The forging of a vanguard communist party is a task set before the proletariat of every country by the objective conditions. It is the first conscious step of the proletariat on its long road toward emancipation. Throughout the world, this party is the fusion of the spontaneous working class movement with the international experience of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought applied to the concrete conditions of any country. This party must be forged in the course of the struggle against opportunism, consolidating the break ideologically, politically, and organizationally.
At the same time, the party of the proletariat must be formed in each country in accord with the concrete conditions. It must be formed according to dialectical historical materialist principles. In the U.S. today, that means that the party must correctly sum up and rectify the past errors of the proletariat, and grasp the nature of the current situation, the nature of the crisis of imperialism.
Investigating the line of the OL indicates that they do not base themselves on the international experience of the proletariat in party building, do not learn the lessons of the U.S. communist movement, and certainly do not understand the basic motion of the current second phase of the general crisis of imperialism. Pursuing a vulgar materialist approach, the OL: 1. fails to take up the struggle against opportunism in which the main danger historically in the U.S. has been right opportunism in the communist movement, and 2. fails to take up party building as the active fusion of the workers and communist movement.
Instead the OL has proceeded to build an organization which is petty-bourgeois and liberal ideologically, politically, and organizationally. The basic error of vulgar materialism on the part of the OL is reflected in their views on the nature of the workers movements and the national movements, which are taken up in later sections, and throughout their views on party building.
The heart of the OL position on building the party now, is their view that there has been an “ideological leap” (The Call, November, I975, p. 12, c3, P3) in the struggle against “ultra-leftism”, which in turn has raised the theoretical level of our movement qualitatively. At the same time, the OL states in the January issue of The Call, I976, (p. 13, c4, P7) that the formation of the party is “also dictated in large part by the changing world situation and growing danger of world war.” (We have already exposed the views of the OL regarding the international situation.) For these reasons, the OL states, the subjective factors have, through a leap in the ideological consolidation of the break with opportunism, now come more fully in line with the objective factors which call so urgently for a party. (The Call, November, 1975, p. I, c3, P3.)
To begin with, there is obvious confusion on the part of the OL about this ideological leap, and about what actually constitutes “ultra-leftism” in the November issue of The Call (p. 12, c3, P3) the OL states that this ideological leap has occurred over the past three years. In The Call of December (p. 13, c3, P6) they state it has taken place over the last five years.
The position of the OL on the main danger in the communist movement was changed in November I974, from right opportunism and revisionism to “ultra-leftism”.
Since that time, the OL has formulated the main danger as “ultra-leftism” (March 1973), chauvinism (September 1974), centrism (December 1975), revisionism (as the main ideological enemy–December 1975). Within this “trend” of “ultra-leftism”, the OL has included the RU, and almost every other organization with which they have had differences.
To understand how OL comes to believe that in the U.S. movement, “ultra-leftism” has been the main danger, while world wide it has been right opportunism, we need to review the logic of the OL on the main danger. First, their views on the CPUSA: In discussing the degeneration of the CPUSA, the OL asserts that the party was genuinely reconstituted in 1946 under the correct proletarian line of William Z. Foster – though they never state what that correct line was; yet, they state that “Browderism” was never driven out of the party. In fact, as Communist Line #1 demonstrates, it was the class nature of the party itself in 1944, not Browderism, that spelled its demise.
Stalin spoke directly to the error of confusing opportunism with a particular individual. Speaking to the German Communist Party in 1925, Stalin stated,
To expel Brandler and Thalheimer is an easy matter, but the task of overcoming Brandlerism is a difficult and serious one. In this matter, repressive measures alone can only cause harm, here the soil must be deeply ploughed, minds must be greatly enlightened. (Stalin, WORKS, Vol. 7, p. 46.)
The failure to understand the class nature of the CPUSA, but instead to attribute revisionism to “Browderism”, is part and parcel of OL’s failure to understand right opportunism as the main danger in the communist movement.
Comrade Stalin clearly pointed out the seriousness of right opportunism,
A victory of the Right deviation in the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries would mean the ideological collapse of the Communist Parties and an enormous accession of strength to Social Democracism. And what does an enormous accession of strength to Social Democracism mean? It means the strengthening and consolidation of capitalism, for Social Democracy is the main prop of capitalism in the working class. Hence, a victory of the Right deviation in the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries would add to the conditions necessary for the preservation of capitalism. (Stalin, PROBLEMS OF LENINISM –The Right Danger in the CPSU(B), p.230.)
It is bizarre then, that the OL, after the complete capitulation of the CPUSA and the rise of the fascist McCarthy period in the U.S., can conclude that “ultra-leftism was the main danger”.
Historically in the CPUSA, those who fought against modern revisionism have always been labelled “ultra-left” and purged from the Party, as we pointed out in COMMUNIST LINE # 1 and #2. OL never provides us with an explanation of the material basis for “ultra-leftism’1 as the main danger, nor the process by which modern revisionism was the main danger prior to the dissolution of the CPUSA; then that “ultra-leftism” was the main danger after that dissolution. Are we to assume that the OL agreed with Foster and others in 1944 that those who opposed the dissolution of the Party were “ultra-left”?
Second, their views on the origin of the current movement: In characterizing our “young communist movement”, the OL states (Nov, 1975, CALL, p.12) that, “it was primarily in the struggle against the forces of modern revisionism that the young communist movement was born.”
This is a distortion of history. The current upsurge of Marxism-Leninism since the late 1960’s is a result of the two great spontaneous movements of that time, the Black Liberation Struggle and the struggle against US Imperialism in Indochina. It was because of the shortcomings of the spontaneous movements that advanced elements emerged who sought a scientific explanation and solution to these struggles, who sought scientific socialism. In the course of this development, and grasping the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, these advanced elements became aware of the need to break with modern revisionism. The “young communist movement” as the OL calls it, arose as a result of the struggle against the objective conditions.
The OL’s analysis of the origin of the present communist movement is another expression of their vulgar materialist outlook, which always has an idealistic approach to social reality. From this stand they believe that modern revisionism has given rise to the development of the grasp of Marxism-Lenin ism-Mao Tsetung Thought. This denies the material basis for the development of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, which is the actual class struggle, not simply the struggle of ideas.
Third, the OL’s views on the current state of our movement:
OL states that “ultra-leftism” is a result of the rushing away from revisionism, or of the influx of ’petty bourgeois intellectuals’ into the movement. As the OL states,
In part, it (leftism) reflects the social base of the communist movement at the present time. The fact that a great deal of the present communist movement comes from the ranks of the middle class or intelligentsia is only natural.... (PARTY BUILDING IN THE U.S., Spring, 1973, p.8)
This may or may not generate “ultra-leftism”. It just as well can explain the social basis for right opportunism. It does not prove that “ultra-leftism” is the main danger, but simply reflects the social basis for all deviations within the movement, both right and left.
Further, the OL does not provide us with any thorough discussion of the forms that this “ultra-left ism” has taken, except to rely on such accusations as “sectarianism” and “dogmatism”, without pointing to the specific forms these deviations take, nor explaining why these forms appeared.
The fourth issue that must be taken up on the ideological front is the OL’s view on theory.
