Published: Palante, Vol. 6, No. 6, June 1-July 1, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Revolutionary wing of the Communist movement stands on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought, and in the interest of the proletariat and Proletarian Revolution, indicts merishevism and all Mensheviks as objective bourgeois agents. In this article the PRRWO will share with all genuine Marxist-Leninists and advanced workers our sum-up to date on the revealing facts which, prove without the shadow of a doubt that the enemies of the working class, the mensheviks have long ago sold out the interest of the Proletariat by aiding the state in their operations within the movement – who are preparing an attempt to repress the rising trend of Bolshevism in our country, part of the world wide Revolutionary storm against capitalism, trying to delay, to set back, the formation of a genuine vanguard Communist Party, the Party of Lenin, the Party of a New Type, and Proletarian Revolution which the Party will lead.
..All members of the Party must understand that the vigilance of a Communist is necessary in every field and in all situations. An indispensable quality of every Bolshevik in the present conditions must be the ability to recognize the enemy of the Party no matter how well he be masked. Mastering Bolshevism – Stalin
By ripping off the mask of Menshevism we have been applying the indispensable quality of Bolsheviks, with developing ability to recognize the enemies of the Party. In this period of Party Building, grasping hold of political line as the key link, has provided a higher level of struggle, drawing the lines of demarcation sharply between genuine and sham, the sham’s ugly faces standing out as ghosts and monsters, the marsh forces – the enemies of the Party.
But we shall break with all opportunists; and the entire class-conscious proletariat will be with us in the fight – not to “shift relation of forces” but to overthrow the bourgeoisie, to destroy bourgeois parlimentarism, for a democratic republic after the type of the commune, or a republic of soviet of workers and soldiers deputies, for the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin – State & Revolution
This is the fundamental question that the proletariat faces in this stage of the revolution in its struggle against the bourgeoisie; that of smashing the state apparatus and of setting up its political rule the dictatorship of the proletariat. In, order to accomplish this the strategic objective of the revolution, the proletariat must be guided by its general staff – its vanguard its most disciplined, its highest form of organization, the Party of a New Type, the Party of Lenin and Stalin, our central and only task in this, the period of the formation of our Party.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state i.e. of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible (Karl Marx – The Communist Manifesto)
Class war, comrades, violent revolution, the only means by which the antagonistic contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie can be resolved. And how is the Proletariat to lead the revolution without its Party? Impossible, it can’t be done. This is why more than anything else today the bourgeoisie fears the coming into being of the mightiest of the Proletariat’s weapons. But does the bourgeoisie sit idle in fear? Does the bourgeoisie fold its arms and pretend that Bolshevism is not on the rise in the U.S. and the world over? No, absolutely not!
In order for us to grasp the essence of the answer to this question we must quote from the teachers, and their brilliant elaboration on the state. This is how Engels put the question –
The State is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it the reality of the ethical idea the image and reality of reason, as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in sterile struggle, a power seemingly standing above society became necessary for the purpose of moderating the conflict, of keeping it within the bounds of “order”; and this power arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state. Family, Private Property & the State
The State therefore arises and is a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.
This fundamental Marxist thesis is denied however by todays Mensheviks who seek class peace who like Kautsky and Co., turn the world on its head and who as all philistines, on the question of the state make it appear that the state is an organ not of class oppression, but for the reconciliation of classes. That is why the Mensheviks today are the main aide of the bourgeois state apparatus, in particular of the intelligence community in this country, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, Army & Navy intelligence etc., in their attempt to wreck, split, demoralize and slander genuine Bolsheviks as they subvert the developing basic line of the Party. In order to aim their blow at the Revolutionary Wing, the state depends primarily on the sham wing of our movement, the purged Mensheviks from the Revolutionary Wing, and the hidden scab Mensheviks who are still trying to weaken us from within.
That is why we must continue to intensify the two line struggle to defeat Menshevism that, is why we must defeat the rotten theory of “overcoming opportunism from within”. Opportunism is the fertile ground upon which the state finds its nest for its overt and covert operations within the Communist movement.
