The relationship between the NNMLC and other forces in the U.S. communist movement is determined by two factors: our party-building line and the actual condition of the communist movement.
The line of “rectification and reestablishment” addresses the particularity of a preparty period in a country where there has been a previous lengthy history of the existence of a revolutionary party. It also addresses the particularity of a period in which there have been numerous attempts to reestablish a vanguard working class party in the U.S.
These facts mean that among all the forces in the U.S. who self-consciously define themselves as Marxist-Leninists, lines of demarcation corresponding to fundamental ideological, political and- organizational differences have been drawn between the contending forces. The self-conscious forces who have broken and drawn lines of demarcation with revisionism and “left” opportunism provide the basis for the continuity of Marxism-Leninism in the U.S. and the reestablishment of a genuine communist party.
Therefore, our principal focus in developing our organizational relations during this period will be on those groups and individuals who share our general critique of revisionism and “left” opportunism and in some conscious fashion have made a commitment to party-building. However, we do not view this statically. A major part of rectification work is to win those who already have embraced Marxism-Leninism but have not yet taken up the principal communist task of this period – party-building – to become active participants in the party-building movement. By the same token, we also take responsibility for winning militants among the masses – advanced workers, revolutionary fighters among oppressed national and racial minorities, anti-imperialist activities – to the science of Marxism-Leninism and to the party-building movement.
In addition, there are many individuals with good communist training who, for a variety of reasons, are still to be found in the ranks of both revisionist and “left” opportunist formations. While in the long run, many of these can be won back to Marxism-Leninism, they are now being corrupted by incorrect lines. Thus, only as the actual rectification of the line of the U.S. communist movement develops and begins to put forward a more comprehensive line will it be possible to win these forces back to a revolutionary viewpoint.
Our party-building line calls for the development of a wide-scale rectification movement among U.S. communists. This movement will achieve its goal with the rectification of the line of the U.S. communist movement and the reestablishment of its party. But the movement itself is part of the process of rectification because it focuses on the correction of political and ideological line while simultaneously serving to identify the leading Marxist-Leninists who can take responsibility for the movement’s development. In our view, a widespread rectification movement helps to build “party relations” between communists from different organizations in a preparty period. It does so, however, not on the basis of narrow organizational identification but rather through a process of collective responsibility and mutual accountability for the task of party-building.
The following principles, flowing out of our party-building line, govern the policy of the NNMLC in relation to other forces in our movement.
1. There is a distinction between the rectification movement and the actual process of party re-establishment. The rectification movement unfolds through a great variety of forms in which many groups and individuals participate with varying degrees of self-consciousness as to their objectives. Re-establishment, on the other hand, is a completely conscious process which must be guided by a leading center which will take responsibility for forming the party on the principle of “from the center out.” This means that we view all organizational forms during the entire rectification period – including the NNMLC – as inherently transitory.
2. Rectification is a multi-sided task with many different aspects. This will inevitably give rise to a multiplicity of organizational forms. The NNMLC does not see itself as the only legitimate organizational form through which rectification work can unfold nor does it see itself as the guiding force for this process. Study projects, journals and newspapers, educational and cadre-training projects, forms for Marxist-Leninist intervention in the day-to-day class struggle, joint work teams of various sorts and other forms will emerge in the course of the rectification work.
3. The question of party-building line is the decisive question before our movement at the present time. While the lines of demarcation with revisionism and “left” opportunism must be deepened and more fully internalized by our movement, the decisive break with these forces has already been made and the present outstanding questions before U.S. Marxist-Leninists must be confronted in terms of the various concepts of party-building as they are actually advanced before the movement.
All forces who have drawn and accepted the lines of demarcation with revisionism and “left” opportunism and who have consciously taken up the party-building question make up the party-building movement. With these groups and individuals we have an approach of unity-struggle-unity. We propose and work for a maximum of interaction with all of them: joint theoretical work, common study projects, M-L caucuses in relation to mass work, mutually organized forums and debates, periodic and consistent consultation. Our starting unity stems from our agreement on the lines of demarcation and the common commitment to party-building. Our struggle focuses primarily around party-building line. Our higher level of unity will be the product of the resolution of the present contradiction between the “fusion” line on party-building and the “rectification” line. Our goal is to win the bulk of the party-building movement – through debate, discussion, persuasion and ideological struggle – to a grasp of the line on “rectification and reestablishment” as the only Leninist approach to the task of party-building.
