According to the MLOC, the historic movement to reconstitute the Party is identified with the adoption of a new written program. The MLOC’s entire Party-building plan revolves around the “Draft Party Program”. For the MLOC, the “Draft Program” is the Holy of Holies, the Platonic Idea descended to earth and given fleshy form. The MLOC holds that “That is what a communist party is: the consciousness of the final aims of the movement translated into political organization”.[9] This “consciousness of the final aims” naturally resides in the incarnation of the great Idea, and so “This Draft Party Program will provide the basis for a new Marxist-Leninist Party to be formed soon”.[10] The Draft Program is endowed with great powers: according to the MLOC, “With the adoption of the Program and the founding of the communist party in the United States, the spontaneous working-class movement will be transformed into a class-conscious struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism and communism.”[11]
All Marxist-Leninists recognize that written statements, resolutions and programs constitute a front of struggle for the Party. And today theoretical work to clear away the opportunist errors and restore Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical basis of the Party is one of the decisive fronts of struggle. The idealists oppose this struggle by detaching theory from practice, words from deeds. The MLOC has good reason to attribute supernatural powers to the “Draft Program”, for by this means it (A) covers over its actual social practice, its real program, with fine-sounding words to dupe the masses, and (B) continues to factionalize the movement and oppose Marxism-Leninism being the theoretical basis of the Party under the banner of the pseudo-theory that the “Party Program” is the basis of the Party. We will deal with this second point later on, and also with how this theory of the “Party Program” is copied from the OL social-chauvinists and from the neo-revisionists generally. (See pages 21-2, 40-5 of this reply.) For the present, we will go into detail on the first point.
What relation does the MLOC’s extravagant glorification of the Party Program have to the struggle against social-chauvinism? Does it help or hinder the struggle against social-chauvinism to make a fetish of resolutions and programs ? Comrade Lenin, in the heat of the struggle against the social-chauvinists of the Second International in World War I, went straight to the heart of the matter. Leninism teaches that:
On the one hand, the most ’Left’ and arch-revolutionary resolutions, and on the other, the most shameless forgetfulness or renunciation of these resolutions -- this is one of the most striking manifestations of the International’s collapse, and at the same time a most convincing proof that at present only those whose rare simplicity borders on a cunning desire to perpetuate the former hypocrisy can believe that socialism can be ’rectified’ and ’its line straightened out’ by means of resolutions alone.[12]
Thus the significance of the theory of the “Draft Program” is that this method of Party-building is unable to destroy the “former hypocrisy”. The social-chauvinism of the Klonskyites and the “three worlders” can neither be “rectified” nor “its line straightened out” by resolutions or programs alone. The MLOC’s theory of the “Draft Program” is an attempt to disrupt the struggle against social-chauvinism and maintain the “former hypocrisy”.
Let us examine how this socialist-hypocrisy is used by the social-chauvinists. In real life, you can see every day how the OL abhors revolutionary methods of struggle and is addicted to parliamentarism, legalism and capitulation. The OL is notorious for its legal cretinism in court cases... and it centers much of its activity around court cases. But at the same time The Call still shouts itself hoarse that it “does not rely on the courts”. The OL organizes a demonstration or two and a defense committee to back up the lawyers – and on the wonderful grounds that these activities do not take place in the judge’s chambers the OL insists that it is not relying on the courts. Similarly the OL calls for federal troops in Boston at the time of the fight against the fascist anti-busing movement, and insists that it is not collaborating with the state in suppressing the resistance struggle of the masses because the OL calls on federal troops with the “strategic view” in mind of promoting armed self-defense.
