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This pamphlet represents the views of a group of Marxist-Leninists who have united in struggling to apply Marxism-Leninism to carry out our revolutionary tasks in the United States. We hold that at this time the most important task is that of building a proletarian party and that the main danger and obstacle we face is revisionism, and right opportunism.
The intention of this pamphlet is not to restate the polemics against the revisionist “theory of the three worlds” that have already been well done by many comrades. The questions we have struggled to answer in this pamphlet are: How is the revisionist “three worldism” tied historically to Browderism, Kautskyism etc? and How has this latest manifestation of revisionism influenced and damaged our own Marxist-Leninist movement?
As we state in the pamphlet, we ourselves have been influenced in the past by revisionist views and our practice actually served and strengthened instead of weakening the Anti-Party Trend in the U.S.
At one point, as we tried to carry out our revolutionary tasks, we united with the opportunist line of the so called Revolutionary Wing or Leninist Core (PRRWO-RWL). We take this opportunity to publicly repudiate and denounce the “left in form, right in essence” line that we did carry out during that period. We see that that line has counterposed the various tasks of Marxist-Leninists especially the tasks of building a Marxist-Leninist party and giving leadership to the class struggle of the masses. In fact the “Wing” sees that the class struggle mainly centers in the ideological-theoretical field, clearly overemphasizing the subjective factors of revolution and clinging to one-sided idealism. This has meant turning a blind eye to the dialectical relationship between objective and subjective factors, theory and practice, and struggle and unity. It has meant isolation from the masses and the degeneration of communist organizations into worthless revisionist sects.
In our practice upholding this line meant concentrating work among the masses on winning over individuals to “our” line and on urging mass organizations to adopt “more revolutionary” principles of unity. This volunteerism and idealism only served to further factionalize the mass movement and set back the unity of Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary forces.
The left opportunism of the “Revolutionary Wing” objectively is a part of the revisionist anti-party trend that exists in the U.S. today. Drawing 101 false lines of demarcation and abstracting line and program has helped to split and scatter the party forces.
Right opportunists who belittle the subjective factor of revolutionary theory and practice, a hegemonistic “all unity no struggle” can never build a Leninist Party and are doomed to tailing the mass spontaneous movement. But left opportunism which overestimates theory and belittles its application to the concrete objective conditions, separates the hammering out of the party program from its application. Both betray our main task and the proletarian revolution.
That party which divorces itself from the working class and places itself above it, which only speaks on behalf of the class, which does not always remain an inseparable part of the class, its vanguard unit, which does not aim at and does not succeed in achieving the leadership of the class in practice, which does not make the working class and the whole people conscious and mobilize them to build socialism themselves and to defend what they build, cannot be called a genuine party of the working class. And if it is so at the beginning it soon will degenerate into a bourgeois-revisionist party. Comrade Enver Hoxha has said: “The masses build socialism, the Party makes them conscious”.[1]
At the present time while claiming to be struggling against the revisionist “theory of three worlds”, the “Revolutionary Wing” is putting forward, in fact, that the police are the main danger to the communist movement. This allows them to justify giving up the struggle against revisionism in practice and further splitting and wrecking activities.
We accept full responsibility for our part in activities that have set back the party building motion and the struggle for socialist revolution. It has taken us some time to fully understand and sum-up our experiences. Even after recognizing the opportunism of the “Wing”, we remained isolated from other comrades in the communist movement, still not having broken completely with the “Wings’” opportunist view that there “aren’t any other genuine Marxist-Leninists”. This held back our own understanding and more importantly continued to factionalize the communist and mass movement.
The views in this pamphlet were reached as we struggled to understand our experience and to take up struggle around the revisionist “three worlds theory” and international situation. We owe much of our understanding of the importance of this struggle against revisionism and revisionisms’ nature and influences to the views of the PLA expressed in Albania Today and the views of many comrades including the CPC-ML and the RCP of Chile expressed at the Historic Internationalist Rally in Montreal, April 30th, 1978.
