Published: As a letter in the Guardian, July 3, 1974.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Radical Forum written by the Motor City Labor League (M-L) in your May 15 issue contained a lie which is spread widely in left-wing circles by the leadership of the so-called “Communist” League.
The article asserted that the CL and other organizations held the “North American Conference of Marxist-Leninists” in May 1973. In fact, the CL conference was not the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists, it had nothing to do with the actual Call for such a conference issued by six American and Canadian organizations, including the ”Communist” League, in November 1972, nor did it have anything to do with the Preparatory Committee for that conference.
The actual Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists has not been held. This is because of the sabotage of the CL leadership. The leaders of the “Communist” League were interested solely in fattening their own nest by using the Call to secretly recruit members for their own organization instead of carrying out the agreement to work together to mobilize the revolutionary activists in the mass movements throughout this country. As a result, all the organizations on the Preparatory Committee for the conference, with the exception of the “Communist” League, agreed not to hold the Conference in May 1973 but to postpone it until conditions had been truly created for it. The “Communist” League refused to attend the meeting of the Preparatory Committee which took this decision. The Resolution of the Second Meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninist, passed on May 12, 1973, stated in part: “Certain individuals have issued a leaflet regarding a ’conference’ in Chicago on May 24, 1973. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Preparatory Committee for the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists formed in 1972, nor with the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists. The Preparatory Committee has been informed that certain rumor-mongers have stated that the American Communist Workers Movement (M-L) has split from the conference. This is a lie. The American Communist Workers Movement (M-L) participated fully in the second meeting of the Preparatory Committee. All the organizations pledged to work harder to build the unity of the Marxist-Leninists in North America.” The leadership of the “Communist” League usurped the name of the Preparatory Committee and of the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists, convened a sham “North American Conference” and slanderously claimed that the other five member organizations of the Preparatory Committee (especially singling out the ACWM(M-L) for attack) had “broken with” the Call and the Conference.
In August 1973 the four remaining American member organizations of the Preparatory Committee, joined by two others, held a Conference of American Marxist-Leninists and united to form the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists. But to this day the leaders of the so-called “Communist” League are continuing to spread the lie that they held the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists in May 1973 and are using the name to promote themselves. This is trickery and double-dealing, pure and simple.