First Published: Resistencia, Vol. 7, No. 1, n.d. [early 1976?]
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Since January 1974 till December of last year we used the heading “Voice of the Puerto Rican National Minority in the U.S.” to describe our newspaper RESISTENCIA. We would like to explain to our readers and fellow communists why this heading will no longer appear in our newspaper – a decision which has followed a series of debates within our organization for some time.
At the point when we started to use this heading it was done in the heat of the struggle against the revisionist theories of PSP on the “Divided Nation” which refused to see Puerto Ricans here as part of the multinational working class of the U.S. and as a national minority. At this time the heading was used in order to combat PSP's narrow nationalism, and as such it was correct and served a very justified purpose. Since then we have also developed a series of theoretical works which expand on our views on this question and which have; served to clarify the position of Marxist Leninists on the Puerto Rican National question as expressed by Stalin in Marxism and the National Question (which we reproduced in Spanish since it was unavailable since 1939).
Out of that period in which the national question was heatedly discussed, new tasks have flowed, our central task has become clearer and more pressing. The heading that previously served to combat narrow nationalism, has now become narrow nationalist itself. It has turned into its opposite and has to be discarded. We consider that to continue to use it would be incorrect, as well as deceitful, catering to the more backward elements and would constitute an obstacle to our central task, the building of a multinational party, since it neither helps to unite Marxist-Leninists, nor does it help to win the advanced to communism.
We consider the heading deceitful because it emphasises the national form of our organization over its proletarian outlook and content which is expressed in the newspaper. Articles do not address themselves to the Puerto Rican National Minority, but rather to all those issues which affect and interest the working class in general. In a word, it is a communist newspaper, not a “Puerto Rican” newspaper.
We consider the heading caters to the more backward elements, since these elements look for that which appeals to their narrow nationalist sentiments and views rather than to communist outlook and interpretation of things which is what the more advanced elements would be looking for and to which we have to address ourselves at this stage. Our task is to win the advanced elements be they of whatever nationality, and forge the multinational unity of the class. In our daily political work we do not deal with “Puerto Rican problems”, but with the problems of the working class in general. National minorities, as society in general, are composed of classes, antagonistic classes. They include the workers as well as the bourgeois. And we Marxist Leninists represent the working class, the oppressed.
In the debate over the need to eliminate this heading some comrades pointed out that this step could be interpreted as the first step towards the liquidation of our work within the Puerto Rican national movement. They pointed out that in the past, some organizations in their zeal combating narrow nationalism had fallen into a left error of liquidating the national question. As the debate sharpened however, we were able to come to the understanding that this fear had no material base, it was just purely a subjective question. The national question is a revolutionary question thus it must be treated as much. The differences which exist among the various nationalities are real and concrete facts which must be dealt with. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that in the ultimate analysis the things that unite the multi-national working class are more numerous and fundamental than those that tend to separate it. On the road toward building the party, we must pay the necessary attention to the movement of the national minorities. We have been giving this attention and will continue to do so.
In brief, we consider that the heading “Voice of the Puerto Rican National Minority in the U. S.” has fully accomplished its task, and that because it now has become an obstacle to the building of the multinational communist party, as it does not help to unite Marxist-Leninists or to win the advanced to communism, we have decide to discard it. We must go about the tasks of the present stage and to this end we place our political organ RESISTENCIA.