The struggle to break ideologically with modern revisionism is also a struggle on the theoretical front, a struggle for the correct summation of the historical experience of the proletariat.
The OL states that, “there has been a widescale revival of interest in Marxist-Leninist theory... significant steps forward have been taken in the development of communist theory on the questions of burning significance; such as the national and womens’ questions, the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and the fight against revisionism. (Dec. 1975, CALL,p.13)
To begin with, the important advance of coming to grasp the “transforming, mobilizing and organizing role of theory” was the result of the struggle on the part of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization, the Black Workers Congress and the August Twentyninth Movement to break with the RU on party building and the Black National question, not the result of the efforts of the October League. If anything, part of the criticism about the belittling of theory was also directed toward the OL– and it is ironic now that they should take up this banner (belittling theory) in their own defense.
The OL continues to speak of those who are “constantly baiting the Marxist-Leninist movement about its low theoretical level” (CALL, Dec.,1975, p.13), incorrectly referring to these people as “independents”. Our movement remains at a relatively low theoretical level, although advances are being made; we must not confuse what we would like to be the case with what actually exists. On many major questions, such as the womens’ question, trade unions, the united front, fascism, and others, it would be ridiculous to describe our theoretical level as anything but low. A granite theoretical foundation has not been laid; and it certainly has not been laid by the OL. Again we see the twisting and turning of the OL position on this question. After years of resisting in practice those who have raised the need for theoretical work, the OL now comes forward to point to how high the level of theoretical development actually is.
On the theoretical front, the OL has failed to make a decisive break with the low level of theoretical development which characterizes our movement as a whole. In fact, the OL has consistently belittled the role of revolutionary theory. Further, their emphasis on “ultra-leftism” as the main danger to the communist movement, an emphasis based on their distortion of the material record of history, reflects that the OL has not made a break with bourgeois ideology, as reflected in modern revisionism. In over emphasizing the danger of sectarianism and dogmatism, the OL has fallen prey to many of the ideological traps of modern revisionism regarding party building, the national question and the trade union question.
From their vulgar materialism the OL essentially practices economism, tailing at the back of events and at the back of the masses. A hallmark of economism is the belittling of the role of theory. Lenin showed in WHAT IS TO BE DONE? that the roots of opportunist ideas of opportunist policies, lie in the attitude of relying on the spontaneous movement and belittling the role of theory. As Lenin stated,
Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement, This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity....Secondly...only if it makes use of the experiences of other countries...(and) Thirdly, that the vole of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory. (Lenin, WHAT IS TO BE DONE?,CW, Vol.5, p.269-70.)
One other characterization made by Lenin which is an accurate summation of our movement today is
that the strength of the present-day movement lies in the awakening of the masses (principally the industrial proletariat) and that its weakness lies in the lack of consciousness and initiative among the revolutionary leaders.” (Ibid.,p.373)
All of us should ponder these words in considering how far we have gone in making an ideological break, and how far we have yet to travel.
Summing up the position of an “ideological leap” from “ultra-leftism” in the last three or five years, we are forced to conclude that in rushing away from “ultra-leftism”, the October League has not taken an ideological leap, but a three year long fall into the swamp of right opportunism and social democracy. The holy campaign of the OL against “ultra-leftism” has turned out, in fact, to constitute an impotent campaign against everything that the international communist movement pointed to in the US as right opportunism. Impotent, because the OL does not know the nature of the beast it intends to fight and therefore cannot know where to strike the most effective blows.
Originally, in the 1973 Unity Statement of the OL, a relatively correct line was taken. But with the change that occurred in November of 1973, we can trace the degeneration of the OL’s line from a relatively unformed yet correct position to a deviation, then consolidated right opportunist trend on the ideological front. The OL campaign against “ultra-leftism” has resulted in (1) social democratic and reformist attitudes toward the State, (2) a belittling of Bolshevik methods of work and (3) a belittling of Marxist-Leninist theory.
An incorrect ideological line will inevitably lead to an incorrect organizational line. The ideological line of the OL which subordinates the struggle against right opportunism to an “ideological leap” scored against “ultra-leftism”; the political line which sacrifices the interests of the proletariat to that of the bourgeoisie through failing to recognize the necessity to consciously fuse the workers and communist movements; finds its logical expression in the organizational line of unprincipled unity, all unity, no struggle.
The organizational line for party building of the OL is the following:
(1) Discussion around the seven unity points;(2) Establish a temporary leading body to develop democratic centralism and prepare for a party congress within a year; (3) Establish a Leninist type newspaper to promote ideological discussion on political line and program; (4) Direct the thrust of mass work against the crisis; (5) Build a united front.
In Stalin’s Report to the 17th Congress of the CPSU(B), on “Problems of Organizational Leadership”, he states that “after the correct political line has been laid down, organizational work decides everything, including the fate of the political line itself, its success or failure.”
First, the OL advanced their seven program points in November, and by December they announced that “there is now enough of a basis of unity for forming the party (CALL,p.13), attacking those who might want to take “possibly years” to do what the OL accomplished in one month. This entire process of drawing lines of demarcation according to the OL, took one month.
Second, and more to the point, is the actual process that the OL outlines for forging the party. By stating that there is already a basis for unity the OL completely negates the role and function of the party program.
In A DRAFT PROGRAMME FOR OUR PARTY, Lenin states that,
At the present time, the urgent question of our movement is no longer that of developing former scattered amateur activities, but of uniting–organization. This is a step for which a program is a necessity. The program must formulate our basic views; precisely establish our immediate political tasks; point out the immediate demands that must show the area of agitational activity; give unity to the agitational work, expand and deepen it, thus raising it from fragmentary partial agitation for petty, isolated demands to the status of agitation for the sum total of Social Democratic demands.(Lenin, CW, Vol. 4,p.230).
While the MLOC does not contend that in every country a party program is a prerequisite for formation of the party, in the U.S., as in Russia, this definitely is the case. Today in the U.S. where there exist several contending views and organizations, unmistakably different trends, a party program is the only principled basis for organizational unity. Organizational unity demands unity around program, around political line.
If comrades in the OL believe that their seven points of principle are some substitute for a party program, they are sadly mistaken.
In contrast to the OL, in Czarist Russia, the first draft of the party program arose in 1885 and the party was formed in 1898. It certainly can take years to draw lines of demarcation. The pace of this process must be determined by a concrete analysis of the situation here in the U.S., an analysis the OL has not provided.
The MLOC is “fully conscious of the difficulty of providing a completely satisfactory formulation of the program without a number of conferences with comrades; but we consider it essential to set about this task, believing ....that postponement is impermissable.”(Lenin,CW, Vol4,p.253-4) It is no less permissable for the comrades of the OL today than for Lenin in 1899.
The second striking omission from the OL party building plan is the absence of a party congress for up to a year after the Party has been formed. It is clear from this that the Party proposed by the OL will function on centralism, not democratic centralism. To forge a leading body of a party without either party program or party congress, and for this state of affairs to continue for up to a year, denies the basis for principled unity, and denies the possibility of genuine unity of will or action. To require unity of will and action, without democratic centralism or party program, is to deny all the basic Leninist principles of party organization.
