Two major forces led the repudiation of left opportunism. One was the Guardian newspaper, which played the most visible and influential public role in defending the Angolan revolution, supporting the MPLA, and putting forward the correct line that US imperialism is the main enemy of the peoples of the world. The other was the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC), which initiated the formulation of an “anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend.” Though we hold, for reasons set forth in the last section, that “anti-revisionist anti-left opportunist” would be a more accurate characterization, this initial formulation was major step forward for the communist movement. PWOC also took a major organizational initiative, leading in the formation of the Committee of Five and later, in February 1978, in the formation of the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center (OC, or OC-IC). PWOC correctly argued that the central task of US Marxist-Leninists in this period was party building.
It is the party building line of the PWOC that is the leading line of the OC. The political foundation of the OC, the basis of its existence as a formation whose central task is party building, is its leading line on party building–the perspective of the PWOC.
This remains the case despite the fact that not all groups and individuals who are members of the OC agree with PWOC’s party building views.
The leading line of the OC has come to known as the “fusion line.” It has been put forward in the phrase that “fusion is the essence of party building” (fusion being that merging of communism with the spontaneous movement so that Marxism-Leninism becomes the outlook of a substantial portion of the working class). In its initial formulation, the “fusion” line held that the achievement of a certain measure of fusion, that is a “communist current in the working class” was a necessary precondition for forging a party. In more recent formulations, it has argued that political line and theoretical work are the “principal aspects of fusion,” and that an embryonic vanguard character must be shown by the communists before a party can be forged. It is still argued that “fusion is the essence of party building.”
The fusion line on party building is seriously flawed ideologically, politically, and organizationally. It bears in many respects remarkable similarity to the economist line criticized by Lenin is What Is To Be Done, the work that lays the basic foundations for a Marxist-Leninist party.
In the ideological field, the fusion line is characterized by the serious downplaying of the importance of the conscious element, the subjective factor, and an empiricist methodology. Overall, it is a mechanical materialist outlook that characterizes the “fusion line.”
Most generally, these ideological errors are evident in the fact that the fusion line focuses the attention of those who must re-establish the party principally on the present relationship between the communist movement as it exists and the spontaneous mass movement as it present exists. Yet the spontaneous mass movement is inevitably dominated by bourgeois ideology–and the present communist movement does not have a leading line to bring to the spontaneous movement to combat spontaneity and thus bourgeois ideology. Thus, focusing principally on the relationship of communists to the masses in this period inevitably limits the development of the communists and ties them to the bourgeois ideology of the spontaneous movement. It ties the development of the subjective factor to the immediate objective conditions of the present backwardness in the working class.
This is most evident in its earliest formulations where the fusion line pointed to “winning the advanced” to communism and building the “communist current in the working class” as the key link in party building. The backwardness in this formulation is open and straightforward. In the absence of a general line, it is not communism that is being fused with the working class, with the advanced workers. And this formulation provides no guidance as to how a general line will be developed–it appears that it must flow spontaneously from the workers movement. This view ties the communists so narrowly to the immediate experience of the working class that it negates the leading role of political line and the subjective factor altogether.
In the more recent formulations, the importance of political line and theory are stressed, and this is an implicit recognition of the flaws in the earlier formulation even when not accompanied by an open re-evaluation or explicit self-criticism. Yet the line is still flawed because it still focuses principal attention on the present relationship between the existing communist movement and the existing spontaneous movement.
It still is an empiricist line, a line which downplays the subjective factor, because it ties the development of a general line principally to the summation of the immediate experience of communists in relation to today’s spontaneous movement. The notion that communists’ theoretical work today must mainly address the questions posed by the present-day mass movement and that our line will come principally from summarizing our experience in that movement is empiricist. The line for the seizure of state power will only come from a full summation of the historical experience of the US and international working class movement, of which the practice of the past few years is only a small part. Limiting the theoretical work of communists to the narrow experience of the immediate period appears to root theory in practice–but in fact it limits theory to a very narrow, partial practice.
It is as if we tried to formulate a line on capturing dominant influence in the United Auto Workers Union from the experience of a few activists in one caucus in a few plants for five years, instead of from a summation of the forty year political history of the union, its relations to broad social forces in society and what the power structure of the union actually is.
