Previously BAWOC’s intervention, in the party building movement has been characterized by a reactive and tailist approach, which has held back our understanding of and active participation in the party building movement. In this period BAWOC should play a critical and independent role in the party building movement, especially until BAWOC has elaborated and consolidated theoretically on its line and approach to the party building movement.
The majority report places our work in the party building movement almost solely within the confines of the OCIC. It says that our central task is the building of an OCIC local center and secondarily to work in the OC regionally. We reject this thrust. Because the question of the OCIC is so central in the struggle over the role of BAWOC in the party building movement, it is necessary to analyze in detail the OCIC in its historical development and in its present role before elaborating and alternative approach.
For the purpose of this summation we have broken down our trend’s history into three significant periods. Please note that this is not intended to be an all-sided synopsis and so important questions such as the demarcation over international line are left out. The points chosen are to draw out the role of the OCIC in the context of the present struggle.
The PWOC has almost exclusive initiative in our emerging party building trend. First to put forward the analysis that the new communist movement has split into two trends, a dogmatist and an emerging anti-dogmatist trend. Develops its critique of dogmatism, and publishes its early elaborations of “fusion”. Develops a strategic plan for party building which it doesn’t publish. PWOC begins propagating its views nationally and it aids in the development of local organizations based on the PWOC model. Puts out a general call for the formation of a national center in “Resolution on Party Building”. Leads the formation of the Committee of 5.
Fusion further elaborated. Newlin’s 1977 Boston Speech explains the relationship of a national preparty organization to the fusion strategy and calls for the building of a “leading ideological center” as an intermediate step.
“Draft Resolution for a Leading Ideological Center” is circulated. It identifies three major obstacles to be overcome by a national center; amaturishness, fragmentation, theoretical impoverishment. Circle spirit not mentioned. Center is to forge the line and program of a national preparty organization.
Alternative lines on party building emerge and begin to assert themselves.
Primacy of theory/political line proponents elaborate their critique of fusion. Ann Arbor and TMLC party building papers published. Silber polemicizes against fusion in the Guardian. Newlin-Silber debates are held.
Guardian Party Building Supplement is published, Guardian Clubs are formed.
Bay Area “rectificationists” begin to elaborate their view of party building and collaborate with Silber and the Guardian Clubs.
El Comite-MINP responds to the Draft Resolution by putting forward its perspective on party building in “Party Building and its relationship to the masses”. Stresses cadre formation, integration, and coordination among communists. They reject national center/national pre-party formation as premature.
Discussion of the Draft Resolution preceeding the OC founding conference is marked by disunity and lack of clarity on the strategic conception of a national center. Some local organizations conceive of a center to directly aid fusion by disseminating advanced experience (the Coordinating Body for example). Meanwhile the Committee of 4 drop reference of a national preparty organization in the “Concrete Proposal” they brought to the OC founding conference.
OCIC founded despite disunity and unclarity.
Struggle within the trend heats up.
PWOC puts pressure on the Guardian to join the OC fearing another left sectarian party-building move in the making. “OCIC Founding Statement” (developed by NSC after the founding conference) begins to target “circle spirit” and agitates for a single center.
Guardian publishes “State of the Party Building Movement” document that slanders the OCIC, calls for a split in the trend, and sets the Guardian up as an alternative center to contend politically and organizationally with the OCIC.
Clubs split from the Guardian, Silber resigns as Guardian executive editor, agreeing with the SPBM’s “political critique” of the OCIC but denouncing the call for a split in the trend as sectarian.
OC Bulletin #2 and Organizer articles published criticizing the Guardian’s circle spirit and state that the Silber forces have failed to break with circle spirit.
NNMLC founded, puts forward “Rectification” line, reiterates decision to not join the OCIC, calls for struggle over party building line, continues aspects of the Guardian’s sectarianism such as the view that party building line will eventually be a splitting question.
OCIC leadership opens up an organizational assault on rectification. Through Newlin’s Laney College speech, OC First Year, Draft Plan, and Labor Day Conference resolutions, the “circle spirit” headquartered in the NNMLC’s “organizational opportunism” is targeted as the main obstacle to our tendency’s development. “Single Center” is asserted as the most “urgent” question facing the tendency.
Internally the OCIC leadership promotes “siege mentality”. OC stand towards tendency-wide discussion becomes transformed and negated in practice as it excludes those who disagree with the OC process from OC initiated projects such as the National Minority Conference. Organizational consolidation heads the OC’s agenda.