The entire function of a party congress is for elected representatives to abandon their prior organizational allegiances and to forge unity around the program of the party, not as members of some current organization. The procedure of the OL, on the other hand, would form a leading body by uniting various organizations in some form of federation,
A third point to make is that the OL proposes that a Leninist newspaper, presumably an Iskra type of paper, be formed to promote ideological discussion on political line and party program. The entire point of Iskra was to wage polemics against a definite opportunist trend, the Economists, once a party program existed. Iskra was an agitational weapon to isolate the opportunist trend and to win over all the remaining honest elements to the Bolsheviks, not to generate a party program.
The organizational line of the OL reflects their failure to grasp the content of forging a Leninist party, and their reliance upon vague formulas and proposals. The organizational line of the OL definitely is adapted to its political line; the lack of unity of will leads to disunity of action. Political leadership is therefore relegated to organizational leadership, that is, membership on the leading body. As Foto Cami pointed out in THE OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS (Albania Today 1974) “Departure from the ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism cannot fail to lead also to departure from the organizational principles of building the Marxist-Leninist party”.
The vanguard communist party of the proletariat is rooted ideologically in dialectical and historical materialism and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought as a guide to action; politically in the uncompromising class struggle for the seizure of state power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat; and organizationally in the absolute unity of will and action of the proletariat, based on democratic centralism. The party proposed by the OL offers a crude vulgar materialism instead of dialectical and historical materialism; sacrifices the leadership and independence of the proletariat for reformist slogans, and promotes a petty bourgeois liberal proposal for unity without drawing adequate lines of demarcation.
But the most important test of the class nature of the party proposed by the OL is its relation to the workers movement and the national movement-the two greatest revolutionary currents of the class struggle in the United States.
The most important test of one’s ideological line is in their political line, the application of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to solving the tactical and strategic problems of the class struggle. While the ideological, political and organizational struggles are all protracted, they also develop unevenly. At this time, political line is key, and theory is decisive. In the November CALL, seven program points were advanced; in the December CALL, the OL stated that “There are firm grounds among the majority of the young Marxist-Leninist groups and organizations now and there is a plan which can lead to this unity.”
This must lead us to consider the OL’s “principles of unity” as the “basis for Marxist-Leninist unity at this time”. The OL holds that these points advanced in the November CALL are “particular enough to draw a line of separation from the opportunists”. As has been often advanced in our movement, Lenin stated clearly that “before we can unite, in order that we may unite, we must first draw definite lines of demarcation”.(CW, Vol. 4)
Regarding this question, we have already expressed our criticism of the OL line and approach in regard to the international situation. We will not here discuss all seven points of unity which the OL raises, but will rather focus on their views on (1) the trade union question; and (2) the national question.
The task of the party of the proletariat is to transform the spontaneous workers’ movement into a class conscious movement for its own emancipation. Lenin pointed out that,” The separation of the working class movement and socialism gave rise to the weakness and underdevelopment in each.”(Lenin, CW, Vol.4,p.257)
Through participation in all three forms of class struggle, theoretical, political and economic, communists seek to fuse the workers’ and communist movements, to introduce socialist ideology into the spontaneous workers’ movement; while also pointing out the aim of the movement and the road to travel toward the complete emancipation of the working class from capital.
While the working class “spontaneously gravitates toward socialism,” as Lenin stated, it is the subjective factor, the leadership, organization and consciousness of the advanced detachment of the working class, the communist party, which can accelerate the development of the already existing objective conditions.
The formation of a vanguard party requires clarity on the reasons for the existing separation of the workers and communist movement, the forms of struggle that the workers’ movement takes, and the means to weld them together. Fundamentally, this is a question of the relationship between the party and the masses, the party and existing forms of workers’ organizations.
Marx, at the First Congress of the International WorkingMens’ Association in 1866, clearly stated that trade unions, the chief form of the economic struggle of workers, must not be simply directed toward narrow, immediate aims, but toward the emancipation of the class as a whole. The trade union struggle is a struggle not only over the terms of hire, the price paid for labor power, but against the entire system of wage slavery. It is the task of the conscious element to raise the consciousness of the working masses to this fact, to lead the working class toward its total emancipation.
Those who fail to recognize this, who view the movement as everything and the goal as nothing, were ruthlessly attacked by all the great teachers of Marxism-Lenin ism-Mao Tsetung Thought particularly Marx, Engels and Lenin. What is the stand of the October League on the relations between the communist and workers movement?
A task of the party is to divert the workers struggle beyond simple trade union politics, to prevent the economic struggle from being dominated by bourgeois ideology. This is the task of the conscious element, the communist party.
The Fight Back Organization (FBO) of the October League will presumably be the main arm of the OL in the workers’ movement, “one mass organization of working people to oppose the Imperialist system and its murderous offense against the rights and living conditions of people”. (CALL, Oct.1975, p.1)
There are a number of points to raise regarding the FBO:
First, the FBO is definitely not an organization which raises the final aim of the emancipation of the working class from capital. When MLOC raised the proposal that the propaganda slogan of socialism become part of the FBO, it was overwhelmingly defeated, as we have already reported in this polemic. From this we must conclude that the OL does not believe that a mass workers organization requires what Marx himself called for in regard to trade unions, the emancipation of the working class and the establishment of socialism.
By denying the need to point out the final aim of the movement, the OL is pursuing Bernstein’s policy that “the movement is everything; the final aim is nothing”. Furthermore, by refusing to introduce socialist ideology into the FBO, in that the OL opposes the call for socialism, how is the fusion of the workers and communist movement made? The OL stand relegates the FBO to just one more spontaneous workers’ organization which seeks to influence the Imperialist state–rather than consciously setting out to destroy the existing bourgeois state and replace it with the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is, socialism. Regardless of what the composition of the FBO becomes, even if mostly workers, it cannot become anything other than just one more reformist union struggle, an organization which perpetuates the ideological enslavement of the workers. In fact, the OL’s FBO cannot even fulfill the tasks that the existing trade unions carry out.
The result is what Lenin described as the ’theory of neutrality’, “which puts in the forefront the unity of the workers for the improvement of their conditions, and not unity for a struggle that could promote the cause of proletarian emancipation’.’ (Lenin, CW, Vol. 13,p.468) How else could we evaluate slogans such as “Fight Don’t Starve...” or “Fight Don’t Freeze”?
Second, the composition of the FBO, and particularly of the Fight Back Conference, reveals something about the view of the OL toward trade unions. Out of an entire conference of 1300 people, there were just three workshops that might be considered trade union workshops, auto, steel and rubber workshops, drawing collectively perhaps 10% of the conference membership. By relegating the existing trade unions to an almost insignificant role in the “Fight Back”, the OL denies the already existing mass workers organization which, in the long run, must become the main line of assault against the bourgeois state apparatus. The trade unions constitute the most basic and constant form of economic and political struggle against capital, and are therefore the most important part of the general workers’ movement.
In short, by opposing the necessity of close ties between the communist and workers’ movement, by denying the need to actively introduce socialist ideology and to fight for its leadership at every turn of the class struggle, the OL winds up by blunting the class struggle itself, by denying the working masses the proletarian leadership they demand.
Third, we can understand the stand of the FBO in terms of the major slogans that it does advance.
