Today the central issue in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement is how to fight social-chauvinism. The Klonskyite thesis of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism” is an open declaration of Browderite social-chauvinism, of class treason, it is a loyalty oath to the State Department and the Pentagon. The anti-Leninist theory of “three worlds” is the theoretical base for the OL’s social-chauvinism and revisionism. The jumping out of the OL social-chauvinists as raving defenders of the superpower fatherland, as fanatical advocates of NATO, the B-l bomber and the Trident submarine, is not an accident or the result of an unfortunate formulation. It is the culmination of the long corrosion of neo-revisionism and opportunism inside the U. S. Marxist-Leninist movement. The Klonskyite Pentagon-socialists thought that the time had come to drown the Marxist-Leninist movement in a sea of bloody chauvinism, but independent of their will the struggle against revisionism and opportunism has marched forward. This struggle has broadened and sharpened since the COUSML issued its timely calls “Mao Tsetung Thought or Social-Chauvinism, A Comment on the October League’s Call for ’Unity of Marxist-Leninists’” on Sept. 1, 1976 and “U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!” on March 10, 1977. Everyone and every organization will be tested in this great struggle. Do their actions help or hurt this great struggle? Do they pitch in and unite to build the Marxist-Leninist Party in the struggle against social-chauvinism, or do they disrupt this struggle or even oppose this struggle and declare it done with and ended? It is this great historical movement which is irresistibly giving rise to the reconstitution of the Party and which in turn will be intensified and consolidated by the rebirth and growth of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the American proletariat.
In the course of any great movement that grips the masses, many different types of groups and people come forward to play their role. This is also true in the mass movement against social-chauvinism and for revolution. There are the masses of honest activists who are coming forward to angrily denounce social-chauvinism and to struggle to emancipate their minds from the oppressive, dead weight of the opportunist and revisionist garbage. These activists are led by the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. In the course of this great movement, the unity around the nucleus of the Party, the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, is growing all the time. There are also some disruptive groups and elements whose final role is not yet known. These dubious elements often try to speculate on the mass movement for their own aims, to lead it onto the path of conciliation, to hinder it and split off a section of it for their own special interests. And finally there are commando squads of social-chauvinism trying to hide in the ranks of the people with quibbles such as “we support the theory of ’three worlds’, but not OL’s ’three worlds’”, “we support social-chauvinism but not Klonsky’s social-chauvinism”. These contradictions must be handled on a very objective basis. Every group and every individual will write his own destiny in the struggle against social-chauvinism.
Some time ago we received the MLOC’s latest publications, including Class Against Class #10 and the MLOC’s “Open Letter”, entitled in the March 15th issue of Unite!, “An Open Letter Requesting Discussions of the Draft Party Program and the Reconstitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the United States”. In these publications the MLOC declares its intention to declare a “Party” that is “to be formed soon”.[1] However, this is double-talk. Actually the MLOC has already founded its “Party”, held its First Congress in November, 1977, and unanimously adopted its Draft Program.[2] For the MLOC, as for all others that believe that ideas rule the world, “The key (’to form the Party’ – ed.) will be the development and publication of the Draft Party Program and its circulation to the workers and a summation of that circulation.”[3] But the Draft Program was already adopted by the First Congress, and in fact the MLOC pledges to turn its attention away from programmatic questions to “tactics”[4] and states that “In the coming months, our efforts towards consolidation must focus on the question of organization”.[5] Thus the MLOC formed its “Party” without consultation with, or a call to, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. To put a good face on a bad business, the MLOC has issued its “Open Letter” and sent it by mail to every organization it could think of. The “Draft Program” is given as an ultimatum, except for minor revisions. And what is the basis of this ultimatum? To stop the struggle against social-chauvinism! The “Open Letter” and the “Draft Program” do not even mention the struggle against social-chauvinism. The “Open Letter” was sent to, among others, the OL social-chauvinists and to various of the commando squads of “three worlds-ism” (and even to some Guardian-ite groups, although for obvious cosmetic reasons the Guardian itself was not listed)[6]; in this way the MLOC publicly reassured international opportunism that, any squabbling to throw dust in the eyes of the masses aside, the MLOC does not have an irreconcilable contradiction with social-chauvinism and “three worlds-ism”. At the same time, the MLOC is continuing its disruption of the unity of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and stepping up its long-standing “quiet” war against the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and against the Marxist-Leninist Party which will be irresistibly formed in the heat of the struggle against social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism” and all forms of revisionism and opportunism.