4. While unity is our starting point and a higher level of unity is our objective, the process by which this higher unity is forged is one of sharp ideological struggle. This struggle is necessary in order to settle the key question of party-building line in a principled communist manner and as the process through which all cadres and leaders are trained. In the course of this struggle there will undoubtedly be a realignment of forces as different issues get clarified and as Marxist-Leninists finally take their stand on the question. The basis for a leading idea-logical center will be forged during the course of this struggle.
5. These are principles which reflect the particularity of the preparty period. Ultimately, our movement’s goal is to transform each of these principles into its opposite by bringing the preparty period to an end and re-establishing the revolutionary party. Thus, where we see the necessity for a multiplicity of Marxist-Leninist organizational forms in the preparty period, we likewise see that all of these will be transcended and be replaced by a single organization – the party. Where today we see the necessity for leading individuals to take responsibility for building the movement and forging a leading center, after the party is formed then all individuals – cadres and leaders – become subordinate to this single organization. There will be similar transformations in the way in which communists will look at such questions as the primacy of theoretical work, fusion with the spontaneous working class movement, all-sided democratic-centralism and others.
6. We work to construct “party relations” in the preparty period among all conscious party-building forces. This means that we hold individuals responsible for their views irrespective of their organizational affiliations, and we hold ourselves accountable to all Marxist-Leninists for our views. It means that we have established a common set of criteria for summing up the work and line of every organization and individual in the party-building movement – namely the effect of that work and line on party-building. One way in which we train the movement to our view of the party and party-building is by the way in which we interact with other forces.
7. Our political goal for the rectification movement is the forging of a leading ideological political and organizational center. This center will be forged on the basis of the leadership provided by different individuals in the course of the rectification movement so that when it asserts itself as a material force in the party-building movement it will already have won the confidence of the Marxist-Leninists in the movement. The leading center will take responsibility for summing up the rectification movement and determining at what point sufficient gains in rectifying the general line have been made so as to set the necessary conditions for proceeding with the actual organizational task of party reestablishment.
8. A leading center can only be forged on the basis of a leading line. The line, in this sense, creates the center. To form a center in order to create a leading line puts organization rather than politics in command. Such an approach leads to lowest common denominator unity and federationist organizational forms. This “bottom-up” approach to party-building actually liquidates the Leninist conception of the party and will hold back the process.
Guided by these principles, we can develop appropriate relations with all forces in the party-building movement. Naturally, in the process of identifying the other forces in our tendency we will make certain political estimates about the lines they uphold or are influenced by. We do not accept self-definition as the proper communist means for making a political estimate of various forces.
The groups and individuals who make up our tendency fall into 6 different general categories although in particular cases there will be some overlap. These are:
– Those consciously upholding and carrying out the line on “rectification and reestablishment.”
– The Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center (OCIC).
– The individual local organizations who make up the OCIC.
– The Guardian.
– Various independent collectives, publications and study groups.
– Individual Marxist-Leninists in mass organizations or not affiliated with any particular organizational form.
In general, our objectives with all groups should be aimed at winning people to our party-building line and bringing them objectively into rectification work.
Now let us examine the 6 categories more concretely.
1. Conscious “rectification” forces. The NNMLC is, of course, part of this category. In addition, there are a number of individuals and organizations not members of the NNMLC who also hold to this line and who have initiated various forms of rectification work consistent with it. Among these are the initiators of the Marxist-Leninist Educational Project (MLEP), people playing leading roles in various national study projects, several individuals (both in the NNMLC and outside it) who have announced plans to launch a new theoretical journal, and a number of individuals and organizations who have taken up intervention in the class struggle from a rectification perspective. The NNMLC’s closest relations will be with these forces since we are in fundamental unity with them on the decisive question before our movement. It is with these groups and individuals that we can establish the closest “party relations” at this time.