The basic political line of the Fight-Back Conference, the new Fight Back Organization and the stand of the OL toward the working class movement is well expressed in their basic slogans, JOBS NOT WAR, JOBS OR INCOME NOW, and the banner slogan of the conference, PEOPLE UNITE, FIGHT BACK.
To begin with, anyone following either the publications of the CPUSA (Peoples World and Daily World) or of the RCP (REVOLUTION) would notice that these are the very slogans advanced by these two revisionist organizations.
JOBS NOT WAR is basically a social pacifist slogan, for it does not distinguish between imperialist and revolutionary class warfare, and therefore encourages pacifist illusions; this disarms the workers by denying the need for the working class to wage revolutionary class war, to turn an imperialist war into a civil war, The slogan of JOBS NOT WAR is neither a good agitational nor a good propaganda slogan. As agitation it bows to the already existing trade union sentiment of the workers. As propaganda, it encourages the illusion that imperialism can provide jobs.
The MLOC opposes this slogan because it promotes bourgeois illusions about the imperialist sate (such as the illusion that the imperialist state has a choice between providing jobs and waging war) and thus reflects a vulgar materialist view of the class struggle.
In TWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION, Lenin indicates how particular slogans, once taken up by the forces to the right of the Bolsheviks, became inadequate as the class struggle proceeded. JOBS NOT WAR is such a slogan, which George Meany, Gus Hall and Bob Avakian can unite around. It does not, as Lenin suggested, reflect “the very content of the revolution” and is thus neither good agitation nor good propaganda. Lenin therefore suggested that the slogan “revolution” be replaced in 1905 with the slogan “FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND THE PEASANTRY.”
JOBS OR INCOME NOW reflects the same right opportunist, economist tendency, as if imperialism can provide either. This slogan in no way begins to raise or advance the consciousness of the workers, and in fact tails the spontaneous development of workers’ consciousness.
PEOPLE UNITE TO FIGHT BACK promotes a vague liberal unity of all those who want to fight back, a policy of all unity and no struggle. Within this complex, social democrats, labor aristocrats, revisionists and almost anyone else could unite. These slogans reflect the basic stand of neutrality that the OL takes toward the crisis of imperialism and the nature of the workers’ movement. Anyone who believes that the working masses have to be taught that they should fight instead of starving or freezing, has obviously lost all contact with the proletarian struggle for emancipation.
In summation then, the OL’s Fight Back Organization reflects a complete misunderstanding of the correct relationship between the communist and workers’ movement, and the forms that the workers’ movement itself produces. Trade unions in fact are already mass workers’ organizations. The OL falls to understand, as Marxism-Leninism teaches, that the capitalist mode of production brings about an inevitable economic and political struggle by the toiling masses against capital, which does not have to be ’built’ by communists. It is the economic base of modern capitalist production, particularly the rise of large scale industry, which produces a class in total and complete opposition to the bourgeoisie, the modern proletariat, who wages a spontaneous struggle against capital on the political and economic fronts.
In failing to recognize this, the OL completely ignores the higher forms of consciousness that the working class movement generates, namely the advanced workers, and instead aims its “mass workers organization” at all those who will oppose imperialism.
OL ON THE TRADE UNIONS
In order to develop a deeper grasp of the stand of OL toward the workers’ movement, we must consider its views of the trade unions.
Lenin was quite clear that trade unions do not simply represent the interests of the working class because they are made up of workers. They become an organization for the emancipation of the proletariat only when they pursue a class line, a class policy. This was the origin and development of the trade union, as Marx understood them. In the final and monopoly stage of capitalism, trade unions have been captured by the bourgeoisie, who foster the development of the labor aristocracy and trade union bureaucracy, in an attempt to confine the economic and political struggle of the proletariat to reformist struggles.
Lenin and the Comintern recognized clearly that trade unions, under monopoly capitalism, must be recaptured by the proletariat and turned into fighting organizations. One class must replace another in power in the trade unions. This struggle is not one to capture the trade union machinery or the trade union officials, but the allegiance of the main masses of workers, the intermediate and advanced workers.
The line of the OL, however, is essentially to “unite with the progressive section of the labor leadership against the reactionaries”. (RU: OPPORTUNISM IN A SUPER REVOLUTIONARY DISGUISE, p.6) OL bases this strategy in its understanding of the trade union bureaucracy as a “strategic reserve” of the proletariat. Such a position re fleets a total lack of understanding of the labor aristocracy and trade union bureaucracy in the age of imperialism. With the establishment of the trade unions as centers of resistance of the working class, the bourgeoisie was forced to adopt the dual tactics of both violent suppression and ideological subversion of the labor movement in which opportunist, reformist and pacifist views have been introduced into the unions through the agents of the bourgeoisie–the labor aristocracy and trade union bureaucracy. It is on the basis of recognizing the role of this strata as the main social base for the spread of bourgeois ideology within the working class that the Albanian comrades clearly point out their relationship to the working class as a whole.
The aristocracy of the working class and the trade union bureaucracy should in no way be identified with the working class because they make up only a very tiny part of it, and the interests they represent are at variance with those of the working class. Numerous facts go to prove that the working class aristocracy and trade union bureaucracy are integral parts of the capitalist structure, and their posts are linked with the fate of capitalism on which their very existence depends. (F.Kota, TWO OPPOSING LINES IN THE WORLD TRADE UNION MOVEMENT, Tirana, Albania.)
The task of uniting the working class, of re-capturing the trade unions from the bourgeoisie and of turning the trade unions into organizations of revolutionary struggle can only be achieved through the exposure and defeat of the bourgeois ideology and the trade union bureaucrats who are the main obstacle to successful class struggle within the trade unions. The OL is correct in holding that communists must work within the reactionary trade unions–to fail to do so would be to abandon the masses of workers in the unions to the influence of the bourgeoisie. Communist work in the trade unions, however, demands the exposure of the trade union chiefs in their role as labor lieutenants for the ruling class.
The treachery of the reformist and revisionist trade union centers lays the imperative task before the working class, led by the Marxist-Leninist political party, of waging a resolute struggle within and outside the ranks of the reformist and revisionist trade unions to denounce and isolate the bourgeois leaders from the mass of the workers and to create, gradually, through revolutionary practice an authentic class trade union movement to carry forward the struggle to do away with the exploiting capitalist system, (Ibid., p,170) By dividing the trade union bureaucracy into “progressive” and “reactionary” elements, the OL serves to spread reformist illusions among the working class masses and serve the social democratic function of disarming the proletariat in the face of the bourgeois offensive. The MLOC unites with the Workers Viewpoint Organization’s criticism of the OL’s line concerning the incorrectness of strategic alliance between the proletariat and the trade union bureaucrats and holds that such an alliance can only be made on a tactical basis and from a position of strength sufficient to allow the working class to maintain its independence and initiative.
The OL’s line liquidates the task of exposing and isolating the trade union bureaucracy and replaces it with the task of moving the unions to the left, which is to be done, not on the basis of winning the rank and file away from the reformist leadership but rather by forcing “reformist forces to unite with us (OL)”. (See R.U. Pamphlet, pp. 7-3) The experience of the international communist movement, summed up by the Comintern, decisively rejects such an approach to trade union work.
