The proletariat is an international class, and it is leading a world proletarian socialist revolution. The U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement is only one contingent of a great international communist movement. In order to fight the class enemy and the opportunists, the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement must come under the authority of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. This is not a matter of “recognition”, but of being part of a world proletarian movement. The struggle in the U. S. against social-chauvinism and the theory of “three worlds” is a component part of a world-wide struggle between two trends, between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and international revisionism, social-democracy, “three worlds-ism” and all hues of opportunism.
Revolutionary authority is not decreed, it is established in the course of making revolution. The COUSML holds that all those in the U. S. who wish to fight the U. S. monopoly capitalist criminals and the Pentagon-socialists and “left” imperialists will sooner or later recognize the merits of Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania and the absolute necessity to follow Marxism-Leninism. We have fought both revisionism and neo-revisionism right from the moment of our birth, and our struggle against the open social-chauvinism of the Browderite OL leaders started prior to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. But that is precisely why we enthusiastically welcomed and learned from the path of Chairman Mao’s GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION and Comrade Enver Hoxha’s REPORT TO THE SEVENTH CONGRESS OF THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA and realized that these historic events gave orientation and direction to our struggle.
Historical experience merits attention. When the Khrushchovite revisionists betrayed the proletariat and communism, it was Comrades Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha and the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania who led an earth-shaking movement against modern revisionism. Whoever opposed the revolutionary authority of the struggle against modern revisionism – or even who adopted a “moderate”, “mild” centrist attitude towards it – could not defend the purity of Marxism-Leninism, and one by one such people and groups faltered in the revolutionary path or even went over to the enemy. Today this historic struggle against modern revisionism must still be carried through to completion. Today it is the historic Report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania which has become the glorious rallying point and great unifying factor for revolutionary Marxist-Leninists around the world. The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania stands as the invincible bastion of and pathfinder for the world revolution.
Thus an important part of the MLOC’s disruption of the struggle against social-chauvinism and “three worlds-ism” is its denial of the revolutionary authority of the international communist movement. The MLOC incessantly speculates on the prestige of the international communist movement and in a most contemptible way continually concocts different ways to make insinuations about the MLOC’s alleged “international contacts”, while at the same time the MLOC promotes the liberal, opportunist, social-democratic theory of “poly-centrism” or “many centers” in the international communist movement. The MLOC advocates poly-centrism through such means as counterposing revolutionary authority, such as the revolutionary authority of the Great October Socialist Revolution, or the revolutionary authority of the struggle against modern Khrushchovite revisionism led by Comrades Mao Tse-tung and Enver Hoxha, to a wishy-washy poly-centrist “support” for all “socialist countries” in general or through demagogical distortions of the Marxist-Leninist principles concerning each Party “standing) on its own two feet”. This social-democratic and revisionist poly-centrism is precisely a theory most convenient for all sorts of conciliators and disrupters who wish to infiltrate the ranks of the revolutionaries while conciliating the revisionists and opportunists. With poly-centrism as the basis, the conciliators and disrupters can “quite honestly” praise the “contributions” of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists (only of course the ones in other countries, while denouncing the domestic revolutionaries) and even curse revisionism a little, especially when the prestige of the struggle against revisionism and “three worlds-ism” is running high due to the work of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, while still maintaining that various revisionists are just Marxist-Leninists making “mistakes” and that the U.S. has its own path independent of the international authority of Leninism.
Now let us examine some of the polemics by the MLOC in favor of poly-centrism. The MLOC asserts that “We are the only organization in the U.S. which stands for the genuine support of the national liberation movements and of the socialist countries.”[88] Let us leave aside the MLOC’s usual dishonest boasting and unprincipled slander. What does the MLOC’s “genuine support of socialist countries” consist of? The MLOC promotes an eclectic mish-mash of stories about various allegedly socialist countries without a consistent guiding thread to them, except the guiding thread of poly-centrism. MLOC’s paper Unite! raises them to a principle by carrying an aggressive polemic in favor of poly-centrism in reporting on a series of presentations held by the Central Committee of the MLOC during the month of October 1976. Unite! stressed this polemic, calling it “a sharp two-line struggle” and, with its usual modesty, stating that it “represent(ed) a significant advance for the workers’ struggle in this country....”[89] The article states: “In the past, many revolutionaries had seen October as simply a time to celebrate only the Chinese and Russian revolution. On this question, and many others, there is a sharp two-line struggle... .Therefore in October the MLOC brought to light the great victories not only in China, but in Albania, Korea, Vietnam, and Romania.”
