worker, peasant and student comrades knew something of the activity of the MLP.
For example, the delegation got to meet a respected peasant comrade of the PCT who was acquainted with the struggle of our Party, including our polemics against Maoism. The delegation traveled with this comrade to his home in the interior which meant hiking several kilometers through the mud to an isolated peasant shack. This is where he and his family lived in the dire poverty which is the lot of the Dominican poor peasants. And there the comrade kept his Marxist-Leninist literature and a shortwave radio with which he listened to Radio Tirana every night.
This and everything else the delegation saw during its visit brought home the fact that Marxism-Leninism is a growing force in both the cities and the mountains, the factories and fields of the Dominican Republic.
***
At this point I would like to explain briefly where the PCT comes from. The PCT was publicly declared only last November. But the PCT contains within it a quarter of a century of revolutionary experience. It was born out of the old MPD (Dominican People's Movement) which was a revolutionary organization of the Dominican people. The MPD fought heroically against U.S. imperialism and the tyranny of the oligarchy. Militants of the MPD were in the forefront of the April 1965 insurrection against reaction and the invasion by U.S. marines. In the course of these many years of struggle, the MPD gave up many martyrs and many of the comrades spent many years in prison.
But despite the determined struggle that they waged and the broad influence they had among the masses, the influences of Castroism and Maoism blocked their advance. Repeated attempts at Castroite foco-ist tactics proved to be disastrous. The MPD also sent cadre to China for training in the 1960's. But there they were only given military and no political training. They were shown Mao's military writings and the Red Book while the Marxist-Leninist classics were nowhere to be found. And of course the MPD's attempts to implement Mao's "brilliant concept" of "surrounding the cities from the countryside" proved no more successful than Castro's foco-ism.
By the 1970's the MPD fell into crisis and suffered splits. Its best leaders and militants began to look to the source of the problem. When the international open polemics broke out against Chinese revisionism this had a big impact in the Dominican Republic. The comrades were particularly influenced by the stand of the PLA and Enver Hoxha's book, Imperialism and the Revolution, which tore the mask off Mao Zedong Thought. In 1978 they held a national conference at which they launched the slogan "Return to the Classics," that is, to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. They took up the task of carrying out a thorough rectification, of transforming the MPD into a proletarian party of the Lenin-Stalin type. Thus the new PCT has emerged today with its deep roots in the revolutionary movement and built on Marxist-Leninist lines. This is a victory for Marxism-Leninism with particular significance not only for the Dominican working class but also for the revolutionary forces throughout Latin America who come out of similar revolutionary traditions.
***
Finally I would like to say a word about the situation in the Dominican Republic.
The PCT comrades point out that the Dominican Republic is heading for another revolutionary confrontation even greater than the insurrection of April 1965.
This prospect seemed to be confirmed by events that took place during the stay of the delegation. The peasants were carrying out land seizures in many places. The workers in numerous sectors were out on strike. And the student youth and working people were carrying out protest demonstrations across the country against the visit of two U.S. imperialist warships to Santo Domingo. The police savagely attacked the students and workers fighting for their demands. Four people were killed by the national police. Our delegation gave two radio interviews which were broadcast on three stations. These, among other things, declared the solidarity of the MLP,USA and the American working class with the courageous Dominican people who are shedding their blood in the struggle against reaction and the domination of U.S. imperialism.
This visit of the MLP delegation which has strengthened the solidarity and mutual cooperation between the revolutionary struggle of the American working class and people and the revolutionary struggle of the Dominican working class and people and which has particularly established the ties between the Marxist- Leninist communist parties of our two countries is a big achievement. This is what Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism calls for. It is putting into effect the slogan Workers of all countries, unite!
Long live the militant unity between the PCT and the MLP!
Down with the U.S. imperialist domination of the Dominican Republic!
Long live the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement!
Workers of all countries, unite!
[Photo: At the Buffalo May Day celebration there was a beautiful display containing materials from the visit of the delegation of the MLP to the Dominican Republic. Among other things this display included the Dominican edition of Enver Hoxha's book Imperialism and the Revolutionand the banner of the "Flavio Suero'' student front.]
(The following article is taken fromLucha, Central Organ of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo (Dominican Republic), October 1980. The translation from the Spanish original is byThe Workers' Advocate.)
As is generally known, at the "Otto Morales" National Conference of Professional Cadre, held by us June 19 and 20, 1980, it was decided to change the name of our organization.
Since then we stopped calling ourselves the Dominican People's Movement -- Marxist-Leninist Party [MPD], so as to display the name Partido Comunista del Trabajo [Communist Party of Labor].
With the change, a name was given up which was correct for an anti-dictatorial and democratic political group but not for a Marxist-Leninist party. Thus we are adopting a name which corresponds to the communist character of our organization and which, besides being scientifically correct, serves to educate the workers.
At the same time it fulfills a desire of our whole membership and carries out one of the agreements which served as a basis for the reunification of the comrades who for many years were separated organically and who, in the heat of the new ideas, assimilating the rich process we have been going through, were reunified.
The new name has been very well received by the revolutionary sectors and broad masses who have been being familiarized with it and are giving it their acceptance, thanks to the propaganda work which has been undertaken and to the fact that at the head and in the ranks of the party cadre and activists the masses continue to see the same people who, for long years of struggle and in all circumstances, have fought unyieldingly at their side.
Nevertheless, more sustained and broad work is needed, aimed at clarifying more and more for the people, especially the workers, the content and projections of the internal revolution that we have championed, in which the change of name is only one part and which makes PCT truly a new party.
New, because it surmounts all the negative aspects of the old MPD [Dominican People's Movement] in whose womb it was conceived, because it negates dialectically the traditional left in the country, because it bases itself conscientiously on the ever young and scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism, and because while it is advancing in the process of its construction and its theoretical, ideological and organizational bolshevization, [the Party] is planned and presented as a new and different political opposition, in the service of the struggle of the proletariat, for the violent destruction of the decadent and unjust bourgeois-capitalist order and for the establishment of a new society.
The Political Report of the Central Committee, presented and approved at the Conference mentioned above, pays particular attention to the analysis and elucidation of the process that has made our advance possible. But beyond the obligation we have to spread and study conscientiously this important document, it is necessary to make use of every means of dissemination in our reach and every opportunity that arises so as to fulfill our revolutionary duty of making the people understand that what occurred with us is not limited simply to changing some symbols for others. On the contrary, it is a question of a whole process of transformation and advance which results in bringing forth a qualitative change.
-- II --
Everyone who knew MPD always saw in it a dedicated and fighting organization, capable of sustaining itself gallantly in the most resolute position of battle against the enemies of the people and of forging in its heart revolutionaries of brilliant and unquestionable merits.
But the affection for this organization, the recognition of its strong points, should never cause us to fail to understand that the weaknesses and defects that dragged down the MPD and that greatly affected its ideas and deeds, prevented it from emerging as a genuine Marxist-Leninist party of the working class.
Nevertheless, for many years we believed that MPD met the requirements of a communist party and we expended great efforts to develop and consolidate it as such, defending it against every type of adversary and enemy; until, after serious deviations in different aspects of its life, crisis struck the organization, crisis which made it begin a period of successive factionalizing and constant divisions.
Despite these symptoms of wear and tear, we persisted in our determination to "build the MPD as a communist party," and although in our minds we gave signs of advance, we didn't even get past the limited framework of Maoism and traditional MPD-ism.
It wasn't until after a little more than a year that, feeling intensely the effects of the internal crisis, we decided to confront it, breaking with the treatment that we traditionally granted to the Party's problems.
Experience told us that we needed a different attitude which, freeing us from prejudices and rigid values established beforehand, would allow us to go to the very roots of the causes of the evils that ailed the old Party, in which we were already one of the two factions in which the MPD had become divided precisely because of the crisis.
Grasping the necessity to bring the situation into focus in the light of the fundamental writings of Marxism- Leninism, we raised the slogan which has served as our guide in criticizing the erroneous and backward and in the search and affirmation of revolutionary truth: Return to the classics!
Upon raising it, we were implicitly bringing as a manifesto our critical and self-critical attitude, the modest inclination to study and learning, the spirit of vigorous action, and militant resolve to persist in the defense of the doctrine of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
-- III --
The organized and systematic study of Marxism-Leninism facilitated for us a well-considered review of our experience, as well as understanding how limited our vision had been on the revolution and the precarious party concept we held. We subjected to the fire of criticism all the old ideas and we strove for a more objective overall view of the general and concrete problems. Having uprooted the Chinese and Maoist concepts, according to which "10,000 years can go by without knowing who will win," the perspectives are clearer for us, and the path to achieve the outlined objectives is also clearer.
We understand that the general crisis of the bourgeois-revisionist world, the growing and self-sacrificing struggle of the peoples, are pushing forward the maturing of the revolutionary situation and preparing the workers to act in it and lead it as the order of the day. At both the general and local levels this is the tendency of events; therefore the building of a genuine party of the working class assumes greater importance than ever, as the indispensable requirement so that the subjective factor of the revolution plays its role in the thick of the complexities of the revolutionary situation and the hard-fought class battles that characterize it.
The importance of building genuine communist parties becomes even greater inasmuch as numerous parties which present themselves as genuine really aren't. With their influence they sow enormous confusion, creating new difficulties for the revolutionary forces. The poison of revisionism has contaminated a considerable number of parties which in the past were communist. Others, which arose claiming to be the Marxist-Leninist counterpart of the degenerated parties, did not establish a firm Marxist-Leninist platform [but] hung on to theses and theories such as Maoism and Castroism and others which prevented them from emerging as genuine proletarian parties.
Such was the case with the MPD, and it is the same with other organizations that exist in different countries. The cadre and honest militants in these organizations, interested in embracing the ideal and principles of Marxism-Leninism, are confronted with the alternative of continuing in the same state and beginning to lose their energy, or rebelling against the bad orientations which have been the norm and breaking politically, ideologically and organizationally with revisionism and its representatives, be they Soviet, pro-Chinese, "Eurocommunist," or any other variety.
When the march of events caused the crisis in MPD to deepen as never before, we found ourselves called on by history either to persist obstinately in romanticism and traditionalism and to succumb, giving up fulfilling the revolutionary responsibility, or to subject ourselves to a process of self-criticism, of struggle, in a certain way against ourselves, against many of our own "truths," to break with everything worn out, including with former comrades-in-struggle who could not get in tune with the demands of the situation. And today the results obtained allow us to maintain, without boasting but with optimism, that we are standing in the thick of dedicated work on the firm basis of a new, genuinely proletarian party, the Partido Comunista del Trabajo, political detachment of the Dominican working class.
-- IV --
Today we are the negation of MPD, but not an ordinary and mechanical negation which tries to go back on the good values and fine traditions which MPD accumulated in so many years of active and fighting existence. But rather we are the dialectical and revolutionary negation, the negation seen as a moment of development of the new conceived in the womb of the old and which is advancing toward the peak of its development.
