(reprinted from the Guardian, Fan the Flames, 24 and 31 January 1979, 7 February 1979)
Timing is the essence of scientific revolutionary politics.
The break between Utopian and scientific socialism comes down, in a certain sense, to a matter of timing. For instance, anarchists want to move directly from capitalism into communism. Any discussion of intermediate stages or forms of social transition merely serves to infuriate them into that moral outrage which is so frequently the forerunner to political impotence.
But Marxists understand that social development cannot be brought about merely by the wishes and visions of revolutionaries. It must have a material foundation both in the level of development of society’s productive forces and in the consciousness of the masses. In fact, while the consciousness of the masses can take revolutionary leaps forward from time to time, in the long run such consciousness is itself defined by the level of development of the productive forces.
Therefore, those who pose before the working class the tasks of communism in the period when historical necessity has brought forward the tasks of socialism–or even the transition to socialism–can never hope to solve the real problems of their time.
This much is virtually an A-B-C of dialectical materialism. Unfortunately, our very young and quite inexperienced party-building movement has not yet fully learned how to apply this fundamental materialist concept to its tasks.
The problem manifests itself over and over again in the inability of organizations and leading comrades to draw proper lines of distinction between the preparty period and the period after the party is formed. The result is a hopeless confusion. Some attempt to impose political tasks and forms of organization appropriate to the work of the party on to the preparty period. Others develop a concept of the party which, in essence, sees merely a quantitative–rather than qualitative change–in the character of all communist work after the formation of the party.
What are the principal distinguishing characteristics of the two periods? Let me suggest four.
1. Unity of Marxist-Leninists. In the preparty period, the communist movement is characterized by a multiplicity of communist organizations, most of them arising more or less spontaneously out of differing local and regional conditions. Many Marxist-Leninists of the oppressed nationalities tend for a period to organize along separate national lines–more as a result, perhaps, of the tendency to unite with those who have shared a common experience and are brought to the struggle out of a common identity than out of a principle that separate national forms are appropriate to communist organization in the U.S. Under certain circumstances, consolidated preparty organizations based on competing developed political programs may appear. Many individual Marxist-Leninists are not in communist organizations at all but are to be found in mass organizations, on the staffs of movement newspapers and journals or in various specialized theoretical and political undertakings. The links between Marxist-Leninists outside their own immediate circles are tenuous.
After the founding of the party, however, there is only one communist organization. Not only do all the preparty forms disappear, they must be thoroughly demolished so that any tendency toward cronyism or special relationships flowing out of the associations developed in the preparty period can be prevented from growing.
A party spirit replaces the inevitable tendency toward small-circle mentality and narrow organizational loyalties which develop in the preparty period. All Marxist-Leninists are in the same organization and joining the party becomes the defining act by which the party determines who is practicing Marxism-Leninism and who is not. The links between Marxist-Leninists deepen and are constantly reinforced by common practice, party discipline, collectively formulated and grasped political line and the whole network of organization which builds a common party line.
2. General line. The preparty period is characterized by the absence of a single general line for the communist movement. This is a reflection of the fact that outstanding theoretical and political questions, essential to the formulation of a general line, have not yet been settled. This may be due to many things: sharp political differences among Marxist-Leninists; uneven development of cadre and leadership; inability to develop a common party-building strategy that would make possible the collective tackling of outstanding line questions; underestimation of the importance of developing the general line as the principal precondition for forging communist unity; the failure to distinguish between principal and secondary questions in development of the general line.
All of these and others are to one degree or another, readily identifiable causes of our movement’s inability thus far to develop its general line. (As I have pointed out previously, a more precise way of looking at this question is to see it in terms of the rectification of the general line of the U.S. communist movement since we are building upon the history of the various 2-line struggles between Marxism-Leninism and a variety of Utopian, anarchist, revisionist and Trotskyist departures from it.)
The absence of a general line for the communist movement in the preparty period makes it impossible for communists to engage in the spontaneous movements of the masses from a common theoretical and strategic perspective, not just around revolutionary questions but even around reform questions. In the absence of a leading line, all lines appear to have equal legitimacy–especially since none have really yet been verified by practice. As a result, the communists may well find themselves working at cross-purposes with each other around various issues and in various struggles. At best, they will be able to develop unity in practice around only a very limited set of political perspectives which inevitably will define their unity in terms of the reform struggles of the moment rather than the strategic revolutionary concepts which are the underlying definition of communist work.
