Published: Workers’ Daily News Release, produced under the leadership of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 13, 1973.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists was successfully held in Detroit from August 18 to 28.
The entire Conference was conducted in a spirit of uniting on the basis of political line through serious consultation and an open airing of views on all the questions facing the Marxist-Leninists and the American working class. The sole motive of the delegates was to carry through to the end the struggle to repudiate the modern revisionists and sham Marxist-Leninists, build the Marxist -Leninist Communist Party and organize the American working class for proletarian revolution. Tremendous clarification of the difference between the Marxist-Leninist ideology, political line and methods of work of the genuine Marxist-Leninists as opposed to the anti-Marxist-Leninist ideology, political line and splitting and wrecking methods of work of the revisionists of every breed and style took place and the comrades summed up the victories of the first great battles against modern revisionism. Clarification of ideology and political line led to the organizational consolidation of all the participating organizations into one single national Marxist-Leninist Center for the American working class, the Central Organization of U. S; Marxist-Leninists, founded on August 28. The First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists was an historic victory in the struggle of the genuine Marxist-Leninists and the entire working class against modern revisionism and set the stage for the second great battle against modern revisionism and opportunism and to reconstitute the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.
The Conference was convened by the Preparatory Committee of the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists so as to mobilize the American Marxist-Leninists for the North American Conference of Marxist-Leninists and for the building of the Marxist-Leninist Party in the United States. Over 100 delegates from all four corners of the U. S. attended, along with observers from the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). Comrades came from 21 cities. The following Marxist-Leninist organizations were represented: the Red Star Cadre (Marxist-Leninist), Red Collective, Red Banner (Marxist-Leninist), Lexington Communist Collective (Marxist-Leninist), Association of Communist Workers and the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist).
The first session of the Conference was held before the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Chairman Mao and banners expressing the deep aspiration of the genuine Marxist-Leninists to unite in order to build the Marxist-Leninist Party. The Presidium of the Conference was chosen and representatives from the participating organizations and observers enthusiastically hailed the convening of the Conference as a victory over the splitting and wrecking tactics of the sham Marxist-Leninists.
The formal sessions of the Conference were held according to the mass democratic method. They dealt with the following agenda: Basic Contradictions in U. S. Society; Party-building Is the Decisive Factor; The Working Class Is the Main and Leading Force; Mass Movements; Revisionism; Mass Democratic Method; and The International Situation, including the International Communist Movement, the National Liberation Struggles and the International United Front against U. S. Imperialism and Soviet Social-imperialism.
After an entire week of serious and lively discussion and exchange of views, the formal sessions of the Conference closed with the unanimous passing of resolutions denouncing the splitters and wreckers of the “Communist” League who attempted to undermine the unity of the Marxist-Leninists and resoundingly declaring that the unity of the Marxist-Leninists on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist political line and in opposition to the modern revisionists is the main and growing trend in the U. S. today. The comrades resolved to mobilize all the genuine Marxist-Leninists for the great battles against revisionism and its master, the monopoly capitalist class. The formal sessions closed with enthusiastic and extended applause and the singing of The Internationale and The East Is Red.