The idealist method followed by the MLOC is strikingly revealed in the contempt with which they treat the revolutionary movements and historical experience of the masses. As idealists, the MLOC does not derive its plans from careful study of the surrounding conditions and determination of the ways and means of realizing Marxism that best answer to the situation, but from eternal and never-changing prescriptions and quack remedies that are “justified” by arbitrarily tearing certain extracts out of context from the Marxist-Leninist classics and from certain very carefully selected fragments of the history of the international communist movement. Today the Marxist-Leninist Party is being built in the course of fierce struggle against social-chauvinism and the new Browderites, but on principle the MLOC refuses to recognize this. And as we have already seen and will see further, MLOC’s transcendental principles, and its contempt for that live world of struggle and sacrifice that we mortal, earthly revolutionaries live in and draw inspiration from, does not protect MLOC’s alleged Marxist-Leninist purity but on the contrary leads the MLOC into duplication of the hypocrisy of the opportunists and social-chauvinists, who always and everywhere cover their opportunist deeds in the present movement with their “consciousness of the final aims” in the air.
Where does the Marxist-Leninist Party come from? The Party of the proletariat comes about as the result of a great historical movement. The Party is not the private property of a sect or a handful of individuals, it is not the realization of the abstract Platonic “Brilliant Idea”, it does not spring fullblown from a document, but it is the expression of the interests of a definite class, the proletariat. Today there is great ferment among the working-class movement and a great movement among the Marxist-Leninists. This movement is for revolution and against opportunism and revisionism. It is in defense of Marxism-Leninism and against social-chauvinism and the anti-Leninist theory of “three worlds”. This movement is what is new and alive and growing in the world. This movement is smashing up all the obstacles before it, overflowing the fascist barriers of factionalism and alleged “organizational discipline” set up by the opportunists to stop political discussion, smashing the organizational forms of the opportunists and giving rise to motion everywhere, bringing the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists irresistibly together while the opportunists shatter into a thousand pieces. It is the duty of all revolutionary Marxist-Leninists to take part in this movement and lead it.
But the MLOC is playing a disruptive role in this movement. While the MLOC speculates with this movement by draping itself in a few phrases and formulations it has taken from the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, phrases which it is trying to convert into some type of mystic talisman to save itself from the criterion of revolutionary practice, in fact the MLOC does not even deign to recognize the existence of the actual motion and agitation among the Marxist-Leninists. Of course, the leaders of the MLOC are aware of this movement, but by pretending not to see it they are in fact opposing it, seeking to split it, to divert a section of it into a sectarian dead end. This denial of the existence of the movement against social-chauvinism is reflected in a number of MLOC’s sectarian pseudo-theories.
To begin with, the MLOC openly slanders the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and casually dismisses the entire movement against social-chauvinism with a wave of the hand via the monstrous theory that “We (the MLOC – ed.) have generally taken a leading role in pointing out its (the party program’s – ed.) importance – in pointing to the fact that the wave of polemics in 1976 and 1977 were of little value because they were not geared to the party program.” (emphasis added,[24]) But what is the characteristic feature of the polemics of 1976 and 1977? It is that it is precisely in this wave of polemics that an irreconcilable, spirited, determined fight broke out against the theory of “three worlds” and against the social-chauvinist thesis of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism”. It is these polemics that have given a big black eye to the “three-worlders” and social-chauvinists.
By slandering the sharp, live struggles of 1976 and 1977, the MLOC is of course trying to wipe out any responsibility for its own role in this struggle. In this way, it doesn’t matter that the MLOC advocated unity with the October League and opposed the struggle of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists against social-chauvinism – what went on in 1976 and 1977 is alleged to be worthless anyway! It doesn’t matter that the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists fought hard against “three worlds-ism”, stood fast against the most vile political blackmail, and marched forward administering one defeat after another to the social-chauvinists – after all, that was all in that valueless 1976 and 1977! And the MLOC actually boasts that it has “generally taken a leading role” in slandering the struggle against revisionism of 1976 and 1977! The social-chauvinists, still smarting from their defeats, could not want a better “left” cover than that!