The MPD could not establish itself as a Marxist-Leninist party because it did not formulate a clear platform in accordance with Marxism-Leninism. It did not forge theoretical, political and organizational links with the working class, and, although undoubtedly it greatly believed in the proletariat, its main social support was always the petty bourgeoisie and the impoverished elements in the cities. The MPD did not organize itself on the basis of the Leninist-Stalinist concept of the party, but on the basis of "Mao Zedong Thought" and on organizational criteria permeated with Castroism and anarchism. All this was reflected in numerous political, ideological and other deviations. The style of work, the line for growth, the treatment of internal and other problems made MPD a fighting party but weak and confused in theory, zigzagging and immediate-ist in politics, fragile in organization.
All this led to a crisis that worsened irreparably, and the old party became exhausted. The progressive elements inside it now had no possibility to move it forward unless they broke with this whole scaffolding of ideas, attitudes and norms that characterized the traditional MPD-ism.
It is in this sense that we negated the MPD, but at the same time we saved and regained possession of all the good that this legendary organization contributed: its best traditions, its revolutionary drive, its self-sacrifice and its firm intransigence before the reactionaries. We raised the legacy of blood shed by so many martyrs who never perished in our memory, just as they never perished in the minds of the people.
Conscious of the absolute necessity of building a new party, discarding the old deficiencies of the former party, we put the question of theory as the priority, and along with that the work in the working class, at the same time instilling the Leninist principles of organization as the norm of party life.
Our work has been concentrated around these basic points and we must persist in them, uniting in a single whole the realization of these tasks with the application of revolutionary politics. This implies the lively participation of our people and the Party as a whole at the side of the exploited in their daily conflicts with the exploiters, and the constant intervention, in a planned and resolute manner, in national political events.
The Partido Comunista del Trabajo has differentiated itself from the old MPD to the extent that it has advanced in the direction established by this general line. Today it presents itself to the Dominican people and the international proletariat as an organization which is progressing in its construction by breaking with all the old eclecticism of the former pro-Chinese and Maoist concepts and which holds firmly in its hands the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as the general guide for its struggles and the irreplaceable principle in its world outlook.
On the basis of such theory our membership is being educated, and bold efforts are being made to educate the proletariat, so as to separate it from and oppose it to the bourgeois, social-democratic and revisionist influence that so harms the socialist and communist cause of the working class.
Our efforts are being directed principally at strengthening the fighting links with the workers; and many steps have been taken so that the center of gravity of our energies is focused in the factories and countryside, without meaning by this that other important social sectors to whom the communist party must pay attention are neglected.
While there is progress in the theoretical aspects and in the work in the proletariat, our organization is discarding the old vices which undermined the internal unity, organizational solidity and temper of the old Party. Having rooted out all the old positions foreign to Leninism on the question of organization, our Party has established a single Marxist-Leninist line and has welded its monolithic unity based on it. Our Party does not accept opposing lines, groups or factions, nor does it compromise with those who violate its discipline, who depart from the orientation coming from the higher bodies, or who, in their daily conduct, violate the sound and crystal-clear morality which has to be the distinctive sign of the communist everywhere in the world and under all circumstances.
The Party's ranks and each one of its components are tempered on the basis of these norms. Its new militants are recruited, not as In the past or like other organizations act -- accepting people without rhyme or reason -- but on the contrary, by following a rigorous criterion of selection, fulfilling exact requirements and establishing a necessary period of preparation and testing which allows for cultivating the qualities of the aspiring member and for establishing the bases for these qualities to continually develop when he passes to being a militant of the organization.
First and foremost in the selection of new affiliates is the class criterion, the earnest desire to draw to the Partido Comunista del Trabajo the most advanced proletarians so that our ranks are purified more each day, and at the same time the authority and ties of the Party in the proletariat grow and are guaranteed. At the same time we pay attention to the work of recruitment among the sound and advanced elements of the women's movement, the intellectuals, and the revolutionary youth. We do this guided by the interest of making PCT a detachment of fighting communists of exceptional qualities: unbending before the enemy, immune to the vices and disease of degeneration which are spread by the bourgeoisie and revisionism, loyal to the cause of communism, and unyielding defenders of the integrity of their party, in which they fight as soldiers of the world proletarian army.
To different degrees, successes and proven advances have been attained which are reflected and substantiated clearly in the political positions that we maintain in each and every situation and which differentiate us from the blandishments and waverings of the opportunist groups and separate us from what was the MPD.
Thus, through the ideas, the line established, and through putting them into practice, the PCT continues the positive of the old Party. But at the same time it differentiates itself and moves forward on scientific, Marxist-Leninist positions which mark it unequivocally as a new and distinct party with possibilities of tempering itself even more and consolidating itself as the genuine vanguard. [This is] unlike the MPD, which became exhausted, and unlike the groups which call themselves Marxist-Leninist but lack the perspectives and possibilities to build themselves as such, due to their persisting in erroneous positions and to sticking to concepts with which one must break, as we have done, so that the possibilities find the path to becoming brilliant reality.
--V--
As can be appreciated, we are dealing with a real internal revolution, with obvious differentiation from the evils of the past and evils of the present. We have established our own line which gives us our own features, characterizes us and identifies us both in the country as well as in the international communist movement. The PCT is an integral part of the international communist movement and acts in it as a force with internationalist sentiment and with full autonomy to judge matters, to analyze and take a position on them, starting from whether or not they agree with the supreme principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
This statement can not be closed without indicating, as another sign of differentiation from the past, the arduous work we have been carrying out of purifying our ranks. In the midst of this, apart from people who have honestly sought to withdraw for different reasons in each case, we have removed from the organization vacillators and splitters, sowers of panic and demoralization, unreliable elements and propagators of defeatism, and other exponents of backwardness, degeneration and opportunism. It is in these elements that all the plots against the communist party find a social base, es- especially in times of difficulty.
From all that has been said, one can infer not only the magnitude of the process we have undertaken, of which the change of name is a part, as we said in the beginning, but also that the arguments and actual deeds are more than sufficient for us to take them as a basis of work to educate the people and strengthen in them the conviction that they have a new instrument of struggle, the PCT, ready to fulfill its responsibility in the march towards the great revolutionary goals.
And we must march decisively, especially when history puts the revolutionary proletariat on the order of the day, confirming the teachings of Marxism-Leninism.
And, logically, in the midst of the revolution that is growing and maturing the Dominican proletariat aspires to a new society, to socialism and communism. The PCT, which embodies these aspirations, has to make its contribution in the struggle to see these aspirations made a reality for the happiness of all the exploited of our country.
Therefore a close relationship exists between the conquest of a new order and the construction of the party that must lead the struggle so as to achieve it; and hence the slogan we raise significantly of fighting for a new societyby buildinga new partyis considered appropriate and objective.
(At the public meeting of November at which the Partido Comunista del Trabajo proclaimed the changing of its name from the MPD [Dominican People 's Movement] to the PCT [Communist Party of Labor], the opening speech was delivered by Comrade David lio Espaillat. The text of the speech, reprinted below, is taken from Lucha, Central Organ of the PCT, November 1980. The translation from the Spanish original is by The Workers' Advocate.)
Comrade David Onelio Espaillat, member of the Central Committee of our Party opened the political function held by our organization on Sunday, November 23 by delivering an historic speech in which he analyzed the ideological process experienced by the MPD [Dominican People's Movement], delineated objectively the existing situation on the world and national level which necessitates the genuine proletarian parties which are being built all over the world, and he presented the new name Partido Comunista del Trabajo [Communist Party of Labor] which we hold aloft from this day forward.
In this sense Comrade Onelio said: "The sharpening of the class contradictions and struggles on the world scale, and the unleashing of revisionism have made it necessary for the revolutionary forces to bring to bear all their energies; that they see more clearly than ever the necessity for building genuine Marxist-Leninist parties tempered and bolshevized in accordance with the powerful concepts of Lenin and Stalin; that they be capable of splitting the masses from the influence of the bourgeois, social-democratic and revisionist parties and of leading them to the overthrow of the reactionary power and the establishment of socialism and communism.
He pointed out that the national conference of professional cadre, which took place this past June 19-20, "confirmed our appreciation that being faced with a new national and international political situation makes imperative the construction of a new party capable of organizing and leading the working class in its struggle against capitalist exploitation, and for the institution of a new society, a socialist society."
Conscious that the revolution is maturing and growing in our country generated by the sharpening of the crisis of the capitalist society, our Party has correctly predicted that it is advancing toward a revolutionary confrontation of much greater scope and significance than the war of April 1965; at that time the absence of a Marxist-Leninist proletarian party was the key factor which determined the failure of the April revolution.
In such an understanding, for the true communists of our country, the most important task constitutes creating this proletarian party which was lacking in 1965 and without which now we would also not be able to guarantee that the development of the present crisis leads to a triumphant revolution.
Critically judging the old Party, Comrade Onelio pointed out: "We would be dishonest in pointing out that in the face of the demands of the moment the profound incapacity of the opportunist parties and groups of the country had been made obvious, if we did not also proclaim that the MPD went into crisis. The Party that we used to consider 'that of the Dominican working class,' was not able to fulfill the role which we erroneously attributed to it. On the contrary, it entered into a period of fragmentation and disunity which indicated its exhaustion as a revolutionary force."
"As we had come to militate in this old organization and being prisoners to the ideas which traditionally sustained the MPD, we were compelled totravel a different road. We dare to take it, and today we are a different organization, a new Party, the communist party, the Partido Comunista del Trabajo." Continuing his speech, Comrade Onelio said: "But in order to be what we are, we have had to go through an interesting process of critical reexamination of experiences, of the negation of all the mistaken ideas of the past, and of affirmation of the new ideas which are norms for us today and which permit us to say, not without reason, that we are the dialectical negation of the old MPD, that on the fundamental questions we are a different party.
The vision which we presently have allows us to make an objective critical balance sheet of the history of the MPD and to bring out its great merits as the anti-imperialist and revolutionary organization which it was; but without committing the error of attributing to it the quality of a communist party which, honestly speaking it never was.
Amplifying his critical analysis of the old MPD, the comrade said: "From its founding on February 20, 1956 in Havana, Cuba, the MPD came forth upon the political arena in exile as a democratic organization with anti-imperialist characteristics. Upon arriving in the country [the Dominican Republic] in 1960, the MPD was nurtured by the poor urban elements, without any political shape and under the individual leadership of Maximo Lopez Molina."
During the period from 1964 to 1965 the MPD strengthened itself, lent itself a certain organization, but it never came to organically structure itself, nor lend itself politics which might correspond with that of a Marxist-Leninist party. And this was proven when the MPD "threw itself into open combat against the forces of the Balaguerist counter-revolution. On this occasion the MPD demonstrated its organic and political weakness and its petty bourgeois class nature. This is proven by just observing the character of the political tactics which were approved in this period, such as the "Guido Gil," the "Hida Gautreaux," both of a focoist and Castroite content, the politics of "The Best to the Countryside," the slogan of "Revolutionary Coup D'Etat" with the "Clandestine Commandos" as an organizational form; the concluding of alliances with the bourgeoisie, such as the "Block of National Dignity," and the one known as "The Accord of Santiago." In the face of this situation, Comrade Onelio said that: "It was imperative to stop and profoundly rectify this erroneous course. But the heterogeneous composition of the Party was making it impossible to begin this process without suffering convulsions and splits internally." The group of leaders which found themselves in charge of the Party during this period of 1974-75 headed by Rafael (Fafa) Traveras and Moises Blanco Genao, raised the banner of rectification, doing so from a rightist political position, which put the preservation of legality in first place and fell into positions of conciliation in the face of the Balaguerist regime.