2. The OCIC. The OCIC was founded in February, 1978, at the initiative of four local Marxist-Leninist organizations: The Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC); the Socialist Union of Baltimore (SUB); The Detroit Marxist-Leninist Organization (DMLO) and the Potomac Socialist Organization (PSO). El Comite, a predominantly Puerto Rican M-L formation, was previously associated with the others, but disagreed with the perspective of forming an ideological center at this time and in the way which was proposed. The leading force in this formation is the PWOC. In fact, its Political Committee constitutes the ideological center for the fusion line on party-building.
The local groups that comprise the OCIC represent, in general, a positive development for Marxism-Leninism and the U.S. revolution. They are self-consciously anti-revisionist, grasping the major ideological deviations of the CPUSA. They have grown out of and reflect a reaction to the dominance of left-opportunism among anti-revisionist forces. They are founded on the assumption of a commitment to reestablishing a U.S. communist party.
Many groups have taken on responsibility for the theoretical training of their members. Many have begun to acquire important experience in the Trade Union movement and in other spontaneous movements. There is a growing awareness of the inadequacies of local forms of organization. Most groups and the OCIC itself are already – in an objective sense – taking up rectification tasks.
The ideological struggle with these groups is, therefore, based on the assumption that these forces have embraced Marxism-Leninism not just in the general demarcations with revisionism and left-opportunism but in upholding the correct line on the decisive questions leading to these demarcations. It is for this reason that we engage in a particular kind of ideological struggle with such groups and the individuals in them – since these are the forces with whom we see the prospect of developing a higher level of unity as the rectification process moves forward.
The OCIC does not have a formally enunciated line on party-building, but as we have argued in detail elsewhere, the conception of the OCIC is objectively based on and guided by the “fusion” line. (See Rectification vs. Fusion, The Struggle Over Party Building Line for an elaboration on why we are not in the OCIC.)
In our view, the “fusion” line leads in the OCIC and is the theoretical underpinning for its formation. At the same time, there are constituent groups in the OCIC who either do not formally subscribe to the “fusion” line, one or two who are opposed to it, some that have not decided and a number – undoubtedly most – who do not see it as a condition for affiliation.
The contradictions that characterize the OCIC testify to the backward state of our movement. In the absence of a leading center with a national presence, many local groups have affiliated with the OCIC as a means of breaking with localism. This reflects a healthy tendency in our movement. But while such affiliation has strengthened connections between local groups, it has not produced any advanced experiences that could help to give political shape to our tendency. Nor do we think it can. For communist unity is always built around a leading line; and in the circumstances of the present period, that leading line must be a party-building line. To form an organization whose purpose it is to develop a leading line is completely backwards. Such an orientation leads to splits, unprincipled compromises and lowest common denominator unity. It fosters false egalitarian ideas among communists which do not take into account uneven development of individuals and organizations. In the present circumstances, it even masks the fact that the line already exists and has been the active ideological foundation for the formation of most of the OCIC groups. In the absence of a unified leading line, the organizational form must of necessity be federationist since a democratic centralist structure can only be built on the basis of unity around an advanced line.
The NNMLC has decided not to affiliate with the OCIC for two reasons: a) Because the organization is led by and its cadres are being trained under an incorrect line on party-building; and b) Because its conception of an ideological center flowing out of a federation of local organizations sows illusions in the communist movement on the correct path to party-building.
It is not simply that we disagree with the OCIC on a number of political questions. Disagreement is not, by itself, a reason for Marxist-Leninists to avoid organizational ties. But the OCIC is a plan for party-building which will not succeed and it would be irresponsible for us to participate in such a plan.
At the same time, we are very much in favor of joint work with the OCIC on theoretical questions, mass work, etc. We intend to propose joint projects to the OCIC and make efforts to coordinate our activities from the point of view of serving the interests of the movement as a whole. We believe that it is especially important to open up and pursue a wide-ranging debate within our trend on the question of party-building line. This debate, which should focus on the two main party-building conceptions thus far put forward – “fusion” and “rectification” – is more than a struggle over what course to pursue in building the party. It is, even more significantly, a struggle over what kind of party we hope to build.
3. The individual local organizations who make up the OCIC. Because the OCIC is a federation of local, autonomous Marxist-Leninist organizations, we differentiate between the whole and the part. In a formal sense, the OCIC itself is based on those minimal principles of unity to which its various constituent groups subscribe. This means that many groups in the OCIC have far more developed political positions on party-building questions and line questions than does the OCIC itself.