All the same, we do not complain about these disruptive activities of the MLOC. We are not opposed to anyone forming a group per se, but the proletariat too has the right to form its vanguard organization, its Party. The proletariat has the right to ”ask of everyone swearing in its name: Where do you come from? On what basis are you working? Are you for unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism in the struggle against the main enemy, or are you for splitting the masses with your own special interests? Are you for revolutionary struggle in deeds, and not just words, or are you constantly conciliating and imitating the opportunists, “three worlders”, and social-chauvinists? The MLOC’s actions are part of the historical experience of the Marxist-Leninist movement and should be taken seriously. Thus we are writing about the MLOC for the following reasons.
(A) Marxist-Leninists should examine the MLOC’s social practice and learn from its negative example in order to ensure the unity of the ranks of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and to avoid getting side-tracked into the dead-end road of conciliation with the social-chauvinists. The MLOC is a concentrated expression of what we call “idealist anti-revisionism”. “Idealist anti-revisionism” is a sham anti-revisionism that reduces the question of the repudiation of revisionism into simply a question of some high-sounding program or resolution, a few dogmas and some nice generalities divorced from the actual historical movement against opportunism and for revolution. Under cover of this method, the MLOC has always conciliated the Klonskyites and taken up the most flimsy, Philistine, rightist politics. Today the MLOC has taken up “Klonskyism without the ’three worlds’ theory”; that is, the MLOC “opposes” the theory of “three worlds” in a rather vacillating manner while preserving the program and attitude of the social-chauvinists towards the proletarian revolution. In this way the MLOC is attempting to smuggle the Klonskyite garbage into the ranks of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, and the MLOC imitates the Klonskyites on a whole series of questions, such as the lines on the working class movement, on the Afro-American people’s struggle, the question of style of work, and other matters. Furthermore, while paying lip-service to the need to oppose the theory of “three worlds”, the MLOC constantly diverts attention from this struggle in a thousand-and-one ways. It is no accident that the “Open Letter” is silent on the struggle against social-chauvinism and “three worlds-ism”. And it is typical of the MLOC’s vacillations that, with the MLOC’s “First Congress” in Nov. 1977, it has taken a step backwards from its shortlived denunciation in August 1977 of the Klonskyite theory of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism”. The “Political Report”, the “Open Letter”, the “Draft Party Program” and related documents all refuse to denounce this central thesis of social-chauvinism by name. The MLOC’s idealist method is an attempt to preserve neo-revisionism and opportunism from the exposure it has suffered with the coming out into the open of Klonskyite Pentagon-socialism by sacrificing one or two formulations while retaining the whole opportunist arsenal. All revolutionary Marxist-Leninists should ponder over the dangers presented by the path of conciliation, the path of splitting the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists while compromising with the social-chauvinists. We hold that historical experience repeatedly proves that idealist anti-revisionism has not one single contribution to its credit and is a reserve of opportunism and revisionism.
(B) We hope that the MLOC itself will reconsider and stop before it is too late. It is the MLOC itself, with its arrogant, dishonest intrigues, its “Open Letter”, its hysterical denunciation of the historic Internationalist Rally held in Montreal on April 30, 1978, its extravagant anti-communist slanders at its public meetings of the COUSML as “chauvinist” and “counterrevolutionary”, and its constant splitting activities that has forced the issue of its disruptive activities out into the open. Every new step against the social-chauvinists finds itself coming up against the opposition and intrigues of the MLOC. There comes a time when if the conciliators and vacillators are not firmly replied to, then the entire struggle against social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism” and revisionism will be compromised. It is the MLOC itself which has started the public polemics and bears full responsibility for them.