How can this hypocrisy and collaboration with the state by the social-chauvinists be fought? The COUSML fights it by advocating and practicing active resistance to fascism. Our ardent statements on this question are a guide to our action and a summation of our practice. We fight opportunism not just with words and programs, but also with deeds, by leading the masses in revolutionary forms of struggle. The MLOC on the other hand wishes to fight the OL by “resolutions”, by the “Draft Program”. It shouts about not relying on the courts, and believes that this “demarcates” it from somebody. But in fact this ’left’ phrase-mongering against the courts to justify rightist flabbiness is the exact same method of work as used by the OL. Here for example is the MLOC’s paper Unite! describing the “essence” of democratic struggle as using the courts.. .while not relying on them: “There are times when we can and must use the court system to force it to uphold laws which objectively improve the conditions of the working class in their struggle for socialism – to order desegregation, to uphold women’s rights, and the right to organize, for example. This is the essence of the struggle for democratic reforms under capitalism... It is clear that we must not rely on the courts in the struggle for democratic rights, or for ’justice’.” (underlining added,[13]) Here we have a most disgusting example of the same “former hypocrisy” that Comrade Lenin warns us against. The struggle for democracy under conditions of growing fascism is not described as active resistance to fascism, it is not regarded as a component part of the socialist revolution, and the very thought of using mass indignation over questions of democracy to train the masses in revolutionary forms of struggle is alien to the MLOC. Instead the MLOC advises us that the “essence” of democracy is parliamentary reforms to be enforced by the capitalist courts. And this at a time when the courts and the government are increasing segregation, organizing the fascist anti-busing movement, playing with the bourgeois feminists while humiliating the masses of women, and helping the capitalists to shift the burden of the crisis onto the workers and oppressed masses. But exactly like The Call, the MLOC sanctifies this opportunism by tacking on a few “revolutionary” phrases, by saying that “we must not rely on the courts”, that “the overwhelming tendency of the courts is to serve the bourgeoisie” (what other “tendency” is there? Do the courts stand above classes or are they the courts of a definite class and a definite state machine?) and by putting the word “justice” in quotation marks.[14] Oh how militant! The “essence” of the matter of democracy is that the MLOC is a slave to the opportunism and reformism of the social-chauvinists.
Just as dramatic is how the question of armed struggle is treated by the MLOC. In practice the MLOC carries on legal struggle that allegedly does not “rely” on the courts; bourgeois trade unionism; and some loose coalition work. But in order to sound militant and confuse the issue, the MLOC has taken to pontificating about armed struggle. The Political Report at the First Congress stated that “When you look around at other so-called Marxist-Leninist groups, you do not hear, find, or smell discussion of armed struggle.”[15] It goes on to talk about “laying the basis of a Red Army”. Apparently part of this basis is revising the ordinary Marxist conception of three forms of proletarian struggle and expanding it to four forms. The Political Report talks of “the class struggle on all fronts: economically, politically, ideologically and militarily”, (underlining added,[16]) What a contribution to the Red Army! So here the MLOC, which regards the “essence” of democratic struggle as forcing the courts to act and not as active resistance to fascism, steps forward to build the “Red Army”. This is the typical trick of all opportunists, from the timid liberal revisionists of the yellow rag called The Guardian to the Klonsky-ites with their pledge that “Our slogan of ’turn the imperialist war into a civil war’ must be transformed from a propaganda slogan into an action slogan.”[17] All these liberal gentlemen are willing to boast of their big deeds of armed struggle in the future, while they bow and scrape before the bourgeoisie today. We leave it to the MLOC to “smell” of discussion of armed struggle while prostrating before the courts – we hold that it is only those comrades who actively resist the class enemy and put revolutionary methods of struggle in the forefront who are the harbingers of the new spirit and the actual founders of the Red Army. Down with the windbags! A red salute to all those of our comrades who actively resisted fascism, fought the fascist thugs, both uniformed ones and irregulars, and bravely faced the courts and state machine in Boston, Seattle, Newark, Louisville and elsewhere! And we enthusiastically hail and send a red salute to all other Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries who also bravely fought the class enemy and again declare that our unity with such fighters is only a matter of time! But we can only have the deepest contempt for those who blabber on about the “Red Army” while engaged in reformist idiocy and bland pacifist practice and who have the most despicable, sectarian attitude towards the comrades and progressive masses who are actually fighting the class enemy!