The Comintern always understood the conquest of the trade unions as meaning the conquest of the main mass of members, and not the conquest of the reformist trade union machinery, the trade union officials...Communists work in the reformist trade unions not in order to drive the reformist officials into the struggle but in order to kick these traitors out of the worker’s movement. (Lozovsky,“The Comintern and the Struggle for the Masses”, THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, 1928).
and...
The theory of jogging the trade union bureaucrats leftward recalls to our mind the Menshevik theory of jogging the bourgeoisie leftward.” (Lozovesky, “ProbIems of Strike Strategy”, THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, March 1,1928).
The OL makes clear that the “progressive” trade union bureaucrats, with which it hopes to unite on a strategic basis, will be moved to unite with communists working in opposition to the “reactionaries” because of our “deep ties among the masses gained through years of patient work, and our position as unifiers and leading fighters for the day to day interests as well as long terra interests of the class”. (RU:OPPORTUNISM IN A SUPER-REVOLUTIONARY DISGUISE,p.7)
Such a plan is little more than a militant rehashing of the CPUSA’s own line on trade union work. In 1966, Gus Hall wrote in Political Affairs:
I have discussed all questions from the viewpoint of moving the rank and file of the trade unions. If we are going to make a change in our trade union work, it will come about only by this emphasis. It is the only way we can help to correct wrong policies of the leadership. It is the only way we can move the leadership that wants to or can be moved. Every honest trade union leader will welcome our help in mobilizing and educating his members if he feels it is not directed against him. There are thousands of trade union leaders and activists who will not only welcome our help but will join us in our efforts.” In failing to recognize the need to make a qualitative leap, to break decisively with the agents of the bourgeoisie, the OL remains consistent in pursuing its vulgar materialist line. Their struggle to “move the trade unions to the left”, in light of the nature of the trade union bureaucracy, is the same as trying to move the bourgeoisie to the left, and can only lead to quantitative movement, to reform.
The OL’s view that the unions must be “built up”, not won away from the influences of the bourgeoisie, that the workers “do have to rely on the unions”, leads them to the further bankrupt conclusion that exposure of even the most reactionary elements of the trade union can only be pursued on a level acceptable to the backward workers!
All support the working class and its leadership gives to other classes, other organizations and forces is always conditional. At the same time, this doesn’t mean that struggle is carried out simply through communists maintaining their ’pure’ slogans. As everyone fighting the reactionaries in the union leadership knows, struggle must be waged in a protracted way with caution and restraint in accordance with the understanding of the masses of the workers, even the middle and backward workers. (RU pamphlet,p.8)
At best, the understanding of the backward workers in any trade union is going to be militant trade unionism, if not out and out national chauvinism and anti-communism. In lowering its work to the level of the backward workers, the OL not only bows to spontaneity but objectively cultivates the influence of the bourgeoisie within the working class. On such a basis, the “cautious and restrained” struggle of the OL against the reactionary trade union bureaucrats goes no further than Arnold Miller’s struggle against Tony Boyle, and rests content with the basic trade unionist concerns of the worker. Here again, the parallel to the line of the CPUSA is plain.
Our problem is not to find the reasons for blasting the leadership. The question is not even whether we should or should not, do so. We do have some problems of how to do it. We must criticize the leadership and the wrong policies in such a way that in doing so we win over the membership and strengthen the unions, in a way that no anti-union elements can exploit our criticisms for anti-union purposes; and in a way that deepens the concern and loyalty of the workers for their unions. (Gus Hall, Political Affairs, 1966)
In defending its trade union line and as proof of its correctness, the OL points to its work in “building up the rank and file movement against Abel and his no-strike (ENA) policy,” to “the mass movement of workers that has been built” with their efforts, to the fight against the “so-called Consent Decree, which is a racist company-government trick on the workers”, and the “thousands of workers who were brought by the UAW Brother hood Caucus for the first time into political activity”. Lenin writes in WHAT IS TO BE DONE? that the spontaneous economic struggle of the working class necessarily exists as a result of the objective nature of wage slavery; he also points out that this struggle spontaneously assumes a certain political character to the extent that the workers are forced into confrontation with the bourgeois state, in pursuing their demands through strike actions and legislation. Left to itself, however, such a struggle is doomed to remain shackled to the influence of the bourgeoisie.
Of course, a certain level of revolutionary, socialist consciousness does emerge from the objective conditions themselves or from the revolutionary struggle itself, but this is only a very low level; it is, as Lenin called it, trade union consciousness. (Cami, OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS IN THE REVOLUTION, Albania Today, 1-2/73)
The working class does not need communist leadership in order to oppose the Consent Decree, the ENA, or even to engage in “political activity”, since it can do this with the leadership of any militant trade unionist. What the working class demands is the leadership of its vanguard communist party armed with advanced theory. The line of the OL on communist work in the labor movement is simply another example of their vulgar right-opportunist over-estimation of the objective factor. By putting forward strategic unity with the Trade Union Bureaucrats, liquidating the task of exposing and isolating the reformist leaders of the trade unions, lowering its propaganda to the level of backward workers, and limiting its leadership to trade union issues, the OL pursues a line of work in the class which bows to the spontaneity of the masses and fails to provide the working class with the weapons it needs to take the offensive against the bourgeoisie and for socialist revolution.
In essence, the line of the OL toward the working class movement is one of neutrality. In “Trade Union Neutrality”, CW, Vol. 13, p. 406, Lenin summed up this position clearly:
The class interests of the bourgeoisie inevitably give rise to a striving to confine the unions to narrow and petty activity within the framework of the existing social order, to keep them away from any contact with socialism, and the neutrality theory is the ideological cover for these strivings of the bourgeoisie.
It follows from the OL line that they neglect the task of building and consolidating factory nuclei, as the pivot of all trade union work, but rather focus on the “fight back” which it has mobilized, encouraging workers to “fight, don’t starve.”
Because the OL does not grasp that the struggle for the masses is primarily a struggle to capture the trade unions, a class struggle in the trade unions themselves, they do not recognize, except in words from time to time, the need for factory nuclei, which are the basic fighting unit of the party in the shops.
CONCLUSION – ON OUR TASKS IN THE WORKERS MOVEMENT
At this period of the revolution, the main form the fusion of the workers and communist movement takes is winning the advanced to communism–but at the same time we must prepare the ground for the second period of winning the masses to the side of the advanced, after a party has been forged. It is only by consciously introducing socialist ideology from the outside that the party comes to stand at the head of the workers struggle, guiding its many forms and developments toward the emancipation of the class as a whole. Such leadership requires, demands that the aims of the movement be stated, that “we disdain from holding back our views.”
Those that argue that the workers cannot understand Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, will not fight for socialism; deny the reality that the workers and communist movements must be consciously fused. That unity does not already exist. They deny that the workers movement already produces its higher forms, and that the tasks of the workers movement are objectively socialist, not merely democratic.
The relationship of the party to the workers movement is to provide conscious leadership, to point out the final aim at every stage of the revolutionary struggle. Whether winning the advanced to communism or winning the masses to the advanced. In workers organizations we struggle to give conscious leadership, we do not hide our views. In establishing revolutionary mass workers organizations, socialism must be the basic goal in mind, otherwise such organizations cannot be called revolutionary, and will come to little more than, militant trade unionism.