Comrade Onelio reaffirmed that this situation led to an internal ideological struggle which caused the biggest of splits which was dealt the MPD, and that what constituted this division which left it in two factions was the deepening of the final crisis of the old Party. And these signs were interpreted by the most conscious cadres of the two factions, when we made up our minds to embark upon a different road, to look for reunification of the most sound and outstanding of the factions, that in turn were united upon the document entitled: "Basis for the Reunification."
This brilliant process was guided by the slogan Return to the classicswhich properly put the task of studying Marxism-Leninism in first place, and, in the midst of the most profound and intense process of study of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, the Party held the "Joseph Stalin" Conference of Professional Cadre during the period of October 22 and 23, 1979, which brought about a state of greater ideological and political development. From this Conference the putting into effect of the reunification arose as a task, and this led to the holding of the important "Otto Morales" meeting held June 19 and 20 [1980]. Besides weighing the work realized by the Party since the "Joseph Stalin" meeting, it also reaffirmed the line set out at the ["Joseph Stalin" meeting] in relation with the work of the working class, the application of the Leninist norms in the organization, and intense study and application of Marxism-Leninism. The "Otto Morales" Conference resolved to replace the old name of the MPD with the scientific and honorable name which we today hold high before the workers, the Dominican people and the international proletariat. That is to say, the name of Partido Comunista del Trabajo, which we hail with this enthusiastic and combative meeting.
Finally Comrade Onelio, in this applauded speech, said: "We have dialectically negated the MPD, that is to say, in its weak points, in its deficient theory, in its failing to join with the proletariat, in its organizational weaknesses, in its political deviations. Notwithstanding that, we hold high all the good that this legendary organization contributed; we honor the sacrifice and martyrdom of such exemplary fallen men; we preserve the courage and the valor which characterized the cadre and leaders of the MPD in the face of the enemy.... We are in this sense the bearers of the best heritages of the old Party.
We are a new party for the proletarian ideology which we uphold and defend, for the revolutionary politics which guide us and which we apply, for the social origin of the members of our ranks, and for the disciplinary norms that we defend -- all of which are Marxist-Leninist; just as for the supreme objective for which we fight: the overthrow of the capitalist bourgeois regime and the institution of socialism and communism.
The successes which we have achieved do not make us vain, neither do they make us dizzy with success. Today more than ever we are quick to face sacrifice and the hardest and most difficult tasks which the historical responsibilities we have taken up bring to us.
Therefore, comrades and friends here present, upon giving up to history the name of MPD and presenting to history the progress which we have unfolded through the construction of a new party, we do so in fulfilling the duty which we as faithful communists have to the working class of the nation and the world proletariat. Today, under the new and significant name of Partido Comunista del Trabajo -- PCT, and under the slogan Proletarians ofall countries, unite,we will advance, certain that each day we will be more effective in the revolutionary cause of our people, making it an inseparable part of the world proletarian revolution, and making our Party a detachment of the great army of the proletariat and of the international communist movement, which is advancing daily for the supreme cause of the emancipation of humanity.
Let our deeds do honor to our words!!!
Long live Marxism-Leninism!!!
Long live the Partido Comunista del Trabajo --PCT!!!
[Photo: Comrade Rafael Chaljub Mejia, Secretary General of the PCT, second from right, and Comrade Efrain Sanchez Soriano, member of the Central Committee of the PCT, second from left; together with two comrades from the Party of Labor of Albania -- at the foot of the monument to Mother Albania in Tirana, Albania during their recent 10-day visit which began on January 29, 1981.]
[Map.]
[Zeri i Popullit masthead.]
(The following is excerpted from an editorial the newspaperZeri i Popullit, the Central Organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, as carried by theAlbanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletinon March 18, 1981.)
Under the above title, the newspaper Zeri i Popullit carries an editorial, which reads:
The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which held its proceedings in Moscow from February 23 to March 3, convened in a difficult internal and external situation for the Soviet revisionists. It was summoned when the present-day political, economic and social crisis that has gripped the capitalist world, an integral part of which is the Soviet Union, has reached one of the most culminating points.
The plans for the development of economy have not been realized, the rates of production have fallen, the new technologies have lagged behind, agriculture is in a permanent stagnation, the relations among the republics are getting worse and the spiritual life of the society is degenerating more and more. The Soviet Union is in crisis not only with its Warsaw Treaty allies, as is confirmed by the events in Poland, but also with the other revisionists, especially with the Eurocommunists who are ever more opposing their being under Moscow's guidance. The rivalry with U.S. imperialism for spheres of influence and world domination, for markets and resources of raw materials, for strategic positions has become more acute. The Soviet Union has great contradictions and, this is the most important, with the peoples of the world, who are resisting and are opposing its expansionist and hegemonic policy more and more.
Brezhnev's report failed to deal with these problems even superficially and it didn't make an analysis of the internal and external situations. It was a document which was completely characterized by an open pragmatic spirit. On the whole, it was a hotchpotch of concrete directives and instructions on current and ordinary questions of economy and daily life.
He sought to pass the lack of analysis, the overcoming of the problems preoccupying the Soviet people by creating the impression that the "correct line" has allegedly been defined once and forever and that they are advancing on the "broad road" opened by Brezhnev. He sought to convince the others that the Soviet society and state have allegedly reached such a stage when their development is no longer faced either with ideological or political, economic and cultural problems.
Brezhnev's attempt to conceal the real situation, to cover up the internal and external contradictions of the Soviet Union, the lack of new ideas, directly expresses the general crisis of modern revisionism, the inability of the Soviet leadership to solve the problems and difficulties facing the Soviet Union. Therefore, the only alternative Brezhnev and the other revisionist chieftains of the Soviet Union had was to formulate a propaganda material which would rely on social demagogy internally and pacifist demagogy internationally. Such was Brezhnev's report, such were the contributions by the delegates, such were the free advertisements the foreign revisionist delegates did not spare to Brezhnev's line.
* * * *
Though a special report on the economy was delivered at the 26th Congress of the Soviet revisionist Party, the questions of economy occupied more than one-third of Brezhnev's speech. His innumerable words to camouflage that ball of profound contradictions the Soviet capitalist economy is wrapped round, fail to hide the (tensions existing in it, its gloomy prospects. The attempt Brezhnev and his followers display to present the present-day Soviet economy, which has taken a yellow color for some time now, with rosy colors, hardly can deceive the rank-and-file Soviet working people, who are bearing on their shoulders the crisis of this economy with all the grave consequences deriving from it.
Just as at the previous congresses, at this one the Brezhnev leadership trumpeted a number of plans and measures about the alleged elevation of the well-being of the people. We can say that the Soviet people have been fed up with such plans and forecasts. In the 60's Khrushchov pompously launched the slogan: "Reach and surpass the USA," while in the early 70's Brezhnev proclaimed the program of "filling the market with mass consumer goods." But life confirmed that these were hallucinations and empty words, just as the promises dished out in abundance at the 26th Congress.
It is a fact that the overt and covert price rises, the shortage of first necessity goods, the black market and the competition of the new Soviet capitalists and bureaucracy to get richer on the blood and sweat of the rank-and-file working people, the militarization of the economy characterize the economy of the Soviet Union today.
According to the figures Brezhnev mentioned about the past and forthcoming plans, it is clearly seen that here we have to do with a systematic slackening of the advance of the economy. The national incomes, which are the most synthetic index of every economy, keep increasing very slowly. The rates of their increase during the current five year plan are among the lowest the Soviet economy has ever known. As compared with the average rates, these too quite low for the 15 year long period 1961-1975, today's rates are about two times less. Such a situation has its basis in the inability of the capitalist system of the Soviet economy to increase and activate the factors of development, the human resources and the productive forces of the country.
The Soviet leaders have pinned great hopes for the renewal of the economy on the effectiveness of investments and the production expenditures [i.e., greater productivity of labor and greater efficiency in utilizing existing facilities -- ed.]. From this factor, they think to ensure about nine-tenths of the increase of the national income. 1 These are calculations made in the air and have no real basis. The Soviet leaders spoke at the Congress about the low rate of labor productivity, about important weaknesses in its quality, about a large-scale non-utilization of the productive capacities in industry, transport, etc., about the recession and stagnation of agricultural production, about the high cost of electric power resources and mineral raw materials. They were also forced to admit that during the last decade the fundamental productive funds grew 1.4 times faster than the national income, something which clearly shows an accentuated lowering of the effectiveness of their use, etc. It is clearly seen that the plans drafted out and promises made have no guarantee to be turned into reality. The situation the Soviet economy is in cannot change for the better within the next five years and miracles cannot be accomplished there as Brezhnev wants.
In the Soviet capitalist economy, the disproportions in the field of production and consumption are strikingly increasing. The mass consumer goods and foodstuffs in particular are completely insufficient. They fail to cover the purchasing power which has gone out of control and exerts great pressure. But no matter what the Soviet revisionists can do, the contradictions and pressure cannot be avoided. On the contrary, through the plans they outline and the measures they take, they further deepen them.
How can the contradiction between production and consumption be solved when the rates of fundamental investments are foreseen to be 50 percent less, 2 when the rate of accumulation in the utilization of the national income, too, under the pretext of the increasing effectiveness of investments, falls from year to year, when the non-productive sphere is extended beyond every limit and is forecast to have faster rates than the material production. How can they be eliminated when military expenditure, according to calculations made, swallows over 30 percent of the national income yearly, about one-third of the production of metallurgical and machine-building industries, over one-seventh of the energy resources and when one-tenth of the able-bodied labor power and the most capable scientific and technical forces work in military sectors.
The weakest point in the Soviet economy is agriculture. It is in a state of stagnation and for some important products it witnessed also falls. It is not difficult to find out the causes. The following of the capitalist road in the development of agriculture led to abandonment en masse of the countryside by the peasantry, the closing down of tractor and machine stations led to incomplete utilization of the technical means, the struggle for profits and the black market orientated and spontaneously led to a disproportional structure of the agricultural production, the great disorders existing in trans-, port and in all other links of the agricultural production led to the ill-using, stealing and damaging en masse of the agricultural products, etc., etc.
The Soviet leaders were forced to admit the grave situation of agriculture at their latest Congress, too. One thing is clearly seen: The Soviet agriculture suffers from shortage of great funds for its modernization. But these funds have not been found and can not be found. They are engulfed by the war industry, armaments race, the maintenance of a several million man army, the expenditures for economic and military expansion.
