First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 2, No. 2, February 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Bolshevik Workers Organization is a newly formed communist organization composed of former members of the Revolutionary Workers League and the February First Movement. Our roots are in the Afro-American liberation movement of the sixties, particularly the Black student movement where our first introduction to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought began. Through sharp comradely struggle with genuine Marxist-Leninists, especially BOC/CWC (ML), we have been able to grasp the stand, method and viewpoint of MLMTTT, to find our bearings and break with our earlier stance as a faction of supporters of the Otzovist PPRWO/RWL clique while members of the Collective for a Bolshevik Party (CBP) , and now recognize the most overall correct line of WVO in the anti-revisionist communist movement and that the party of the U.S. proletariat is nearer than ever before.
We had joined in the formation of CBP soon after being purged from the otzovist clique, put forth some minor differences with the opportunist line of the clique but in the main continued to hold most of the same “left“ opportunist lines. At the time of CBP’s formation we had a clear oppositional stance toward the leading circle WVO as we continued to propagate the line of the clique under a new cover. What was not grasped was the petty bourgeois stand, method and viewpoint and lack of decisive struggle against specific ideological deviations prevalent throughout the history of PRRWO and RWL. As a result the same deviations were carried over into CBP. The failure of CBP to resolutely criticize the line and methodology of the clique, limiting our differences to minor points or just criticizing specific acts of the leadership meant our serving as a faction of supporters of Otzovists. In fact, like ATM and other opportunists we first took a centrist stand on the split that occurred between WVO and the PRRWO/RWL clique in the revolutionary wing. Instead of holding to a correct view of the decisiveness of ideological and political line, CBP sought an idealist guarantee – ideological and political unity.
Comrades, though you claim you are not shielding the Otzovist PRRWO/RWL and that you are not otzovists yourselves, why is it that the guarantee-unity view cannot answer the questions why has the ’left’ degenerated? Which trend was fundamentally and overall correct? Comrades, your idealism which made you flip to PRRWO/RWL is the same idealism which prevents you from answering this fundamental question. (WVO Vol. 1 #5 p. 19)
This centrism on the split was only a different manifestation of the centrism of RWL when struggle sharpened between PRRWO and WVO in February 1976 over PRRWO’s opportunist line on the proposed merger of RWL and WVO. RWL’s eventual unity with PRRWO’s Menshevik line on the organizational question “opened the floodgates” to backsliding and opportunism in other spheres and the rapid degeneration of the PRRWO/RWL clique.
Not only did CBP try to stand above the split at its formation; the same circle spirit showed itself in many other ways. While maintaining opposition to the leading line and the leading circle WVO, we were content with our small circle form, content with drawing up an “independent” contribution to the anti- revisionist communist movement (ARCM) (straight up bigheadedness), and content with no strategic view of the road forward. Also lacking was a concrete analysis of the ARCM itself, its importance and a correct summation of the past 8 or 9 years of struggle. What was evident was our satisfaction with petty bourgeois autonomism, anarchism and individualism in a word, circle spirit.
In struggling with BOC/CWC (ML) and other genuine Marxist Leninists some of the members of CBP began to grasp the seriousness of the errors we were making. Struggle intensified within CBP to not only break with the clique organizationally but also ideologically and politically. Our factional supporters’ role became increasingly obvious as we began to recognize major deviations such as mechanical and vulgar materialism, dogmatism and centrism tracing them all the way back through RWL.
One of the most glaringly opportunist lines a section of us in CBP were won away from was the view of “political line as mere formulation,” a line that substitutes pragmatism for a Marxist-Leninist analysis of line and represents the lazy bones attitude of the petty bourgeoisie. The opportunists of all shades use this line to justify maintaining small circles. All negate Mao’ s teaching “the correctness or incorrectness of the ideological and political line decides everything.” It was in struggle to grasp and repudiate such erroneous lines, aided by principled struggle with comrades in unity with the leading line of WVO that CBP split and comrades in BWO came to unite with the most overall correct line and its organizational representative WVO. ’We recognize the absolute necessity of building the Party on the proletarian ideological plane, the immediacy of party building and preparation of the proletariat for dictatorship of the proletariat, correctly summing up the history of struggle in the ARCM, and the role of criticism-self-criticism, repudiation, and transformation in serving the interest of the proletariat. This stands in contradiction to the method of the other trends that came out of the CBP, who have yet to put forward a correct summation of the degeneration of PRRWO/RWL, or grasp the ideological and class character of the right and “left” lines in the ARCM today. Failure to repudiate the methodology of the PRWWO/RWL clique, correctly sum-up the ideological deviations, unite with the most overall correct line and leading circle WVO, has led them straight into the backsliding of the August Twenty-ninth Movement and to the Workers Congress line.