By contrast, the party has a general line. Implicitly or explicitly, the general line registers the party’s affirmation, modification or rejection of the various fundamental principles of Marxist-Leninist theory which have grown out of the history of the international communist movement. The general line also puts forward a broad, all-encompassing view of the tasks of the communist movement in the U.S. on the basis of a scientific assessment of all the principal objective factors both nationally and internationally which serve to define the interests and stands of all the contending social classes. The general line projects a broad strategic view of the U.S. revolution and identifies the key obstacles to be overcome, alliances to be forged and tasks to be undertaken in order to translate that strategy into a living reality. The general line lays the foundation on which the party’s immediate program can be developed. The general line is the political foundation on which the party is built after it has been formed. The general line is what distinguishes the party from all other organizations.
3. Communist leadership. In the preparty period, the leadership of our movement has not yet been fully identified. Individuals representing the views of one or another small grouping in the movement may become prominent by virtue of their organizational positions rather than as the result of the contributions they may make to solving the principal tasks before the party-building movement as a whole. Organizations and individuals may acquire “followings” based on little more than the hunger for communist leadership in the movement. The possibilities for testing the various leading lines advanced are limited thus tending to give equal standing to all views. Tendencies toward commandism on the one hand and ultra-democracy on the other (and one as the reaction to the other) crop us again and again as the result of the inherited bourgeois ideological baggage brought to the movement and the vacuum in leadership.
After the party is formed, the movement has a single unified leadership based on the general political line of the party. In fact, the party becomes an organization of leaders, established on the principles of democratic centralism, capable of further developing and implementing the general line among the masses. If, in the preparty period, leadership is identified on the basis of its ability to solve party-building questions, afterward leadership is identified on the basis of its ability to solve the questions of how the general line becomes a material force as it is taken up by the masses.
4. Principal task. In the preparty period, the principal task before Marxist-Leninists is the formation of the party. (In our particular circumstances, it becomes more precise to define that task as the rectification of the general line of the U.S. communist movement and the reestablishment of its party.) There are, of course, other tasks in this period, but they are all subordinate.
After the party is founded, the principal task before Marxist-Leninists is the fusion of communism (the party’s general line) with the spontaneous movement of the working class and oppressed nationalities against monopoly capital. Obviously this is not the only task of the period. In fact, party-building continues to be a main task even after the party is formed. But fusion–a term with a complex of political significances – comes to the fore.
If we blur the lines of distinction between these two periods in the party’s history, our efforts at party-building will founder on imprecision, subjectivity and misdirected energy. Crucial ideological struggles may be ignored and unnecessary organizational splits occur. The way is open for both sectarianism and unprincipled alliances. Most important of all, the cadre are improperly trained and it becomes impossible to identify the movement’s genuine leadership.
* * *
Last week we discussed the necessity to understand the distinction between the preparty period and the period after the party is formed. In doing so, four major questions were addressed: Marxist-Leninist unity, general line, communist leadership and principal task. The objectively different character of each of these questions in the two periods was described.
Let us now take up these questions and explore the theoretical, political, practical and organizational consequences flowing from them in the preparty period. For reasons that will become clear, I propose to discuss these in reverse order from the way in which they are listed.
Principal task. For the past several years it has been a commonplace to define this as “building a new communist party.” Experience and differing views on the content of the question have shown, however, that this is an inadequate formulation. In fact, the principal theoretical debates in the party-building movement in the recent period have taken place around how this formulation can be made more precise.
Some argue that fusion with the working class is the key link in party-building; others that theoretical work leading to the rectification of the general line of the U.S. communist movement is primary. Some believe that uniting Marxist-Leninists around political line is the way to proceed. There is also the all-important question of who should be considered relevant to the party-building process, particularly in terms of drawing firm lines of demarcation over decisive political stands.
Clearly the time has come for a more refined formulation of the principal task before Marxist-Leninists in this period. Answering this question properly is both a theoretical and practical matter. It is important to see it in both dimensions. If we try to answer it theoretically without taking into account the actual condition of the movement, we stand little chance of success no matter how “correct” our position might seem to be. By the same token, if we try to answer it principally in practical terms–who can we unite, how quickly can we do it, what set of principles can we devise that will bring Marxist-Leninists together in various organizational forms, etc. – we will lay the foundation for only superficial or even unprincipled organizational unity.