We urge comrades to take up struggle on the views we have raised. Any comments or criticisms can be sent to:
Boxholder
P.O. Box 2003
Boulder, Colo. 80302
Worldwide Marxist-Leninists are rallying to defeat the most recent ugly-manifestation of revisionism – the so-called “theory of the three worlds” and the declaration that the Soviet Union is the main danger to the world’s people. The active stance of organizations and individuals towards these revisionist premises is the true measure of whether or not they uphold Marxism-Leninism. No one will be able to cover themselves with phrase mongering or lying distortions for long.
This latest revisionist treachery is tied to and cannot be separated from revisionism historically. It is the same anti-Marxist, counter-revolutionary, social chauvinist line(s) of Kautsky, Tito, Browder, and Kruschev. Teng Hsiao Ping has echoed Nikita Kruschev and Kautsky in claiming that “due to drastic division and realignment” the “old” divisions of irreconcilable interests no longer apply.
According to the newest revisionist theoreticians like Ping, the world is now actually three worlds. Membership in one of the “three worlds” depends not on the relationship to either the forces of capitalism and imperialism or of socialism and national liberation, but rather on relative economic development (socialist or capitalist), or geography. This game of who belongs to what world is not a strategy for revolution but a smokescreen for counter-revolution. Having erased the contradiction between labor and capital and between socialism and imperialism, the new revisionists hope to replace Marxism-Leninism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism with various “socialisms” (third world, nonaligned, democratic, self-administrative...ad nauseum).
This is the deliberate action of those whose class interests are identical to those of the bourgeoisie and imperialists but who are masquerading as communists and revolutionaries. It is this revisionism which is the main danger to revolution within the communist and workers movement. Comrade Mao Tse Tung clearly saw through this masquerade when he said of Ping, “This person does not grasp class struggle. He has never referred to this link. Still his theme of “white cat, black cat” makes no distinction between imperialism and Marxism. He does not understand Marxism-Leninism, he represents the capitalist class.”[1a]
One recent example of this treachery to the cause of the proletariat and oppressed masses is the attempted reintroduction of the arch-renegade Tito to the international communist movement.
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia headed by Comrade Tito, outstanding leader of the people of all nationalities in Yugoslavia, has applied the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of Yugoslavia. Unswervingly leading the people of the whole country in a persistent revolutionary struggle over the decades, it has won continuous victories in the cause of socialism. Greeting to the 11th Congress of the YLC from the Central Committee of CPC, Peking Review, June 19, 1978
This disgusting embrace of Yugoslav revisionism, “self-administrative socialism”, is an open attempt to lead the masses away from socialist revolution. It is a direct attack on comrade Stalin and the Communist Information Bureau who led the struggle to expel the Titoites from the communist movement after W.W.II. Further it is an attack on the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian people who have repulsed various aggressive, counter-revolutionary schemes and actions by the Titoite gang against the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. Certainly the Titoites have not changed their revisionist line. It is the “third worlders” who want to change Marxism-Leninism into revisionism. Really it is no wonder that the Chinese revisionists are so delighted with Tito as it was he who first introduced the idea of a nonaligned, third force after W.W.II as part of an attack on the Soviet Union.
The so-called “theory” of three worlds has done great damage in the world. It has tried to split national liberation and proletarian revolution, promoting the myth that there exists the possibility of real freedom and independence coexisting with imperialism. This amounts to equating freedom for the oppressed masses with the freedom of the imperialists and comprador bourgeoisie to continue their exploitation of the world’s people.