Thus the MLOC gave indiscriminate support to all “socialist” countries, including such a revisionist country as Romania. The MLOC’s article went on with an amazing paragraph which eclectically jumbled together everything – “the protracted struggle by our Vietnamese comrades against French and U. S. imperialism; the achievements of Juche (self-reliance) in North Korea or the remarkable Childrens Palaces; the important role that Romania is playing in the fight for an independent Europe; or the new socialist system of distribution and wages implemented in Albania” – in order to explain “how the dictatorship of the proletariat really works to improve the daily life of the people.” The whole point of MLOC’s laundry list is to wipe out the great historic significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia which opened the path for the liberation of all mankind, established the revolutionary authority of Leninism, and brought Marxism-Leninism around the world. The whole point is to slander as “national chauvinist” the desire of the Marxist-Leninists to lay stress on the struggle against modern revisionism and in defense of Leninism led by Comrades Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha. It is allegedly “national chauvinist” to support the historic Chinese Revolution, a continuation of the Great October Socialist Revolution, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The MLOC opposes the revolutionary authority of Leninism. The article held that to follow the path of the Great October Socialist Revolution or to recognize the role of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is “a national chauvinist stand, which denies the duty to universally support the dictatorship of the proletariat wherever it exists...” And it is no accident that this article warmly praised Romania, the card-castle of anti-Soviet social-imperialism in Europe, the tracherous Titoite mediator which helped start the criminal “peace” negotiations between the Israeli Zionist hangman Begin and the Egyptian capitulator Sadat and thus paved the way for Sadat’s de facto recognition of the imperialist settler-state of “Israel”. Of course, it is one thing for someone to be confused about Romania, and entirely another thing for alleged “Marxist-Leninists” like the MLOC to promote Romania as a model and to attack others as “national chauvinist” for not putting this Romanian model on a par with Lenin’s Great October Socialist Revolution, Chairman Mao’s China and Enver Hoxha’s Albania. This promotion of Romania went so far that the MLOC printed excerpts from the documents of the Eleventh Congress of the Romanian Communist Party in the August-September, 1976 issue of Unite!. The MLOC put these excerpts in a centerfold article outlined in red and stressed that “It is important for comrades to take note of the contributions of our Romanian comrades....” The over-all head of this centerfold display was “Training Successors To The Revolution” and, by having a small insert in the middle which quoted Comrade Mao Tsetung on successors to the revolutionary-cause of the proletariat, the display implied that the Romanian documents were a good example of following the path of Comrade Mao Tsetung and of fighting modern Khrushchovite revisionism.
The flip side of the MLOC’s promiscuous mixing together of support for everything and anything, including revisionist Romania, as models, is that the MLOC explicitly attacks revolutionary authority as a violation of “mak(ing) its own analysis”. To be precise, the MLOC singles out Comrades Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha for attack. The MLOC stressed sharply at its First Congress that: “We are absolutely committed that the party we build here will stand on its own two feet. The party will not take orders or directions from anybody. We will not follow blindly the line of any other party, as great and glorious a party as the Communist Party of China under Mao Tsetung, or as great and glorious a party as the Party of Labor of Albania, under Enver Hoxha. These are vital lessons to be learned from history.”[90] Who is it that demands blind submission? Is it Khrushchov, Teng Hsiao-ping and all other anti-Marxist and revisionist elements? Oh no, according to the MLOC, it is Chairman Mao Tsetung and Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Communist Party of China (and not Teng Hsiao-ping’s “three worlder” anti-party revisionists), it is Comrade Enver Hoxha and Comrade Enver’s Party of Labor of Albania (and not the modern Khrushchovite revisionists and the opportunists of all hues) who demand blind submission! Thus the MLOC repeats the crude anti-communist slanders of the bourgeoisie and “blindly” follows Togliattist poly-centrist Eurocommunism. Thus the MLOC openly declares that it is only infiltrating the ranks of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and trying to speculate with the prestige of the international communist movement with its rambling “support” for all “socialist” countries, and has no intention to become a fighting contingent of the international communist movement, which it regards as a foreign body demanding blind submission. Of course, in a certain sense, we in the COUSML are also against “blind following”. We fervently declare that we will never “follow blindly” modern revisionism, whether of the Khrushchovite, Browderite, Titoite or Togliattist varieties. We will not “follow blindly” social-chauvinism, “three worlds-ism” or Teng Hsiao-ping’s Chinese revisionists. We will not “follow blindly” the vacillators or disrupters, the dubious elements or idealist anti-revisionists, but will keep close watch on and thwart their conciliation with revisionism and social-chauvinism. In order to avoid “following blindly”, we will adhere most closely to Marxism-Leninism and firmly recognize the revolutionary authority of the international communist movement and firmly combat all poly-centrist and imperialist demagogy about revolutionary authority being “blind submission”. Only with Marxism can the proletariat become independent of the bourgeoisie and, integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the revolution, lead the revolutionary movement – while conversely, without Marxism, the proletariat is doomed to “blindly follow” the bourgeoisie. History teaches that demagogy against “blind submission” has always been used by the anti-Marxists to disrupt the communist movement, from the Bakunists in their struggle against Marx and Engels in the First International, to both the centrists and the open anti-communists in the struggle against Leninism and the Communist (Third) International, and to the neo-revisionists of today against the struggle against revisionism and especially against the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania.