As admitted by the bourgeoisie itself, the CIA has been conducting operation CHAOS mainly aimed at the communist organizations in general and the Revolutionary Wing in particular. Only admitting to what is already a know fact however, in order to maintain their cover on present operations. For example, in a typical bourgeois maneuver, the FBI has admitted to its operations inside the communist movement and especially to its role in the destruction of the Black Panther Party. We quote from an article in the N.Y. Times, Sunday May 9, 1976, where they admit to have conducted operation cointelpro –
The Federal Bureau of Investigation carried out a secret, nationwide effort to destroy the Black Panthers, including attempts to stir bloody; “gang warfare” between the Panthers and other groups and to create factional splits within the Party, according to the staff report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence activities.
The article continues –
The bureau’s efforts contributed to a climate of violence in which four black panthers were shot to death in internal battles, according to the report.
Admitting only to what is already a known fact, covering up of course the other agencies and agents: who were involved in the operation itself and who are still conducting their operations at a higher level, since the communist movement has gone to a higher level of development, obviously so has their plans, plots and the levels of training of their agents who have infiltrated the communist movement. The tactics of today however are some of the same tactics that they used then. Utilizing the fact that there is two line struggle as a rule not the exception, that we are and will continue to purge our ranks of all opportunist pollution. With the Purges: ridding ourselves of paid bourgeois agents as well who find it extremely difficult to function where Democratic Centralism and Criticism & Self-Criticism are functioning principles, and who have been hiding behind the Mensheviks. Where the struggle for the Party has gone to a higher level of development, the intense struggle between the two lines, makes it hard for bourgeois agents to function from within. Coming out more openly the intelligence community has continued at even a more intensified level than in the first period of Party Building to try to sow dissention, confusion, fear, trying to create splits, trying to foster violent disputes, slandering, lying, sending hate mail trying to create conditions to repress the Revolutionary Wing of the movement, at the same time that they try to maintain the cover on the operation, the agency and the agents that are carrying it out.
Many times they do this by setting up front organizations, like in the first period of Party Building where the U.S. organization under the leadership of the notorious gangster Ron Karenga, an old croney of the thoroughly bankrupt element Amiri Baraka, served as a front, where the secret political police could at random provide external provocation measures to get the BPP involved in confrontations with the aim of destroying the BPP by getting Panthers killed, demoralizing its members, sowing confusion and fear, analyzing each step of the way tactics or combinations of tactics to use to accelerate the attacks and repression on the Panther Party.
One thing was certain that the Panther Party was not social pacifists, many comrades believed in the principles that they and other communists and advanced elements fought for then, laying their lives down on the line out of real commitment to “serve the masses” and to make revolution; carrying out to a great extent the task of reaffirming the ideology of the Proletariat – Marxism-Leninism, posing a real threat to the bourgeoisie, providing us with exemplary heroism, and with the strength to continue to struggle today tomorrow and always for the total emancipation of the Proletariat and all oppressed masses. We stand firm comrades their lives did not go down in vain, as we have moved to a new period paying tribute to all our fallen comrades by struggling with all our might to build the Party – applying the Leninist method learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones, criticizing them, and moving forward as we consolidate internally. We must know our enemy to fight him and defeat him.
Like yesterday front organizations exist today, some may not be aware of it, but because of their loose knit nature, their Menshevik line reflected in their recruitment policy, their social democratic and social pacifist traditions, their disdain of Marxist-Leninist theory, and their total lack of Democratic Centralism and Criticism & Self-Criticism, are and have been objectively prime potential for fronting off the secret police operations in the movement. This coupled with their attacks on the Proletariat reflected in their anti-Party activities of worshipping the spontaneous mass movement which they claim to be building, thru “fighting back the imperialist crises” putting out economist agitational rag sheets, slandering the Revolutionary Wing, attacking all the fundamental principles of Bolshevism, by saying its leftism and dogmatism anarchism and “hustlerism” to insist that Party Building is the central and only task in this period.