Thus the MLOC’s pseudo-theory of the “Draft Program” is an attempt to disrupt the Marxist-Leninist movement and divert it into a path harmless to the social-chauvinists, it is in fact a straight-forward imitation of the unscrupulous and hypocritical phrase-mongering of the social-chauvinists. The MLOC believes that the main criterion for whether a Party is principled or unprincipled, Marxist-Leninist or revisionist, is whether it possesses a formal, written program. However, the MLOC doesn’t notice that if this is so, then it is confessing that it was a completely unprincipled group of intriguers for years until it adopted its “Draft Party Program” at its First Congress in Nov. 1977. In actual fact, despite all the MLOC’s demagogy around the “Draft Program”, the various trends have very definite programs. The OL social-chauvinists have as their program the liquidation of the revolution, the destruction of the Party, the replacement of Marxism-Leninism by Browderite revisionism, and the whole-hearted participation in U.S. imperialism’s holy crusade against both their imperialist rivals and against world revolution. In brief, OL’s program is U. S. imperialist world hegemony. The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have a program too. They are for the proletarian revolution that will utterly destroy the U. S. monopoly capitalist system and smash its state machine. They are for building the Party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism in the course of leading the revolutionary mass movements and merging them into one irresistible torrent of anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution. In the course of this, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists are carrying out the uncompromising fight for the purity of Marxism-Leninism against social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism”, Browderism and all forms of revisionism and opportunism. And they have written programmatic statements and calls such as the pamphlets, “U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!” and “How to Advance the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!” And the MLOC too has its program. It stands for infiltration and disruption of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists through idealist anti-revisionism. It stands for conciliation of the Klonskyites and war on the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. We resolutely oppose this program and call on the MLOC to give it up.
We reiterate that formal programs, resolutions and statements have their place and their importance. It is those who are shouting most about the theory of the “Party Program” that are doing their best to hinder the process of constantly deepening and sharpening the Marxist-Leninist program. The idealists understand nothing whatever about what a program really is. The book The Party of Labor of Albania on the Building and Life of the Party points out that although the PLA didn’t have a formal, written program as late as 1948, four years after the establishment of the people’s power in Albania, nevertheless: “In fact the PLA never lacked a program of its own for the various stages of the revolution. But it was impossible to formulate this program all at once, due to the lack of the necessary experience of revolutionary leadership, which is not gained from books, but in the heat of revolutionary action. At the beginning of each stage the foundations for the program were laid, and the aim and strategic tasks of the Party, and the fundamental lines of its tactics were clearly defined. Then, as the revolutionary experience of the Party and the masses was accumulated and analyzed, its program was added to, deepened and corrected. ”[18]
Now, having dealt with MLOC’s theory of the “Draft Program”, it is time to examine MLOC’s “Draft Party Program” itself. With what great expectations one must turn to this program, which the MLOC trumpets up and down with all the bluster and noise of a public relations man. This program is alleged to be the first Marxist-Leninist program since 1944, the “only Leninist program in the United States today”.[19] Indeed, the MLOC holds that “The publication, circulation, discussion and adoption of this Draft Program by the founding Party Congress will represent a qualitative development of the subjective factors for revolution in the U.S. and make an important contribution to the world revolution”, (underlining added,[20]) Yet you have merely to read this “Draft Party Program” to see that, as the saying goes, “the emperor has no clothes”. Basically, the “Draft Program” is a shoddy repetition of general platitudes. It is a sterile document, and it is full of blunders and clumsy formulations. It is quite significant that one of these “blunders” is that the MLOC’s “Draft Party Program” does not take Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical basis of the Party. Instead the MLOC quite literally takes the “Draft Party Program” as the “basis” for its “Party” and replaces Marxism-Leninism with its own special sectarian principles under the guise of basing the “Party” on the “Draft Party Program”. The “Draft Party Program” deals with this question in the Introduction, where it states: “The theory of Marxism-Leninism, this program, and the Party’s strategy, and tactics will ensure the revolutionary mobilization of the proletariat and oppressed peoples and their total victory over the U.S. bourgeoisie.”[21] In this passage – and this is the only passage that deals with the question – the theory of Marxism-Leninism is eclectically placed on an even par with the “program” and “the Party’s strategy and tactics”. The idealist anti-revisionists do not think that Marxism-Leninism is a sufficient basis to unite on or a sufficient theoretical basis for the Party. Therefore, in place of Marxism-Leninism, just as an innocent “supplement” so to speak, they concoct and haggle over their sets of special sectarian formulations. In this way they make Marxism-Leninism into a matter of opinion, replace Marxism-Leninism by something else, and thus negate Marxism-Leninism. As such an idealist anti-revisionist, the MLOC must therefore supplement Marxism-Leninism by its “program” and its “strategy and tactics”, rather than basing the program and the strategy and tactics on the theory of Marxism-Leninism. Hence the MLOC’s unfortunate accident, their slight forgetfulness, about specifying the theoretical basis of the Party. Nevertheless, having thrown out Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical basis of the Party, the MLOC is however anxious to preserve the words “Marxism-Leninism” in order to throw sand in the eyes of the masses by a purely symbolic “demarcation” from the revisionists. The Introduction states: “The (Marxist-Leninist) designation of our Party demarcates it from the revisionist road taken by the CPUSA.”