The MLOC even goes so far as to claim that one must be a poly-centrist in order to fight the theory of “three worlds”. How shameless! The MLOC’s Central Committee states: “In using the ’theory of three worlds’ in practice, the MLOC began to recognize that it was in contradiction to the Leninist analysis of the epoch of imperialism. From this struggle we have learned many valuable lessons about the absolute necessity to ’use our own Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method to make class analysis’. Under the guidance of their great leaders, comrades Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha, both the CPC and the PLA have made great and invaluable contributions to the defense of Marxism-Leninism, and the victory of the revolution worldwide. These can never be ignored and will stand forever. But (This “but” reveals everything. Why “but”? It was Comrades Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha who taught us to adhere unwaveringly to Marxism-Leninism, oppose revisionism, “three worlds-ism” and all forms of opportunism, and to rely on the solidity of our organization and the correctness of our political line – ed.) the vanguard of each country must make its own analysis, in conformity with the historic experience of the proletariat summed up in the theory of Marx-ism-Leninism.”[91]
On this question indeed there are two diametrically opposed summations of experience. The struggle against political blackmail has been very severe around the questions of the theory of “three worlds” and social-chauvinism. We in the COUSML learned in our struggle against political blackmail and against those who use their “international recognition” to make the Marxist-Leninists submit to revisionist lines that we should rally ever more closely around the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrades Enver Hoxha and Mao Tsetung, that we should study and re-study Marxism-Leninism and unite still more closely with the international communist movement. The MLOC on the other hand is playing with taking part in the struggle against the theory of “three worlds” in order to cast doubt and discredit on Comrades Enver Hoxha and Mao Tsetung, to blame MLOC’s own opportunism on the international communist movement, to shake the proletariat’s loyalty in Marxism-Leninism and replace it with poly-centrist irresolution and liberalness. Thus the MLOC’s fine words about the “great and invaluable contributions” of comrades Enver Hoxha and Mao Tsetung which “can never be ignored and will stand forever” have a very hollow ring. These “great and invaluable contributions” have already been “ignored” and forgotten in MLOC’s vaunted “Draft Party Program” – which has no mention of Comrades Enver Hoxha and Mao Tsetung, no mention of the historic Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania or of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, no mention of the Party of Labor of Albania at all and no mention of the great struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism led by Enver Hoxha’s Party of Labor of Albania and Chairman Mao’s Communist Party of China.
It is a big exposure of the revisionist nature of the MLOC’s poly-centrism that the MLOC, at the same time that it demagogically counterposes “stand(ing) on its own feet” to the authority of the international communist movement, simultaneously follows the very bad example of the OL social-chauvinists in trying to float an opportunist “Party” on the basis of international connections. On the one hand, the MLOC agitates against international communism with its reactionary poly-centrist demagogy about blind submission. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the MLOC opposes the solidity and unity of the international communist movement through intrigues, and the MLOC tries to dazzle people with name-dropping and hints of relations with this or that Party in order to blind people to the MLOC’s own stand in the struggle against social-chauvinism and to stop embarrassing questions. This is no accident: the Togliattist revisionist “polycentrism” is nothing but the flip side of the equally revisionist Khrushchovite policy of political blackmail and brutal dictate. It is quite shocking to see to what a contemptible level these alleged Marxist-Leninists of the MLOC have sunk. Revolution is based on class struggle carried out in the country, on self-reliance, not on posturings and international intrigues, and not on the basis of a number of tricks and frauds to make people believe that connections exist when they actually don’t exist. The MLOC is carrying out the OL’s methods – but in this case Marx’s classic saying holds true yet again: “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”.[92] In the OL’s case, the OL actually did and does have international connections and “recognition” by international opportunism. But in the case of the MLOC, its international connections are mostly a matter of sleight-of-hand and optical illusions, conjuring tricks to fool the naive. While the OL published the messages to its Founding Congress of the “CP(M-L)” from various organizations, the MLOC has to resort to publishing a list of the Parties and organizations which the MLOC sent messages to. This list of messages sent by, not received by, the MLOC First Congress is published on p. 53 of Class Against Class, #10. There it turns out that the MLOC didn’t even bother to get the names of certain of the Parties correct. To add the final touch to this clowning around, at the end of a list containing the names of many Marxist-Leninist Parties and national liberation movements, the MLOC demagogically adds “the Dawson Five, Gary Tyler and Buddy Cochran”, who are thus put on the same level as the Marxist-Leninist Parties and national liberation movements.