The development of the communist movement is something definite and concrete. Every struggle, every bit of knowledge, line, tradition, and understanding of the particulars has to be forged in the course of class struggle. This has to be guided as well as enriched by links with the general theory, the historical and international experience of the proletariat.
Every phase of its development is characterized by a principal contradiction. Class struggle in society must be reflected in the communist movement, concretely manifested and concentrated in the two line struggle between genuine Marxism-Leninism and different shades and forms of opportunism. Each phase, therefore, is characterized by a line struggle, with a dominant line, whether correct or incorrect. Resolution of the two line struggle, resolution of the principal contradiction that characterized the movement as a whole, enables the communist movement to “liquidate the old period” and surge forward. (WVO journal #4 p. 93)
The history of the communist movement is a crucial question for communists to analyze correctly because “it enables us to see where we have gone and what is the next obstacle we must overcome in order to make the qualitative leap necessary to form the party.” In this sense it is strategically important because it is one of the ways we see what battles have been won and which battle is crucial in the immediate future.
There has been 8 to 9 years of intense struggle in the ARCM. Unless this is summed up correctly the future of the present movement cannot be insured. We think WVO has grasped and consistently· applied the correct methodology in summing up the history of the movement by grasping what the principal contradiction was and is at critical junctures in our history.
We think it is important to note here that not all correct lines in the history of the anti-revisionist communist movement were formulated and developed by the WVO (as the WVO has publicly stated many times) as other communist organizations made important contributions to the must overall correct line in the communist movement.
But because these groups did not grasp in a consistent way the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint, and method, they degenerated. The WVO now represents the synthesis of the best elements and best line to emerge out of the anti-revisionist communist movement in the course of tit-for-tat struggle against right and “left” opportunism.
Since the degeneration of the “C”PUSA there were many splinter groups which constituted themselves around the time of the polemics between the “C”PSU and the CPC and the split in the international communist movement. These splinter groups did not grasp firmly the theory of MLMTT and failed in their obligation to give communist leadership to the surging spontaneous movements of the early sixties. There was a lack of genuine ML leadership as the “C”PUSA attempted to divert the heroic struggles of the masses into reformism and pacifism.
As the mass movements of the sixties and early seventies grew (in the absence of a vanguard party of the proletariat to lead them through the twists and turns of the bourgeoisie’s dual tactics) so grew also many eclectic petty bourgeois theories of Nkrumaism, lumpen as the vanguard, etc. During this period splinter groups such as Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and Provisional Organizing Committee (POC) degenerated into Trotskyite sects.
It was under these conditions that the Revolutionary Union (RU) played a leading role.
Led by the Revolutionary Union, the advanced elements from these movements mainly the national and students movements, broke with revisionism and the various petty bourgeois eclectic theories and began adopting some of the fundamentals of Marxism, including the need for armed struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leading role of socialist China and Albania, and the contributions of Stalin. Above all, the young communist movement grasped the key link of that period, which was to uphold the leading role of the proletariat in the US socialist revolution. (WVO Supplement, Jan. ’77, p. s8)
This eclectic period corresponds to the surging forward of the mass movements which covered the mid-’60’s to ’71-72. During 1972 the process of grasping the key link had in the main been consolidated. This consolidation represented the sorting out of the petty bourgeois theories, including Trotskyism, and saw the emergence of RU as the leading line in the anti-revisionist communist movement.
There followed a relative ebb period in the mass movements after the struggles and victories of the first period, This relative ebb period provided the conditions for genuine Marxist-Leninists to sum up and draw out the lessons of the past period so that we could lead even bigger battles as the working class movement would begin to surge forward.
There were many crucial questions brought up in the flow period which, had to be answered correctly if the movement was to be successfully pushed forward. Among these were the central task of party building, class analysis, line on the national question and woman question, the dual tactics of the bourgeoisie, and the international situation. The question of using MLMTT to answer these questions became crucial. The movement had emerged from the practical struggles of the eclectic period but theoretically it was weak. The struggle to apply MLMTT to answer the questions facing, the movement set the conditions for the broad struggle which broke out between the leading role of the theory of MLMTT and American Pragmatism.
It was this American pragmatist line of RU (and pushed by the opportunist October League (OL) who emerged as the main revisionist danger in the ARCM during the 3rd period) which had to be defeated and was the focus of struggle during this period. This line belittled theory and pushed empiricism as the theory of knowledge. In this period from 1972-1975 the RU changed from promoting the most overall correct line in the ARCM to being sorted out along with other opportunists such as OL, I Wor Kuen (IWK), Communist League (CL) and the Guardian. This, “practice, practice, practice” trend which also, did not uphold the central task of party building was defeated by the emerging revolutionary theory trend led by BWC, WVO, PRRWO, and ATM, This trend crystalized into the revolutionary wing of the communist movement in the fall of 1975 which by then included the RWL. There were definite principles of unity among the revolutionary wing based on the line struggles and clear demarcations of the period. (See WVO Aug. 1976, p. 7)
It is precisely these principles of unity that the ATM is reneging on by saying that there never was a revolutionary wing and summing it up as a “left, sectarian, subjective, and idealist view.”
