Published: The Communist, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 24, 1975.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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COMRADES, FELLOW WORKERS AND FREINDS:
We would like to announce that the Leninist wing of the BWC is changing its name from the Black Workers Congress to the Workers Congress. We do this for several reasons.
First, it is part of our struggle to distinguish ourselves from the opportunist wing of the BWC. Comrades, the struggle between the Leninist wing and the opportunist wing of the BWC has been one over principles, over differences in line. These differences center on our Economists attack on the practical tasks necessary to build the Party, and their adamant refusal to take up the struggle to demolish the Economist trend of our movement.
One aspect of the BWC’s right opportunism has been the justification for building communist organizations along national lines. The name “Black Workers Congress” is a carry over from the period where the BWC bowed to the existing divisions in the class and recruited only Black comrades. For over a year the present opportunist leadership of the BWC ignored and put off changing the name of the organization, as something unimportant. They also fought against developing multi-national leadership in the BWC. Even today, these opportunists hesitate to change their name and to openly and thoroughly denounce the organization of the proletariat along national lines.
Comrades, it is our position that the time has long since past where we can claim to be a multi-national organization yet show no concern to the name that we present to the multinational proletariat and revolutionary peoples everywhere.
Secondly, we feel that changing the name will help people to recognize who is struggling over line, and who is reducing the split in the BWC to a question of personalities and slander. We encourage all our comrades to compare our line on the split (presented in issue no. 7, primarily in “Leninism or Petty Bourgeois Democracy” and this issue in “Economism and the Attack on ’Leftism’”) and that of the opportunist wing. The opportunist wing has resorted recently to calling us “Trotskyites and professional wreckers” – yet nowhere have they given an analysis of this so-called Trotskyism. Their article on the struggle (NEW COMMUNIST, no. 7 p.3) is nothing but phrasemongering and some generalities that would apply anywhere to anyone (for example, the statement that “party building is a reflection of the dialectical relationship between the objective and subjective factors). The Rights have also been hustling the movement with cries for donations and equipment for their opportunist newspaper, and attempted to cover these demands with the lie that we genuine lefts are to blame for their inability to produce a newspaper. The truth is that our Economists cannot and will not put out a regular newspaper because they do not recognize the central role of such a paper, and because they refuse to struggle against their rank amateurish methods.
Comrades we would also like to announce that we will continue publication under the name THE COMMUNIST, because THE COMMUNIST and everything it represented and stood for belongs rightfully to us, the Leninist wing of the BWC. The opportunist wing does not stand on the principles of an ISKRA-type newspaper presented in issue no. 1; they do not stand by issues nos.1-4; and they have not continued to print in the spirit of these first four issues. They have no right at all to call their newspaper THE COMMUNIST and attempt in any way to associate themselves with the line that these newspapers represented.
Finally, we will add that the name “Workers Congress” is only a temporary one. We intend to announce an entirely new name in the near future.