Like all communist questions, defining the principal task in a specific fashion will not be determined by majority vote. Winning adherents to one or another formulation is based on demonstrating in life the theoretical and practical soundness of each view.
The pressing need of the moment, therefore, is for every major force in the party-building movement to put forward its strategic conception of party-building and that an attempt be made through the process of unity-struggle-unity to see if our movement can arrive at a common party-building perspective. Surely no one wants to argue that among the existing forces a thoroughly developed party-building strategy has already been projected.
Communist leadership. Undoubtedly it is part of our legacy from the period when the semi-anarchist tendencies of the new left played a leading role in the mass movement that today’s generation of Marxist-Leninists still tends to approach the question of communist leadership with varying degrees of ultra-democratic prejudices. Charges of elitism continue to be heard when the role of communist leadership is asserted or when the primacy of theoretical work in the present period is emphasized.
There is no guarantee of wisdom in a majority. In communist work, higher bodies are specifically given authority over lower bodies on the principle that it is the responsibility of leadership to lead and not simply accommodate itself to the prevailing level of consciousness among the cadre. The question is not a new one.
“It is far more difficult to wipe out a dozen wise men than a hundred fools,” wrote Lenin (“What Is To Be Done?”) “And this position I shall defend no matter how much you instigate the crowd against me for my ’anti-democratic’ views, etc. And by ’wise men’ in connection with organizations I mean professional revolutionaries, irrespective of whether they are trained from among students or workingmen.”
The great Italian Marxist-Leninist, Antonio Gramsci, puts it this way: “In reality it is easier to form an army than to form captains....A constituted army is destroyed if the captains come to be absent while the existence of a group of captains who are settled among themselves, in accord, reunited by common aims, will not be long in forming an army even where nothing exists.”
Unfortunately, many who correctly see the party’s vanguard role in relation to the masses fail to connect this up with the internal life of the party itself and, in our case, to the tasks of the preparty period. What is more typical of anticommunism than the often-heard charge: “Who appointed you the vanguard of the working class?” And yet, within our own movement, is not this same idea put forward again and again?
Are we not told that unless we effect a significant measure of fusion between “communism” and the working-class movement in the preparty period, we will be nothing but a “self-proclaimed vanguard?” And do not other equally backward forces in our movement smile knowingly at this inane charge, their anti-theoretical prejudices reinforced by kow-towing before the icon of immediate and narrow practical experience?
Is it not still considered a telling rejoinder in our movement to make the charge that one or another individual is a “self-appointed leader”–as though the assertion of leadership must be masked by the guise of reluctance or the legitimacy of elections? Is this a communist approach to the question of leadership–or a bourgeois approach?
Our concern should not be that some individuals are stepping forward to offer leadership on theoretical questions, in party-building questions or on other concerns of our movement. Rather we should be concerned with the quality (and here I mean Marxist-Leninist quality) of that leadership and the fact that so few in our movement have, as yet, taken up the responsibility of leadership.
Does anyone think that we will solve the problems of rectifying the general line of our movement, building Marxist-Leninist unity and reestablishing the party without bold, effective leadership which will dare to challenge the backwardness that prevails in our ranks? Will that leadership be identified simply by amassing all those who, for whatever reasons, have been elected by different small groups to represent them in their dealings with each other? Will we know our leadership by virtue of the positions they hold?
The leadership of the communist movement will be forged and identified in the course of solving the principal problems preventing the movement from going forward. And in this preparty period, that leadership can be expected to emerge from a variety of organizations and from different parts of the country. One test for this emerging leadership will be whether or not it is able to link up and build a leading ideological (and ultimately organizational) center for the party-building movement. Such a center cannot be an administrative form nor simply be composed of delegates from a host of local organizations. It becomes a leading center not because it can organize or systematize discussion but because it leads politically in offering answers to the outstanding questions before the movement.
General line. What does it take to develop a general line for the communist movement in the preparty period? First, it requires recognition of the fact that the development of the general line is the concrete political task before us. The struggle for that line makes up the content of our theoretical tasks during this period. It is necessary, therefore, to identify the principal outstanding questions whose resolution is needed to unite Marxist-Leninists and to put forward a program that the party will attempt to put into practice.
Last week I described in broad terms the principal political characteristics of the party’s general line. Taken as a whole, it may have seemed like a task beyond the theoretical and practical capacities of the present movement. To a certain extent it is. But as materialists, we must recognize that the process of forging the general line does not require that the actual organizational reestablishment of the party be put on hold until every last question has been settled.