The revolutionary wing did not come out of nowhere. It was a concrete product of the struggles in the communist movement between 1972-75. Why did the role of theory come to the front as the key link in those three years? It was not by chance, or by anybody’s whim, or because we preferred to read Marxist books, as the right opportunist always claimed. It was not by accident or because of anybody’s subjective desires, but because of the totality of the objective conditions of the time, which forced to the forefront questions and tasks that demanded answers – the need for revolutionary theory. (WVO Vol. II, No.1, p. 8)
The backsliding of ATM is the same type of backsliding that PRRWO went through. It started on the organizational sphere with opportunist opposition to the proposed merger of WVO and RWL and led them to backsliding on all the correct lines they once held. ATM never talks about the role they played in the struggles inside the revolutionary wing where they covered and supported PRRWO’s “left” opportunism and united with the right opportunist line on the organizational sphere. ATM is continuing this backsliding by negating the lessons of the second period; by ignoring that there was an absolute line of demarcation between the revolutionary wing and the opportunist wing.
This is just the beginning, which leads them to deny all the correct verdicts of the second period, to deny the absolute line of demarcation against right opportunism, and to backslide straight into the pragmatist arms of the RU and the OL. This is inevitable. Today, the ATM has swallowed hook, line and sinker the pragmatist line of these opportunists, and is in fact now sinking to a level lower than RU and OL ever attained. The ATM is indeed a “better defender of the RU and OL’s line than the RU and OL themselves!!“ (WVO Vol. II, No. 1, p.s10)
In 1975 with the emergence of the trend based on building the party on the proletarian ideological plane and as the working class movement began a flow toward a mighty upsurge, we entered another period – the third period of party building in the ARCM. In this period political line became the key link for the revolutionary wing. The fundamental questions of political line are the state and class analysis. This is the sphere of proletarian ideology which includes questions most related to the state and the process of seizure of state power by the working class led by its vanguard party, the various national questions, the woman question, the larger international and domestic situations, the dual tactics of the bourgeoisie and the strategy and tactics of the proletariat. In this period many of the programmatic elements of the party programme came forth in the course of struggle.
During this period unities and differences within the revolutionary trend were crystallized and struggled out, demarcations between sham and genuine were drawn and one divided into two as opportunists were sorted out. The struggles crystallized unities and differences, around the fundamental question of the character of the party as the central task of party building was pushed forward. “Build the party on the proletarian ideological plane – is the first and most fundamental line of demarcation differentiating all genuine from sham.” This is the fundamental question that sorted out the petty bourgeois fellow travelers from the “left ” PRRWO/RWL, and it also sorted out the pragmatist from the right. The objective needs of the movement were being held back by the “otzovists” and the pragmatists. Both these trends are rapidly losing influence and are being clearly exposed for what they are – petty bourgeois democrats from the national movements who were blocked by petty bourgeois outlook from assimilating the world outlook of Marxism-Leninism- Mao Tse-tung Thought in a comprehensive way.
This understanding of the periods of the ARCM stands in sharp contrast to the static, mechanical view we held in CBP and to which ATM and others still cling. Our past erroneous line on periods was the stages triad of ideology is key link, then political line is key link, then organization is key link devoid of clear analysis of the concrete struggles in the ARCM and failing to grasp what was the principal contradiction in a given period which had to be resolved to move the whole process of party-building forward. Calling the first period the period of “ideology is key link” muddles ideology and theory and perpetuates the metaphysical view that the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought can be grasped in one whole. It negates how Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought is grasped more deeply in each two line struggle, aspect by aspect.
Our mechanical, undialectical view of periods liquidated the sorting out process in the ARCM – the demarcations into definite trends based on line. Not grasping the decisiveness of past struggles in the sorting out process leads to muddle on the question of key link and key link for who? Certainly not for the opportunists who were sorted out in past periods. This is the muddle in which ATM is bogged today which leads to their petty bourgeois pessimistic analysis of the decisive struggles of the past 8 to 9 years and which has inevitably led to their backsliding and reversing correct verdicts. This line provides fertile basis for not grasping the fundamental question of building the party on the proletarian ideological plane which all opportunists liquidate.
In relation to this most fundamental question:
What sort of anti-revisionist party to build is not yet resolved in advanced capitalist countries because of the deep penetration of bourgeois ideology and particularities of political systems of advanced capitalist countries. Undertaking the task of building the party on the ideological plane is based on the present day Marxist-Leninist understanding of the sum up of the lessons of the international communist movement.
