Written: n.d.
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Comrades who went to the Minorities Conference learned from the experience. The presentations and discussions were stimulating and it was an opportunity to share experiences with revolutionaries from many parts of the country. So at an individual level, it probably played a positive role in each person’s development as a revolutionary.
However, the conference did not take place in a vacuum, but rather in the context of the party-building movement – a movement in which there is at present a sharp two line struggle. So it is not enough to speak of the conference in terms of what we as individuals may have gained from it. The conference must be evaluated in terms of what role it played in pushing the party-building movement forward.
It is more in this context that I will present my views of the conference. It will be divided into three parts: (1) the process leading up to the conference (in particular, the process of choosing participants), (2) the content of the conference, (3) the resolutions.
The struggle over the selection process as well as the character of the conference which took place between comrades who uphold the Rectification view and the planning committee was not carried out in a principled manner, and both sides bear responsibility for this. This is not a place to critique what some of the Rectification comrades may have said or done though that leaves much to be desired. The planning committee was the final voice on the conference so it bears greater responsibility on the outcome of the handling and mishandling of this situation.
There was a lack of consistency in the selection process. On the one hand it is argued that invitees were selected based on the criteria of general unity with the 18 points of the OCIC (at least no consolidated disunity). On this basis it was stated that the comrades from KDP and El Comite would not be able to participate as invitees but would be able to be observers. To say no consolidated disunity with the 18 points means more than just the content of the 18 points but also the relationship of the 18 points to the OCIC. El Comite having helped frame the 18 points would have no difficulty with their content but would disagree with their usage as part of the OCIC process. However, there were a small number of people who were invited that disagreed with the OCIC process.
Further exacerbating this situation was the fact that while most participants were chosen as individuals, organizations were chosen as well. Perhaps this is a misunderstanding on my part, but it was my impression that Comexas and El Comite could choose who would come to the conference from their organizations. The inconsistency of this position becomes apparent in the case of the comrades from KDP. Only Bruce was allowed to come as an observer; when Melinda asked if she could come, she was refused because of her unprincipled behavior. This general lack of consistency in selection has contributed to the shroud of confusion and animosity that has grown around the conference.
None of us are perfect Marxist-Leninists; we make errors of many kinds including sectarian ones at times. Unless the Planning Committee is ready to condemn the Rectification comrades as consolidated unprincipled opportunists, it is an error not to work together on the basis of the argument that they lack principle. As Marxist-Leninists who understand the importance of unity, we try to work together at every feasible opportunity. When we do not work together, it should be because of political differences, not because of judgments on their integrity. In inviting some comrades from the rectification view, the planning committee stated in deeds, though not in words, that differences of opinion on the OCIC was not the necessary line of demarcation for invitation to the conference. In fact, the planning committee is not consistent with the OCIC view that sufficient differences do not exist between the Rectification comrades and the OCIC which would bar them from working together.
There were three other problems in the process that I will mention briefly; l) lack of clarity on the purposes of the conference, 2) relationship between the planning committee and the OCIC, 3) lack of political preparation.
Lack of clarity on purposes. This involved more than comrades who were outside the conference process, but among us who were invited and went to the conference. The conference was much more intended to recruit minorities into the OCIC than the impression that was given to us when we were first invited. Questions around the purposes along with errors made in the selection process were enough for some comrades who were invited to refuse their invitations.
Relationship between planning committee and the OCIC. While this was a point of controversy for some, it was not an issue for me. I took (and still do take) the planning committee on their word that while the conference was initiated by the OCIC, that the planning committee was autonomous from the OCIC. In hindsight, given the general unity that the planning committee had with the OCIC, it would probably have been better if there were more a relationship that existed between the OCIC and the planning committee. More guidance may have helped prevent some of the errors that were made. The relationship as it stands has an opportunistic aspect in that the OCIC benefits from the recruiting successes of the conference without having to be held accountable for the errors.
Lack of political preparation. I would agree with the criticism that we (the participants from the Bay Area) should have taken more responsibility for our preparation though I do think that the primary responsibility lay with the planning committee. While this had a significant effect on lowering the level of discussion that could be had at the conference, this error does not need to be stressed here. Planning committee members have already made self-criticism on this point. The problem seems primarily one of inexperience in putting on a national conference and not a problem because of lack of understanding or belittlement of the Importance of political preparation. So while the lack of preparation had serious consequences, comparatively it does not seem to be that difficult a problem to resolve.
The major problem with the actual content of the conference was the lack of theoretical rigor. The conference correctly recognized that the theoretical struggle was primary at this time. While the stress on the importance of theoretical work was a positive aspect of the conference, it was partially offset by the sloppiness in how to approach the theoretical work. There are three examples of theoretical sloppiness that stand out in my mind: (1) the use of the term “national minority,” (2) the distortion and oversimplification of ultra-leftism, (3) the theoretical formulation of “sexism as the principal contradiction among and between minority Marxist-Leninists.”
The concept of a Black nation has been a point of controversy in the Communist movement from the time it was first formulated. The use of the term “national minority” in reference to Black people implicitly takes a stand on the Black national question on the side that a Black nation once existed from which Blacks in the US are derived.
Planning committee members have said that the conference takes no position on the question of whether a Black nation ever existed. Why then is the term “national minority” used? Why isn’t minority or Third World people used or some other term which does not have the scientific connotation that “national minority” has? When we throw terms around so loosely, they lose their meaning. Marxism-Leninism becomes less a science and more just rhetoric.