The central feature of this “Draft Party Program” is that it is a program for conciliation with social-chauvinism. It does not discuss the course of the struggle against social-chauvinism or against neo-revisionism – indeed, we have so far not succeeded in even finding the word “social-chauvinism” in this program. In fact, this program is totally silent about the revolutionary upsurge of the 60’s and of any analysis whatsoever of the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism and opportunism among the revolutionary activists of the 60’s and 70’s. In this sense it is a program that floats in the air, entirely detached from the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement of the present. The program does have a sterile, woody section entitled: “Smash the Social Props”. The subheads in this section are: “Reformism: Reform as an End in Itself”; “Opportunism: Class Collaboration”; “Modern Revisionism”; “Trotskyism”; and “Anarchism”. Not only is the struggle against social-chauvinism not mentioned, but nowhere in the program is the social-chauvinist theory of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism” denounced. The program does not give enough importance to the new opportunist trend based on the theory of “three worlds” to give it its own section, and instead gives it three sentences in the section entitled “Modern Revisionism”. The program is careful not to denounce the OL Klonskyites by name – after all, MLOC’s “Open Letter” was addressed to, among others, the Klonskyites and “three worlders” themselves – although it does find time and space to make such “safe” denunciations in the Marxist-Leninist movement as denouncing by name the open Trotskyites of the Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialists. Furthermore the program makes the major concession to “three worlds-ism” of characterizing the present line of the revisionist “CPUSA as “detente”. The program holds that: “In the U.S. the main representative of modern revisionism is the CPUSA with its line of ’detente’.”[22] (Later on in this reply we shall go into more detail on the significance of characterizing revisionism as the “line of ’detente’”. See Section 5, “The MLOC Is Still Vacillating on the Theory of “Three Worlds”.)
The final crowning touch to this program’s conciliation of opportunism is that it is a thoroughly polycentrist program. It does not mention the roles of Comrades Mao Tsetung, Enver Hoxha or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The program does not explicitly mention the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, the staunch bastion of world revolution, but only talks about “socialist countries”.[23] And the program is silent about the great role of the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania and of Comrade Enver Hoxha’s truly historic Report to the Seventh Congress. Indeed, it is a notable fact that the “Draft Party Program” does not so much as mention any of the staunch struggles and great victories against modern revisionism nor the development of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. Thus the sham character of the MLOC’s struggle against opportunism is clear.
[9] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 38.
[10] See (1).
[11] Unite!, March 1, 1978, “Welcome the Draft Party Program”, p. 6.
[12] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, “The Collapse of the Second International”, vol. 21, p. 209.
[13] Unite!, October 1977, “Defend Bennie Lenard! All Out for October 11th!”, p. 7, col. 2.
[14] Same reference as (13).
[15] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 39.
[16] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 41.
[17] Klonsky, Political Report, p. 45.
[18] The Party of Labor of Albania on the Building and Life of the Party, “From the Resolution of the 1st Congress of the Communist Party of Albania”, Tirana, 1974, pp. 80-81, footnote.
[19] Unite!, March 1, 1978, p. 6, col. 3.
[20] Class Against Class, January, 1978, #10, p. 2.
[21]MLOC’s Draft Party Program, p. 2.
[22] MLOC’s Draft Party Program, p. 38.
[23] MLOC’s Draft Party Program, pp. 46-47.