Actually, this never happens. The general line is never complete because historical conditions change, new lessons are learned as the result of social practice and new theoretical break-throughs are made.
The question that will ultimately be on the agenda of the party-building forces, rather, is when has the process of rectifying the general line of the communist movement arrived at that point when it is possible to form the party? Unfortunately, there is no ready-made answer.
A determination will have to made at a certain point that sufficient political and theoretical clarity has been achieved so that the Marxist-Leninists can be united on a firm basis that will inspire a voluntary collective discipline. It is this unity that enables Communists to proceed to a qualitatively higher form of organization that can propel the communist movement forward through all the historical stages ultimately leading to the seizure of state power.
Making this decision involves assessing a number of factors including the conditions of the class struggle, the relationship of the Marxist-Leninist forces to all other left tendencies, the theoretical and political level of the leading Marxist-Leninist forces, how far qualitatively and quantitatively the process of uniting Marxist-Leninists has already developed, the relationship of communist forces to the masses, the measure to which the party-building movement has been able to unite communists of different nationalities and create multinational unity and trust, and some other questions as well.
* * *
This series of articles has concentrated on the necessity for Marxist-Leninists to understand the character of a preparty period as distinct from that of a period in which the party has come into being.
While many of the distinctions would seem to be obvious, the actual practice of the party-building movement suggests a singular lack of clarity on this point.
First, there are those who view the tasks of the preparty period as more or less the same as those of the period after the party is formed–except perhaps in microcosm. With this approach, organizational structures are devised suitable to an all-sided political organization of thousands with a consolidated general line – although there may only be a dozen members in a group with only a handful of unity principles with all that implies in terms of the ability to put a line into practice; grand schemes for communist intervention in the class struggle or mass spontaneous movements are developed–although a lack of cadre and minimal political program make it virtually impossible to develop this work in an all-sided way; secondary political differences between Marxist-Leninist groups, many of them reflective of the uneven development of the movement, are all too frequently elevated to a point of contentiousness characteristic of struggle between different consolidated tendencies–although in many cases the issues involved have barely been identified and hardly struggled over.
The tragedy of this approach, and many concrete examples could be given, is that it testifies to the good intentions of many Marxist-Leninists while simultaneously demonstrating that they have not yet applied the rigors of scientific methodology to their most important task of the moment, party-building.
On the other hand, there are those whose political practice suggests that they see the preparty period, with all its small and separate little grouplets, lasting forever. Distrustful of all but themselves, they perpetuate localism and a circle mentality in the movement and hold back the development of a party spirit. They cling tenaciously to the sanctity of their respective groups and raise independence to the level of a principle in itself. Their hesitant–sometimes reluctant–steps toward associating with the rest of the movement are characterized either by an ultra-democratic concern with the political sentiments of each small constituency or by a certain standoffish or mistrustful attitude toward the other party-building forces.
Understanding the distinct character of the preparty period, therefore, is essential if we are to overcome these various roadblocks to our common goal.
Originally, four points where the distinct character of the preparty period stands out were cited: Marxist-Leninist unity, general line of the communist movement, role of communist leadership and principal task of the period. Last week, the latter three were discussed at some length. Now let us discuss how the task of forging unity among Marxist-Leninists is to be accomplished in the preparty period.
The first and most obvious problem is determining who the Marxist-Leninists actually are. Clearly self-designation will not do. Aside from the obvious fact that political charlatans will not hesitate to use any formal appellation that suits their purposes, communists know that unity cannot simply be proclaimed on the basis of a common theoretical legacy, good intentions or even formal subscription to a set of political principles.
Lines of demarcation with the principal deviations from Marxism-Leninism both historically and in the current period are, therefore, essential. Here we must recognize the correct political leadership exercised by the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC) which was the first, to my knowledge, to project before the movement as a whole the coming into being of an “antirevisionist, anti-dogmatist trend.” That this political summary corresponded to reality was quickly demonstrated with the emergence of a large number of groupings who self-consciously saw themselves within this “trend.”
Unfortunately, the PWOC has maintained a static view of this political reality. The break with dogmatism and ultra-“leftism” was precipitated primarily over international line, more particularly whether the U.S. communist movement would adopt for itself the increasingly class-collaborationist international line of the Chinese Communist Party. But we must acknowledge a wide range of differences among those who drew this line of demarcation with dogmatism. This is characteristic of all 2-line struggles, for in the unity developed in opposition to an incorrect line inevitably rests the seeds for the future ideological struggles of the movement–some of which will themselves become intense 2-line struggles in time.