This “new” revisionist premise is covering for neo-colonialism and its bloodstained puppets like the Shah of Iran and Mobuto in claiming that they are “third world leaders” opposed to and independent of imperialism; thereby making a separation between political and economic independence. This is in complete contradiction to Comrades Lenin and Mao Tse Tung who correctly analyzed the inseparability, in our epoch, of political and economic independence and of national liberation and proletarian revolution.[2]
The revisionists are working hand and glove with the world’s bourgeoisie, planning to destroy the dictatorship of the proletariat in socialist countries, and to prevent national liberation and socialist revolution in other countries. To help carry out this scheme the social-chauvinists who have rallied to the “three worlds theory” have also attempted to split and wreck the new Marxist-Leninist parties or the movement to build them in many countries. One method used is recognition blackmail – asserting that a party or organizations political line is only correct if it is ’recognized’ by this or that other party. This is a distortion of correct relations among Marxist-Leninists which are based on unity on Marxism-Leninism and not on wheeling and dealing for recognition.
Led by Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania, comrades from every country are dealing blows to the revisionists. All communists and revolutionary minded people have the responsibility to rally to and defend Marxism-Leninism in this struggle. It is not enough to quote phrases from the Report to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania and try to get by as an anti-revisionist on that alone as some comrades have done. Other comrades see the struggle against “three worldism” as only existing on international questions (i.e. European imperialism, the main danger of world war, etc.) or on the question of collaboration with U.S. imperialism in an imperialist war.
World-wide the three worlds line represents the continuation of international revisionism. In the United States it also has its roots in the same specific conditions that produced Browderism. It is no accident that the leading proponent of the “theory of three worlds”, the October League (CPML) is carrying out a Browderite revisionist line in all areas. The relationship between the OL-CPML (and other social-chauvinist parties in the world) with the Chinese revisionists have long been a two-way street. The OL has for years been encouraging the rightist in China and likewise China has supported the OL in the U.S. As other comrades have pointed out, the OL even “rewrote” the report of the 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, claiming that Lin Piao had been exposed as an ultra-leftist and that ultra-leftism is the main danger in the communist movement. In fact, the documents clearly state that Lin Piao was a capitalist roader and revisionist; it was Teng Hsiao Ping who held that Lin Piao was ultra left.[3]
We face the task of exposing and repudiating every vestige and influence of revisionism, otherwise it will continue to be impossible to build our Marxist-Leninist Party and carry out our proletarian internationalist duty–the overthrow of the U.S. bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism and our final aim of communism.
Comrades, we must not hold back from any of these tasks but fearlessly embrace them.
The damage done by the agents of revisionism in the United States has been considerable. Its influence can still be seen even among some Individuals and organizations who have taken positions against the revisionist premises of “three worlds and main blow towards the USSR” in the international arena.
Revisionism or neo-revisionism has promoted illusions of a middle path between capitalism and socialism, an anti-imperialism divorced from the objective class antagonisms. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s it encouraged “new leftism” and sham social pacifist “anti-imperialism” such as the Guardian, which imitates the bourgeois style of Time Magazine in its “anti-imperialist reports”. Under that heading they make no distinction between genuine national liberation struggles such as in Eritrea and Soviet social-imperialist aggression such as in Angola, and considers U.S. imperialism a ’policy’ not the inevitable development of U.S. capitalism.
This same revisionist “anti-imperialism” delayed the defeat of the retrograde eclectic tendency in the U.S. which held up various supposed theoreticians like Fanon, Felix Green, Che Guevara, and Regis Debray equally with the great Marxist-Leninist teachers. This was part of a blatant attempt to keep the young Marxist-Leninist movement from completely repudiating revisionism, consolidating itself around Marxism-Leninism and building our Marxist-Leninist Party.
Since that time the neo-revisionists in the U.S. have been and are increasing their disruptive activities and social-chauvinist propaganda. They are trying to blunt the class antagonisms and to secure their own position as the “loyal opposition” in the event of imperialist war. The October League (CPML) is the main representative of the openly neo-revisionist trend that has rallied around the Chinese revisionists. They have completely abandoned Marxism-Leninism for revisionism. In claiming that the main blow must be directed at Soviet social-imperialism, they expose the fact that their class interests are identical to those of the bloodsucking U.S. imperialists. In fact their main disagreement with the U.S. bourgeoisie is that one sector is too pacifistic, not ready for war and is holding back on producing trident submarines, neutron bombs, and so on.