Under such circumstances, Brezhnev finds no other way out but to turn to private initiative. He declared at the Congress that the Soviet Party and government have adopted a series of laws and measures for the further increase of individual economies in the kolkhozes and sovkhozes, as well as the granting of the right to the workers and officials living in the cities, too, to have such economies. At the same time, it is powerfully encouraging the distribution of the livestock of kolkhozes and sovkhozes to individual economies for keeping and raising them there. It is clearly seen that the Soviet revisionists are ruining the form of the group and state capitalist property and are passing on to the individual private economy.
This new "reform"might bring some benefit to the Soviet leadership. Formally, it frees the Soviet leadership from stateresponsibility for the people's food because it passes it onto the individual private farmer. But the people remain foodless. It has already been proved and it is being proved each day that the small, divided agrarian economies are unable to organize and develop the great agricultural production. A typical example is Poland where the divided private property predominates in the countryside and where the shortage for food is one of the reasons of the great social shakings that country is experiencing.
The crisis phenomena and in general the policy of capitalist development of the country have further deepened the all-round degeneration of the Soviet society, the degradation of its socio-political structures. Brezhnev himself was forced to admit in his report many typical wounds for a capitalist society. Thus, for example, he admitted the existence and the further deepening of the disproportions in the socio-economic and cultural development among various zones and territories, the existence of chauvinist manifestations and stands towards the small nations, narrow nationalism and anti-Semitism. He was obliged to admit that the abandonment of work, the ensuring of living without working, laziness, bribes and speculations, various stealings and abuses have become daily phenomena in the Soviet Union. When Brezhnev himself declares at the Congress that "there are in the country such people who seek to give less and get more from the state," that "in the conditions of such a psychology, there emerge egoism and petty bourgeois spirit, the tendencies to get richer, indifferentism towards the troubles and problems of the people," it can easily be understood how grave, difficult and degenerated is the real situation dominating in the Soviet Union.
Brezhnev and his colleagues did not present any concrete measure with regard to the liquidation of these negative social phenomena and they confined themselves to general preachings which are similar to those of the gospel. They flounder in this situation and they make theorizations that the Soviet Union is entering into a new stage, in which there will allegedly be achieved the liquidation of class and national distinctions and the economic-cultural territorial disproportions. All these theories are mere hallucinations and demagogy. The present-day Soviet reality shows that no class rapprochement is occurring there, but on the contrary, the gap between them is deepening and extending. A new bourgeois class which rules over the working people and exploits them has already been created there. This class, which is becoming richer and richer, is quite obviously differentiating itself by the incomes it owns, by the numerous privileges, the way of living, the dominant positions it has in the society, etc. As far as the relations among the nationalities are concerned, they are not characterized by the equality about which Brezhnev speaks. It is the Russians, those who have the Party, state power, army, security service in their hands and who decide over the great questions of the internal and external policy, who give orders and make the law.
The social demagogy of Brezhnev and the veneering of the reality cannot heal the wounds of the rotten capitalist Soviet society. The clamorous promises about general well-being that the Soviet leaders advertised at the Congress are castles in the air. In the future, too, the tightened belt and the feeding up with an empty spoon lie in store for the Soviet people.
As expected, Brezhnev's report and all the proceedings of the Congress devoted a special place to foreign policy. He tried to give a peace-loving tone to his words and present himself as standard-bearer of peace. But the present-day dangerous situations, international tensions, interferences, threats and dangers that are menacing the people due to the aggressive policy and actions of the Soviet Union do not let Brezhnev sell his false money for gold. The pacifist demagogy is an old trick of the imperialist powers, which we can say that Brezhnev uses skillfully. Through this, he seeks to cover up the ever increasing aggressiveness of Soviet imperialism, its expansionist and hegemonic policy and predatory aims towards the freedom, independence and sovereignty of the peoples. In fact what Brezhnev seeks is not "the strengthening of peace and the lowering of tension, the protection of Soviet rights and freedom of the people," as he claims, but the development of international relations to that direction so that they should be subjected to the political, economic and strategic interests of the Soviet Union.
The "peace" Brezhnev wants does not and cannot aim at mobilizing the peoples to expose and oppose the war plans of the imperialist powers, to hinder and ban the armaments race, to put an end to the imperialist oppression and exploitation in the world. By "peace" he implies the preservation of the present imperialist status quo, the liquidation precisely of the resistance of the peoples towards the warmongering policy of the superpowers, the lowering of their vigilance towards the enslaving plans and plots of the imperialist powers. When Brezhnev speaks of "peace," he wants peace with the United States of America, he wants agreements, compromises and mutual concessions with U.S. imperialism for the division and domination of the world.
The whole chapter of Brezhnev's report on the foreign policy was a direct rebuff to Reagan, who wants to reestablish the American leadership in the Western capitalist world. They in the Kremlin heard and correctly understood that Reagan does not want to have many partners in world affairs, that he, irrespective of the pompous threatening words towards the Soviet Union, wants collaboration with it and mutual acceptable agreement. Brezhnev anticipated Reagan's demands and accepted the bargain. "It is common knowledge," he said, "that the international atmosphere depends to a great extent on the policy of the USSR and the USA." "The state of relations between the USSR and the USA now and the acuteness of international problems that demand solution," he declared, "according to our opinion, dictates the need for a dialogue at all levels, and of an active dialogue at that. We are disposed for a dialogue." And Brezhnev speaks openly of the items they can bargain over.
One such item is the Middle East oil. "The state of stability and tranquility," Brezhnev says, "can be established in this region through joint efforts by all the parties involved." So, Brezhnev says to Reagan, if you want to avoid the danger of war between us, we are ready to conclude an agreement, to preserve the interests of the two sides, that is, we must make mutual concessions to each other. "We are ready to negotiate with the USA on the Persian Gulf, the Far East, Africa, Europe, the Indian Ocean and all the other regions of the world," he says. Thus, not only the USA, but also the Soviet Union has "vital," that is, imperialist interests in these zones. Now Brezhnev wants these "vital interests" to be mutually honored and guaranteed by the two superpowers.
Reagan's acceptance in principle of Brezhnev's proposal for a summit meeting, at a time when all were waiting for the "cold war" to break out, reveals that the Kremlin's offer for bargains is welcome in Washington. From this it is evident that the imperialist global strategy of bipolarization, preached by Khrushchov and pursued by Nixon, is quite likely to come to the fore again.
The policy of rapprochement and collaboration Brezhnev wants to pursue in the relations with the USA, and that can be accepted in America, is fraught with great dangers to the freedom and independence of the peoples. One of its first aims is to strengthen the U.S. and Soviet dictate in the respective spheres of influence, to keep in check the disobedient partners and exclude them from their participation in the solution of international problems, to stop the attempts on their part for the extension of their political and economic influence in various countries of the world from growing more intensified. There is no doubt, for instance, that the establishment of broader collaboration between the Soviet Union and the USA in various fields, such as in armaments, trade, control of seas, space and others, will further strengthen the U.S. domination in Western Europe, will make China and Japan more acquiescent in and respectful to the global interests of the superpowers. At the same time, the Soviet Union will have it easier to strengthen its domination in Eastern Europe and in the other spheres of its influence which was shaken by its interference in Czechoslovakia, by the aggression against Afghanistan and confused by the events in Poland.
The Soviet-U.S. rapprochement will be turned into a new onslaught on various peoples and countries of the world, into an attempt to make an international law of the dictate and arbitrariness of the superpowers. Inregard to this Comrade Enver Hoxha has pointed out that "both when the superpowers work together and when they quarrel, it is others who pay the bill."
As was expected, in his report Brezhnev attached special importance to the so-called socialist community. It was the only part of the report in which he discarded his matter-of-fact style for more theoretical formulations. He tried to furnish an ideological basis for the Kremlin's revisionist policy of integration and merger of the revisionist countries of Eastern Europe in the Soviet empire. Brezhnev demanded from these countries that they fully and finally renounce any kind of sovereignty and independent development. He demanded a total integration in all the fields: political, economic, military, cultural and spiritual. Indeed, he presented a long-term program and set out a series of concrete measures to reach this target. Brezhnev declared, "life itself sets the task of completing the coordination of plans with the coordination of the economic policy in general. Even such problems as rapprochement of structures of economic mechanisms, the further development of direct ties among departments, mergers and enterprises, which take part in cooperation, the creation of joint firms, are on the order of the day. Other forms of combining our attempts and resources are possible as well." This directive of Brezhnev is clear evidence of the fact that the economies of the revisionist countries of East Europe as of now will be directly run by the central Soviet state apparatus, in much the same manner as the federated republics, such as Armenia or Tadzhikistan. Similar integration and management is being sanctioned in other fields, too, such as in the foreign policy, through the founding of the committee of the foreign ministers presided by Gromyko, the activity of the parties, which is directed by the meetings of the secretaries of the central committees according to the respective sectors, where directives are given on the organizational, political, propaganda and other work and where the secretaries of the CC of the CPSU have the last word. As for the armies of the satellite countries, they have long ago been put under the Soviet command. In a word, things are going towards the abolishment of all boundaries and distinctions, towards the complete and all-round subjugation of these countries and their transformation into federated republics of the Soviet Union.
Brezhnev unsparingly advertised the relations among the states of the so-called socialist community as "correct, equal, fraternal." Even relations among these states he no longer calls "international relations" but "relations among peoples." But then the question arises: if they are not international relations among states, what is done with their state sovereignty, with the right of each state to act in an independent and sovereign way towards other states, even if they are socialist? As it seems, even "limited sovereignty" irritates Brezhnev, so he avoids it completely and now comes out with "relations among peoples," which, as known, cannot replace and even less eliminate international relations among states.
In his speech Brezhnev tried to present the "socialist community" as a kind of new formation, a "fraternal community" amongst various peoples and states, where complete unity and eternal harmony, ideal friendship and a spirit of pure socialist internationalism prevail. But what happened in Czechoslovakia and what is now happening in Poland? Russian tanks are waiting from hour to hour the order to move into Poland to establish "correct, equal and fraternal relations," as they established them before long in Czechoslovakia. Brezhnev may play on words as much as he wants, but the fact is that the European countries continue to remain in the "socialist community" thanks to the Soviet bayonets and boots. Likewise it is a fact that the more the time goes by the more contradictions and frictions among these countries increase, the more frequent become the pressure and interference of the Soviet Union to establish the "order" in its empire by violence. This is an inevitable result of the revisionist policy and ideology, which are a permanent source of splits, feuds and degeneration.