With the deepening of the second phase of the general crisis of imperialism, the working class in the capitalist and revisionist countries will increasingly respond !n a more militant organized, and determined manner. It is in this context that the task of the conscious element, the vanguard communist party, must be evaluated. At this time, when the principal task in the workers movement Is winning the advanced to communism–the main form that the fusion between the workers and communist movement takes in this period– we must develop political clarity on the correct relationship between the workers and communist movement, and the tasks of communists In mass workers organizations which arise spontaneously as a result of the objective conditions of the crisis.
The heart of the workers movement is the trade union movement, clearly the most important mass workers’ organizations of the working class. The historical experience of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought clearly proves that communist work in the workers’ movement must be focused in the trade unions.
Communists work in the trade unions in order to win the mass of workers to the side of proletarian revolution, from the bourgeoisie. The main obstacle to winning over the trade unions is the labor aristocracy and the Trade Union Bureaucrats. This is not a question of jogging them to the Left, as the OL holds, of moving the trade unions to the left, but of an Intense class struggle in which one class interest replaces another in the leadership of the trade unions. Without this winning over of the trade unions, there is no possibility of the seizure of state power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
At the same time, Marxist-Leninists do not confine themselves to the trade union movement. The task of communists in all forms of the workers movement is to give conscious leadership, to seek to unite Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought with the most advanced elements, win over the intermediate, and fight for leadership of these mass workers’ organizations, leadership which points them correctly toward the solution to the crisis, socialism.
While mass workers organizations often take a progressive stand without communist leadership, it is only with communist leadership, where socialism is raised as the objective, that mass workers’ organizations become revolutionary mass organizations.
Communists do not build the mass movement; the objective conditions of capital do that. We seek to lead it. Leadership means pointing out the final alms of the movement, combating bowing to the spontaneous trade union leadership, defeating the bourgeois labor aristocracy and trade union bureaucrats. It means winning the advanced to communist.
Winning the advanced to communism cannot be separated from the task of leading the workers movement as a whole-leadership which points to the aim of the movement. Socialism is not just for advanced elements, but must become the aim of the broad masses of workers, advanced and intermediate.
The national movements in the U.S., and particularly the Black national movement, are a component part of the working class struggle against the U.S. Imperialist bourgeoisie. The Black national movement is In essence a class struggle, the struggle of the masses of oppressed Black people against the bourgeoisie of the oppressor nation. For this reason, the Black national movement is the strongest, closest, most revolutionary ally of the working class movement in the U.S.
The unity of these two movements is indispensable to the formation of a genuine vanguard communist party, and to victory in overthrowing our oppressor. Unity must be rooted in the right of the Black Nation to self-determination and more generally, in a correct political line on the national question. As communists, we must build the unity of the multi-national working class by upholding the right of the Black Nation to self-determination up to and including secession, by giving concrete programmatic content to that right.
The OL, to its credit, has historically upheld the right of self-determination for the Black Nation, and full democratic rights for all Blacks, throughout the U.S. But it does so in form only, while distorting or omitting entirely the necessary content of these demands. The result is that their proclamations remain empty phrases, without material content. They are incapable of giving leadership to the multi-national working class, promoting neither its unity nor furthering its internationalist stand.
The OL is incapable of giving concrete programmatic content to the slogan of the right of self-determination because it bases its support of this slogan on sentiment rather than a materialist understanding of the objective material bases of the oppression of the Black Nation. The OL confuses the material basis of this oppression with its manifestations because of a distorted grasp of the history and development of the Black Nation.
In the pamphlet, “For Working Class Unity and Black Liberation”, the OL outlines the history of Black people in the U.S. from the period of slavery to the present day. The formation of the Black Nation took place
...during this 350 year period of slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction, as well as capitalist development in the South... (p. 9)
The pamphlet goes on to say that,
...it was in the Black Belt area of the South, especially during the period preceding the Civil War and during Reconstruction, that the Black Nation developed a cohesive, internal class structure (common economic life)... (p. 8).
The Black Nation, according to OL, was formed over a 350 year period, and the “common economic life” (which the OL incorrectly limits to the formation of classes) necessary to national unification came about during a narrower period encompassing both the pre and post Civil War periods.
A correct understanding of the history of the Black peoples’ oppression, the peculiarity of the contradictions between the oppressed and oppressor is required In order to grasp the material basis for the oppression of the Black Nation, there is no other way to Understand the qualitative difference between the national oppression of the Black Nation and the exploitation and oppression of the multi-national working class as a whole.
The OL holds that capitalism is the basis of national oppression, that,
...the very nature of imperialism regarding oppressed nations is to continually assault them; culturally, economically, and politically. (The Call, October, 1975, p. 11)
More specifically, the basis of national oppression, “the root of slavery (i.e., national oppression) is found in income distribution, police repression, housing, education, health care, employment and unionization and in the special oppression of Afro-American women.” (The Call, October, 1975, p. 11.)
What the OL calls particular “roots” of national oppression are in fact the conditions of that oppression, the different ways in which national oppression manifests its vicious and grotesque profile. The October League fails to identify and explain the bases of the oppression of the Black Nation, due to their distortion of history.
The CI stated that there are two bases for the oppression of the Black Nation. The first is the control of the land of the Black Nation in the hands of the dominant bourgeoisie. The second basis, flowing out of the first, is the lack of state unity of the Black Nation, and the resulting inability to determine its own destiny, much, less conditions of life.
A genuine understanding of these two bases of oppression comes from an investigation of the history of the Black Nation, its development and its relationship to the oppressor nation.
The Black Nation was welded together during the Reconstruction years, and specifically by the failure of the agrarian revolution in the South, which would have brought control of the land to Black people. The right to own property has long been the basis for the exercise of democratic rights; the failure of the agrarian revolution, and the resulting control of the land of the Black Belt by Northern industrialists and financiers, cemented the Black Nation together, and began the long history of oppression of the Black Nation.
The OL’s failure to understand the history and development of the Black Nation results in a distortion of the bases for, and extent of, the unity existing in the multi-national working class. Because they have confused the basis of the oppression of the Black Nation with its manifestations, the OL denies what disunity objectively exists, and exaggerates the unity that has been won. The shallowness of OL’s historical presentation leads them to gloss over the separations in the working class resulting from the oppression of the Black Nation, and to minimize its depth and significance.
The unity of which the OL speaks is attributed largely to the proletarianization of a large number of Black people since World War I. In this way, the OL substitutes spontaneous unity for conscious unity between workers of different nationalities. Even this basis for unity is seriously overestimated by the OL.
It is obvious from the material facts below that the growing industrialization of the South has not resulted in a significant decline in the volume or importance of Southern agriculture.
The South contains one-half of the country’s land which is arable for six months of the year, two-thirds of the land having more than 40 Inches of rainfall annually. It has abundant resources: Oil, natural gas, limestone, and waterpower, and possesses 40% of the nation’s forests. More than one-third of the nation’s good farms are in the South. Half of the nations’ marble output comes from this section, 97% of its phosphates, 99% of its sulphur, and two-thirds of its crude oil. It is a section which leads the world in the production of cotton, tobacco, and corn. (Haywood, NEGRO LIBERATION, p. 66.)