We are a product of the mass movements of the sixties and early seventies. We were not Marxists when we came into the movement but rather were from the revolutionary national movements. Being products of the ideological superstructure specific to the U.S. we brought many bourgeois tendencies into the communist movement. We have come to see the absolute need to wage stubborn struggle against all forms of bourgeois ideology: because just like anything reactionary, if it is not hit it will not fall.
In the past, members of the BWO held an incorrect line on the role of criticism and self-criticism and its relationship to building the Party ideologically. When we were purged from the “wing”, we upheld and defended much of its “left” opportunist line and used much of the methodology of the “wing ” to criticize it. For example, we criticized the “wing” for upholding “political line is mere formulation” saying they had “correctly formulated the line of party building” but were not carrying it out in practice. This came up around the line on the need to base the party in the industrial proletariat. This “mere formulation” line blurred over the thoroughly left opportunist line they not only formulated using dogmatism, mechanical and vulgar materialism, etc., but were also carrying out in practice which has led it to be the isolated sect it now is. Initially, we didn’t grasp this crucial point and therefore could not break with this incorrect line and bankrupt methodology.
By having only shades of difference with the line of the “wing” and using an incorrect line to criticize it, Meant that we could only cover for its total bankruptcy. Unity with most of those lines, i.e. periods, international situation, character of the party, explanation of the split on the Revolutionary Wing, etc. while drawing shallow lines of demarcation, such as differences on how to develop programme (we held a dogmatist line on the need to “start from” the Comintern), meant that we were still plagued by the same ideological deviations’ that led to its total degeneration. We were a “faction of supporters” of their left otzovist line. We declared our independence from the wing, but in reality this independence was only organizational, for ideologically and politically we were in the same trend of these modern day “otzovists”. As Lenin described the faction of supporters in his time:
We are not otzovist, cry the members of this clique. But make them say a few words about the contemporary political situation and the tasks of the party and you will hear in full all the otzovist arguments, slightly watered down... by … reservations, additions, suppressions, mitigations, confusions. etc. (“Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and God Builders”, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 16)
The danger of the CBP “faction of supporters” position at that time, was that the exposure and degeneration of the PRRWO/RWL clique, the struggle between the correct and Incorrect line , was raging fiercely. The CBP, still part of the revolutionary trend, acted as a cover for and was a more sophisticated version of the incorrect line, and consequently became the main danger to its complete Ideological exposure.
As Lenin says:
The shielding of the otzovist by Maximov and Co. is one of the most characteristic features of the new faction and we must dwell on it in all the more detail because the unenlightened public is all too often taken in by our bitterly complaining removed ones. (LCW, Vol. 16, p.39)
The CBP and its historical predecessor the RWL never had a determined struggle against their historical deviation. In the earlier period of RWL we were plagued with right errors. This was under the vulgar materialist “proletarianization” line which held that communist consciousness arose spontaneously from the objective conditions of large scale production. It was an opportunist line that belittled the role of revolutionary theory, and led to economist and pragmatist errors. Inside RWL there were also many empiricist errors and rationalist tendencies. These ideological deviations had been recognized around the fall of 1975 and the period leading up to the Second National Conference of RWL in late ’75. WVO’s struggle against RU’s pragmatism and OL’s line were important weapons in waging struggle against these lines internally. The struggle to repudiate these lines were initially moving in a forward direction as was the growing unity between WVO and RWL leading up to the proposed merger. However as the struggle intensified inside the Revolutionary wing, and RWL united with PRRWO’s Menshevik line on merger, a process of backsliding began. This backsliding on the part of RWL into ’left’ opportunism led to the backsliding on the struggle to get at the ideological and class basis for the right lines that had plagued us. This slip into ’left’ opportunism and the repudiation of the correct line of WVO on the need to build the Party on the proletarian ideological plane meant that the same historical deviations would inevitably reappear, this time only with a different cover. Instead of an intense struggle to identify the basis and conditions for erroneous lines, and thoroughly root them out, we reduced errors to a distorted view of “bowing to spontaneity“, “falling prey to opportunists like Akalimat” and unprincipled purges.
This bourgeois method liquidated the process of “no construction without destruction” and represented a lazy bones, pragmatist approach to ideological remoulding and rectif1cation. Failing to grasp how Marx1sm and bourgeois ideology coexist in our thinking and the absolute necessity to study Marxism to criticize revisionism, we fell back into past deviations. This is exactly what, happened in the CBP where we put forth the vulgar materialist line on the character of the party, namely that it was principally a question of its social composition, and “explained” the degeneration of the wing as a question of its “lack of fusion in the industrial proletariat.” This glossed over the deep entrenchment of bourgeois ideological and petty bourgeois class tendencies which was at the basis of its degeneration, the source of its ’left’ lines on fusion, advanced etc. that led to it being totally incapable of correctly fusing with the working class.
