First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 6, June 7, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The Marxist-Leninist Student Collective originated among university students in the Midwest, the majority of whom have left the university and gone into the factories. This collective has given revolutionary leadership to the student struggles in which they were involved and has actively promoted the widespread study of Marxist-Leninist theory among their fellow students. They are one of a number of organizations which have recently declared its political agreement with the call of the October League for Marxist-Leninists to unite and form the new communist party.
* * *
For too long the struggles of the working class, oppressed nations and nationalities, women, youth and students in the U.S. have developed without the leadership of a genuine communist party. The time has come for all honest and genuine Marxist-Leninists to unite to form and build a new fighting communist party. From our efforts to build and lead a revolutionary mass student organization, we have come to realize the absolute necessity of a genuine communist party.
We are looking to the working class movement for leadership, and many of us are going into the working class to use our education to fight for that class and to help bring to working people the truth of their glorious past and future.
Even though the objective conditions for a genuine communist party have been present for a long time, they are not decisive for its creation. The forces of revolution, the subjective forces, are the basis for the creation of a genuine communist party. They are decisive. Without revolutionary theory, politics, organization and practice, the working class cannot become a class for itself, capable of leading the just struggles of all oppressed people against imperialism. This class, conscious of itself, will lay the foundation for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the ultimate establishment of communism. But this is not to belittle the importance of objective forces, for they lend extreme urgency to the task of developing a genuine communist party now.
The USSR, once the proud stronghold of proletarian revolution and socialism, has degenerated into a social-imperialist superpower intent on replacing the hegemony of U.S. imperialism with its own. It is the main danger to the people of the world today. Its restless and rabid expansionist drives daily increase the probability of another worldwide imperialist war. The immediate need to lead our people in struggle against another imperialist war and to prepare them for it lends extra urgency to the task of forming the party now.
At the same time, due to the decline of U.S. imperialism, a severe economic and social crisis has intensified the class struggle in the U.S. The imperialists are attempting to unload the burden of their crisis onto the backs of our people. Massive unemployment and underemployment, cut-backs in social services, childcare and education are becoming everyday events in the lives of the workers and oppressed minorities. On top of all this the rising threat of fascism adds an ominous overtone to the social chaos confronting our people. The increased oppression and exploitation, and the resistance of the working class and its allies, demand the leadership of a genuine communist party now.
The main danger within the international working class movement at this time is revisionism. Its consolidated center is in the USSR. The CPSU is the stronghold of modern revisionism, and it peddles its imperialist schemes and ideas under the cover of socialist rhetoric. Its counterpart and agent in the U.S. is the CPUSA. The CPUSA must be broken with completely and isolated from the working class movement. There can be no joint action with them. They must be smashed. Only through constant opposition to the CPUSA will a genuine communist party be forged in the U.S.
In the young communist movement, right opportunism expressed in two forms. One is the Guardian, whose centrism around the Angolan liberation struggle and their support for Soviet social-imperialism continues to be exposed. On the other hand, there is the so-called “Revolutionary Wing,” who split in order to wreck, who are isolated from the mass struggles of the working class, and whose super-theoretical disguise makes them appear “left,” but is just a cover for their opposition to building a genuine communist party now. We believe that the correct way to deal with the right opportunists in the young communist unite with the genuine Marxist-Leninists in these organizations and to step up the political exposure of the bankrupt lines of their leadership.
Through the upsurge in the anti-imperialist struggles of the ’60s, masses of workers rediscovered the revolutionary essence of the working class. They began to form pre-party organizations on a national scale. The struggles within and between these pre-party national organizations forged the rudiments of a correct political line based upon the principles of Marxism-Leninism and the concrete conditions in the U.S. At the same time, a Marxist-Leninist press began to develop, summing up the experience of the working class and its allies, and agitating in the interests of the democratic rights of all oppressed peoples.
As genuine communist organizations grew and developed, Marxist-Leninists began to lead and organize the fightback against imperialism within the U.S. This trend grew and developed, and out of it emerged a national mass fightback organization led by communists. It became clear that a genuine Marxist-Leninist pre-party national organization had emerged that was capable of uniting all the genuine Marxist-Leninist forces in the U.S., the October League (Marxist-Leninist). With the OL’s call for Marxist-Leninist unity around party building, many genuine Marxist-Leninist forces have come forward to unite at the May Unity Meeting. This is a very good sign, for it demonstrates the growing unity among Marxist-Leninists and their determination to build the party now.
There is only one way for genuine Marxist-Leninists to go and that, comrades, is on to the party! The main trend is unity! The main danger is right opportunism! Build a genuine Marxist-Leninist party! Smash the revisionist CPUSA! Expose and oppose the opportunists in our movement and unite all genuine Marxist-Leninists!