Rectificationists reevaluate and retract their previous view that party building line is a splitting question. Contrary to the OCIC, the practice of the rectificationists has generally been for open, tendency-wide work, both in the theoretical struggle and mass work.
Disunity heightens within the OCIC as the Steering Committee pushes for consolidations. Opponents of the NSC’s stand toward rectification are characterized by the NCS as “conciliators with opportunism”. Theoretical Review forces sharply criticize the line and direction of the NSC. SOC forced to leave the OCIC for not joining local center.
The implications of this history will not be summarized here but will be drawn out in successive sections of this paper. For now we encourage comrades to struggle to review and objectify this history. Ask yourself what line(s) have guided our trend’s development at each stage? Why has there been confusion and disagreement around the conception of building a national center? Has the OC’s conception always been clear and consistent?
Over the past year, after closely following, participating in, and evaluating the various initiatives of the OCIC, we have come to be highly critical of the OC’s stand and practice. We have elaborated in more detail the specific criticism’s in our letter to the Steering Committee, which we encourage our comrades to review. These criticisms include:
1. Subjective and voluntaristic conception of the OC’s role in the movement. Since the NSC has consolidated the position that the building of a single center is the most “urgent question” before the tendency, the NSC has exaggerated the “leading role” of the OC, failed to respect the existence and integrity of distinct party building centers, failed to recognize the contributions of others, and has abandoned a rigorous approach toward self-criticism.
2. Sectarianism. Beginning to substitute the OC for the tendency as a whole. Despite claims of standing for open, tendency-wide debate and discussion it has practiced an “OC only” approach. The NSC has launched sectarian polemics toward the rectificationists, that rather than clarify the differences and debate them theoretically, they resort to innuendo and demagogy to discredit the “rectifiers”. This has resulted in an unfortunate setback to principled struggle and unity among communists.
3. Internal practice of the OC has been democratic in only the most formalistic sense. Instead we have a commandist leadership asserting its positions with little substantiation and little encouragement for debate and struggle (as exemplified by the series of resolutions passed at the labor Day Conference), a tailist base adopting the leadership’s positions uncritically, and minority view being discredited and isolated by the leadership through unprincipled means such as race-baiting.
4. Theoretical Stagnation. In its two years of existence the OC has done very little to contribute to the theoretical struggle. The OC hasn’t elevated the theoretical capacity of its cadre. The OC hasn’t unleashed the considerable theoretical resources in its own ranks, not to mention those in the rest of the tendency. Instead the OC has been diverted by organizational questions (single center, local and regional centers). If our experience in BAWOC has taught us anything its that a political process basing itself primarily on organizational principles is doomed to go nowhere. What is worst of all is that the OC leadership has set an example of expedient theoretical practice. By this we mean developing analysis and positions to serve as a rationale for the momentary policies of the leadership, rather than the use of a rigorous, Marxist approach to theory (for example the wing-trend-tendency-movement controversy, the question of what exactly constitutes the main danger to party building, the ambiguous conception of an ideological center, whether or not the OCIC is guided by a party building line, etc.).
Throughout its history, the OC’s conception of building a national center has been confusing and contradictory. The conception of a national center was clearest when it was initially put forward because it was placed squarely in the context of a party building line–fusion. The initial documents on the subject (Newlin’s Boston Speech, Draft Resolution) essentially called for the formation of a national centre in order to hammer out the line and program of a national preparty organization.
However as other distinct lines on party building began to assert themselves in the trend, it became clear that the trend could not be united into a national center as conceived of in earlier documents. “In the final analysis both (Silber and the localists) will be opponents of our most urgent task: the creation of a leading ideological center for the Marxist-Leninist movement(I) which can lay the foundations for a national preparty revolutionary organization.”(Newlin, “On Combatting ’Straw Men’ ”)
But rather than seriously opening up the question of how to unite the trend at its present stage of development, and in particular how to organize the theoretical struggle, the OC was hastily formed without any explicit strategic conception of its role in party formation and without clarity, much less unity on its purpose by founding participants. The negative results of this have been several-fold. First it created a dynamic whereby the bulk of OC participants didn’t know what they were doing in the OCIC and so they followed the leadership on blind faith. Second, it concealed the differences among the OC participants so that they would erupt later in a much more antagonistic and counter-productive fashion (e.g., the expulsion of SOC). Third it created a premature organizational barrier between those who are in” and “out” of the OCIC, reinforcing the leadership’s sectarian stand.