The expansionist and hegemonic aims of the present leadership of the Kremlin were also apparent in the way Brezhnev treated the problems of the liberation movement and the new states which aspire to independent development. Despite the use of some ordinary slogans which have already become a routine of the Soviet propaganda jargon, claiming that the Soviet Union "helps the liberation movements and the anti-imperialist forces, without any interest," that it is the "natural ally" of the new countries and others, Brezhnev treated the problems of these countries in the prism of the Soviet rivalry with U.S. imperialism and of the struggle and attempts to extend the Soviet domination to them. Thus, for instance, he tried to justify the occupation of Afghanistan as an act prompted by the threat of an intervention by U.S. imperialism. Now we see that in order to intervene in Salvador, America, too, is resorting to the same pretext, the Soviet threat. The various imperialists may always find such pretexts to justify their interference in the internal affairs of other countries. But whatever the attempts of Brezhnev or Reagan, they cannot justify the aggressive policy of the superpowers and, even less, legalize the violation of the freedom and independence of nations, their enslavement of the peoples. The intervention of the Soviet social-imperialists in Angola, Ethiopia, and especially in Afghanistan, has revealed and is constantly revealing that the policy of the Soviet Union in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other countries, has not at all to do with "socialism," "internationalism" or "support of the national liberation struggles." It is a typically imperialist, expansionist and hegemonic policy. The Soviet Union, the same as the United States of America, is today the greatest enemy of the freedom and independence of the peoples, the greatest supporter of neo-colonialist oppression and exploitation.
One of the problems that has preoccupied the Soviet leadership in recent years has been that of the relations with the other revisionist parties. The abandonment of Marxism-Leninism and the betrayal of the revolution that occurred in the Soviet Union as well as the spread of revisionism in the communist parties, brought these parties ever closer to the bourgeoisie of their countries, while detaching them from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The contradictions of the bourgeoisie of different countries with the Soviet Union are also reflected in the relations of these parties with the Soviet revisionist Party. Faced with such a situation this time, Brezhnev was forced, at least in words, to give up the theory of "the conductor's baton" and express himself in favor of the pluralist formulas of the Eurocommunists. As a compensation, he wants them to support Soviet foreign policy and especially, not to criticize the internal situation in the Soviet Union and its activities in the international arena. He is forced to withdraw because the Western revisionist parties no longer obey Moscow's orders. Therefore, he seeks to ensure at least, a loyal stand on their part towards the Soviet Union.
The revisionist ideology is an ideology which divides and not unites. The general political, ideological and moral crisis that has gripped these parties constantly arouses and spreads the spirit of narrow nationalism and of bourgeois chauvinism. Moreover, besides the constant pressure the bourgeoisie exercises on these parties in order to bring them to free themselves fully from Moscow, there exists also the fear that if they support the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, a policy that now has been exposed as an open aggressive policy, they will be isolated even more from the masses and their influence on them will further decrease.
***
The 26th Congress of the Soviet revisionist Party closed with great fuss and clamor. The promises of the Soviet leadership for improving the life of the people and its commitment to a peaceful international policy are the main characteristics of its demagogy. Party congresses in the Soviet Union are held in succession, reports and speeches are delivered, plans and resolutions worked out, but the inner contradictions keep on extending and deepening, new difficulties are added to the old ones while in the field of international relations, Brezhnev's policy further increases tensions, insecurity and the threat of war. The Congress held in Moscow is a Congress of renegades from Marxism-Leninism, of a revisionist anti-Marxist party which stands at the head of a pseudo-revolutionary, anti-socialist and imperialist state. The line it worked out will bring new' evils to the Soviet peoples and new threats to the peoples. Therefore, rejection of all remaining illusions about the Soviet Union being a socialist country as well as denunciation of and opposition to its aggressive and hegemonic policy, is a duty of all revolutionary and progressive people of the world. This struggle is both actual and necessary for the triumph of the cause of the revolution, socialism and liberation of the peoples....
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1 Tikhonov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, gave a report on the economy to the 26th Congress. It states: "The principal factor in economic growth is increasing the productivity of labor.Under the Eleventh Five-Year Plan the productivity of social labor must be increased by 17-20 percent. This is to account for no less than 85-90 percent of the growth of the national income. "(emphasis added) Tikhonov also supplies a chart showing how much faster labor productivity will have to increase in 1981-1985 than it did in 1976-1980 in order to accomplish this. -- ed.
2 According to a chart in Tikhonov's report, capital investments in 1976-1980 increased by over what they were in 1971-1975. But in 1981-1986, capital investments are planned to increase by only 12-15%over 1976-1980. -- ed.
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More than two million Albanians live in regions of the Yugoslav republics of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia which border on the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. The greatest part of the Albanian national minority lives in the autonomous region of Kosova, which is part of the republic of Serbia. In Kosova the Albanians make up the overwhelming majority. During the months of March and April, the Albanian population of Kosova carried out broadscale demonstrations and protests against their oppression by the Yugoslav authorities. These demonstrations were ruthlessly attacked by the police and military forces the Yugoslav revisionists, and a large number of Albanians were killed and injured. The Workers' Advocate firmly condemns these atrocities committed by the Yugoslav revisionist ruling clique against the Albanian population of Kosova.
Below we are reprinting portions of two articles from Zeri i Popullit, organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, which present the principled stand of the PLA towards the events in Kosova.
Editorial of Zeri i Popullit, Organ of the CC of the PLA, April 23,1981 (Excerpts)
Socialist Albania and the newspaper Zeri i Popullit,more than any other, have the right to have their say about the situation in Kosova, about the murders and savage tortures the UDB and Serbian army made against the Albanians of Kosova. And this is not the first time that such things occur in Kosova. History is not forgotten, it is written scripta manent.
The shouts and the concealing of the truth by the "top" personalities of the Federation and republics, the hysteria of the Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and other press, which amount to monstrous charges, according to which "Socialist Albania has a finger in the demonstrations of Kosova," that "Socialist Albania joined the Croatian-Slovenian-Albanian reaction in emigration," that "Albania unites with those states which want the destruction of Yugoslav federation," etc., etc., are slander of the gutters. The more and the louder these shouts, the better the world realizes that hopeless efforts are made to conceal the truth. Verba volant. Nothing will remain from this clamor, because nothing is true.
In the above mentioned interview Dolanc [a member of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia -- ed.] said that 11 people were killed in the demonstrations of Kosova. An Albanian servant of his from the leadership of Kosova said nine. As it seems, they had not time to come to terms with one another. Despite this, all of them deceived the world and the Yugoslav public opinion. The foreign press speaks of hundreds of murdered, hundreds of disappeared, injured and arrested in Kosova. But it is the people of Kosova themselves who know them better, because it was they who shed their blood. They are also aware why this blood was shed and who did this calamity.
The limitation in minimum on the part of the Yugoslav leadership of the number of murdered, injured and arrested is not "the result of disorderly data," but the consequence of the attempts to hide in the eyes of the world public opinion the terror that has been unleashed in Kosova and to preserve the mask of false democracy of Yugoslav self-administration. But the truth will break the walls of curfew and Yugoslav censorship which have been established in Kosova. Then the world will see what massacres and mass tortures were made by the Serbian army and policy and it will recognize the true countenance of "Yugoslav self-administrative and human socialism." Belgrade's lie about the murders in Kosova will soon come to light.
All those who speak and write in Yugoslavia now about the events in Kosova say that "small numbers of young people, these too deceived, have taken part in the demonstrations."
In case there were few people in the demonstrations, then why did Belgrade dispatch the army, the militia of the capital, tanks and aircraft? Why were so many people killed or wounded from the fire of weapons and why was the curfew established? Is it for a "handful of enemies," for 10-15 people who were described by the Yugoslav leadership as "reactionaries, chauvinists and irredentists"?
Is it perhaps the wedding, that "wedding" about which now messages full of indignation and anger against the "Albanian chauvinists and irredentists" and full of dithyrambic hymns for the "unity of nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia" which are rushing like the waters of Danube, Sava and Drava, is spoiled for lemon? Through such tricks it is not easy to deceive a valiant and mature people like the Albanian people who live in various parts of Yugoslavia, to deceive the honest workers, peasants, students and intelligentsia, who are conscious of the life and fate of their nation.
Hence, who incites and instigates the enmity among the peoples of Yugoslavia? The natural, correct and mature article of Zeri i Popullit on this frenzied campaign the leadership of Yugoslavia has launched against the Albanian population in Kosova?
Perhaps, did the Yugoslav leadership want the Albanian press to keep silence about the tragedy it caused in Kosova, when the entire world press is speaking for several weeks on end and condemns the displayed savagery? Is it possible that it wanted from us to praise it for those evil acts it did in Kosova? Why didn't we "instigate the hostility" and why didn't we "slander" even a year, or even a month before the turmoils were aroused in Kosova?
No, gentlemen, Yugoslav leaders. Be realistic, be cool-headed. Look out what you are doing about the demonstrations and strikers of "solidarnost" in Poland. You are speaking, writing, criticizing, advising, moralizing. Is it only you who have the right to speak and write about the others? Since we published our April 8 article until now we have been cool-headed, while the Yugoslav leadership down to the rag papers in Yugoslavia have vent their spleen and have launched numerous attacks against our country. Indeed, Radio Zagreb went so far as to threaten us that the existence of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania is being put in danger.
Zagreb forgets that Albania knows how to defend itself even without Zagreb. It must know that Yugoslavia, that of Tito, too, has in no time assisted in the liberation and safeguard of Albania. On the contrary, the Albanian National Liberation Army has helped and has shed blood for the liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia. And we will again perform this sublime deed if Yugoslavia is in jeopardy. We say to the herald who spoke from Radio Zagreb that what we say is clear and we keep our promises. Nothing unites the Albanians with ustaches, chetniks and ballists (members of the Albanian reactionary organization "Balli Kombetar"). On the contrary, the Albanians wherever they are fight against them, because they have been and are enemies of our peoples, they are murderers and mercenaries in the service of U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperial- ism, etc., who work by all means to blow up the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia....
The defense of the right of the Slovenian and Croatian minorities who are not mown by the bullets of the machine guns and are not suppressed by the chains of the tanks, is considered as something normal by the Yugoslav government. But when the People's Socialist Republic of Albania takes interest in the Albanian language and education, in the freedoms and the rights, in the economic situation, in the assassination en masse, in the imprisonment and tortures made to Albanians in Yugoslavia, this is allegedly "chauvinism" and "irredentism." From where does it come and where is the source of the great anti-Albanian allergy of the Yugoslav leaders and propaganda?
Did you, gentlemen, Yugoslav leaders forget, how did you fight in the Paris Conference for Trieste, Pula, Rjeka, etc.? You were right. We called you neither "chauvinists," nor "irredentists." But, as you were not such, why did not you think that there existed an Albanian population, the third in Yugoslavia as for its number, which should have been united with Albania, your socialist ally in the national liberation struggle? You were silent. Why were you silent, when you alleged to be so principled? Until 1968 you didn't give Kosova even the status of autonomous region. Why didn't president Tito realize what he said to Comrade Enver Hoxha, in the official talks they had in 1946, that "Kosova and other areas inhabited by Albanians belong to Albania and we will give them back but not now because actually the great Serbian reaction would not accept such a thing"?
Nevertheless, territorial claims have not been made on the part of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. One can not find such a thing in any document. But documents in defense of the rights of the Kosova brothers and Albanians who live in other republics of Yugoslavia, rights that are recognized by the Yugoslav constitution and that have been violated and are being violated to them, one will find in plenty, in the past and in the present. It depends on the stand and the policy of the Yugoslav government towards the Albanians whether they will be or not in the future.