Further, the necessity of demonstrating a vanguard character in embryo, among the masses, much less a certain measure of fusion, as a precondition for re-establishing a party is also empiricist. The party’s general line will be a very complex one. Testing it, proving its vanguard character in practice will be a complex task requiring years of work by a nationwide organization actually carrying out the line –in other words, the party itself. The notion that the general line can be tested among the masses in any comprehensive way before the party is forged again ties the consciousness of communists to the most narrow, partial and immediate phenomena.
In the pre-party period, the indication of the accuracy of the party’s line and its vanguard potential is found in the ability to clarify key questions for the Marxist-Leninists. In uniting on a leading line, Marxist-Leninists of course rely on their grasp of social reality as the measure of a line’s accuracy and power.
Of course, work in the spontaneous movement makes a crucial contribution to re-establishing a party, and communists can develop some mass influence even before the party is built. But these cannot be made the principal aspect or precondition for building a party as the fusion line dictates. Rather, the principal aspect in this particular period must be found in the struggle within the communist movement to summarize the broadest historical experience of the working class, synthesize a guiding line for the seizure of state power, and unite in a re-established party on the basis of that line.
The fusion line ties the communists to the bourgeois ideology that of necessity dominates the spontaneous movement. It negates the importance of the subjective factor, implying that something must change “out there” for there to be a party, rather than that the subjective forces have to do something themselves in order to build a party. The fusion line would “render Lenin more profound” by re titling his cardinal work on party building “What has to happen” instead of What Is To Be Done?
The very ambiguities in the fusion line, the fact that it has been and is interpreted in a different way by each of its adherents demonstrates its lack of attention to the rigorous development of the subjective factor. Lack of rigor in theoretical struggle, lack of ongoing summation and clarity, are major hallmarks of any line that negates the importance of the conscious element. The ambiguous and muddled character of the fusion line, paraded by some as a mark of its great flexibility, is in and of itself one of its most revealing features–laying bare its lack of attention to the rigorous training of the subjective, conscious factor.
The criticism of all views that negate the importance of the subjective factor, especially in a period where the movement is still undeveloped, was made clearly by Lenin in What Is To Be Done?:
And the younger the socialist movement in any given country, the more vigorously it must struggle against all attempts to entrench non-socialist ideology, and the more resolutely the workers must be warned against the bad counsellors who shout against ’overrating the conscious element’...Yes, our movement is indeed in its infancy, and in order that it may grow up faster, it must become imbued with intolerance to those who retard its growth by their subservience to spontaneity.
The empiricism and downplaying of the subjective factor of the fusion line leads inevitably to right errors in the political field. Tailing behind the spontaneous mass movement, failing to broaden a scope of vision to engage in nationwide work, and what Lenin called the “infatuation with the narrowest forms of practical activity” are the political errors that accompany the fusion line. Carving out one’s base in one small locality as the way to achieve a measure of fusion becomes the main focus of work guided by the fusion perspective. Yet this work will be of no historical significance unless a party is forged to lead the working class struggle, and focusing on this task at the expense of our tasks within the communist movement can lead only to reformism – right opportunism –in politics.
The organizational efforts of the OC, a formation founded on the fusion perspective, likewise exhibit serious flaws.
At the center of the OC’s vision of party building is a national administrative center which will systematize debate and struggle. This center will be composed of representatives of various groups, will not agree on party building line except on the need for a common center, will organize debate, and then somehow make the transition to an “ideological center” and a “leading ideological center.” A “plan for an ideological center” will be the lynchpin holding the OC together until it transforms into an ideological center.
Every aspect of this organizational scheme is seriously flawed. Its federationist approach, fetish on organization over politics, bottom up, ultra-democratic approach to leadership, and very conception of a leading ideological center reflect the downplaying of the subjective factor, mechanical materialism and empiricism of the fusion line.
Federationism is the bringing together of distinct organizational units into a single organization. This is essentially a bottom-up approach to organization, rather than the center out approach of Marxist-Leninists. It can result only in an organization made up of distinct factions if it succeeds in bringing together an organization at all. Given that the OC is conceived of as a coming together of distinct Marxist-Leninist organizations, each with its own democratic centralism, the federationism is built into the OC’s structure.
Further, the centrality in party building vision of an administrative or co-ordinating center to “systematize debate” places a fetish on organization and raises it above the politics it serves. Ideological and political struggle can only be systematized based on a leading line, not based on a supposedly “neutral” agenda. The OC’s vision places co-ordinating struggle over the very lines that are the content of the struggle itself. Going so far as to deny that the OC is even based on any party building line is only the extreme form of this organizational fetish, implying that organization does not serve political line but exists on a higher plane merely to facilitate debate.