To illustrate our point further – check out May 24 issue of The Call. In the recent issue of the Call these Mensheviks serve their bourgeois masters well. Being opposed to a fundamental principle of Marxism-Leninism “The party becomes strong by purging itself”, they try to paint a gloomy picture of the wing, who as a result of the purges of our ranks has grown, stronger – that the revolutionary wing is in shambles. OL stop trying to drag us into the marsh with you, you incapable forces, leaches and pimps. Where is Odis Hyde who you burnt to a crisp, to the point that he’s demoralized and wants to retire further down to the marsh, you all along were using an old revisionist placing him on your CC and once he no longer served your needs you boot him out – we will not capitulate. Stop distorting our line. Go on, gather all of the marsh, we purge our ranks of this marsh who you will defend and pick up Mensheviks Unite! Contempt – you have nothing but contempt for the proletariat – so go ahead October League, we have rendered you further assistance, revealing yourselves further as bourgeois agents. We, on the other hand, will build the Party from the best elements of the working class, the class conscious workers and the cadres of the revolutionary wing, the party cadres. You will never come into the revolutionary party of a new type, the Party of Lenin.
Naturally the bourgeoisie has not hesitated in making the maximum use of this marsh. As we have said repeated times only a fool insists on seeing a badge to be convinced of this fact. And it is these fools the slimy philistines of the marsh who out of their conviction that the state is a tool for the reconciliation of classes will therefore very willingly and knowingly assist the bourgeoisie in its wave of repression against communists and advanced workers especially, now in this “period of Party Building as we are welding the core, moving to a higher level hammering out the Party’s basic line and Program of action.
The marsh, comrades, the Mensheviks of the sham wing, and the hidden Mensheviks in the Revolutionary wing provide the basis for wrecking, splitting, demoralizing our forces in an attempt to divert us from our task.
This is what was summed up by the Comintern in 1932 in an article – The Struggle against the provocateur.
Formerly when the ruling classes considered themselves to be an invincible power;., the secret police merely tried to catch this or that dangerous revolutionary to disrupt a campaign that was being organized, to paralyze a particular action the party was engaged in. At the present, however, when the ruling classes are trembling before the Communist Revolution!, the horizon of the secret police has considerably widened: They are striving to demoralize the movement from within, to disrupt the forces of the revolution, to drive the Communist Party underground, or to strengthen the reigns of terror, to divert the work of the Communist Parties to the wrong track, to paralyze the forces of the Proletarian Vanguard in the decisive moment.
One of the means by which they attempt all of the above is to promote the idea that we’re isolated from the masses, trying to demoralize our ranks, as they prepare campaigns attempting to make it a reality.
This they do says the Comintern –
isolation of the revolutionary forces, thru the use of propaganda is standard practice, especially when the movement is on the ascendency. Reliance on the bourgeois media-newsprint and electronic, is resorted to in spreading lies, distortions, slander, etc. against the Communist & Revolutionary leadership, ibid.
To illustrate the authenticity of the Comintern’s analysis – we quote from the same Times article.
Cartoons attacking the (the BPP editor) purportedly from rival groups, were distributed to aggravate antagonisms. Stories were planted with newspaper and television outlets to put the Panthers and their supporters in a bad light. ibid
Or just recently when the reactionary editorial writer, for the Post, Jose Torres, wrote an article on the Young Lords, claiming that we had fallen apart, were idealist, lived in the suburbs, were dancing at the Corso, anything but the truth that the Young Lords, the Bolshevik core within it, purged its ranks of those that he claimed were the great orators the traitors to the class, Pablo “Yoruba” Guzman, David Perez, Felipe Luciano, Juan Gonzalez. Ridding ourselves of this trash enabled us to move forward, more welded, more disciplined, as the PRRWO joining the Revolutionary wing of our movement, new tasks, new forces to build the mighty party of Lenin – Truly Bolshevism on the Rise!