We will cooperate with any activists in any activities that help the revolution or push forward the struggle against opportunism. We will not support the MLOC’s disruption of the unity of the Marxist-Leninists, its sectarian schemes, and its promotion of idealist anti-revisionism. We stand firmly opposed to the MLOC’s conciliation of the social-chauvinists, “three worlders” and opportunists. We will judge the MLOC on the basis of its deeds, of its actual social practice, and not on its high-flown words and sickly-sweet sermons. In the MLOC’s “Open Letter” we have received an invitation to discussion on its “Draft Party Program” for the very end of June.
We will not take part in the MLOC’s indecent farce of preparation for its “Founding” “Party” Congress (actually their Second Congress), but we are willing to hold discussions on the burning questions facing the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. We hold that the agenda should be: how to advance the struggle against social-chauvinism. We propose that the MLOC should explain itself concerning its disruption of the process of reconstituting the Marxist-Leninist Party. The time, date and place proposed by the Central Committee of the MLOC are acceptable to us. We will regard such discussions as a continuation of the ones that the MLOC, arbitrarily and without notice to us, broke off well over two years ago.
(Since our public reply to the MLOC’s “Open Letter” was unavoidably delayed for two months, we have in the meantime received the MLOC’s answer to our private letter, which accepted discussions with the MLOC in the same way as in the above paragraph. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the MLOC refused these discussions on the pretext that the agenda of “how to advance the struggle against social chauvinism” and the proposal that the MLOC explain itself for its disruption of the process of reconstituting the Party were “completely new matters”. Thus in this way the MLOC’s Political Bureau itself admitted that the MLOC’s big hoopla over the “Draft Party Program” was designed to distract attention from the struggle against social-chauvinism and that the MLOC’s new “Party” of conciliators regarded the struggle against social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism” and all forms of revisionism and opportunism as a matter entirely distinct from the question of Party-building. Here we also see the MLOC’s usual matchless hypocrisy. First the MLOC publicly calls for “Discussions of the Draft Party Program and the Re-constitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party”, publicly addresses an “Open Letter” for discussions to, among others, the COUSML, and then refuses to sit down and explain itself for its disruption of the process of reconstituting the Marxist-Leninist Party on the wonderfully principled grounds that this would be “to discuss completely new matters”. Well, for the COUSML, the struggle against social-chauvinism, this great movement that is irresistibly leading to the reconstitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party, is not a “completely new matter” but our everyday work. We shall in the following pages continue on our path of discussing these matters in order to help ascertain which is the way to advance this great movement against social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism” and all hues of revisionism and opportunism: conciliation along the lines of the MLOC’s “Open Letter” or unyielding struggle along the lines of the great call “U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!”[7])
In these notes:
Barry Weisberg’s Political Report from the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee to the First Congress of the MLOC as published in Class Against Class, Theoretical Journal of the MLOC, January, 1978, #10 will be referred to as Weisberg, Political Report.
Michael Klonsky’s Political Report to the Congress as published in Documents From the Founding Congress of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) will be referred to as Klonsky, Political Report.
[1] Unite!, March 1, 1978, “A Call for Questions”, p. 7. This “Call” also appears in the next three issues of Unite!, March 15, April 1 and April 15.
[2] Class Against Class, January, 1978, pp. 1-2,
[3] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 44.
[4] Weisberg, Political Report, pp. 41-42.
[5] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 37.
[6] Unite!, March 15, 1978, “An Open Letter Requesting Discussions of the Draft Party Program and the Reconstitute of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the United States”, p. 6. See pp. 80-2 of this pamphlet.
[7] For the bright red call “U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!”, see The Workers’ Advocate, March 10, 1977. Part of this issue of The Workers’ Advocate was reproduced as the pamphlet entitled “U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism! Proletarian Revolution in the U.S. Is Our Sacred Internationalist Duty! – Two Articles on the Path Forward in Party Building”.