In fact, what has happened is that first the MLOC opposed the struggle more openly and supported the theory of “three worlds” and sought “mutual trust”[25] with the OL Klonskyites. Then when, because of the work of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists both internationally and in the U.S., opposition to social-chauvinism and “three worlds-ism” had gained currency, the MLOC in late 1977 jumped into the movement, but only for the sake of disrupting it, splitting it and cursing it from within. When we denounced the OL Klonskyites as social-chauvinists on Sept. 1, 1976[26], the MLOC disagreed. When we stressed on Nov. 20, 1976, that Comrade Enver Hoxha’s Report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania was a Marxist-Leninist classic that, among other things, demolished the theory of “three worlds”[27], the MLOC disagreed. When we gave the call “U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!” on March 10, 1977[28], the MLOC disagreed. The MLOC was still too busy calling on the OL to establish “mutual trust” and to “get down to working out the differences”[29], while the MLOC directed its attack at “Trotskyism” at the exact same time as the “three worlders” and the OL Pentagon-socialists were also making a big fuss about the “Trotskyism” of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists[30]. In the July 1977 issue of Unite! the MLOC was still so far away from the standpoint of struggling against social-chauvinism that the MLOC denounced the “RCP, USA” for.. .being among those “who belittle the struggle against Soviet social-imperialism”,[31] while the fact was that anyone with eyes in their head could see that the “RCP, USA” was stressing the question of Soviet social-imperialism in a onesided manner in order to conciliate the new international opportunist trend based on “three worlds” and to lay the ideological basis for social-chauvinism. Finally, in the August 1977 issue of Unite! the MLOC succeeded in noting that the OL was social-chauvinist and succeeded, although this stand would not last longer than a few months, in criticizing the theory of striking the “main blow” at Soviet social-imperialism.. .as well as “criticizing” the OL on a number of irrelevant, trivial or even sectarian grounds.[32] And not until September 1977 did the MLOC come out against the theory of “three worlds”[33]. True, as far as the COUSML is concerned, if a group or an individual takes a little longer or even a lot longer to join the struggle, that is not the issue.. .as long as that group or individual takes responsibility for its history and its actions and throws itself wholeheartedly into the fray on the side of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. We welcome most enthusiastically all additions and newcomers to the revolutionary ranks. But the point is that, after the MLOC denounced the theory of “three worlds”, the MLOC in fact continued to conciliate the “three worlders” and to vacillate, and the MLOC used its idealist anti-revisionism to infiltrate its “Klonskyism without the theory of ’three worlds’” into the ranks of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and to play a disruptive role. Within three months after it first denounced the theory of “three worlds”, the MLOC held its First Congress at which it announced that the struggle was over, the lines “demarcated”, and everyone – social-chauvinists, Guardian-ites and revolutionary Marxist-Leninists alike – should direct their attention to uniting with MLOC’s “Draft Party Program”, and all the while the MLOC paraded itself about as “pioneering in the defense of Marxism-Leninism”[34]. At the same time, the MLOC vacillated again on the question of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism” and began to refuse to denounce this theory by name.
As a matter of fact, the MLOC’s arrogant dismissal of the whole struggle in 1976 and 1977 is a double lie. It is a lie because these polemics were part of the growing, healthy movement against social-chauvinism. But the MLOC denounces these polemics on the pretext that “they were not geared to the party program”. Hence here we have a double lie because, after all, these polemics were in fact on the questions of “program”, were they not? Indeed, we remind the leaders of the MLOC, with their ultra-narrow view of “program”, that one of the COUSML’s polemics against the social-chauvinists was entitled “Some Notes on OL’s Draft Program for a Social-Chauvinist Party”[35]. But the fundamental issue is: can the questions of the theory of “three worlds” and the social-chauvinist theory of “directing the main blow against the Soviet social-imperialists” be detached from the questions of “program”? Quite clearly, the MLOC’s shouting and tearing its hair about the “program” is designed to divert attention away from the basic tasks of opposing the theory of “three worlds” and opposing social-chauvinism. This again confirms that the MLOC’s version of “program” is completely detached from and opposed to the movement in defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism and the struggle against revisionism.
