Today everyone is being put to the test in the great movement against social-chauvinism. The struggle against social-chauvinism in the U. S. is the American section of the great international struggle against the new international opportunist trend based on the theory of “three worlds”. It is through this great movement in defense of Marxism-Leninism and against revisionism, “three worlds-ism” and all forms of opportunism that the Marxist-Leninist Party of the American proletariat will be reconstituted. Everyone will write their own destiny: either for revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, or for social-chauvinism, the Klonskyite alliance with U.S. imperialism and defense of the U.S. neo-colonial empire; either for the reconstitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party, or for disrupting the Party by conciliating the social-chauvinists. It is from this standpoint that everything, including the recent maneuvers of the MLOC, must be judged.
The “Open Letter” of the MLOC was the MLOC’s request for a public debate, for public polemics concerning the “Party” the MLOC had founded at its First Congress in November 1977. This “Open Letter” crowned a long series of attacks and provocations against the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. What the MLOC’s First Congress signified was that, less than three months after denouncing the theory of “three worlds”, the MLOC was intent on stepping up its long-standing war against the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, diverting attention from the struggle against the anti-Leninist theory of “three worlds”, liquidating the movement against social-chauvinism, and pushing the road of conciliation and compromise with the Klonskyites. The MLOC’s particular form of this road is its theory of “Klonskyism without the ’three worlds’ theory”. For this reason, the “Open Letter” and the “Draft Party Program” don’t even mention the struggle against social-chauvinism, refuse to condemn the key Klonskyite thesis of “directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism”, and either down-play the question of the theory of “three worlds” (“Draft Party Program”) or neglect it altogether (“Open Letter”).
Closely related to this intensified war by the MLOC against the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists is the MLOC’s conciliation of the Klonskyites. The “Open Letter” drew no distinction at all between the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and the Klonskyites – thus slandering the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists while promoting the social-chauvinists as Marxist-Leninists making “errors”. War on revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and friendship for social-chauvinism are two sides of the same coin. Either Marxism-Leninism or social-chauvinism. There is no “third road” in between. The conciliators and vacillators are serving the interests of the social-chauvinists by trying to demoralize the revolutionary ranks from within.
Comrade Lenin already explained the basis of sects of conciliators long ago. He wrote: “Groups of vacillating intellectuals inevitably spring up between the contending trends – ...These groups have no social force behind them, and can have no mass influence on the workers, because politically they are mere cyphers. Instead of a firm, clear line which attracts the workers and is confirmed by living experience, narrow circle diplomacy reigns in such groups. The absence of contact with the masses, the absence of historical roots in the mass trends of Social-Democracy (communism – ed.) in Russia...and the absence of a consistent, integral, clear and absolutely definite line tested by many years of experience, i.e. lack of answers to the questions of tactics, organization and program – such is the soil on which narrow circle diplomacy thrives, and such are its symptoms.“ (emphasis as in the original,[94])
The MLOC hides its conciliation with the social-chauvinists and presents itself as really super-o-o-orthodox through the use of idealist anti-revisionism. This idealist method of work is a carry-over from a section of the neo-revisionists, especially from the Klonskyites and the “CLP.USNA”. It is a method well adapted to the practice of stealing one or two formulations from the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, while maintaining the entire neo-revisionist arsenal and the rightist, revisionist politics. In studying the MLOC’s method we have been struck by its similarity to the general revisionist and opportunist style of work described several years ago by our fraternal comrades in Canada. They write: “The revisionist and opportunist style of work is that they
– deny the existence of historical experience
– deny the participation of the masses in the historical process
–put detail in command of the over-all
–use differences to divide the people.”[95]
The idealist anti-revisionists take up this revisionist and opportunist style – only they take it up on principle. We have seen that the MLOC denies the historical experience of the Marxist-Leninist movement in the U.S. in the struggle against revisionism, negates the great movement against social-chauvinism, submerges the fundamental questions of the struggle against revisionism and social-chauvinism in a mass of moralisms, and uses differences over these moralisms to split the people. The MLOC completely denies the revolutionary authority of the struggle against revisionism and goes against all historical experience by reducing everything to the level that everyone is making “mistakes”.
The opportunist and revisionist style of work is a roadblock in the struggle against social-chauvinism. Idealist anti-revisionism must be thrown overboard and the Marxist-Leninist Party must be built through the repudiation of Browderism and all forms of revisionism and opportunism. There is no future for the path of conciliation, which seeks to convert the whole movement into a squabble, a way to negotiate with the opportunists the best price for “working out the differences”.
As for the MLOC, its destiny is up to itself. If it continues its war on the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, continues conciliating the social-chauvinists and persists in the path of the “Open Letter”, then it will come to no good end. Its pretensions will burst, leaving only a foul smell behind.
What, when all is said and done, is our reply to the “Open Letter” of the MLOC? It is that we intend to continue the struggle against social-chauvinism and “three worlds-ism” and carry it through to the end. We shall continue to unite more and more Marxist-Leninists in the struggle against the class enemy and opportunism. We regard with the utmost contempt the intrigues and splitting activities of the conciliators and vacillators and the promotion of “Klonskyism without the theory of ’three worlds’”. With a single will, we enthusiastically declare:
DOWN WITH THE PATH OF CONCILIATION WITH SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM!
LONG LIVE THE GREAT MOVEMENT AGAINST SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM, “THREE WORLDS-ISM” AND ALL FORMS OF REVISIONISM AND OPPORTUNISM!
U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS, UNITE IN STRUGGLE AGAINST SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM!
WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
[94] V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 20, “The Bourgeois Intelligentsia’s Methods of Struggle Against the Workers”, pp. 471-2.
[95] On Unity of Marxist-Leninists, “Summing-Up the Stage of Discussion Between the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and En Lutte!”, p. 190.