The leading force within the OCIC is PWOC. PWOC is a relatively mature organization. Its leading comrades have a substantial degree of theoretical and practical training. The organization publishes a monthly newspaper which, in certain respects, has become the national organ of the OCIC, particularly its “fusion” adherents.
While the steering committee of the OCIC – as well as the constituent groups – must ultimately take responsibility for the line being put forward in their name, there is no doubt that the moving force behind that line is the political commission of the PWOC. What gives PWOC its special character is that it is the one grouping within the OCIC which so far consistently takes responsibility for the movement as a whole, responding at a national level to the views put forward by other Marxist-Leninists and advancing plans that encompass the entire movement.
The ideological line of the PWOC is characterized by a tendency toward mechanical materialism and empiricism. The PWOC is, in great measure, responsible for reinforcing the anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual climate of the party-building movement. They take a basically pragmatic approach to theory, reducing it to the role of guide for the immediate struggles of the working class.
While we are continuing to make every effort at stressing the unity that exists between PWOC and the Club Network, in the present period our relationship is characterized more by struggle than by unity; in part, this is the result of the PWOC’s leading role in attacking the Club Network, even questioning its “right” to exist, stemming from sectarian considerations and an attempt to bolster the collapsing “fusion” line on party-building.
The other OCIC groups differ markedly from PWOC and, in many cases, from each other. Generally, they are much smaller. With few exceptions, they work almost exclusively on a local level, participating at times in national projects but rarely initiating them. Most groups adhere to the “fusion” line on party-building with varying degrees of self-consciousness. For many of these groups, “fusion” is the basis for their present activity in their locality but has not been thoroughly thought through as a strategy for party-building.
Recognizing that the various OCIC groups are distinct from each other – each with their particularities – the NNMLC favors bilateral relations with all OCIC groups. In those localities where there are both OCIC groups and a Club Network chapter, we propose ongoing and close liaison, communist caucuses in relation to mass work, joint forums and public meetings, coordination of activities and maximum interaction. Similarly, our National Executive Committee will seek to maintain direct communication with all OCIC groups, working with them individually as well as collectively in those tasks posed before the movement as a whole.
4. The Guardian. The history of the Club Network is inextricably bound up with the Guardian on several counts. First, of course, the Clubs are an outgrowth of the Guardian Clubs which were established in the fall of 1977. Second, leading members of the Club Network have had numerous close ties to the Guardian on various levels. Third, many Club members continue to be active in Guardian Bureaus.
This relationship speaks to the fact that the Guardian is an important medium of communication within our movement and that its general content is a weekly reminder of the national and international tasks of our movement. On certain key struggles within the communist movement in the past, the Guardian has played an extremely important role in clarifying issues and pioneering in putting forward a correct Marxist-Leninist orientation. This was particularly true in relation to the break with “left” opportunism around international line, where the stand and initiatives of the Guardian on the question of Angola were of an exemplary vanguard character.
The role of the Guardian in supplying the communist forces with their knowledge of world and national events is indispensable. This stems as much from the underdevelopment of our movement and its general lack of informational facilities as it does of the unique achievements of the Guardian.
But the Guardian is not primarily a newspaper of the communist movement. Its value is as a newspaper which is required reading on the left. In general, its information is reliable – except that it suffers from a tendency toward narrow-mindedness when it comes to writing about the communist movement. With some notable exceptions its news coverage is generally much more valuable than its analysis; the latter has certain marked trends towards reformism and superficiality. At the same time, its pages continue to be open to input from a variety of Marxist-Leninists, making the Guardian a place where frequently some of the best contemporary Marxist-Leninist analysis is to be found.