Another pseudo-theory the MLOC has concocted to disrupt the struggle against social-chauvinism and even deny its existence concerns the question of “lines of demarcation”. The Political Report to MLOC’s First Congress stressed repeatedly that the “Lines of Demarcation Have Already Been Drawn”[36]. The MLOC is so taken with this formulation that the Report extends it to a good part of the globe: “In every country of Europe and Latin America there has been a line of demarcation already drawn on this question of the theory of ’three worlds’. There are Marxist-Leninists and there are opportunists....” (emphasis as in the original,[37]) What does the MLOC mean with its “lines of demarcation”? Does the MLOC mean that it finally, at long last, agrees with the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists on the need for struggle against social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism”, and all forms of opportunism? Does the MLOC mean that it, finally, at long last, is going to stop regarding the Marxist-Leninist movement as a higgledy-piggledy jumble of chance groups “making mistakes” and instead firmly distinguish, both in theory and in practice, between the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists led by the COUSML who are fighting social-chauvinism and the theory of “three worlds” and the opportunist, die-hard social-chauvinists, led by the Klonskyites, who are upholding the theory of “three worlds” as part of their public relations work for and alliance with the Pentagon? No, not at all, just the opposite. One can’t help but recall that the MLOC addressed its “Open Letter” – with its appeals for such forms of unity as “merger of organization”, unity in a “Leninist organizing committee”, and “unity over the correct path of proletarian revolution in this country” – to many organizations which the MLOC explicitly declares in its publications to have been already “demarcated” as social-chauvinist, opportunist, “social props” of the bourgeoisie, etc. What an abject self-confession of the sham, purely rhetorical and self-serving, nature of the MLOC’s “demarcations”!
Actually, what the MLOC means with its chatter about “lines of demarcation” is that the struggle against “three worlds-ism” and social-chauvinism should go away, that it is supposed to be “already” over. The MLOC barely denounced the theory of “three worlds” in September, 1977, and, presto!, barely 2 1/2 months later, the “lines of demarcation are already drawn”. Thus the MLOC’s real meaning behind their assertion that “the lines of demarcation are already drawn” – with the MLOC putting stress on “already drawn” – is that the MLOC has concocted another pseudo-theory to stop the struggle against social-chauvinism in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. According to this pseudo theory, the battle is already over, and the Marxist-Leninists can go to sleep, peacefully “demarcated” from the opportunists, who unfortunately are unlikely themselves to doze off into a fatal slumber. As Comrade Enver Hoxha teaches us,
’Waters sleep, but not the enemy’, is a wise saying of our long-suffering people.[38]
In order to concoct this theory of the “lines of demarcation are already drawn”, the MLOC has merely taken the fashionable theory of drawing innumerable “dividing lines” in the air to its real, practical conclusion – stop the struggle against revisionism altogether. With this theory, the “dividing liners” obscure the real and fundamental dividing line between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism by converting Marxism-Leninism into a matter of definition, interpretation and discussion and by starting innumerable, scholastic debates over secondary formulations or even non-existent issues. The MLOC’s use of this method shows that this type of “demarcation” is actually narrow circle diplomacy and has nothing to do with splitting with opportunism, since the MLOC keeps calling for unity with the “demarcated” lost souls and simply uses its “demarcation” as a way of getting one up on these groups. We are firmly opposed to this idealist anti-revisionist sort of “dividing lines” because this method diverts attention from and sabotages struggle over the real issues, because it replaces unity based on common class interests with unity based on one-thousand-and-one formulations. At the same time we also oppose it because it is a useless method that can never really sort out the Marxist-Leninists from the opportunists. It is necessary to take a very objective attitude to all organizations claiming to be Marxist-Leninist. Sorting out the revisionists, opportunists and anti-communists hiding under the banner of “their sort” of Marxism-Leninism is a complicated painstaking task. It is only through carrying the struggle through to the end against revisionism, “three worlds-ism” and social-chauvinism that this sorting out can be accomplished. Every group and every individual will make its own destiny in the great movement against social-chauvinism and to reconstitute the Party, independent of the petty-minded “dividing lines”.
Nevertheless, in a certain sense one can speak of certain very definite lines of demarcation being drawn, both in the international communist movement and in its American contingent. Let us see what these lines of demarcation are and how the MLOC opposes re-alignment among the U.S. Marxist-Leninists along these same lines.