Or still another example, when in Gouverneur hospital agents of the bourgeoisie put out a dummy copy of one of our newsletters, Dare to Win changing one point to slander our leadership, give the impression that we had created a split, were falling apart, all of this in an attempt to discredit us among the masses. But let’s seek truth from facts.
We are not isolated from the masses. In fact, by grasping the correct relationship between theory and practice, by analyzing what period we’re in, the chief form of activity – Propaganda, more and better propaganda as we implement the two tactical principles, Marxist-Leninists Unite and Win the Advanced to Communism as we consciously give the movement a planned and conscious character by building the party and therefore fusing the communist movement to the workers movement. Political line as the key link in the chain crystalizing clearly our ideological and organizational task. We have in fact tightened our ties with the masses. Isolation from the masses today, means to be isolated from the advanced, the life blood of the Party, advanced workers the class conscious workers who are leaders of the masses, who communists arm with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought today in the struggle for the Party, training advanced workers, the working class intelligencia, to take their proper place as leaders at all levels in the Party and then after the Party is built and consolidated moving to win the masses to the side of the vanguard. Obviously there is no Chinese wall separating the winning of the advanced to Communism to build the Party – not to build the spontaneous movement, and winning the broad masses to the side of the vanguard, but it is, criminal and isolationism, treason to the class to speak of winning the broad masses to the vanguard when the vanguard is in the process of its formation and must concentrate on itself. Our task correspond to the material needs of society and more than anything else today the Proletariat needs its vanguard! “There can be no dogmatism where the supreme and sole criterion of a doctrine is its conformity to the actual process of social and economic development. There can be no sectarianism where the task is that of promoting the organization of the Proletariat”.. Lenin – Who the Friends of the People Are – Taken from ’Bolshevik’
But as the bourgeoisie increases its propaganda against the Bolsheviks the Mensheviks increase their economist agitational rag sheets trying to lull the masses to sleep, appendeges of the bourgeoisie. We Bolsheviks counteract the Bourgeois and Menshevik maneuvers by increasing the distribution and circulation of Marxist-Leninist literature which is mandatory study and not optional as Menshevism claims, tightening our propaganda apparatus, educating and imbuing the masses with the Party spirit, the spirit of Revolution! Preparing the Party cadres from among the Bolsheviks of the Revolutionary Wing and advanced workers winning the vanguard to Communism!
When Lenin was organizing the Bolshevik Party as an underground organization in Tsarist times, he continually emphasized that the conditions for victory over Tsarism were organization and organization, and talk about the leadership of the movement and the extension of the mass movement without a strong Party organization was mere claptrap. (organizational problems in underground revolutionary work by B. Vassiliev Comintern 1932, p.442)
All the attacks by the paid and unpaid agents of the bourgeoisie that we’re ultra-leftists, that we are isolated from the masses in a flimsy attempt on their part to try to divert us from our task of hammering out the Party’s line and program of action, which will result in a strongly welded, iron disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries with unity of will and action, functioning like one man, with continuity with the past, capable of leading the whole movement. Planned conscious character, comrades cannot be given to the spontaneous movement if we don’t build the Party, and to insist that we can is nothing but a new twist, a new cover, a new mask to the theory of the worship of spontaneity, which as Lenin said independent of whether the belittler wants to admit it or not leads to tightening the grip of bourgeois ideology among the masses and is the ideological root of all opportunism. This is why all the Mensheviks are not in the least a threat to the bourgeoisie but in fact the opposite, their partners in crime! Why should the bourgeoisie be at all concerned with forces like the O.L., WVO, the WC, the MLOC, the IWK, the purged Mensheviks from the Revolutionary Wing, who abandoned Party Building – the greatest threat, to the bourgeoisie; this is an undeniable fact. The bourgeoisie is perfectly aware of who are the Bolsheviks. Because we have never concealed our views that in fact we stand on Bolshevism. We took our stands, in the first period of Party Building where we staunchly took up the fight for the reaffirmation of the ideology of the Proletariat: Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought – not no popular Marxism eclectisism, economism, pragmatism and all other of the infinite varieties that it took.