One after another, the Yugoslav leaders declare that "Kosova will never be a republic....because this is not allowed by Serbia." "If Kosova becomes a republic in the framework of federation, they say, then federation will be ruined." They present the matter as if the Albanian areas are the "keystone" that holds the federation. These "arguments" do not stand either from the historic point of view, or from the economic and juridical ones, or from the content of the constitution of Yugoslavia itself, or from the practice exercised by the other nations included in the Yugoslav state. But they show that these areas have become a commodity and those who rule in Belgrade, continue to consider and treat them as such. "The republic of Kosova" within the Yugoslav Federation is not invented by us, that was required from the people of Kosova.
The changes in the status from region to republic etc., are internal matters of the peoples of Yugoslavia, are the matters of the Albanian people themselves who live in Yugoslavia, who, on the basis of the constitution of Yugoslavia itself, have the right to ask for them. Not only that nobody in the federation has the right to prevent the Albanians who live in Yugoslavia from these demands, but even less to attack, to injure, to kill and imprison them.
The Yugoslavs accuse us of interfering in their internal affairs because we say this truth. We have not interfered and we do not interfere in these internal affairs of theirs, about which we think that they can be solved correctly only through self-determination, understanding, sincere talks and cool-headedness on the part of all the sides.
Socialist Albania has not made even the smallest interference in Kosova. It dispatched neither tanks, nor helicopters, nor policemen; it did not add border guards, it did not dispatch gun batteries in its borders and it did not make any official protest either. Zeri i Popullit published only an article on the tragedy caused in Kosova, a well-weighted and politically, ideologically and historically substantiated article. This is how the world press evaluated it. Therefore, the responsibility about what happened in Kosova does not fall on Albania, responsibility falls on those who made use of violence and not of cool-headedness and logic....
The Yugoslav leadership is wrong when it thinks that it can deceive someone, and in particular the world opinion, when it says that socialist Albania seeks to undermine the Federation or it plays the game of those who want such a thing. If it likes, let it continue to be ill-disposed toward our truths, let it accuse us of interference in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia if this pleases it. But this does not change at all the situation in the Yugoslav Federation. The chronic disease which exists there does not come from the legitimate rights that the Albanians residing in Yugoslavia are asking for, but from the injustices and other deep weaknesses which exist in all the federation.
The federation has been undermined by Titoism itself, this hostile trend to Marxism-Leninism. It is undermined by the anti-socialist system of self-administration, the great debts Yugoslavia has been plunged to the throat and which have caused inflation, great unemployment, price rises, unequal development among the republics and regions, the impoverishment of the working masses, the emigration of hundreds and thousands of people from their homes.
The Yugoslav officials accuse us of being "nationalists, chauvinists, etc. They are almost accusing us of "Pan-Slavic." All these are not our ideologies. They are anti-Marxist ideologies, theories of the bourgeoisie, imperialism and revisionism.
You can carry out the revolution, as the Yugoslav leaders speak of and theorize everyday about it, but you may also deviate and betray it. Modern revisionism, of every hue and under whatever guise it is hidden, is an offspring of the capitalist bourgeoisie which combats the revolution, which distorts and quenches it in blood. Modern revisionism, like the bourgeoisie, does not unite the peoples, but splits them.
What happened in the Soviet Union? Khrushchov and his successors deviated from the great deed of the revolution, established capitalism and gave up the national policy of Lenin and Stalin. Now great Russian chauvinism severely dominates on the peoples of the Soviet Union, but at the same time Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, and other nationalisms have raised their heads. Pan-Slavism dominates in the Soviet Union and it was transformed from a socialist country into an aggressive and warmongering social-imperialist country. Brezhnev's theory on "limited sovereignty" has pinned by the throat all the countries of the Warsaw Treaty, members of COMECON and of "socialist community," who are forced by Soviet arms to give a sickly smile for they cannot cry and howl with rage instead.
This is a terrible history and a lesson to the peoples who want to live free and build socialism. It is as terrible as the imperialist ideology and practice of the USA, which exploits not only the different populations living in America, but also the other peoples of the world. So gentlemen theoreticians of "Borba" there is escalation of chauvinism and different kinds of chauvinism, despite their form and size, despite their masks and pompous words. Nationalism, chauvinism and Pan-Slavism are condemnable no matter where they may come from, no matter that those who cultivate them are big or small, but greater nationalism and chauvinism aremore dangerous. This must not be forgotten. All these evils should be fought, they must be uprooted, and this can be done proceeding only from the positions of Marxism-Leninism. There is no other road.
The Yugoslavs pose themselves as clever politicians, but they show themselves not only naive, but also confused. The wounds and splits lie not in the demonstrations of Prishtina. They must be sought in the line pursued by the Yugoslav leadership, in the great chauvinisms, old and new, that the anti-socialist system has created. Herein comes that split, that evil, which we do not like at all to the fraternal peoples of Yugoslavia.
It is true that the peoples of Yugoslavia carried out the revolution. Nevertheless old feuds and divisions were not liquidated, they remained hidden like glowing embers under the ash, there remained rivalries among the Serbians, Croatians, Slovenians, although these peoples fought against Serbian chetniks and Croatian ustachs and defeated them physically. The nationalist and chauvinist ideology and spirit, that would manifest itself, as it was manifested later on, in various forms but almost with the same content, covered this time under the cloak of "socialism," of "unity, fraternity" and "equal rights" of the peoples, has not been systematically cleansed.
The heroic struggle of the peoples of Yugoslavia could not fail to awaken a legitimate pride, but this was turned by the Yugoslav leadership into a Yugoslav megalomania and chauvinism, claiming that it was almost only they who fought, that it was only they who made sacrifices, that the other peoples, too, fought only thanks to them and that they took them as an example. All this was turned into "a feeling of superiority" which had not at all the smell of Marxism-Leninism.
The worm was inside the "red apple," it was gnawing at the revolution and, in order to justify this, they blamed Stalin, the Soviet Union, its true Leninist system and the ideology which had guided this system, Marxism-Leninism. Tito and company were acclaimed by the international bourgeoisie, anti-Stalin and anti- Soviet heroes of the day. Their megalomania increased tenfold.
Counter-revolution and "self-administrative socialism" revived the old rivalries and hegemonism, Serbian hegemonism on the one hand and the Croatian- Slovenian one on the other. These two hegemonisms and not Albanian "chauvinism" undermine the Yugoslav Federation. The latter is used as a veil to hide great Serbian and great Croatian-Slovenian chauvinism.
The fight between these two clans for hegemony and power has been and is fierce. Tito posed himself as a moderator, but he was a supporter of Croatian-Slovenian hegemonism. His clan lived in great luxury, he got the lion's share from the incomes of Yugoslavia, spent as much as he could from the loans of U.S. imperialism and the other capitalist states.
It is understandable that such a situation is not in favor of the Serbian clan and it fights to regain supremacy. The other poor republics go round these two rival clans. Through their stands in favor of one or the other side, someone more and someone less, all add fuel to the big fire which exists in this Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which has never witnessed stability. The sole positive and neutral factor in this federation is the Albanian factor. The Albanians in Yugoslavia have been despised from the political, economical and cultural-educational point of view. But at the same time they have been the most patient and more realistic factor in the political-economic chaos Yugoslavia had been plunged in after the Second World War. a chaos which weighed down more on Albanians in particular.
No Yugoslav politician paid attention to such an important factor. In the chessboard of Yugoslav politicians, the Albanian element was a pawn which they might move as they liked and could do whatever they liked. The policy pursued by Tito-Kardelj and Rankovich has been not only wrong towards the Albanians, but it has also been a savage and annihilating one. The Albanians were patient, but they did not yield. Though later on Kosova became an autonomous region, it remained the poorest economically and the most neglected politically in the "self-administrative" system. Under these conditions the people of Kosova required the status of the republic in the context of the Yugoslav federation.
Is this demand a splitting factor of Yugoslavia or such are the great Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian rivalries? It is more than evident that it is the latter. The Albanians are not champions in these rivalries and they do not have ambitions for hegemony and supremacy on the others. They do not keep their eyes on one or the other superpower, to gain support and backing to seize dominant positions in the federation.
The Yugoslav leadership and press blamed the Albanian people of Kosova for the demonstrations organized there, and then accused Socialist Albania and together with it ustachs, chetniks and ballists in Europe and in America. In order to close the cycle, they put all of us on a sack, thinking with levity that they solved the enigma. They served this solution to the world opinion to eat. But nobody sups the broth cooked up by the Yugoslavs.
The revisionist leadership wants to hide the true reasons of the events in Kosova. Its stand is fraught with dangers not only to the peoples of Yugoslavia, but also to Albania and the other peoples of the Balkans. Therefore we do not hide our opinions and openly speak where these dangers come from.
He who goes deep into these key problems of the Yugoslav life will soon draw the conclusion that it is neither Socialist Albania nor the Albanians living in Yugoslavia that undermine the federation. Moreover, as it comes out from the interview of Dolanc, the Albanians stand for the preservation of the Yugoslav federation. But Dolanc is quite wrong when he thinks to restrain the Serbian ambitions for hegemony in the face of the Croatian-Slovenian hegemony, by definitely saying that "Kosova will never become a republic." The tribute of this antagonism must not become Kosova.
In these situations of international crises, not only economic but also political, in these aggressive, warmongering rivalries between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, do these superpowers have a finger in the weakening of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the instigation of the great Serbian chauvinism and the great Croatian-Slovenian one? It is not accidental that the Yugoslav "politicians" do not scratch this great wound.
Why is this dangerous situation concealed? It is concealed because Yugoslavia is not independent, but it depends on these two great powers. The theory of Tito about the "non-aligned" countries is empty, it is false. Life proves this, Yugoslavia cannot do without debts. Undoubtedly, this economic dependence is interwoven with the political, hegemonic and strategic interests the two superpowers have in Yugoslavia.
The fraternal peoples of Yugoslavia must be defended from these two savage enemies and from other overt and covert enemies, gentlemen of "NIN." We are repeating this to you for the one hundredth time that the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the Albanian people who live in Yugoslavia are neither enemies of the peoples of Yugoslavia, nor of the Yugoslav federation. You, gentlemen, Yugoslav politicians, do not listen to us if you do not like, but we are convinced that the peoples of Yugoslavia will listen to us and will understand our thought, our sincere feelings, the fraternal feelings of the Albanians.
We Albanian communists are masters in our own home and conduct the policy we deem better and more correct. Others might not agree with it. It is their right. We are watched and judged by our people. The facts show that the Albanian people support and defend with might and main the correct line of their Party and state power. The Yugoslav official propaganda attacks with Contemptuous epithets like "Stalinist, etatist-bureaucratic" and other such rubbish our socialist system, set up on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. A complete pseudo-theory is created for this mission. The Yugoslavs defend and propagate their "self-administrative" system as one "of the most perfect forms of socialism." This is their business.
But it is our duty to defend the Marxist-Leninist theory, scientific socialism and the construction of socialism in Albania relying on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. We fight and will fight staunchly against world capitalism, against imperialism and modern revisionism, be it Soviet, Chinese, Yugoslav or Eurocommunist, we will fight against any kind of reformism that preaches the extinction of class struggle, that degenerates the working class, that splits its militant unity and undermines the struggle of the peoples for national and social liberation.