I agree with the Planning Committee and the OCIC of the importance of the struggle against ultra-leftism. We need to make a thorough break with ultra-leftism, and root out aspects of ultra-leftism that remain within us. However, the characterization of ultra-leftism that was given at the conference was woefully inadequate. It is not sufficient to say that we are just beginning to make the theoretical break with ultra-leftism, so that is why the characterization may be weak. For the characterization of ultra-leftism was worse than just being at a low level. By emphasizing the worst aspects of some of the lines of the ultra-lefts – opposition to busing, the ERA, flunkeyism to China on international line – the impression is given that ultra-leftism is not such a dangerous current in the Communist movement, because it is so obvious that they are wrong.
Many if not most ultra-left groups supported busing and the ERA. Almost all supported the struggle to overturn the Bakke decision, a reform struggle. In relation to the anti-racist struggle, the United League is the most notable recent example of a militant progressive movement with a significant mass character, and it is the ultra-left forces who have been able to form the best ties with this group. The ultra-lefts and the non-ultra-lefts do have differences over how to take up the reform struggles (as well as all the other areas that are mentioned in the draft resolutions: Party building, democratic rights struggles, and international question), but the differences are not as they are characterized in the speech and the resolution. The errors of ultra-leftism and their sources are areas which obviously need to be studied deeply and the characterizations given at the conference (that they “belittle the significance of the struggle for reforms...” or that they view the struggle for democratic rights as “irrelevant to the working class”) mislead us in this immense theoretical task. If we take the characterizations as valid, we disarm ourselves in the struggle against ultra-leftism.
The error was not in taking up the question of sexism among and between minority Marxist-Leninists at the conference. It is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and the struggle against sexism is a struggle that we must all take up. But the conference did not take up the question of sexism in this way. It was put forward that we take up the struggle against sexism because it was the principal contradiction among and between minority Marxist-Leninists.
This formulation takes it out of the realm of one problem out of many, into a scientific assessment that this was the principal contradiction. Now that has large implications for our future work. If we misdefine the principal contradiction, we mis-define our principal task. So we must rigorously use the scientific method in arriving at the principal contradiction. That meand we must look at minority involvement in the communist movement in a historical materialist context, and see the unfolding of contradictions using Marxist analytic tools. The speech puts the question in a historical context which is good. But the speech does not explain how, why, or when sexism became the principal contradiction among and between minority Marxist-Leninists. In not elaborating on these points, the statement becomes more an assertion than a theoretical formulation. My impression is that this has not been done because it cannot be done, that rigorous analysis would show the falsity of this assertion.
In developing an understanding of the contradictions which keep minorities outside of the communist movement, many things have to be analyzed. Among them are:
1. the historical relationship between minorities and Communists.
2. this relationship in the new communist movement.
A. the role of the Black liberation in particular, as well as other Third World people’s movements in the rebirth of the communist movement.
B. the role that minority communist organizations played in the development of the new communist movement.
3. the split in the communist movement over Angola and the alignment of most minority Marxist-Leninist organizations and individuals with the ultra-left camp.
I have not studied these questions carefully, but I do know enough about the new communist movement to know that minorities played leading and integral roles in its development. So the problem of minority participation in the communist movement was not particularly severe. If anything, there was a disproportionate number of minorities involved compared with whites. And it is understandable why this would be so considering the objective conditions which minorities have been forced to live under, the role of the Civil Rights and Third World people’s movements in the politicization of many Third World people, and the positive examples of Third World socialist countries and national liberation movements in other Third World countries. It is not until the split in the anti-revisionist communist movement, that this problem really surfaces. it seems to me that any theoretical formulation on the principal contradiction among and between minority Marxist-Leninists would have to take this recent history into consideration. And I believe that the sexism formulation is inadequate to the task.
I regret not being able to participate in the discussion on the resolutions or to vote on them. It was an error on my part to schedule a meeting on the same afternoon in another city. It was based on a misassessment of the time factor involved in going to the airport and a misassessment of when the conference would actually reconvene in the Sunday morning session. But more importantly it was a misassessment of the significance of the resolutions to the party-building movement. I did not adequately see that the resolutions were being put forward for the entire party-building movement to take up, and the impact such resolutions could have.
Two errors I see in the draft resolutions have been discussed already under the content section and will not need further discussion here: (1) distortion of ultra-leftism, (2) the formulation of sexism as the principal contradiction. The main point I would like to stress here is the sectarianism that is implicitly in the party-building resolution. The resolution suggests that we take up the study of the 18 points in the local centers of the OCIC. In a narrow sense, the wording of the proposal is such that it does not preclude other theoretical work outside of the OCIC from being important. (It leaves open the question of how to view the rectification line the Club Network) But what does this proposal do in the context of the present state of the party-building movement where sharp differences exist?
If the resolution were such that all the party building forces were agreed that the OCIC and the 18 points were the legitimate starting points for our theoretical work, then there would not be much controversy here. But the Rectification comrades as well as El Comite disagree.
In effect, the resolution pushes comrades who participated in the conference to unite around the initiative of the OCIC, without an understanding of the party-building efforts that are going on throughout the entire tendency, and without an understanding of the criticisms that have been raised against the OCIC process by other comrades in our same tendency. Unity of this sort is a shallow unity. It is in essence an unprincipled unity for it puts the interests of the OCIC above the interests of the movement as a whole.
It is to the credit of the Planning Committee members that they took the initiative in developing a national conference that dealt with the particularities of minority Marxist-Leninists. It is an important topic. There were serious errors made in the course of attempting this difficult task. While my assessment is that overall the conference had a negative impact on the party-building movement, I do not believe as some comrades have suggested that the errors of sectarianism and theoretical sloppiness flow from the OCIC perspective and/or fusion line on party-building. I believe that they are errors that can be corrected. Indeed they are errors that must be corrected if we are to move the revolutionary process forward. If we can accurately sum up our errors here, it may be that we have gone one step back in order to go two steps forward.
In unity and struggle,
Nobuo N.