Nonetheless, the industrialization of the South has led to (and partially resulted from) a massive shift in the population of the Black Nation from rural to urban locations and occupations. To an extent and with a pace paralleled by few other examples, a large proportion of the members of the Black Nation have, through migrations, become proletarians. The OL duly records this fact, further stating that this shift has had a “profound effect on the character of the national question.” (For Working Class Unity and Black Liberation, p. 18.)
This effect has been exhibited, according to the OL, in the “fighting spirit of Blacks... (being) carried over into the working class.” (ibid, p. 10), and in the growth of unity among proletarians of different nationalities faced with similar conditions of capitalist exploitation. Those members of the Black Nation who remain in rural occupations and classes, the OL states, are still the victims of the remnants of feudal forms of exploitation and oppression as evidenced by share-cropping, “Jim Crow” and overall oppression and exploitation (ibid, pp. 6-7). However, because the proletariat is the most revolutionary class of the Black Nation, they must lead the Black liberation struggles. From this basis, the OL goes on to elaborate the role of the Black proletariat in the Black united front, in building the unity of the multi-national working class, and in relation to the party.
The MLOC agrees that the Black proletariat is the most consistently revolutionary class in the Black Nation, by virtue of its relation to the mode of production. We also agree that the leadership of the Black proletariat in the Black liberation movement and the socialist working class movement is imperative for the victory of revolution. However, we must point out that the OL has made same serious errors in its treatment of the proletarianization of the masses of formerly rural Black peasantry, and of the unity which is alleged to have resulted from this development.
The OL, by failing to be more explicit about the shift of a large part of the Black population from the peasant class to the proletariat, neglects explaining that the capitalist mode of production in the South, is superimposed on the pre-existing semi-feudal mode of production there. That remnants of the semi-feudal mode of production still exist in the South is obvious in even a superficial investigation of patterns of land ownership, share-cropping, peonage, credit facilities, social practices of “Jim Crow”, segregation, lynching, convict leasing, etc. What the OL fails to notice, apparently, is that these remnants, carefully fostered by the oppressor white bourgeoisie, are reflected in the capitalist mode of production as well, in the forms of wage differentials, limitation of Blacks to certain types of jobs, disenfranchisement from voting rights, exclusion of Blacks from unions, etc.
These remnants contribute significantly to the national oppression of Blacks and the disunity of the multinational working class.
In fact, the OL by omitting any thorough discussion of the material bases of national oppression and of the semi-feudal mode of production, implies that this mode of production has been erased, overcome, done away with, by the entrance of a large proportion of the Black peasantry into the proletariat. And further, that the fusion of the working class and national movements has been ensured by this shift.
This is not the case, and never will be the case under imperialism. The remnants of a semi-feudal mode of production in the Black Belt South, the South as a whole, and reflected in the special oppression of the Black national minority, must be overthrown by revolution. They will never melt away of their own accord, or because of the needs and development of U.S. imperialism.
The failure of the agrarian revolution and of Reconstruction as a whole, cemented the perpetuation of this semi-feudal mode of production, and all of its attendant horrors. Nothing less than revolution will destroy this. Once again, it is the OL’s failure to grasp the bases of the national oppression in the failure of the agrarian revolution, that leads to its other errors, namely its over-estimation of the extent of the spontaneous unity of the multi-national working class.
This right error reflects the underlying belief that “revolution (is) a simple evolutionary process, (a) totality of reforms.” (Foto Cami, Albania Today, January 8, 1973, p. 20.) This position, which arises from OL’s omissions, as much from its proclamations, one-sidedly absolutizes the objective factor, that is the evolution of capitalism, and results in liquidating the need for revolution to overthrow the semi-feudal mode of production in the Black Nation and the South as a whole.
The MLOC position in no way denies or belittles that the proletarianization of masses of Black people has indeed had a “profound effect” on the Black Nation, although we do not agree with the OL that it has had such an effect on the national question itself. That profound effect has not eradicated the semi-feudal nature of the exploitation of both the Black proletariat and peasantry. The capitalist mode of production has been super-imposed on the existing semi-feudal mode; it is this super-imposition, this double exploitation, which has aggravated rather than solved the Black National Question in this country.
The proletarianization of a large section of the Black peasantry has had the effect of bringing into being that class, the Black proletariat, which of all the classes in the Black Nation, is the only class in history, which when consciously united, and merged with the rest of the working class in the U.S., will be able to end the semi-feudal and capitalist exploitation of the Black Nation.
In summation, the OL’s right opportunism on this subject is based in their failure to grasp firmly the material bases of the oppression of the Black Nation. These errors are the following:
1. The one-sided absolutization of the objective factor, reflected in the position that the semi-feudal character of the mode of production in the South has somehow dissolved peaceably from the force of the movement of Blacks from rural to industrial occupations. This one-sidedness is the ideological source of subjectivism and reflects a vulgar materialist view of objective reality.
2. The resultant blurring of the distinction between reform and revolution, and the role each plays in social change.
3. The consistent belittling of the subjective factor, that is, the need for revolution, led by a vanguard party and armed with the science of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, to overthrow the exploitation and oppression of the Black Nation by the dominant imperialist bourgeoisie. This belittling is reflected in the OL’s under-estimation and downright negation of the need for conscious fusion of the working class and national movements.
Failure to correctly understand the existing separation between the workers and national movements is naturally reflected in the OL’s position on the right of the Black Nation to self-determination and of ail Black people to full democratic rights.
The OL’s demand for the right of the Black Nation to self-determination is revolutionary in form, but not in content. This has nothing to do with the slogan itself, which is rendered revolutionary by the content it is given. The OL fails to give the demand for the right of the Black Nation to self-determination any content at all. This is a result of their failure to grasp the material bases of national oppression of Black people as discussed previously. Because the OL does not grasp the extent and depth, the history of national oppression of Blacks, they cannot understand the equal extent and depth of disunity among different nationalities of the multi-national U.S. working class; and therefore the OL does not grasp the extreme importance of upholding and giving material content to the right of the Black Nation to self-determination. The OL over-estimates the significance of the proletarianization of a percentage of the Black population in the Black Nation, they also over-estimate the unity spontaneously generated by that process.
It is on the basis of upholding this demand for the right to self-determination, giving it content and fighting for its implementation, that real, concrete, and conscious unity can be built in the U.S. multi-national working class. The OL’s belittling of the subjective factor, the necessity for that conscious unity, is reflected in that organization’s failure to give content, programmatic and real content to the demand for self-determination. Because the OL fails to give any, let alone revolutionary content to this demand, and they subsequently fail down on their proletarian duty to uphold and fight for the right of the Black Nation to self-determination, in content as well as form. This results in the OL upholding this right, so vital to the unity of the multi-national working class, on the basis of sentiment alone, rather than on the solid foundation of objective material reality.
STAND ON SECESSION
OL’s stand on secession is also a clear example of the failure of OL to grasp the material bases of the oppression of the Black Nation. The OL states that “while supporting the right of the Black nation(sic) to self-determination we, at this time, oppose secession.” (FOR WORKING CLASS UNITY AND BLACK LIBERATION, p.15). Those who call for secession at this time are seen as bourgeois nationalists by the OL.
