Comrades,
At this time it is impossible to tell which of the four main contradictions in the world is principal. Nevertheless, the sharpening of all these contradictions is producing two rising contending trends. One is the danger of world war and fascism; the other is revolution. In any case, whether war will give rise to revolution or revolution will prevent war, the situation is excellent for the vast majority of the world’s peoples.
At this point, owing to the under-development of the subjective factor in both the US and the USSR, it is more likely that world war will lead to revolution than that revolution will prevent war. This view is thoroughly confirmed by the evident acceleration of superpower war preparations and the speech given by our Chinese comrades at the UN on October 5, 1976 – “world war is inevitable.” All comrades must struggle to grasp the significance of this analysis.
The present stage in the development of the international communist movement is marked by the fact that in the vast majority of capitalist countries, the proletariat’s preparations to effect its dictatorship have not been completed, and, in many cases, have not even been systematically begun. From this it does not, however, follow that the proletarian revolution is impossible in the immediate future; it is perfectly possible, since the entire economic and political situation is most inflammable and abounds in causes of a sudden flare-up; the other conditions for revolution, apart from the proletariat’s preparedness, viz., a general state of crisis in all the ruling and in all bourgeois parties, also exists. However, it does follow that the Communist Parties’ current task consists not in accelerating the revolution, but in intensifying the preparation of the proletariat ... Hence, from the point of view of the international proletarian movement, it is the Communist parties’ principal task at the present moment to unite the scattered Communist forces, to form a single Communist Party in every country... in order to increase tenfold the work of preparing the proletariat for the conquest of political power – political power, moreover, in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. (Lenin, “Theses on Comintern Fundamental Tasks”, Vol.31, p. 188; emphasis added)
Comrades, this aptly describes the situation facing us today. Party-building as our central task can only be seen in the context of the immediate and universal preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
For the last eight years the anti-revisionist communist movement has been struggling for the emergence of a vanguard Party. Now clear leadership has emerged. We must embrace the line struggle in the communist movement, slaughter our small circles, and unite with the most overall correct line and organization in the communist movement.
The essential world outlook of communism is the world outlook of one divides into two, the philosophy of struggle. This is the methodology that governs the internal development of the communist movement. (WVO Journal 4; p.41)
Leading the struggle against the right opportunism of the RU and the OL, WVO and PRRWO emerged as the leadership of the theory trend of the communist movement in 1975. In the spring of 1976, this trend divided one into two, and the WVO confirmed and developed its overall most correct line in struggle with the “left” opportunist PRRWO/RWL. WVO’s correct line of the necessity to build the party on the proletarian ideological plane produced a qualitative leap in the movement enabling us to grasp the key link of political line and actively address questions of fusing the communist and working class movements.
Some organizations which were part of the old theory trend, however, have been unable to grasp the reality of the theory trend dividing one into two, and have refused to take a stand on the split in their own objective leadership. These are the fruitflies of the communist movement – organizations trying to capitalize on the split by labelling both lines as opportunist. The MLOC is the most insideous of all the fruitflies because they refuse even to acknowledge the existence of two fundamentally opposed lines in the revolutionary wing and try to build up their organization by simply lumping the WVO and PRRWO together as splitists and wreckers with the same line. This view is in direct opposition to the basic law of dialectical materialism – all development is the process of one dividing into two. There is always an organisation which is objectively most consistently pushing the development of the communist movement forward. By their name-calling and sophistry, these organisations have only revealed that their desire to see themselves as leading the movement blinds them from grasping that leadership already exists elsewhere.
Comrades, these centrist fruitflies are enemies of the working class. In a period of two contending trends and a mass revolutionary upsurge of the working class and national minority movements, to refuse to recognize that concrete line struggle is unfolding through which genuine communist leadership is emerging in order to preserve one’s own small circle and sense of importance is the worst petty bourgeois careerism possible.
Failure to recognize the line struggle and over estimation of one’s own importance is a familiar deviation to the CSS for historically we have done the same thing. Recognizing the leadership of WVO in words alone, we clung onto a deeply embedded image of ourselves as making a unique contribution to the movement. What we could not grasp was that the only contribution we could make was to abandon our petty bourgeois longing for position and embrace the line struggle in the movement. We had to either struggle for our line as most overall correct and ourselves as overall leadership to the communist movement or struggle to unite with that organization which we did think was leading.