Because of our history, the leadership of the Club Network originally had hopes of developing a “special relationship” with the Guardian. This relationship would have involved close consultation and cooperation between the NNMLC and the Guardian staff and leadership. But on further reflection, we grasped that the political basis for a “special relationship” between the Club Network and the Guardian does not exist. Such a basis could only be on some measure of unity between the Clubs and the Guardian as Marxist-Leninists. But no such unity exists. The Guardian remains locked in its sectarian and opportunist anti-party line, prizing the independence of the newspaper above all else. Thus, we have decided to drop the perspective of trying to develop a “special relationship” with the Guardian. To the extent that the Clubs continue to maintain some ongoing responsibilities to the Guardian for circulation, fund-raising and news-gathering work, we will gradually turn these over completely to the Guardian Bureaus. This will be done in a planned and responsible fashion in close consultation with the Guardian leadership so as to minimize any dislocation of this work.
Members of the NNMLC will still be encouraged to continue to work in the Guardian Bureaus as individuals, but the Clubs themselves will assume no continuous responsibility for the work of the bureaus. We see work in the Guardian Bureaus as a useful form of rectification and mass propaganda work in the present period. But we will not undertake to guide the work of our members in relation to their work with the Guardian.
Beyond that, we hope to reestablish good relations on an anti-imperialist level with the Guardian. We continue to see it as a valuable newspaper in developing anti-imperialist consciousness and introducing some progressive forces to Marxist-Leninist ideas. We will cooperate with the Guardian – and urge others to do the same – insofar as it is practical in joint efforts in various forms of mass work. We urge all our members to read the Guardian and to render it financial support to the extent possible within the context of their other political commitments.
5. Various independent collectives, publications and study groups. Large numbers of Marxist-Leninists remain outside the two main centers of our movement – the OCIC and the Club Network. Many of them are organized in collectives of one form or another. Some are very much action-oriented; others emphasize study and theoretical work. A few of these have given serious thought to party-building questions, but by and large (with some exceptions), their concern with party-building is less advanced than is the case with the cadres and leaders in the OCIC and those who uphold the rectification line.
These comrades are a very valuable resource. At the moment, they are a reserve of the party-building movement. But the task at the present time is to transform them from a reserve into active participants. This can be done only on the basis of winning them to an advanced line on party-building, the line on “rectification and reestablishment.” (Some of these remain outside the party-building movement because they have not yet been able to settle accounts with “left” opportunism. A few still cling to some of the theoretical underpinnings of the “left” opportunist line. With these forces, it is necessary to intensify the ideological struggle around the lines of demarcation with both “left” opportunism and revisionism.)
In every locality, the Club Network should identify all such forces and establish contact with them with a view to maintaining ongoing liaison. We hope to bring these groups into joint study projects, communist caucuses and the ideological struggles before the communist movement. Our main objective is not to get such groups to become Clubs in our network; rather in an immediate sense, it is to get them to take up questions of party-building line and to confront the full ideological, political and organizational ramifications of the present lines before the movement.
6. Individual Marxist-Leninists in mass organizations or not affiliated with any particular organizational form. Given the particular history of our movement, it is not surprising that we find that there are significant numbers of Marxist-Leninists who fit into this category. These comrades also represent an important reserve of the party-building movement.
Our strategic aim with these comrades is to get them to take up communist work in the present period. This means, of course, understanding the significance of the lines of demarcation with revisionism and “left” opportunism and becoming familiar with the important questions currently before the communist movement.
Some of these comrades are potential recruits for the Club Network while others can best be involved in party-building work in other organizations. We should set up discussions and forums and special workshops with such comrades to explore both party-building questions and current political questions from a communist perspective, and to discuss in common how every comrade can best take up communist work.
In summary, our general conception of the NNMLC’s relations with other forces in our trend is that the principal point of unity and of struggle is around party-building line. Our goal is to win the entire communist movement to taking up the tasks of a rectification movement and, wherever possible, win the movement to do so in a conscious fashion.
Working to build up “party relations” between all communists in our movement in the present period, we see the political relationship between individual Marxist-Leninists as having a greater ultimate significance than organization-to-organization relations.
With relation to other communist forces, we emphasize our unity when taking up the issues posed by the mass movements, and the struggles against revisionism and “left” opportunism. We emphasize ideological struggle when taking up the questions having to do with party-building line and rectification work in general.
Overall, our aim is to bring as many of the present communist cadre as possible into the re-established party. This can only be done is the cadre in our movement are trained under a correct party-building line. It is in this sense that the struggle over party-building line will determine the future ideological, political and organizational shape of the communist movement.