The MLOC agrees with the OL that communists are not obliged to support every movement for secession under any circumstances, “for there is not only a national revolutionary, but also a reactionary Negro separatism...” (COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL RESOLUTION, 1930, UNITE!, Vol.1, No.1,p.16). However, it is incorrect for the OL to actively oppose secession of the Black Nation at this time. As the Comintern Resolution of 1930 stated,
As long as capitalism rules in the U.S., the communists cannot come out against governmental separation of the Negro zone from the U.S. They (the communists) recognize that this separation from the imperialist U.S. would be preferable from the standpoint of the national interests of the Negro population, to their present oppressed state, and therefore, the communists are ready at any time to offer all their support if only the working masses of the Negro population are ready to take up the struggle for governmental separation of the Black Belt. (our emphasis) (UNITE! ,Vol 1, No.1, p.16)
The essential error Is to rob the right of self-determination of its heart, that is, of the right to secession, by separating the two and counterposing them to one another incorrectly. Secession is one of the choices available to the Black Nation in its exercise of self-determination; to oppose this right is to deny the Black Nation of one of its options. This negates the essence of the right to self-determination, and reflects the class stand of imperialism.
Further, the OL opposes secession of the Black Nation on the grounds that it would disrupt the growing unity among Black and white workers. (FOR WORKING CLASS UNITY AND BLACK LIBERATION, p.15) Logically then, this unity is not one which is based on the right to secession.
This position constitutes national chauvinism. It places the oppressed Black Nation on an unequal footing with the oppressor nation, denies the Black Nation one of the rights of nationhood, and yet expects that unity will be built on the basis of this inequality.
The OL’s position in practice on the struggle for democratic rights reflects the same class stand, that of the oppressor bourgeoisie. By failing to link the struggle for democratic rights to the right of self-determination and the recognition of the basis of democratic rights in land ownership, the OL condemns that struggle to reformism.
The OL states that “national oppression or (the) violation of basic democratic rights” (The Call, October, 1975, p. 11) is linked to the imperialist division of the world and the subjugation of some nations to the control of others. The essence of OL’s position on democratic rights is that “the fight for democratic rights is for equality and democratization of society in general” (The Call, January. 1975, p. 15). Certain programmatic demands stem from the OL position on democratic rights. These include regional autonomy or self-rule for areas of highly concentrated Black population outside of the Black Nation in the Black Belt South; programs to eliminate poor housing and health conditions; an end to gerrymandering, or the formal division of areas of Black population into electoral districts that negate Black majority in those districts; and full and adequate representation on the legislative or governing bodies under socialism. (The Call, October, 1975, p. 10)
The call for equality, the equation of democratic rights with formal equality in various fields for the oppressed peoples inside and outside of the Black Nation is just not enough. Equality in a bourgeois state, in a class society, is not equality at all, as the historic experience of “separate but equal” schooling for Blacks has proved. It is necessary to call and work for special demands for the oppressed Black Nation and national minority (and for other oppressed nations and national minorities in the U.S.) in order to ensure the achievement of equal rights. As Lenin state in “The Question of Nationalities or Autonomization”,
That is why internationalism on the part of oppressors or “great” nations as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as Derzhimordas), must consist not only of the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice. Anybody who does not understand this has not grasped the real proletarian attitude to the national question, he is still essentially petty bourgeois in his point of view and is, therefore, sure to descend to the bourgeois point of view.” Lenin, QUESTIONS OF NATIONAL POLICY AND PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM, p. 167.
This brief summation shows that the OL in fact liquidates the right to self-determination (by failing to give that demand programmatic content and by their stand on secession), and the struggle for democratic rights (by condemning that struggle to reformism).
An example of this position put into practice can be seen In the OL’s treatment of the Joann Little case. This case, and others, challenge communists to explain and expose exploitation and oppression of the Black Nation, and its material bases. It is imperative for genuine Marxist-Leninists to link such cases of clear national oppression to the demand for self-determination as was done in the case of the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930’s. The OL did not meet this challenge. In their August 1975 issue of The Call, the OL states that “The Joann Little case provides a chance to expose the real racist nature of the capitalist system as well as its oppression of women.” (p. 9) Nowhere does the OL scientifically tie this case to the right of the Black Nation to self-determination. The only reference to this right, in fact, is the OL’s exposure of the CPUSA and the SWP for ”...abandoning the revolutionary struggle of the Afro-American people for their democratic rights and the right of self-determination.” (p. 9) The OL is guilty of this same error. The Call attacks the “racist nature” of the capitalist system without linking racism to the material national oppression of Black people. To rant against the ideology of racism without attacking its roots in material reality, is the same as surrendering to the bourgeois ideology that race or skin color is the basis of oppression, not national distinction and oppression.
The OL’s stand on the question of national movements is petty bourgeois liberalism, resulting from that organization’s lack of grasp of the nature of imperialism. The OL imagines that the development of imperialism can peacefully erase the semi-feudal basis of the oppression of the Black Nation. This results in OL taking the class stand of the oppressor bourgeoisie, of negating the necessity of the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois dictatorship.
The OL’s viewpoint reflects idealism; their distortion of history, and their failure to understand imperialism, result in OL’s basing its recognition and support of the oppressed Black Nation on sentiment, rather than objective material reality. OL’s position on secession, which revises the historical experience of the international proletariat, is based on OL’s ideas rather than Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
Finally, The OL’s method is vulgar mechanical materialism, as opposed to dialectical and historical materialism. This is reflected primarily in the OL’s denial of the motion, the development of the Black Nation; specifically, the superficiality with which they address the question of the historical formation of the Black Nation; their position on the “evolution” of semi-feudal into capitalist exploitation of the Black Nation, which clearly denies the necessity for a qualitative leap to occur for such a transformation to be a reality; the OL’s mechanical view of the effects of migration and other points.
This vulgar materialism, which permeates the entire presentation of the question of the national movements, flows from the OL’s idealist viewpoint, and constantly returns to it. Because vulgar materialism does not approach the world in its interconnections and motion, the positions derived from this method of investigation are inevitably idealist, and reflect the world only statically.
With this stand, viewpoint, and method on the national movements, the OL will not make any contribution, much less lead, the building of the genuine unity and fusion of the working class and national movements necessary for the formation of a genuine multi-national party in the U.S.
At the same time we recognize that the OL has been able to win over many Black Marxist-Leninists, and progressive elements into its ranks. But as Lenin stated we must judge an organization not by its numbers but by its class stand. There are definite reasons for this development, in the context that the OL has been the only national organization which has upheld, at least in form, self-determination for the Black Nation, and is the only organization with any real work in the Black Belt South. In the context of the absence of any thorough and correct position on the Black National Question by other organizations, and in reaction to the national chauvinism of the RCP, USA and the centrism of many others, it Is understandable that many progressive and revolutionary Blacks would be attracted to the OL.
However, the unity the OL offers between the oppressed Black Nation and the multi-national proletariat is superficial, and unless corrected, will not bear the test of protracted class struggle. Based upon sentiment and not scientific socialism, it is very likely that the one step forward taken by the OL on the Black National Question will become two steps backward, as sentiment and morality fail to stand the test of violent class conflict, and fail to generate genuine multi-national unity.