This same bourgeois baggage affects the ATM and WC trends. Neither take errors back to their ideological basis or explain revisionism using the dialectical and historical materialist method of analysis. For the WC who have never drawn principled lines of demarcation with the revisionist OL, IWK etc., it is commonplace to hear them explain all error as “amateurishness” or “not putting politics into command”. They never deal with the basis of amateurishness and come up with the “Iskra plan” which will only guarantee that amateurishness and circle spirit will prevail. Like all opportunists they liquidate the decisiveness of correct ideological and political line. From the ATM, we hear “self-criticism” for not “raising socialism or party building” in their trade union work or “failing to stress (the necessity to use Marxist theory – BWO note) with advanced contacts who need particular clarity on the national question or the role of communist strikes”. ATM’s failure to do this necessary propaganda flowed from their right line and stages theory of the relationship between propaganda and agitation and their thoroughly pragmatist line which raises the old RU cry to “gain experience in the mass movement” as the key link. Creating theoretical justifications and attacking the correct line of the WVO can only lead to their further degeneration.
As two line struggle began to heighten in the CBP, the cadre began to consolidate into definite trends, reflecting the consolidation into trends of the communist movement nationally. The old right deviations of the petty bourgeois democrats which came into the communist movement with the RWL but had not been repudiated became the basis of unity of the opportunist ATM and WC trend. On the other hand there emerged a revolutionary trend seeking to grasp the ideological and class tendencies that had historically plagued us. It was only through struggle to grasp the correct line of the WVO and break with the dogmatism, economic determinism and circle spirit that plagued us inside the RWL and the wing, and struggle to raise our negative experience with the wing to the ideological plane, by using Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought) that we were able to break with the ’left’ line and the bourgeois stuff it was made of. This was the only road to carrying out the task of party building and grasping the immediate and universal preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the realization of Communism.
The sorting out process continues! The ATM’ s line has been exposed by the comrades of the leading circle in the communist movement, the WYO. The leading circle have shown how these petty bourgeois democrats consistently distort Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought. As the line struggle intensified around how to “build the Party on the proletarian ideological plane” the ATM’s line has been continuously uncovered and exposed. The more they are exposed the more they retreat in search of a safe place to hide.
ATM like the scared petty bourgeoisie, who can’t cope with the complex and intense class struggle internationally and nationally and is now looking for a “safe” enclave to hide in the national movement. This is essentially the content of ATM’s line drift, i.e., that party building is a “protracted·” process, ... (WVO Jan. ’77, pg. S2)
Like the petty bourgeoisie who have lost their bearings, they are desperately clutching for something to prove (to themselves) they are still Marxist-Leninists. They, like the RU when they were sorted out of the ARCM, were reduced to self-cultivation.
It is not by accident: It is from the same basis that the ATM leadership is adopting the’ RU’s’ self-cultivation line on “go to the masses” now, three years after the line was abandoned by genuine Marxist-Leninists, and it is the same basis which is leading the ATM leadership to “confuse” the long term task of party-building and the key question on the agenda today – the formation of the Communist Party of the U.S. proletariat. (WVO Jan. ’77, pg. S2)
Since they consider the working class as their refuge away from the “bloated circle of polemicists and windbags” (here they are appealing to retrograde anti-theoretical tendencies of the petty bourgeoisie drawing on the strength of ’old world’ outlook), we see it as important to deepen the exposure of their line on work in the working class.
The sudden turn to stressing “unity on the political line – which unity is tested over a protracted period of time,” or “forge their (Marxist-Leninists ’ – BWO note) unity in the heat of mass struggle, as well as in the ideological struggle against opportunism,” is, as we have stated earlier, just another form of the “political line is not mere formulation” line of the RWL. This line was exposed by BOC/CWC in the WVO, November 1976, page 20:
This view that “political line is not mere formulation“ h a s been taken up by many of those forces who have not taken a clear stand, or rather, have taken a centrist stand on the struggle between WVO and the PRRWO/RWL clique ; This is an opportunist line which belittles the decisiveness of line and provided a convenient way of creating false lines of demarcation with the correct line and thus justify not uniting .... This line also (our emphasis) stops principled line struggle by saying “lines merely formulated are not significant,“ thus it is not important to struggle for line clarity. It serves the worst kind of philistinism.
To the ATM, line is not decisive, only results. This line totally negates the decisiveness of line; it says that communists can’t use the stand, method and viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought to distinguish the genuine from the sham.
This line of ATM’s is an empiricist line on the process of cognition; recognizing only the particular to the general and not the general to the particular. It advocates a particular element of the empiricist method – individualism.