New problems emerged as the OC leadership attempted to reformulate a theoretical premise for the OC’s existence which can be summarized as follows: Tactically the main impediment to the development of the tendency continues to be ultra-leftism and in particular the “circle spirit” which can be best combatted if the circles in our movement subordinate themselves to a “single center”. Strategically a “single center provides the best context for a “leading ideological center” (future party leadership) to emerge. We have criticisms of this conception.
1. The main impediment to the development of our tendency is not the “circle spirit”. In a period where significant disunity exist on basic questions including the nature of a communist party and how it gets built, and how to sum up the historical experience of the international communist movement, “circles” or “centers” will persist. The question at this time isn’t how to break down the existing circles, but rather how to struggle to clarify and resolve the political differences between them. “As long as we had no unity on the fundamental questions of programme and tactics, we bluntly admitted that we were living in a period of disunity and separate circles, we bluntly declared that before we could unite, lines of demarcation must be drawn” (Lenin, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back).
2. Instead, the main impediment to the development of our trend is theoretical impoverishment which fosters sectarian practice. But instead of aiding in the trend’s theoretical development, the OC has diverted us with organizational questions, and has even set us back by establishing an expedient theoretical practice. In order to rectify the problems holding back our theoretical development the practice of the OC and the role of “fusion” must be evaluated.
3. While not the main impediment to the development of our trend it is true that sectarianism and the “circle spirit” does play an impeding role, to the extent that different circles (such as the OCIC) place their own interests above the interests of the whole movement, giving rise to “circle warfare”. However “circle warfare” will not be defeated through organizational means, by creating a center and then demanding that all circles subordinate themselves to it.
To attempt to impose an organizational solution will only promote unnecessary polarization and heighten the tendency for unprincipled manuevering and sectarian intrigue. Sectarianism can only be defeated through promoting principled ideological and political practice. In particular we must promote openness, respect, trust, and comaradery in the context of sharp and principled struggle. We must struggle for theoretical rigor and clarity. And we must create a climate where those who deviate from the norms of principled struggle become isolated and exposed.
4. In its Draft Plan the NSC put forward the strategic view that a single center creates the best conditions for a leading ideological center to emerge (here a leading ideological center refers to the future leadership of the party). A problem arises here in that we have a strategic (albeit vague) conception of party formation in the absence of a developed position of party building. Proponents of the NSC’s position have dealt with this problem inconsistently. At first they denied that the OC had or needed a party building line since the OC’s purpose was to bring together all the party building lines in our tendency. However this line of reasoning found little credibility outside of the OCIC and furthermore if taken seriously it would obstruct the NSC from implementing its own designs. Therefore the NSC has begun to state that the OC does in fact have a party building line after all-a “partial line”. But this “partial line” formulation is every bit as problematic as the “no-line” thesis. Marxists do not draw conclusions on the basis of a piece of an analysis and the leadership of the OC is doing a harmful disservice to the cadre in training them in such a faulty methodology.
5. Which brings us to the question of what has guided the OC’s development. The OC fits neatly into the PWOC’s party building strategy (which it has yet to put out fully and systematically to be struggled out openly). The OC carries out the work of independent elaboration, while the “practical centers” (fractions, preparty) build the communist current. The PWOC has moved hastily to organizationally consolidate a national theoretical center reflecting its biases, and it is moving hastily to consolidate national fractions prior to promoting struggle over political line and program. To facilitate this they have developed a critique of “organizational opportunism.”, and “circle spirit”. This is a serious indictment of the PWOC for using organizational means to maintain its dominant influence in our trend.
BAWOC’s stand toward the party building movement should be conditioned by three factors.
1. BAWOC has not elaborated theoretically a strategic conception of party formation. The implications for this are two-fold. First we must make a priority of studying and deepening our understanding of party building so that we may play a more active role in the movement. Second, we must view each party building initiative openly, critically and independently, and not prematurely subordinate BAWOC to any given party building center at this time.