Certain powerful forces in the ruling class are clearly trying to cover up this growth and appease Soviet social-imperialism. The CALL, Volume 6, #7 “USSR Leading in Super Power War Race”
What could be more repulsive than the groveling of social-chauvinists at the feet of the U.S. imperialist war mongers. Clearly they are much more interested in arming the bourgeoisie and protecting U.S. capitalism than with leading the masses to revolution.
Internationally and within the U.S. the revisionists are concentrating their attack on the hegemony of the proletariat, its party, and its dictatorship. Revisionists of all shades are promoting polycentrism (many parties, many correct lines, many classes, no center, no socialist camp, etc.) in order to destroy our movement.
Internationally and within the U.S. the revisionists are concentrating their attack on the hegemony of the proletariat, its party, and its dictatorship. Revisionists of all shades are promoting polycentrism (many parties, many correct lines, many classes, no center, no socialist camp, etc.) in order to destroy our movement.
These traitors to the proletariat are leading an all out attack on Marxism-Leninism. Neo-revisionism and social-chauvinism have united with the bourgeoisie in trying to sabotage the formation of the organized advanced detachment of the U.S. proletariat. In fact there exists an anti-party trend which cannot be separated from the revisionist offensive worldwide. This trend has tried to take socialist revolution off the agenda in the U.S. and has led to the scattering of the revolutionary forces.
Internationally and within the U.S. the revisionists are concentrating their attack on the hegemony of the proletariat, its party, and its dictatorship. Revisionists of all shades are promoting polycentrism (many parties, many correct lines, many classes, no center, no socialist camp, etc.) in order to destroy our movement.
We recognize the influences of this anti-Marxist-Leninist, anti-party line in our past practice and in that of many other comrades. In fact we see that the majority of “lines” being put forward are objectively part of the anti-party trend. This trend has refused to concretely take up the task of uniting Marxist-Leninists on the basis of Marxism-Leninism into one party with one line. Instead it has relied either on putting forward one hundred and one false lines of demarcation and idealistic notions of unity or upon outright hegemonism to safeguard each group’s political territory and to split the revolutionary forces.
For years the October League and the Revolutionary Union and others pushed the task of building pre-party collectives and organizations, anything so long as it remained perpetually pre-party. Then, seeing that the motion to unite into a genuine party was growing these class traitors quickly consolidated into their own revisionist parties, putting forward the view that organizational consolidation was key. This was only a rank attempt to confuse the revolutionary forces with many parties and to perpetuate poly-centrism. Although most individuals and organizations have disunities with these open revisionists, the unities are more significant.
Pre-party forms of organization have been clung to under the guise that enough unity doesn’t exist to unite. If this view prevails enough unity will never exist since steps will never be taken to unite but only to split. This brand of anti-party line demands absolute unity (guaranteed) on some formal mystified document that supposedly represents the party’s line and program, as a pre-condition for beginning to unite into a single Marxist-Leninist center. This liquidates the Marxist-Leninist view of political line and program. The party’s political line and program is the application of Marxism-Leninism to concrete conditions in order to determine our strategic and tactical tasks so that we can carry them out. That is the only genuine basis of unity for Marxist-Leninists.
The anti-party trend has mystified the role of line and program, seeing them as static and absolute, and seeing their adoption as an end in itself. In some cases this distortion of Marxism-Leninism has reached an extreme where any disagreement is called police provocation–covering the activities of the real police who are infiltrating our movement, insuring the lack of unity.
When formal programs have been adopted they too have reflected an academic, idealist view and a hegemonistic view of political line as a group’s private property. Calls for unity are not made on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, our tasks, or the struggle against revisionism and opportunism but as invitations to “unite” with “my line”. Other “unity” calls have really been calls to unite in opposition to party building–democratic centralism, and one line, replacing proletarian organization with federations and coalitions.