We are and fight ideologically against Yugoslav "self-administration," which is a capitalist, pseudo-socialist, counter-revolutionary system for us. We do and will do this unwaveringly.
Therefore, it is clear that ideologically and politically we are not and will never be contiguous with the Yugoslav revisionists. We are aware of this truth, and they, too, are well aware of it. All the world knows this.
But, though we never come to terms ideologically and politically Albania and Yugoslavia have drawn the same conclusion that for the sake of the good neighborliness and of the stability and peace in the region of the Balkans, normal trade, cultural and other relations must develop between our two states.
We must admit that both sides have found understanding in this road. The trade between the two countries has developed and is developing in a satisfactory way not only in the interest of Albania, as the capitalist bourgeoisie in the world tries to present it, but also in the interest of Yugoslavia. The cultural relations, especially with Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro have gone on well, successfully, without any incident and in a fruitful understanding. Neither the Albanian side, nor the Yugoslav side have created any serious hindrance. We consider these relations, as well as the trade relations, as something good, which must continue and must not be interrupted. Not even the smallest sign of "Albanian chauvinism and irredentism," as the Yugoslav leadership and its press are now claiming, has been and could be manifested on the part of our citizens that have visited Kosova, beginning from our Minister of Education and Culture down to the professors and the most ordinary Albanian tourist. Likewise, we can say that Yugoslav citizens have acted in the same way. No manifestation whatsoever has been observed which would destroy this trend.
By writing this article we do not aim at arousing polemics, or at adding fuel to the fire. We were forced to give an answer to the anti-Albanian campaign that has actually burst out in Yugoslavia and to express our opinions once more openly on the events of Kosova. At the same time, we wanted to express again our desire and readiness for the further development of the relations of good neighborliness, something which is in the interest of both sides.
The struggle of the people of Ireland against British imperialism has once again broken out on a massive scale. In the six British-occupied counties of Northern Ireland, the people are inflicting powerful blows against the British colonial rulers and their lackeys by taking to the streets in big demonstrations and engaging the British troops in widescale street fighting.
The current upsurge has been inspired by the martrydom of Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes during the hunger strike of the Irish political prisoners incarcerated in the H-Block and Armagh prisons in Northern Ireland. Two other hunger strikers lie close to death today in the latest phase of the determined struggle of the Irish patriotic prisoners demanding political status. The prisoners' struggle has won widespread support from the masses throughout Ireland which manifests the deep desire of the Irish workers, small farmers and youth to drive British imperialism out of Ireland altogether.
The deaths of the hunger strikers in the face of the intransigence of the British government have exposed before the whole world the depths of the brutality with which British imperialism rules Northern Ireland. The struggle of the Irish people has earned the profound respect and solidarity of the workers and oppressed people all over the world. Demonstrations in support of the Irish people's struggle for freedom have taken place in Britain, France, Greece, Norway, Canada and in many cities across the U.S.
The Workers' Advocate declares its full support for the Irish people's struggle. We add our voice to the refrain of the working and progressive masses the world over in support of the just demands of the Irish prisoners in H-Block and Armagh for political status. We condemn U.S. imperialism's support for the British colonial rulers. British imperialism, get out of Ireland! Victory to the Irish people!
The Struggle of the Irish Prisoners for Political Status
The Irish people are demanding political status for the anti-colonial prisoners in the British prisons. Over the last decade, hundreds of Irish patriots have been imprisoned by the British authorities and have had the most degrading and brutal treatment meted out to them. Such brutal treatment has been the practice of British imperialism for centuries in order to destroy the resolve of the Irish people to fight for their emancipation. In particular the British authorities have tried to label the patriotic prisoners as ordinary criminals in order to "criminalize" the struggle for freedom and independence. The anti-colonial fighters thrown into dungeons of the British have refused to accept this status and have demanded political status. This struggle therefore is part and parcel of the fight for freedom from British imperialism's enslavement of Ireland.
The British imperialists are notorious for their vicious treatment of Irish political prisoners. When they round up patriotic youth from their sweeps of the working class communities, the prisoners are subjected to systematic torture for long periods. Torture is part of the British Army's Standard Operating Procedure for extracting "confessions^' Fully 80% of the political prisoners now in British jails in Northern Ireland are there solely on the basis of such "confessions" extracted at the British "interrogation centers," i.e., torture chambers.
In 1971 following the massive infusion of thousands of British occupation troops two years earlier, the British government rounded up hundreds and hundreds of Irish people and interned them without trial. In December 1972, the British government instituted the Detention of Terrorists (Northern Ireland) Act in order to carry out farcical trials which continue to this day. By attaching the label of "terrorist" on the prisoners, the British government tried to disguise the fact that these arrests and imprisonments were nothing but political persecution of the patriotic people who refused to cow down to colonial rule. Thus the government refused to treat the prisoners as political prisoners and demanded that they obey the prison regulations imposed on the so-called O.D.C.'s (i.e., Ordinary Decent Criminals). The patriotic fighters were asked to accept the same treatment as that accorded to murderers, thieves, etc. This includes wearing a convict's uniform, doing hard labor, etc.
This is an outrage which no Irish political prisoner has willingly submitted to for hundreds of years! The prisoners began a hunger strike which was supported by the mass struggle outside the prisons. As a result, they won de facto political prisoner status in 1972 from the British authorities. Under this system they were allowed the right to wear their own clothing; the option of refusing prison work; freedom of association among the prisoners; the ability to organize recreational and educational facilities, and to one visit, one letter and one food parcel per week; and full remission (i.e., 50% reduction of sentences for "good time" served).
However, on March 1, 1976, the British authorities arbitrarily began phasing out this "special category status" and again declared that the patriots were "criminals" and would be treated as such. The 300 prisoners then serving sentences were put into the Long Kesh "cages" and anyone arrested after March 1. 1976 was put into the infamous H-Block of Long Kesh without any political rights whatsoever. Ever since, the prisoners have engaged in various forms of protest to resist the denial of political status. The first man condemned thereafter, Kieran Nugent, refused to wear the degrading prison uniform of a common criminal. The British authorities therefore left him naked in his H- Block cell with only a blanket to cover himself. When other prisoners followed his example, the British authorities retaliated by keeping the patriotic prisoners locked up in their small cells 24 hours a day without anything to read, without a radio, paper or pencils. Later the prison authorities demanded that in order to go to the toilets, which are outside the cells at Long Kesh, the prisoners must wear the uniforms. When the prisoners still refused, the guards gave them buckets, and then the guards boarded over the cell windows and would kick over the buckets onto the floor of the cells. Later the barbarian British colonialist authorities removed all furniture from the cells and gave the prisoners foam rubber to sleep on, which was meant to absorb the contents of the buckets that the guards kicked over.
Besides this, the British authorities also have the fascist loyalist (i.e., loyal to the British crown) prisoners, those in jail for having assassinated Irish patriots, prepare the patriotic prisoners' food. The food is therefore often full of shattered glass, urine and other contamination. The prisoners have been forced to wipe this inedible food, as well as the contents of the buckets, onto the cell walls in order to maintain a relatively clean floor upon which to sleep. Even if they try to go to the toilets, the authorities force them to submit to brutal body searches, running the gauntlet and being beaten by guards. This is the "dirty protest" which the bourgeois media makes such a big deal about, completely whitewashing the role of the British colonialists in forcing the prisoners to submit to all kinds of degradation.
What bestiality and savagery the prisoners have been subjected to by the British imperialists! All this degradation for the sole purpose of breaking the spirit of the patriots and making them submit to colonial rule vividly shows who are the real criminals in Northern Ireland.
About 440 prisoners -- both men in H-Block of Long Kesh prison and women of Armagh prison -- have endured these brutal conditions for from three to five years in resistance to the British. Finally in October 1980, ten prisoners began a hunger strike to press forward their struggle for political status. When this first hunger strike created huge mass support throughout Northern Ireland as well as in the south and internationally, the British government of Margaret Thatcher resorted to treachery to end it. On the 53rd day of the strike, with many strikers near death, the Thatcher government came to an agreement with the prisoners on December 18 agreeing to basically all their demands. However she treacherously had kept the prisoners isolated from the outside. Thus she succeeded in promising the prisoners one thing, but telling the world the opposite -- that the prisoners had capitulated rather than die! This was calculated to undermine the Irish people's struggle and the growing support for the prisoners as well as to demoralize the prisoners themselves.
After recognizing the treachery of the British government, the prisoners decided to renew their hunger strike. The two leaders of the prisoners, along with two others, themselves took upon the responsibility to be the first group to re-initiate the hunger strike. And after the death of Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes, two others have come forward to take their place. The continued struggle of the prisoners has once again been met with widespread support outside and has put great pressure on the British government.
Upsurge in the Irish People's Struggle Against British Imperialism
The struggle of the Irish prisoners has led to a big upsurge in the Irish people's struggle. This has shown widespread support for the prisoners' demands and especially demonstrated the fierce determination of the Irish people to carry forward the fight for a complete end to British imperialist domination.
During the hunger strike last fall, huge demonstrations and many other mass solidarity actions took place in both the north and south of Ireland. At the end of 1980 the biggest demonstrations in Ireland since the 1960's took place in Dublin and Belfast. Several demonstrations of forty to sixty thousand took place in Dublin alone.
During the current hunger strike, which began on March 1, several big demonstrations and strikes have taken place. Most notable, with the deaths first of Bobby Sands on May 5 after 66 days without food and then of Francis Hughes on May 12 after 58 days, mass-scale street fighting in Belfast, Londonderry and other cities in Northern Ireland has intensified greatly.
In this upsurge the youth are playing a fearless role. Daily large groups of youth pelt the heavily armed troops with stones and bottles in constant skirmishes. Since the death of the hunger strikers, these skirmishes have escalated into tenacious street fighting. Night after night, the youth set up barricades with overturned vehicles and even hijack bulldozers and dig trenches in order to keep the troops and pro-British fascist gangs out of their communities. On one characteristic night, May 9, for example, the police and army reported having had as many as 300 molotov cocktails and sulfuric acid bombs thrown at them in Belfast alone.
In these battles, many youth and young workers have given their lives. Some have been shot to death by troops using live ammunition while others as young as 15 have been killed by the allegedly "non-lethal" and "humane" plastic bullets. During mass demonstrations to commemorate the 1916 Easter uprising recently, a British Land Rover armored car plowed full force into a group of youth and murdered two, aged 18 and 20 years. The British authorities arrogantly declared they were treating this as a "routine traffic accident." Besides these latest killings by the troops, the colonial authorities have also unleashed the Unionist fascist gangs to intimidate and murder the people. Indeed, the entire campaign in support of the prisoners' struggle has been repeatedly attacked by British imperialism and its loyalist gangs such as the Ulster Defense Association. For instance, after publicly announcing their intention to assassinate leading activists of this campaign, the fascist gangsters systematically murdered six of them and seriously wounded another over a period of several months. But neither the terror of the occupation troops nor that of the fascist gangs have been able to subdue the mass struggle against British imperialism.