After the death of the great Marxist-Leninist, Chairman Mao Tsetung, the struggle rapidly sharpened between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. The new-style opportunists of the “three worlds” variety unfolded a great plot and even staged a vile coup d’etat to seize control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the government of the People’s Republic of China. In this dangerous situation, it was Comrade Enver Hoxha who rose to the occasion and charted the path forward for the international proletariat. Comrade Enver Hoxha’s historic Report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania gave orientation and guidance to the international communist movement. This Report eliminated the possibility that the theory of “three worlds” would continue to cause confusion inside the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. This historic Report of Comrade Enver’s and the struggle against the anti-Leninist theory of “three worlds” have become rallying centers and unifying factors, veritable lines of demarcation, in the international communist movement. After the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, a tremendous tidal wave surged forward in the struggle against revisionism, especially against the new international opportunist trend based on the theory of “three worlds”. In the U.S., the movement against social-chauvinism caught fire. The great polemic against the theory of “three worlds” merged with and vastly strengthened the struggle against social-chauvinism. Precisely at this time it would be both wrong theoretically and dangerous practically to regard the present situation as static, petrified, and the struggle “already” over with. It would be wrong to forget that now is precisely a time of great realignment, of big developments, of splits in the camp of opportunism and drawing together and consolidation among the Marxist-Leninists, a time when the masses of activists are being drawn into the movement in defense of Marxism-Leninism. This powerful forward motion is not converting the opportunists into Marxist-Leninists, but is exposing the ugly features of opportunism, breaking the strangle-hold of the opportunists, and irresistibly leading ever larger numbers of revolutionary elements to a definite split with the revisionists and opportunists. And there is no doubt that it is precisely the struggle over the theory of “three worlds” and against social-chauvinism that is providing the sharp edge, the orientation, the content to this on-going struggle, to the developing re-alignment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, in the sense that it is Marxism-Leninism that is the “line of demarcation”, one may truly say that the lines of demarcation have been drawn.
But the point is that the MLOC does not recognize these true lines of demarcation. The MLOC’s dozens and dozens of “lines of demarcation” are designed precisely to blur the real line of demarcation, that between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, and to conciliate revisionism. The fact is that the MLOC has for years been looking around for this or that “line of demarcation”, for years has been putting forward a thousand-and-one diversions as “dividing lines”, in order to subvert the struggle against revisionism and neo-revisionism. Today the MLOC thinks it has found a cover to give some plausibility to its wild factionalism by speculating on the struggle against “three worlds-ism”. The MLOC speculates on the struggle against the theory of “three worlds” internationally, and says that these form “a line of demarcation” in Europe and Latin America, but the MLOC does not recognize precisely this line of demarcation for the U.S. The MLOC is opposed to developing firm unity among the forces against the “theory of three worlds” and in support of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. The MLOC’s Political Report gives this and that “line of demarcation” for the U. S. – anything you like except the theory of “three worlds”. It does not discuss the alignment of forces in the U. S. Marxist-Leninist movement with respect to the struggle against the theory of “three worlds” nor with respect to the struggle against the central social-chauvinist thesis of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism”. The MLOC’s Political Report is in face a profoundly anti-political report that refuses to recognize the existence of the on-going political movement against social-chauvinism in the U.S.
The MLOC’s hypocrisy is clearly shown by its stand on the internationalist rallies that are a glorious part of the irresistible trend coming out of the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. The MLOC states that “We are following in the tradition of the internationalist rallies held in Europe.. ..”[39] But what is good for Europe is apparently not so good when it shows up in the flesh in North America. The MLOC denounced in public, at some of its meetings held to “Report from Europe”, the historic Internationalist Rally held in Montreal, on April 30, 1978. This spirited Internationalist Rally was a great rally of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, it was a big forum against the theory of “three worlds”; it was a living manifestation of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement right here in North America. It was the first such international gathering in North America since the days of the First International. Yet the MLOC, instead of warmly welcoming this Rally, was thrown into an utter panic and lost no time in shouting vile epithets against this triumphant march of the international communist movement.
The MLOC’s hypocrisy concerning the Internationalist Rallies is closely connected with the MLOC’s role in disrupting the unity of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists fighting the theory of “three worlds” in the U.S. The MLOC has stepped up its attacks on the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and especially its war on the COUSML. The MLOC piously proclaims that “in every country of Europe and Latin America” the struggle against the theory of “three worlds” has drawn a firm “line of demarcation” so that “there are Marxist-Leninists and there are opportunists”. But not in the U.S. In the MLOC’s “Open Letter” it is completely silent on drawing any “line of demarcation” with respect to the theory of “three worlds” and support for the bastion of world revolution, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania.