Rather than trying to combine our line with WVO’s line or take bits and pieces of all the lines in the movement, we needed to grasp that lines are a reflection of the motion of class struggle and that building the Party on the proletarian ideological plane means we must unite on the basis of overall reflection of reality, not fragments of knowledge about reality. We must embrace ideological leadership, not long for theoretical geniuses in the abstract.
We were not Marxists, using the science as the basis of our thinking in addressing concrete problems of class struggle. We were petty bourgeois scholars, ossifying theory and cooking up “lines” on class struggle in abstention from it. This outlook was so pervasive that we could not grasp that issues which were theoretical questions to us were concrete problems of actual class struggle to WVO and others.
The CSS repudiates its line, seeing how in its absolutizing of the conscious element, it negates the proletariat as the only thoroughly revolutionary class and the masses as the makers of history. It is a line forged in the image of the petty bourgeois.
Its stand is the stand of the petty-bourgeoisie. It places our “careers” above the needs of the class struggle. Its world outlook reveals a profound separation of the dialectic of theory and practice. We must struggle to destroy bourgeois ideology in order to reflect and stand with the proletariat in the thick of class struggle. Only bold criticism and self-criticism and conscious ideological remolding in the thick of class struggle will enable us to serve the proletariat as genuine communists.
We are embracing the WVO line as most overall correct, seeing it as the most advanced grasp of the objective motion of class struggle and our tasks as communists today.
The ideological deviations of the CSS are not limited to the CSS alone. As we examine the other organisations in the communist movement, MLOC jumps out in bold relief as the most blatant, petty bourgeois scholastic in our movement. While MLOC bombards us with their principled reprints they cover for their counter-revolutionary stand of refusing to abandon their own careerist desires and embrace the leadership actually existent in the communist movement.
MLOC does not dare proclaim itself the most overall correct leadership in the communist movement! It is spineless and cowardly and hides behind quotes from Lenin and Enver Hoxha so it doesn’t have to address concrete issues of line struggle in the communist movement. Selling themselves as genuine inheritors and defenders of MLMTTT, they are in fact traitors to the science. MLMTTT is the summed up experience of the international working class. It is the most advanced knowledge in the world. As the basis of our thinking it enables us to figure out the objective motion of actual present class struggle. MLOC uses theory as a camoflage for their own detachment from the struggle. Petty bourgeois scholasticism vs Marxist dialectics. Although inevitably draining and monotonous, any concentrated study of the MLOC line quickly reveals its essence. MLOC knows very little about the concrete conditions of class struggle in the US. We must expose how MLOC uses MLMTTT as a cover for their own ignorance in order to sell themselves as leadership of the communist movement.
Comrades, genuine communist leadership has emerged in our movement. WVO is leading the struggle to develop political lines and fuse our movement with the working class movement. Combat petty bourgeois scholasticism in our movement! Embrace leadership which is grounded in the thick of class struggle and is able to wield the science of MLMTTT as a weapon, serving us in addressing concrete tasks in the mass spontaneous upsurge.
The MLOC, like all enemies of the working class, will not fall of their own inevitable degeneration. We must heighten the struggle to thoroughly expose the petty bourgeois stand and world outlook of the MLOC. Comrades, party-building is a question of the immediate and universal preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Hence, preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat calls, not only for an intensification of the struggle against reformist and Centrist1 tendencies, but also for a change in in the character of the struggle. The struggle cannot be restricted to explaining the erroneousness of these tendencies; it must unswervingly and ruthlessly expose any leader of the working class movement who reveals such tendencies, for otherwise the proletariat cannot know who it will march with into the decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie. ...Any inconsistency or weakness in exposing those who show themselves to be reformists or Centrists means directly increasing the danger of the power of the proletariat being overthrown by the bourgeoisie, which tomorrow will utilise for the counterrevolution that which short-sighted people today see merely as ’theoretical difference’. (Lenin, “Theses”, Vol.31,p.189; emphasis added)
Our differences with the MLOC are certainly more than theoretical. MLOC is the worst petty bourgeois scholastic snowjob in the communist movement today. Through self-criticism of the CSS former line and practice and intensive scrutiny of the MLOC line we intend to expose to all honest comrades the betrayal of the working class and US proletarian revolution that lurks behind the attractive cover of petty bourgeois scholasticism. Expose the MLOC! Uphold genuine communist leadership and the torch of Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tse-Tung Thought.
Build the Party on the Proletarian Ideological Plane!
Grasp the Key Link of Political Line!
Fuse the Communist and Working Class Movements!