This entire upsurge of the masses completely gives the lie to the British government's claims that the prisoners are murderous "criminals" who enjoy no support from the people. This was also proved by Bobby Sands' election to the British parliament. Although he was locked in prison and on his deathbed, he won a victory over his opponent, a reactionary Unionist politician (i.e., a supporter of continued union with Britain). This was in the face of a tremendous campaign by the colonial authorities against his election campaign. The election of Bobby Sands and consequently the death of a member of the British parliament as a result of the British government's policies has caused great embarrassment for it. Therefore, now the British imperialist parties, both the arch-reactionary Conservative Party of Mrs. Thatcher as well as the social-democratic Labor Party of Michael Foot, are preparing to pass a new law against Irish political prisoners being allowed to run for parliament. And, just to be safe, they are conspiring to put off calling another election to fill the now-vacant seat of Bobby Sands until they can get they new law passed. What a fine "democracy" the British imperialists offer the Irish people! What a sham and a fraud!
The Struggle Today Is Part of the Centuries-Long Fight of the Irish People for Freedom from British Colonialism
British imperialism likes to pretend that its rule in Ireland is a factor for "civilization" in Ireland. They claim that the continued armed occupation of Northern Ireland is aimed solely at "peacekeeping," at keeping the "two warring factions" of Protestants and Catholics apart and so forth. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that this brutal colonial occupation has been the norm for centuries on end.
Contrary to what the imperialists say, the struggle in Northern Ireland is not a religious one but a struggle of all the toiling masses of Ireland, Protestant and Catholic alike, against British colonialism. British imperialism has historically maintained its domination of Ireland through its direct armed occupation and by setting up and propping up a rabidly reactionary Unionist bourgeoisie derived from the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the big lords and English soldiers who were given land and other privileges in Ireland to reward them for their support for the British. In 1922 when the British were reeling from the blows of the Irish national liberation struggle, they withdrew from the 26 southern counties while continuing their colonial state in the six counties of Northern Ireland. This is jointly administered by the British imperialists and the Unionist bourgeoisie. This criminal partitioning of? Ireland was supported by the Irish bourgeoisie who betrayed the national liberation struggle and set up the so-called Irish Free State in the south which continued to be dominated by British imperialism. This state in the south ruled by the Irish bourgeoisie not only allows continued British neo-colonial domination but also is vicious enemy of the people's struggle in the north. In fact, it has itself imprisoned a large number of patriotic fighters.
In the north the British organized the partitioning in such a way as to be able to use to the maximum the religious divisions among the people to continue their colonial rule. In fact the Northern Irish state was established on the basis of mathematical calculations so as to have a ratio of two to one, Protestants to Catholics. This divide and rule policy is a well-known long-time tradition of British colonialism in Ireland as well as in other colonial territories.
This divide and rule policy of British imperialism remains at the heart of the colonialists' policy of ruling Northern Ireland. The Catholic and Protestant working masses are both exploited and have common interests in the struggle against the British imperialists and the local capitalists. At the same time the British and the Unionist bourgeoisie have imposed the most exploitative and discriminatory conditions of life on the Catholic working masses. The Irish people have always resisted these conditions as part of the fight for a complete end to British colonial rule.
In the late 1960's a strong mass movement arose in Northern Ireland demanding an end to discrimination and calling for various democratic rights for the Catholic minority. But the British government and the Unionists found this resistance intolerable. They unleashed their fascist gangs particularly those run by the Unionist demagogue, the Reverend Ian Paisley. These gangs committed systematic assassination on a massive scale against activists in the movement and against any Protestant workers who showed sympathy for the struggle. This use of the fascist gangs is similar to the U.S. capitalists who have long maintained the racist and fascist KKK nightriders against the black people's struggle here and to "discourage" white working people from supporting the black peoples struggles. The British colonial practice of recruiting such fascist gangs dates back to at least the 1790's in Ireland as one of the mainstays of their domination of the country.
The British pretend that these monsters they have nurtured over the centuries as shock troops against the Irish people's struggle are not under their command. But the truth is that very often the members of these gangs are also members of either the Royal Ulster Constabulary or the British Army itself. Moreover, as to what sort of ''patriots" the British base their rule upon, it is well known that the Unionist gangs have close ties with the nazi movement in Britain and Europe. From 1969 on, these gangs have murdered over 700 Catholics not to speak of sympathizing Protestants.
The upsurge of the Irish people's struggle in the late 1960's scared the British colonialists stiff. Thus in 1969 they sent in 10,000 occupation troops to crush the people's movement. The British government was faced with such an intense crisis that they dissolved the "parliament" in Northern Ireland and the government of the Unionist bourgeoisie and established direct rule from London. They brutally suspended all the constitutional rights of the Irish people and enacted various "emergency" laws virtually amounting to martial law. A rule of open, bloody and terroristic suppression has been in force ever since, with British troop strength at one point reaching to 20,000. In 1971, hundreds of Irish people were rounded up arbitrarily and interned in concentration camps.
The internees' cases were handled without trial first and then in December 1972 the farce of "Diplock" trials began which continues to this day. Under this system of British justice, all the internees were "retried" and all subsequent persons arrested were then tried in courts where the accused cannot see their accusers, cannot cross-examine them, cannot demand to know the details and dates of their alleged crimes, and can be convicted on the evidence of one unseen British soldier or policeman. "Confessions" extracted (or more often, when torture is unsuccessful, simply "confessions" the police claim were extracted) are admissible as evidence. These courts have no juries and all is decided by one judge who usually in fact is an ex-British army officer. Very long sentences are regularly imposed, such as in the case of Bobby Sands who got 14 years when a handgun was found in the car in which he was riding along with three friends. Such are the magnificent benefits of British bourgeois civilization for the Irish!
Far from this type of British occupation being a "temporary phenomenon," in fact the widespread denial of rights for the Irish people has long been the norm of British colonial domination. For instance, in 1870, Karl Marx remarked:
"...the English press professes a chaste distaste for the dreadful general security laws which grace ' la belle' France. With the exception of a few short intervals, it is security laws which formed the Irish Charter. Since 1793 the English government has taken advantage of any pretext to suspend the Habeus Corpus Act (which guarantees the liberty of the individual[against arbitrary police action -- ed.]7 regularly and periodically, in fact all laws, except that of brute force. In this way thousands of people have been arrested in Ireland on being suspected of Fenianism[sympathy for national liberation -- ed.]without ever having been tried, brought before a judge or court, or even charged. Not content with depriving them of their liberty, the English government has had them tortured in the most savage way imaginable.... " (Karl Marx and F. Engels,Ireland and the Irish Question,"The English Government and the Fenian Prisoners," February 21, 1870, P. 167)This is the type of British rule that continues to this day.
Down With British Imperialism!
The other side of Britain's claim that it is "keeping peace" and "civilizing" Ireland is its charge that the patriots are mere "criminals." Thus, as Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes lay dying in the British dungeons, Prime Minister Thatcher of the British Conservative Party declared in Parliament that her government "totally and utterly condemns" all groups in Ireland that "try to impose their will by terrorism." Two days before this she had declared that as far as her attitude to the Irish political prisoners was concerned, "crime is crime is crime."
What complete hypocrisy! All the facts show that it is the British imperialists who are the real terrorists and criminals in Ireland. For 800 years the Irish have suffered under colonial rule and today Northern Ireland is occupied by more than 12,000 heavily armed British troops who constantly terrorize the people. But Mrs. Thatcher has the gall to claim that it is the patriots who fight for freedom who are the criminals!
But British colonial domination is not simply the policy of Thatcher and the arch-reactionary Conservative Party. All the capitalist parties in Britain are equally in favor of the continued subjugation of Ireland. It is interesting to note the role of the British Labor Party. This party claims to be a "workers' '' and "socialist" party. It is the main standard-bearer of social-democracy in Britain. In recent months there has been a deafening barrage from the social-democrats and the bourgeoisie about how this party has really "moved to the left." But what is the stand of the social-democrats with respect to Ireland? They fully support Thatcher's stand against the prisoners' demands and for the continued enslavement of Northern Ireland! Indeed when Bobby Sands died and Thatcher declared in Parliament that "this government will never grant political status no matter how much hunger strike there may be," her speech was met with wild cheers from the representatives of the Labor Party! Not to be outdone by Thatcher, Michael Foot, the so-called "left-wing" leader of the Labor Party, rose to his feet and declared his hearty endorsement of Thatcher's stand. He said, "If it [political status -- ed.] were conceded, it would greatly increase the numbers which would be encouraged to join [i.e., the patriotic fighters -- ed.] and that in turn would mean a great increase in the numbers of innocent people getting killed." Going even further, the Labor Party had the gall to send a representative to Bobby Sands' cell as he lay dying in order to arrogantly let him know that the Labor Party had no intention of supporting political status for the prisoners, and therefore Sands should give up his protest. What dogs! What shameless defenders of imperialism! What an exposure of the real, anti-people and thoroughly anti-socialist character of international social-democracy. Once again it is shown that social-democracy is a sworn enemy of the peoples and their struggles for freedom.
Clearly the British imperialist domination of Ireland will not be ended as a result of the goodwill of the British bourgeoisie. Both the Conservative Party and the social-democratic Labor Party are diehard enemies of the Irish people.
Liberation for the Irish people will only come through revolutionary struggle against British imperialism. History has also clearly shown that the victory of the anti-imperialist struggle requires fighting both the collaborationist Unionist bourgeoisie in the North as well as the treacherous Irish bourgeoisie who long ago betrayed the people's struggle.
Support the Irish People's Struggle!
The struggle of the Irish people has the warm support of the American working class whose ranks include many of Irish origin who have had to emigrate from their homeland as a result of the brutal exploitation of British colonialism. British imperialism is a major ally of our hated enemy, U.S. imperialism. This is why the American bourgeoisie fully supports British imperialism in Ireland, despite the hypocritical tears some of them may shed from time to time. The real stand of U.S. imperialism was shown by Ronald Reagan himself when he wined and dined Prince Charles in Washington while Bobby Sands lay dying in a British dungeon in Northern Ireland.
At the same time, since the 1960's, U.S. multinational corporations have been supplanting British corporations in their domination of Ireland's economy. Today U.S. imperialism is a major exploiter of the land and labor of the Irish people in both the north and south. But the Irish people are not fighting the British imperialists with so much courage and self-sacrifice only to find themselves in the enslaving clutches of the U.S. or other imperialist powers. Hence, while supporting the struggle of the Irish people against British imperialism, the workers and progressive people of the U.S. must also condemn U.S. imperialism's presence in Ireland.
Support the struggle of the Irish prisoners for political status!
British imperialism, get out of Ireland!
[Photo: A demonstration of over 20,000 people marched down Falls Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland on April 27 to support the H-Block hunger strikers.]
[Photo: Youth in Belfast pelt a British Army armored car with rocks and bottles where it was stopped at a barricade the youth had set up May 6.]