Thus for all the MLOC’s phrase-mongering about the international “line of demarcation” against the theory of “three worlds”, the MLOC is opposing and disrupting the development of this demarcation in the U.S. We should like to point out to the leaders of the MLOC: the modern-day King Canutes may order the waves to recede, but they will drown anyway. Reality exists independent of the “transcendental principles” and curses of the idealists. The struggle against social-chauvinism is far from exhausting itself, it still has a bright future. Real life itself has refuted the MLOC’s predictions that everything is over, finished, cut-and-dried. Within a few months after the MLOC’s First Congress declared the end to the struggle against social-chauvinism, the “RCP, USA” split and thus graphically revealed the existence of tremendous ferment throughout the Marxist-Leninist movement. Today the Internationalist Rally held in Montreal on April 30, 1978 is being eagerly discussed all over, debates against the theory of “three worlds” and opportunism are raging, the old alliances are breaking up, and we are entering a most fluid period of motion and development in the struggle against social-chauvinism.
The MLOC’s denial of the present growing movement against social-chauvinism is part of the MLOC’s general negation of the entire recent history of the U. S. Marxist-Leninist movement. By this negation, the MLOC shows itself to be conscious of being somewhat out of place in the company of Marxist-Leninists, conscious of being a disruptive intruder. According to the MLOC, there is only a jumble of errors and mistakes until 1975. In 1975 the MLOC, the “consciousness of the final aims” translated into noisy disruption, steps forward, holding its nose as it picks its way among the Marxist-Leninists. According to the MLOC’s accounts, it seems that it was only with the formation of the MLOC in 1975 that history begins and only then could the process of “demarcation” start. The Marxist-Leninist movement could have been spared years of fruitless wandering if only the great ones had descended to earth earlier. In particular, the MLOC denies the existence of the history of the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism. Neo-revisionism was New Leftism adapted to Marxism-Leninism; the opportunist lines that opposed the student movement from within were transferred to the workers’ movement. The main neo-revisionist organizations were the Revolutionary Union (now the “RCP, USA”), the OL Klonskyites (now the “CP(M-L)”) and the “neo-revisionists from the ’left’”, the “Communist” League (now the “CLP, USNA”). It is the long history of neo-revisionist opportunism that has given rise to the present open social-chauvinism of the Klonskyite Pentagon-socialists. In the next section, we shall see how the MLOC’s disdain to recognize the struggle against neo-revisionism has not ensured its purity, but only ensured that the MLOC would repeat in new forms the old opportunist errors of the past.
[24] Unite!, October, 1977, major centerfold article entitled “Genuine Unity Rests on Principle”, p. 11, col. 2.
[25] Unite!, February, 1977, “An Open Letter to the October League”. The article starts on p. 2 and the quotations’ are from p. 11, col. 4.
[26] The Workers’ Advocate, September 1, 1976, “Mao Tse-tung Thought or Social-Chauvinism, A Comment on the October League’s Call for ’Unity of Marxist-Leninists’ ”, starting on p. 8. This article is also available as part of the pamphlet Mao Tsetung Thought Versus Opportunism.
[27] The Workers’ Advocate, November 20, 1976, Supplement, p. la, “Red Salute to Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Albanian Party of Labor”.
[28] The Workers’ Advocate, March 10, 1977, Special Issue on the Situation in the U. S. Marxist-Leninist Movement.
[29] Same reference as (25).
[30] Unite!, February, 1977, “Report from the Central Committee: Trotskyism Exposed!”, pp. 7 and 10. The MLOC also published a pamphlet of reprints entitled “Two Articles on Trotskyism”. One of the two articles was from Peking Review #7, 1977, entitled “The ’Gang of Four’ and the Trotskyites” by Chung Lien.
[31] Unite!, July, 1977, Editorial, “July 4th, Class Against Class”, p. 2.
[32] Unite!, August, 1977, Editorial entitled “Communist Party (ML)... A Social Prop of the Bourgeoisie”, p. 2.
[33] Unite!, September, 1977, ̶Theory of the ’Three Worlds’ Opposes Marxism-Leninism”.
[34] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 34.
[35]The Workers’ Advocate, May 12, 1977, pp. 14-15, 20.
[36] Weisberg, Political Report, pp. 34-5, also p. 8.
[37] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 35.
[38] Enver Hoxha, Selected Works, vol. 2, “Speech Delivered At the Meeting of the 81 Communist and Workers Parties in Moscow (November 16, I960)”, p. 799.
[39]Weisberg, Political Report, p. 35.