We insisted and insist today and always to the strictest adherence of Marxism-Leninism and not some freedom to criticize – like the Anti-theoretical-Revisionist Premises of the WVO, which claims to be the ideological plane of their Menshevik Party – and not dialectical and historical materialism the ideological foundation of the Bolshevik Party. Denouncing Marxism-Leninism and attacking the Revolutionary Wing for “holding too tightly to Marxism-Leninism” are along attacking the quintessence of Marxism-Leninism, as Chairman Mao pointed out in ’On Practice’, and as it is proven in all authenticity in all of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao TseTung, and the works of Enver Hoxha. So just as the bourgeoisie knows and is ’trembling before the Communist Revolution’, the Menshevik who more than fear the bourgeoisie, fear most of all the proletariat and tremble in the face of the rise of revolution and of Bolshevism, the Mensheviks also are trembling before the Communist revolution.
But we Bolsheviks have never concealed our views, we stand on the Leninist method of criticism and self-criticism to educate the Party cadre and the masses by learning through our own mistakes, imbuing the masses with the revolutionary spirit, and not with some right pessimism as the Mensheviks who paint everything as bleak for the class, as in a state of chaos and too much two line struggle, as if the Party’s basic line and program of action can be hammered out peacefully, without an uncompromising struggle against opportunism which we combat today, in the main the right opportunist line on Party Building.
Totally sinking into the quagmire of opportunism the Mensheviks go around propagating their bankrupt line that the central task is to build the mass movement, political line is seen as the key link not to Party Building but to build the mass movement, Planned conscious character to the Mensheviks means organic contact with the broad masses, to build the mass movement; denouncing the Leninist position on the advanced, who either don’t exist or who according to the Mensheviks should be trained to serve their central task, to build the mass movement; not propaganda to the advanced, not education in Marxism-Leninism through the study and application of Marxist-Leninists to Party Building, but rather to the Menshevik Build the mass movement line as represented in the Call, WVJ, The Communist, IWK Journal, Resistencia, the line which says that Marxism-Leninism is optional and the Menshevik press is mandatory. Leading circles, or National movement leaders to worship that movement, to build the mass movement, all covering themselves by claiming that they “unite” party building is the central task. Comrades, check out their deeds this is the method of Leninism. Stalin summed it up like this.
Second, that the policy of the Parties of the second international be tested not by their slogans and resolutions (these cannot be trusted), but by their deeds and actions, for only in this way can we win and deserve the confidence of the proletarian masses.
And this is why the Mensheviks are doomed telling the masses that they “unite” Party Building is the central task and at the same time their deeds spell central task “build the mass movement” who are then the splitters and wreckers those who assist the state, the bourgeoisie – the political secret police? Concealing their views, their real convictions, their diehard beliefs and stands with reaction and against Proletarian Revolution; the Mensheviks must hide they must conceal to the masses, to the proletariat which they hold in contempt. It is the height of contempt for the proletariat to work actively to wreck to try to split, and stand against the building of the Party – to conspire and intrigue – saying one thing and doing another, sloganeering and passing resolutions about Party Building but going around lying, about how the Revolutionary Wing of the communist movement is dogmatic, because in deed, not just in word we raise Party Building in everything we do. Mensheviks cannot stand it when words match deeds, as we fight for the harmony of theory and practice, the method of Leninism, which they long ago abandoned, again because they keep it in words never taking it to deed, sloganeering about the dialectical relationship between theory and practice but claiming that practice plays the principle role today in their deeds, in word saying theory is playing the principle role, as in deed they are building the mass movement. Check out their deeds. They claim they “unite” that without “revolutionary theory there cannot be any revolutionary movement”, as Lenin taught us yet they say that to raise Marxism-Leninism to the masses obviously aimed at uniting all genuine Marxist-Leninists and winning the advanced, training party cadres, is dogmatic, and leftist, and isolationist and hustlerism. So what is Menshevism attacking and denouncing? Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought – revolutionary theory – as clearly revealed in their attack of the method of Leninism.