Still further, the OC’s structure is based on a misconception of how Marxist-Leninist leadership develops and leads. Leadership is not chosen from the bottom up, the base does not plan out how to develop leadership. Rather, leadership asserts itself and wins the right to lead organizationally based on its political line. Of course, this line must be a synthesis of the ideas and experience of the masses and the activists, but this does not mean that the leadership comes through nomination or election rather than assertion. (This is especially true in the pre-party period.) Election is the recognition of leadership, not the creation of leadership. The idea of choosing communist leadership from the bottom up is as false as the notion that a communist party will spring up spontaneously from the working class and be elected into the vanguard role!
These serious errors in the OC conception of party building raise dangerous illusions among the communist elements. They pander to backward, anti-leadership tendencies in our movement and foster false notions about the relationship of organization to politics. In essence the OC provides a “false promise” that ideological and political development can occur without a leading and clear party building line, strong leadership organized from a strong center, and a ruthless struggle against backward ideas within our ranks. But perhaps most serious of all is the false conception promoted by the OC of the nature and essence of an ideological center.
An ideological center is not a mere administrative body, a place to organize debate and develop a leading line. This perspective is backwards, turns organization and politics upside down, and represents a mechanical approach to politics characteristic of downplaying the subjective factor. It is the political line that creates the center, not the center that creates the political line. An ideological center on a particular line, for example, consists of those forces who have united around a leading line, take responsibility for it, and attempt to lead around that line and win others to their views. On party building line, for example, there at present are a number of ideological and political centers in our movement–the PWOC as headquarters of the OC and the NNMLC, for example are two such centers. As for a center for the future party, this can only a be a center consisting of those who are united around a proposed general line upon which the party can be based. Such a center does not now exist, cannot exist until a leading general line is synthesized from all the particular line struggles that will develop over the coming years. Creating a single unified leading center for our party must be a goal of all Marxist-Leninists, but this can only come through the leading comrades in our movement synthesizing the broadest historical experience of the working class movement, asserting a leading general line, and winning others to it. The notions that this can be “planned from the bottom up” or that the key to this process is “systematizing the struggle” are mechanical, empiricist ideas that downplay the importance of the subjective factor and foster illusions among the Marxist-Leninists.
The fusion perspective in its ideological, political, and organizational aspects must be seen in light of a response to the errors of the major forces in the new communist movement. Due to their left opportunist politics, these forces became isolated from the working class movement. Forces such as the PWOC grasped this isolation and responded by pointing to the need for communists to be linked up with and not isolated from the working class. Thus the call for and attraction to the line of fusion with the working class movement. But the fusion line did not target correctly the essence of the errors of the left opportunists. Their isolation was a result of their incorrect political line, not their failure to make any attempt to work among the masses. Thus the solution is not to call for fusion of the present communist movement with the masses, not to underplay the importance of political line and the subjective factor. Rather it is to grasp a scientific Marxist-Leninist method and develop a correct political line. It is to fully take up the complex theoretical work required to develop a leading general line for the US communist movement. It is to grasp that a party is forged initially primarily in the struggle among communists, not principally by going to the mass movement.
Instead of taking this tack, the fusion line “swings the other way.” In rejecting idealism and voluntarism, the fusion line goes over to mechanical materialism. In rejecting dogmatism in method, the fusion line goes over to empiricism. In rejecting left opportunism in politics, it goes over to right opportunism. In rejecting sectarianism in organizational life, it goes over to federationsim and ultra-democracy.
Thus the fusion line is still another case of “one tendency covering another” in the history of the communist movement.
The struggle over the fusion line still takes place within the ranks of genuine communist forces. Yet this dangerous deviation from Marxism-Leninism poses a serious threat to our still undeveloped anti-revisionist, anti-left opportunist trend. As long as the fusion line dominates the approach of the bulk of the party building forces, the serious attention to theoretical work and developing the subjective factor that are key to party building will not take place. Party building line is the key line in this period because party building is our central task, and the fusion line represents a serious right error on the question of party building line. Thus, within the anti-revisionist, anti-left opportunist trend, the main danger comes from the right, specifically from the fusion line on party building.