Theoretically speaking, this view of 2-line struggle expresses the principle of the universality of contradiction. But in a practical sense, we can recognize that so long as a “trend” is defined by its opposition to an incorrect line, different forces will join that opposition for significantly different reasons. In the present instance, we would be foolish not to recognize that opposition to the dogmatists gave new legitimacy to ultra-democratic (anti-centralist) tendencies in the movement, latent revisionist tendencies (“compared to China, the Soviet Union looks pretty good”) and anti-theoretical tendencies. In addition, opportunists of many varieties are well known for climbing on political bandwagons.
For these reasons, the process of summing up the history of the communist movement and developing a common critique of both revisionism (in practice as well as theory) and dogmatism is an essential task in forging Marxist-Leninist unity, it is this very process which will identify different political views in our midst.
There should be nothing frightening at the prospect of bringing out these differences unless one sets out with the view that all the present summaries on this matter are complete and unchangeable (including one’s own) and bring out the differences will only divide our ranks. But if this task–like all the other theoretical tasks before the movement–is approached with a degree of openness and in a genuine party spirit of unity-struggle-unity, then there is nothing to fear from a frank and thorough exploration of our differences.
It seems clear already, in fact, that many comrades in the movement will welcome such a discussion.
By the same token, it is clear that general agreement on the lines of demarcation with revisionism and dogmatism, while essential, is hardly sufficient for the development of a common party-building line for the movement. Different lines on this question must be put forward, explored and debated in our movement.
Again we will find, undoubtedly, that the great majority of comrades do not yet have a thorough and consolidated view on this question and that they are eagerly awaiting the articulation of various views and the debate that will follow.
To speak of uniting Marxist-Leninists in the absence of the resolution of such questions is to approach the question of unity as though it were devoid of content.
How, then, will Marxist-Leninist unity be forged in the present period? First one must emphasize that contrary to popular prejudice in our movement–and at the risk of incurring yet one more accusation of elitism–communist unity is not built from below. The Leninist principle that we must “lead with our most advanced experiences’’ and “build from the center out” is not only applicable to the preparty period, it is the key to charting the road ahead.
To proceed from “below” is to permit the movement to be defined by its most undeveloped forces. Those who would exalt the backwardness of our cadre by catering to their ultra-democratic and anti-theoretical prejudices do neither the movement nor the cadre a good turn.
Cadre of a genuinely revolutionary mold will not want their lack of theoretical training romanticized by the inane “workerism” which so frequently is offered as a counterweight to attempts to place our theoretical tasks at the center of our concerns. Instead of being told that they represent the fount of wisdom, the rank-and-file cadre of our movement and the advanced elements of the working class and oppressed nationalities with whom we have established close ties should be challenged to take up the study of theory and to recognize it as the emancipatory tool it is.
Instead of promoting both subtle and explicit anti-leadership prejudices among these cadre, those who would be leaders of our movement must educate one and all to the necessity for leading Marxist-Leninists to step forward–and lead! Instead of viewing the assertion of leadership with suspicion, even hostility, our movement must welcome the assertion of leadership and judge it on the basis of the quality of that leadership in solving the key theoretical, political and practical problems holding back the forging of communist unity and the building of the party.
Those who genuinely seek the unity of Marxist-Leninists will not be bound by the fetishes of present organizational forms. It is the particular responsibility of the developing leadership of our movement–a leadership which emerges in a thousand different ways and not simply by virtue of elections of official titles–to forge those ties between them that will help bring into being the foundations for a leading center for our movement.
Our enemies feel that they can diminish our movement by charging that every individual who steps forward to give such leadership has visions of becoming a reincarnated Lenin. And there are indeed those who seem to crave the prestige of a Lenin simply by virtue of a title and not through the process of earning it. But why shouldn’t a communist in the U.S. strive to be a Lenin? Couldn’t our movement use one? Or several?
The great virtue of Lenin was that he never lost sight of the ultimate goal, revolution, while approaching every question leading up to it–from organization of the party to new theoretical assessments of the times–with breadth of vision, a scientific spirit and an unswerving class stand.
When our movement demands of its leadership that it take up the tasks of party-building in a similar spirit–and when that leadership demands the same of itself–we will be well on the way to forging that leading ideological center which can truly unite Marxist-Leninists at every level.