The third point which Stalin sums up, in the Method of Leninism, is that “the whole work of the Party be reorganized along new revolutionary lines, with the view to educating and training the masses for the revolutionary struggle, for only in this way can the masses be prepared for the Proletarian Revolution”.
So we go back to the beginning of this article, to prove once again how the Mensheviks and the bourgeoisie, its secret political police work together trying to subvert the hammering out of the Party’s basic line and Program of action which must reflect that the Party is being built along new revolutionary lines, educating the masses in the spirit of party building. Application means winning the vanguard of the proletarians to the side of Communism with a view of educating the masses, i.e., build up cadres cadre training – what the Mensheviks have consistently failed to do, create a Communist Party – the Mensheviks building the mass movement – work out the Program – the Menshevik developing reformist programs for each mass movement, refusing to hammer out the Party’s basic line which will be reflected in the Party’s Program, as if the Program were just a matter of sitting down and putting down on paper some words without the class struggle, the struggle between the two line and two roads – without revolutionary deeds.
We apply Stalin’s teachings, upholding the tactical principles of Marxist-Leninists Unite and Win the Advanced to Communism which the Mensheviks attack, attacking a conscious plan for the fusion of the communist and workers movements, its highest expression being the Party.
The Revolutionary Wing has walked thru the polemic against the Menshevik line and will continue to do it in Palante, Bolshevik, Shop Newsletters, proving not just in words, but in deeds that we are carrying out propaganda as the chief form of activity. The Mensheviks attacking us for over emphasizing propaganda and being leftist when a summation of our errors reveal the right line of agitation chief form, a conciliation internally with the Menshevik line, and as we struggle to root out the Menshevik line on Party Building, intensifying the two line struggle, purging our ranks, repudiating the right line, correcting our mistakes. The method of rectification – more and better; propaganda – as we carry on with all our work of Party Building as our central and only task in this period, the period of formation of our Party.
As we fight against any laxity in relation to carrying out our Central and only task, we are honored to know that in deed we are a threat to the bourgeoisie, to be attacked by the enemy is a good thing. The struggle for the Party, to build it firmly on Marxism-Leninism, grasping the key link Political line, uniting firmly on the analysis of the Revolutionary Wing of our movement, the Bolshevik line on the analysis of the communist movement, periods, fusion, key link, two tactical principles, fighting actively to defeat the right opportunist line on Party Building, and the right as the main danger we face in resolving and hammering the Party’s basic line on all burning questions, the welding of the core, all this the work of Party building, makes the Revolutionary Wing of the movement the main target of attack from the bourgeoisie and their faithful partners the Mensheviks.
But we are preparing, by carrying on our task unseveringly, without hesitation, “no room for vacillators” saying to all the marsh – loud and clear – Let go of our hands, in this way we are preparing to withstand all attacks by the bourgeoisie.
Comrades, Menshevism is the main danger we face in the struggle for the Party and it has a long history. Lenin has given us an arsenal of experience on how we must never compromise to Menshevism. Yesterday the Mensheviks, said Lenin
The Mensheviks betrayed the workers, went over to the cadets; and now their shady deal has failed, they want to clear themselves by merely talking about an independence social democratic action! But this is empty talk mere eyewash. Collected Works Vol. 12
Comrades, we know the Mensheviks will continue to slander and attack the Revolutionary Wing of our movement. A concrete manifestation of their attacks on the Party coming into being, strong, ready to lead new battles – new victories.
Comrades, study the Propaganda coming from Revolutionary Wing – In this issue of Palante check out Bolshevik example in the article by the comrades of RWL – Criticism and Self-Criticism and the struggle against opportunism internally. In the wing as a whole, fools, Menshevik fools, we’re stronger than ever. Check out the development of the line – in the period of the Party’s formation, the Party concentrates on itself.
Mensheviks – dread it – Bolsheviks stand firm, Party Building is the Central and Only Task!
Down With Menshevism! Bolshevism on the Rise!