The exclusive stress on sensuous experience leads to a distorted emphasis on individual as opposed to social practice. Now there is nothing in itself wrong with individual practice. But at the same time the individual aspect of practical experience can be understood only when it is seen in relation to the social. To stress the individual at the expense of the social is to turn the former into individualism. (Pragmatism: Philosophy of Imperialism, pg. 189)
The ATM holds that “A party is also judged by the political influence (emphasis in original) it has over the working class.” (Revolutionary Cause, No. 10, pg. 11) This is pure narrow practicalism. “As it affects the U.S. working class, pragmatism is the separation of practical work from revolutionary theory. It is narrow practicalism.” (Ibid., pg. 203)
We need to contrast this to how the Chinese comrades pose the question:
The fundamental criterion which enables us to distinguish a Marxist-Leninist party from a revisionist party is whether or not it perseveres in making Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought the theoretical foundation guiding its thinking. (Basic Understanding of CPC, pg. 34).
According to the ATM’s criterion the “C”PSU is a genuine party.
Just as the WVO comrades drew out how RU substitutes their own practice as the means of verifying the theory, so must we draw out how ATM likewise negates the historical experience of the international proletariat by absolutizing their own narrow practice as the only correct test of line. WVO using “Our Immediate Tasks” showed the fallacy of the “sum up our practice” line. “That’s what Lenin meant by “experiences” of Outlaw (Molder’s strike in ATM’s case) or the “experience of the last period,” but the sum total of all past class struggles as they are correctly interpreted in the literature and history of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse- tung Thought. “The history of socialism and democracy in Western Europe; the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, the experience of our working class movement – such is the material (his emphasis) we must master to elaborate a purposeful organization and purposeful tactics for our Party.” (WVJ, No.2, pg. 20)
A good example of h0w they (ATM) negate the history of the international revolutionary struggle is how they came to recognize that propaganda is not just for the advanced. They say:
Until fairly recently, our organization had viewed propaganda work in the narrowest sense – that is, as strictly illegal work confined to the advanced elements, mostly in a study circle setting. Based upon the experience of our political work (notice which is raised first, which is also the case in the molder’s strike where they, based on their own experience, realized the need to do more than one propaganda piece in a nine week strike – BWO note), our study, and upon this, as well as other criticisms of our erroneous views we were able to see the incorrectness of the position ... (Revolutionary Cause, No. 9, pg. 9)
Really comrades, those were lessons that Lenin consistently drew for us only if ATM would study them. This is a clear reflection of not putting theory in the lead but the attempt to learn these lessons on ATM’s narrow individual experience alone.
Since the particularity of how ATM’s “go to the masses” line shows itself is its line on fusion and the building of factory nuclei, we have to see what is at the bottom of this line. As they put it, “We must end the practice of just talking about fusion and start actually fusing ... We want, we demand a party of action, and not a bloated circle of polemicists and windbags; a party born and bred and tempered by having led the struggles of the workers.”
This is nothing but the rehashed opportunist line of the MLOC, whom the ATM tried to bring into the revolutionary wing. When MLOC was rejected by all genuine Marxist-Leninists and even many opportunists, they also retreated and came forward with sophistry that “fusion was the essence and key link to party building.” Since ATM has been rejected by all the genuine forces in the revolutionary trend, they have come forward with a line that vulgarizes fusion as principally having cadre at the workplace with their heads buried in struggle (narrow practice). This negates the content of fusion, brlnging definite socialist ideas to the working class movement – the fusion of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought with the working class movement – a negation of line as the principal factor in fusion. No one has disagreed with the Marxist-Leninist line of the necessity to build the party ln the large-scale industries and to make every factory our fortress through the basic organizational form of factory nuclei, although the ATM has tried hard to slander the WVO and make this the question in dispute.
In the case of ATM this has led to glorifying having cadre at the work-place leading some narrow struggles and not critically looking at the line being carried to the masses. Without the correct line there is no real fusion, in the ATM’s case, there is the bringing of bourgeois ideology to the movement in a more organized form. This is what we mean by absolutizing the form – having cadre at the plants, and negating the content – taking the correct line to the masses.
Just like the question of the character of the party is its ideological class character, so is the question of all the, work we do in the working class and the other mass movements. Like the ideological character of the party, the ideological character of our work is reflected in the methodology used, in the correctness or incorrectness of line, in one’s orientation to the masses, and one’s links with the masses, in whether or not the party or the nuclei, the organization being built is one which enables the proletariat to wage struggle under all conditions and circumstances and in whether or not it is actively preparing the forces to decisively smash bourgeois rule and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is on this basis of staunch proletarian ideological stand that, in fact, the composition of the party and the character of our work will develop in a clearly proletarian direction. This is why we raise the slogan “build the party on the proletarian ideological plane”, based on mastering the five criterion and three traditions of the CPC. It is this question primarily which will ensure the class character of the party, and its basic organization in the class – the nuclei, including its class composition. To turn this relationship around would result in belittling theory and the conscious element.