All of this opportunist, revisionist thinking (whether left or right in form) has led to rabid factionalism, sectarianism and splitting in our movement. It has also led to a factionalizing of the mass movement as each group or circle scrambles to build a kingdom for itself, abandoning the task of giving real leadership.
Internationally and within the U.S. the revisionists are concentrating their attack on the hegemony of the proletariat, its party, and its dictatorship. Revisionists of all shades are promoting polycentrism (many parties, many correct lines, many classes, no center, no socialist camp, etc.) in order to destroy our movement.
Comrades, we must learn from past mistakes. In this state, we and other Marxist-Leninists often refused to even attend the same mass meetings and demonstrations, let alone struggle out our real unities and disunities because we could not agree on what we considered to be statements of line. These statements of “line” such as “party building central task, party building central and only task, simultaneous tactical tasks, two tactical principles”, and so forth, were in fact devoid of life, and were not political line but only phrasemongering. Further, struggling over formulations deviated the struggle against revisionism, social-chauvinism and all types of opportunism too often into petty squabbling. In no way does this mean that all lines of demarcation that we have drawn are false ones. But it is clear that in spite of endless debates, the main danger to our movement, revisionism, was not repudiated, least of all as it held back party building which we all claimed to uphold.
This entire metaphysical and idealistic line could only ensure that Marxist-Leninists could never unite and revisionism would be left a free rein to split, wreck and mislead the revolutionary movement. This is of course exactly what the bourgeoisie has hoped for and actively worked for.
In unity with all revisionism, the anti-party trend has reduced the role of the party to that of an ideological and bureaucratic apparatus. If it is possible to write an absolute program, build cells in every city, and industry, lead the mass movement, win over the masses and so on without a party, which is what seeing all those points as pre-conditions means, than the party is only necessary to better organize the distribution of newspapers and to serve as an ideological clearing house. As the Albanian comrades have pointed out, this view is in the tradition of Kautsky, Bernstein, and Kruschev.[4]
No, the party is the living, breathing advanced detachment of the proletariat, its tasks are to make the masses conscious and to lead them in making revolution. Any view that reduces the party to an organizational apparatus is hostile to the interests of the proletariat and all oppressed masses.
Internationally and within the U.S. the revisionists are concentrating their attack on the hegemony of the proletariat, its party, and its dictatorship. Revisionists of all shades are promoting polycentrism (many parties, many correct lines, many classes, no center, no socialist camp, etc.) in order to destroy our movement.
The influence and damage done by revisionism and neo-revisionism has been considerable. Now is the decisive moment when we must join with our international comrades in intensifying the struggle against it. That is real proletarian internationalism.
Many Marxist-Leninists have been influenced to some extent by the “theory” of three worlds and the anti-party trend. Now is the time to completely break with all those influences and to strike a death blow at revisionism.
Genuine Marxists-Leninists must carry the struggle against both “new” and old revisionist premises into all areas of our work. We must unite in carrying out our tasks in the course of struggle against social-chauvinism and all opportunism. We must take up the tasks of building our Marxist-Leninist party, making the masses conscious and overthrowing the bourgeoisie as practical tasks to be accomplished. The revisionists are gathering their counter revolutionary forces in service to the world’s bourgeoisie. We must do the same by gathering the revolutionary forces in service to the world’s proletariat and oppressed masses.
LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINSIM!
FORWARD TO MARX1ST-LENIN1ST UNITY!
[1] Some Fundamental Questions of the Revolutionary Policy of the PLA About the Development of the Class Struggle, N. Hoxha.
[1a] Open Letter of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile to the Communist Party of China.
[2] On New Democracy, Mao Tse Tung; Draft Thesis on National and Colonial Questions, V.I. Lenin.
[3] U.S. Marxist-Leninists Unite in Struggle Against Social Chauvinism, Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, page 35; The 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents) Foreign Languages Press, Peking.
[4] “A Majestic Program of the Struggle of the Proletariat for the Triumph of Communism,” B. Hoxha, Albania Today #2 (39) ’78