Another big exposure of the unprincipled nature of poly-centrism is the new low hit by the MLOC in its work against the unity of the international communist movement through their intrigues against the historic Internationalist Rally held in Montreal, April 30, 1978. This great Internationalist Rally was a concrete manifestation, right here in North America, of the great revolutionary warmth of the international communist movement. It was a great Rally against Khrushchovite revisionism, “three worlds-ism” and opportunism of all hues. It struck a big blow at the disruption of the unity of the international communist movement by the Chinese revisionists and the new international opportunist trend based on “three worlds”. Sponsored by the glorious pathbreaker in North America, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), the Rally was addressed by or received messages from 19 Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations and national liberation movements and was attended by over 3,500 enthusiastic people. The Rally received a message of greetings from the Party of Labor of Albania. For the proletariat of North America, this Rally of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism had great significance and was a matter of great joy. This was the first such international meeting organized in North America since the days when the offices of the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International) were transferred to New York. This powerful Rally was part of the growing trend of unity in the international communist movement, a unity forged in struggle against revisionism, “three worlds-ism” and all opportunism.
What was the attitude of the MLOC towards this historic event? After all, the MLOC had sent messages to fully eleven of the organizations who attended or sent messages to this Rally, including the Rally’s sponsor, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), at the time of MLOC’s First Congress.[93] Nevertheless, the MLOC actively conspired and still conspires against this Rally because.. .the COUSML, as the nucleus of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the U.S. proletariat, had the great honor to address the Rally on behalf of the U.S. proletariat. It would be too much, of course, to expect certain narrow-minded “leaders” to support an Internationalist Rally which they cannot use to their own sectarian advantage, but in fact the MLOC did not even raise to this level and did not maintain a “discreet neutrality”. Instead the MLOC actively opposed the Internationalist Rally. The MLOC went to the extent of conducting intrigues prior to the Rally, such as in one major city swearing support for the Internationalist Rally in order to attempt to infiltrate and disrupt one of the Preparatory Committees in the U.S. and even claim that the MLOC should be the leader of the Preparatory Committee. At the same time, the MLOC refused to lift a finger to do any work for the Internationalist Rally and refused to even mention it in its press. Afterwards, the MLOC denounced both the Rally and the COUSML at, for example, certain of its public meetings organized to “report on Europe” where the MLOC Went into an utter frenzy and made a disgusting anti-communist display. Is it possible that anyone could play such a role but out-and-out petty-minded, hard-boiled, factionalist creatures of intrigue? The MLOC’s entire stand on the Rally, from its alleged “support” with which it tried to infiltrate the Preparatory Committee of a major city to its public denunciations, was based on one “principle” and one principle alone... what best serves the interest of factionalizing the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement and intriguing inside the international communist movement. The MLOC had no respect for or joy at the international trend of unity represented by this Internationalist Rally, but took its stand solely on the basis of what best served its factional struggle against the COUSML and against the struggle against social-chauvinism.
For a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, Marx and Engels’ great call, “Workers of All Countries, Unite!”, is an obligatory principle and a source of great strength and encouragement. The Marxist-Leninists work unceasingly to consolidate and strengthen the international communist movement. COUSML proudly regards itself as but one section, one national branch, of an International Party, of international communism. The struggle in the U. S. against social-chauvinism is but one part of the great international struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism – and it is the international communist movement which has all the time provided clarity and orientation for this struggle, from the emergence of the great epoch-making doctrine of Leninism to the historic Report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. Where would we be today without the great teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha, who are above all leaders of the international proletariat? The proletariat is an international class, and it can only build its unity on the basis of staunch opposition to all revisionism, including poly-centrist disruption and intrigues. The struggle in the U. S. against social-chauvinism cannot be consistently carried through to the end unless it includes opposition to the social-chauvinist demagogy by the poly-centrists against the international communist movement.
[88] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 8.
[89] Unite!, December-January, 1976-7, “Uphold Proletarian Internationalism, Build the United Front Against the Two Superpowers”, p. 3.
[90] Weisberg, Political Report, p. 44.
[91] Same reference as (41), p. 42.
[92] Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1st paragraph of section I.
[93] Class Against Class, January, 1978, #10, p. 53.