As the ATM approaches this question, it has led to worshipping the practical struggle to the detriment of struggling for the correct line. To pit polemics (by referring to it as “untested theory”) against giving clear ideological and political leadership to the mass movements is to relegate theory to the back seat, as something secondary to “having calloused hands in the audience.” (Revolutionary Cause,, Vol. 1, No. 10) If the line is correct, that is the guarantee that calloused hands will be in the party. As the Chinese comrades put it:
… to determine whether a party is really a proletarian political party, whether it is the vanguard of the proletariat, one must not merely examine the social origin of its members, but instead one must look at its guiding thought, its programme, and its line. ”) As Lenin has pointed out: “ ... Whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat. (Basic Understanding of CPC, pg. 21)
ATM turns this relationship around (between what is principal in determining the character of our work, whether we are carrying the correct line to the proletariat and the masses.)
By negating the decisiveness of line the ATM narrows the scope of their work and attempts to take the working class down the road to reformism. This is clearly laid out in the polemics the WVO wrote against the ATM in the January Workers Viewpoint.
In fact the ATM even puts forward the same arguments as the Russian defenders of economism put forward. They are defenders of economism because of their anti-theoretical (empiricist) approach to the questions facing the working class movement.
The comrades from the WVO lay out:
... the real meaning of the ATM’s stress on the protracted nature of the socialist revolution is clear. .. The socialist revolution is an entire epoch of class and national struggles, full of ebbs and flows, advances and retreats, partial engagements and civil wars. But the ATM’s stress on this side of the problem while they disdain the communist task of preparing the masses for socialist revolution, amounts to putting the revolution off into the far, far distant future and saying that, for now our task is to fight for democratic rights.
This complacency or lack of urgency is being happy with the backward state of the movement. Lenin was polemicising against this tendency in his “A Talk With Defenders of Economism.” He said:
... the emergence of a separate trend, which is usually designated as economism, the principal feature of which is its incomprehension, even defense, of lagging, i.e., as we have explained, the lagging of the conscious leaders behind the spontaneous awakening of the masses (their line on the struggle for the party is a protracted struggle defends their complacent, tailing attitude – BWO). The characteristic, feature of this trend expresses themselves in the following: with respect to principles, in the vulgarization of Marxism (by ATM’s pragmatism and empiricism – BWO) and in helplessness in the face of modern “criticism”, that up-to-date species of opportunism; with respect to politics, in the striving to restrict political agitation and political struggle or to reduce them to petty activities (ATM’s downplaying polemics and line struggle – BWO ), ... with respect to tactics, in utter instability; and with respect to organization, in the failure to understand that the mass character of the movement does not diminish, but increases our obligation to establish a strong and centralized organization of revolutionaries capable of leading the preparatory struggle, every unexpected outbreak, and finally the decisive assault. (ATM’s line on the struggle for the party is a protracted struggle would have communists forever tailing the mass movements and would never build a genuine Communist Party until we already have red trade unions! – BWO)
ATM’s line is in essence the same line as the economists. Economism may take different forms but it always ties the interests of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. Above, Lenin stresses the importance and the immediate necessity of the party. This is a good example of the class character of ideology and why the party has to be a “concentrated expression of the characteristics and qualities of the proletariat.” ATM’s line represents the concentrated expression of the class interests of the petty bourgeois – have contradictions with capitalism, but also fear the proletariat.
Just like the opportunist defenders of economism (whom Lenin talked about) incorrectly said to Lenin:
The principal drawback of the paper (ISKRA – Ed. note), which runs like a scarlet thread through its columns, and which is the cause of all its other defects, large and small, is the exaggerated importance it attaches to the influence which the ideologists of the movement exert upon its various tendencies (Remember the “WVO Proclaims Itself the Vanguard“ article – BWO). At the same time Iskra gives too little consideration to the material elements and the material environment of the movement, whose interaction creates a definite type of labor movement and determines its path, the path from which the ideologists, despite all their efforts, are incapable from diverting it, even if they are inspired by the finest theories and programmes. (LCW, Vol. 5, p. 313)
Comrades, does this sound familiar? This is nothing but the ATM’s version of the “political line is not mere formulation” line. This echoes the same criticisms that the ATM puts out against the line of the leading circle. It is also reflected in their practice (this attack on the correct line taking the lead). Just look at their summation of the molders where they consistently tailed the spontaneous motion even by their own admission) and negated giving political and ideological guidance to that struggle. That is ATM’s line, that the ideologists do not determine the character of the mass movements.
“Or, Iskra’s excessive predilection for controversy is due primarily to its exaggerating the role of ’ideology’ (programmes, theories …) in the movement.” (LCW, Vol. 5, p. 314) Isn’t this the same line “unity tested in practice over a considerable period of time” is the only unity. A line that negated the role of “ideology” and theory.