2. As a local cadre organization guiding its members intervention in the class struggle, BAWOC’s role in the party building movement is limited. It should focus mainly on collaborating and struggling both theoretically and practically, with other Marxist-Leninists who are working on areas in common with BAWOC’s program. BAWOC should initiate and participate in such forms as study teams and trend-wide Marxist-Leninist committees where appropriate.
3. For the patty building movement as a whole, the theoretical struggle is primary. Therefore BAWOC should support and encourage its members participation in advanced theoretical projects of a national scope and character that elevate the theoretical development and political clarity/unity of our trend.
It is within this general framework that we should evaluate our stand toward the different party building initiatives. How then should we determine our stand or relationship to the different party building initiatives that are developing, and in particular the OCIC concretely? We feel that several different questions must be addressed.
1. How do we evaluate the tasks or goals that a given party building initiative has set out for itself?
2. Does this initiative promote the unity and interests of the movement as a whole by facilitating broad, tendency-wide discussion and joint work?
3. How well does this initiative promote the theoretical development and political clarity of our trend.
On all three counts we see severe shortcomings in the OCIC.
First the goal of the OCIC is to establish a single center that will centralize the main theoretical work and ideological debate of our trend, leading to the emergence of the ideological leadership of our trend. We agree that in the long run there needs to be a single center and single ideological leadership for our trend if we are to build a single party. However the disunity in our trend presently precludes the establishment of a single center with a single theoretical agenda. (Comrades who are skeptical on this point should contrast the theoretical agendas of the OCIC, the rectificationists, and that which the Theoretical Review forces are independently pursuing. Can these theoretical agendas really be reconciled within the confines of a single center? How?) One aspect of the OCIC’s goal which we believe is correct is that any theoretical work initiated at this time should solicit the participation of the various viewpoints that make up our tendency. As stated in the “OC’s First Year” document, we support “broad, tendency wide discussion”, which leads to the second question.
Is the OC promoting broad, tendency wide dicussion? This is a serious shortcoming of the OCIC. We have already pointed out the exclusionist character of the National Minorities M-L Conference, how in the name of building the “single center” those who disagreed with the OC process were excluded. And we have criticized the NSC’s sectarian position an polemics toward rectification which have served to hold back the development of principled discussion and debate. Let’s take another example. The OC has identified ultra-leftism as the most pressing question before the movement. Therefore, in our view, the OC should be encouraging the development of far-reaching, movement-wide study and debate on this question. Is that what the OC is doing? It is our understanding that the OC has approached this question by establishing an ultra-leftism task force, designated by the NSC who will study the question, develop a position paper, and “consolidate” the OC membership around it. This is not what we understand to be broad, tendency wide discussion and debate.
Finally, the OC has fallen down in the task of elevating the theoretical development and political clarity of our trend by becoming consumed in organizational consolidation, and by establishing an expedient theoretical practice.. We are however hopeful that the development of the OC’s basic 18 point study program and the initiation of OC study projects such as the ultra-leftism task force may enable the OC to make a positive theoretical contribution to the movement if the interests of development as opposed to “consolidation” are foremost.
We oppose the thrust of the “majority” position which advocates BAWOC’s intervention in the party building movement being dependent upon and synonomous with building the OC. Instead we advocate an open, independent and critical role for BAWOC vis a vis the OCIC.
Given the very different assessment we have from the “majority” position on the role of the line and practice of the OCIC in the party building movement, we advocate a different stand for BAWOC.
In the initial outline of the “minority” paper it was stated that BAWOC’s participation in the OCIC should be “tactical”. Because the term “tactical” has for some a negative connotation and because it was not the most precise term, it will be dropped so that we can clarify how we view our participation in the OCIC. This can be summarized as follows: Our participation in the OCIC is an aspect of our intervention in the party building movement which is conditional on the extent to which the OCIC plays a positive role in the party building movement.
We say that the OCIC is an aspect of our work in the party building movement because the OCIC is not an all encompassing party building center. Significant theoretical work of our trend goes on outside as well as within the OCIC. Work that we should seriously consider supporting and participating is such as that initiated by the rectification comrades.
The approach toward the party building movement we advocate is one which sees participation in the OCIC as conditional because there are serious questions about and shortcomings to the OC’s role in the party building movement. This is distinguished from the “majority” paper which views BAWOC’s intervention in the party building movement being dependant upon and synonomous with building the OCIC. Instead, we advocate an independent and critical role for BAWOC members vis a vis the OCIC, as well as an openness toward other party building initiatives.