This belittling of theory (empiricism) is tantamount to:
The ignoring of the interests and requirements of this advanced section of the workers, and the desire to descend to the level of understanding of the lower strata (instead of constantly raising the level of the worker’s class consciousness) must, therefore, necessarily have a profoundly harmful effect and prepare the groundwork for the infiltration of all sorts of non-socialist and non-revolutionary ideas into the worker’s midst.“ (like reformism and red-baiting – BWO) (LCW, Vol. 4, p. 293)
The result of this empiricism is spontaneity – “Without general social theory to guide it, individual practical activity can only meet each situation as it arises.” (Philosophy of Imperialism, p. 190) This spontaneity is clearly expressed in the molder’s strike “sum up.” Their lack of a strategic plan which is reflected in, (1) not putting out systematic propaganda, (2) not mentioning the party, (3) not exposing revisionists, and (4) not ideologically preparing cadre to carry out line struggle but to end up supporting red-baiting.
Tenacious day-to-day practice, however taken apart from the guidance of long-range theory and planning based on scientific principles, leads to more speed-up, more exploitation for maximum profits. It becomes economism, pure and simple trade-unionism, binding the labor movement with the capitalist system. (Philosophy of Imperialism, p. 204)
Lastly we want to draw out how the ATM narrows the scope of their cadre and advanced by not arming them in the struggle to differentiate lines. This can be seen in the support of red-baiting by the ATM cadre, where the cadre thought he was fighting right opportunism by running WVO away from the site because “they had not done any work.” The cadre did not know how to differentiate lines and try to show why the WVO was supposedly “right opportunist.” This is a good example of what the lack of training of cadre and the advanced to carry on the line struggle which is the duty of communists can lead to, reducing them to serve the role of company goons.
This is in sharp contrast to Chairman Mao’s call:
Read and study seriously and have a good grasp of Marxism“. Each member of the Communist Party should also continue to plunge actively into the movement to criticize Lin Piao and rectify the style of work, criticize revisionism and the bourgeois world view, strengthening through struggle his capacity to distinguish true Marxism from sham and make up his mind to struggle relentlessly to preserve the guiding thought of the Party.
Whether or not an organization practices the Party spirit or the circle spirit constitutes a line of demarcation between genuine and sham Marxism. The comrades in BOC/CWG (ML) put it this way:
Upholding the proletarian class stand on the question of party-building is a question of practicing Party spirit. The fundamental criteria for determining who practices Party spirit and who practices circle spirit is the stance one takes toward Chairman Mao’s teaching that the “correctness or incorrectness of the ideological and political line determines everything.” The question of Party spirit is a question of actively striving to slaughter all our own circles and actively waging sharp class struggle against any and all lines which stand in the way of this. In this struggle we must grasp how this question of party spirit is a question of class struggle, a question of struggle between the proletariat’s stand, method and viewpoint on this question and the petti-bourgeois stand, viewpoint, and method. We must grasp how the petti-bourgeois class outlook fosters circle spirit due to the petti-bourgeoisie’s fear of becoming a “cog in a wheel,” the petti-bourgeoisie’s striving for autonomy, individualism, and anarchism, all of which are in direct opposition to the proletarian party. Our movement has a strong social basis for the kind of petti-bourgeois autonomism and anarchism which clearly stands in the way of forging the party. We must grasp how line objectively reflects the circle spirit, even if it is not “intended.” (Two Roads to Party Building, BOC/CWG, WV, Vol. 1, No.7)
in the past we in BWO upheld circle spirit not party spirit. The basis was our petty bourgeois class stand and a “big headed” overestimation of our own importance. The circle spirit ran through many of our lines; from our unity with the P/R Menshevik line on merger with WVO, to the line of “political line is not mere formulation.” This led us to have a tailist “go slow” attitude immediately following our purge from RWL. Losing our bearings given the twist and turns during the struggle inside the revolutionary wing, we clung to a “guarantee unity line,” a philistine attitude toward struggle. This bourgeois line is made up of the same stuff as ATM’s line of “test unities in practice over a protracted period of time” is. This line is incompatible with proletarian optimism that comes with understanding that the correctness or incorrectness of ideological and political line determines everything.
Comrades, Workers and Friends, on the basis of having reached political and ideological unity with the leading line of the WVO, the Bolshevik Workers Organization takes a big step in smashing circle spirit and upholding party spirit. There are only “Two Roads” to the genuine anti-revisionist communist party of the U.S. proletariat. The BWO is taking the road of liquidating and joining the WVO, the only organization capable of laying the foundation of the revolutionary party of the proletariat in the U.S. – the headquarters of the revolutionary U.S. proletariat.
BUILD THE PARTY ON THE PROLETARIAN IDEOLOGICAL PLANE!
FORWARD TO THE FOUNDING PARTY CONGRESS!