This letter was written and delivered prior to our Party becoming aware that the leadership of CPC(M-L) had savagely attacked our Party in full-scale polemics in People’s Canada Daily News (PCDN) in June 1980 and denounced our Party as the class enemy.
Central Committee Marxist-Leninist Party, USA June 16,1980
Central Committee
Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
Dear Comrades,
In May 1969 the nucleus of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA was established. Right from the start, first the ACWM (M-L) and then the COUSML and the MLP, USA have stood as the reliable fraternal comrades of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and its predecessors. The MLP, USA stands for the closest fraternal relations between itself and the CPC (M-L). In our letter of December 1, we declared that “Our two Parties are fighters in the same trench against imperialism, revisionism and all sorts of opportunism. We have gone through thick and thin together.” We believe that the close fraternal unity of our two Parties is a powerful force for revolution. We are determined to fight for the revolutionary tempering and strengthening of this unity, for the directing of this unity always along the path dictated by Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and for the implementation of the Marxist-Leninist norms. Unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism is a tremendous force on which the imperialists, the revisionists and all the enemies always break their teeth in vain.
It is this spirit which we have always and continuously inculcated in the ranks of the Party. For example, in early 1979 you accepted our invitation to attend our internal conference “Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists.” There you saw with your own eyes what profound proletarian internationalist sentiment we cherish for the CPC(M-L) and how our Party carefully assesses and takes account of the lessons taught by the struggle of the Canadian Internationalists and the CPC(M-L). You chose for your own reasons not to accept our invitation for you to send a fraternal delegation to the Preparatory Conference for the Founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA and similarly you did not accept our invitation for you to send a fraternal delegation to the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA. There too, at the Conference and the Congress, we continued on the same path. The Founding Congress unanimously passed a resolution sending to you, our dear fraternal comrades, our ardent revolutionary greetings. The pure proletarian internationalist sentiments of the Founding Congress shine forth in all their glory in that resolution and the other internationalist resolutions of the Congress. These are the feelings of the National Committee that led the preparations for the Founding Congress, of the Central Committee elected at the Founding Congress, and of the entire Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.
The fraternal unity between our two Parties is not unity for unity’s sake. On the contrary, it is unity in the common struggle against imperialism and revisionism. It is unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. This unity puts stern demands on our Marxist-Leninist Parties. These demands cannot be waived or set aside or replaced by some “special relationship.” It is our duty and yours to stand for principle. We said in our letter of December 1: “...the building and strengthening of our cooperation require that the problems and difficulties that emerge be dealt with straightforwardly, calmly and openly, they must be looked at square in the face. ... We hold that true friends are not those who sit still or who even applaud while errors are made, but those who have the deep love required to tell the truth even when it is unpleasant.” But this has not met with your approval. You have replied savagely to our letter of December 1. You did not even stop for a few days to consider the serious and weighty issues we were raising. Instead it was enough for you that our letter disagreed with this or that view of the leadership of the CPC(M-L). Thus you received our letter on December 3 and yet had your allegedly “serious and thorough” study of our letter and your more than two dozen pages of reply done by December 5.
You replied instantaneously with your raving and incoherent letters of December 5 signed by the Central Committee of the CPC(M-L). These letters are nothing but a brutal ultimatum. They threaten that “the cup is now filled to the brim” and that you “have no more patience” (p. 15) and that “this time your defeat will be final” (p. 10). Blinded by arrogance, you look down on us from the heights of Mount Olympus and curse and mock us. You curse our deep fraternal love for you as the love of “the hangman for his victim” (p. 7), you strike with deep, hostility at us, you accuse us of being “agent-provocateurs” (pp. 1, 4, 6, 12, 21, 24, 25, 26 and elsewhere), of being “the agents of the blackest reaction” (pp. 5, 15, etc.) and of being the “sworn enemy of” the CPC (M-L) and the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement (p. 1), of being criminals (pp. 15, 16, 22, etc.) and of acting like Nixon and like “imperialist gangsters,” you hurl an incredible number of fierce provocations against us, and you strain and do a tremendous amount of harm to the fraternal relations between our two Parties. Such open declarations of hostility written to a fraternal party; such a frank avowal that disregard and contempt for the party and constant intense pressure to split the leadership should be accepted as everyday norms among fraternal parties; such an open declaration that the Marxist-Leninist norms should be replaced by a “special relationship”; has few precedents in the entire history of the international communist movement. These letters are a black stain on the glorious history of the CPC(M-L).
And who are you striking at with such fury and such hostility? You are striking at our Party, which has stood beside you loyally and without flinching in the face of the savage attacks and calumny from imperialism, revisionism and reaction. You are striking at us while we have remained on the path of true friendship, the path of upholding Marxist-Leninist principle and our historic fraternal relationship. But Marxism-Leninism does not allow one to flinch at difficulties. We have walked through fire for Marx-ism-Leninism and the revolution and for the strengthening of our fraternal relations with you. Today too, we shall continue our march on the same principled Marxist-Leninist path. This is the only path for the strengthening of genuine fraternal relations. Only this path is worthy of fighting contingents of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement, contingents such as the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA and the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).
With this letter, the Central Committee of the MLP, USA calls upon the Central Committee of the CPC (M-L) to have the courage, the wisdom and the loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism required to stop on this provocative and anti-Marxist path which you are more and more treading on in your relations with us. We call on the CC of the CPC(M-L) to repudiate the letters of December 5, 1979 and all the other hostile letters, to repudiate the path of public attack on our Party which the CPC (M-L) has started down, to repudiate all the savage and hostile actions taken against the COUSML and the MLP, USA and to return to the path of friendly fraternal relations. We call on the CC of the CPC(M-L) to respect the norms of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism in its relations with the Marxist-Leninists of the U.S., to give up its attempts to impose a “special relationship” outside the Marxist-Leninist norms upon us, to respect the integrity of the MLP, USA and of its party bodies, and to deal with the differences between the two Parties that may come up and with the problems of practical relations according to the Marxist-Leninist norms and the standards of revolutionary professionalism. The CPC(M-L) is the Marxist-Leninist Party of the Canadian proletariat for whom we have high regards. We trust that the CPC(M-L) will demonstrate the revolutionary steadfastness and iron determination that the situation calls for, and that it will courageously, thoroughly, completely and without the slightest equivocation of any type repudiate its hostile acts against our Party. Our letter is divided as follows:
(EROL Note: See the table of contents for this document.)
This issue of The Workers’ Advocate reproduces Part I of the letter in its entirety except for the deletion of several passages. These passages all refer to comments made by the leadership of CPC(M-L) on individuals and our criticism of these unprincipled and generally slanderous comments. As well, we have removed the names of certain Marxist-Leninist parties or organizations.
The above letter is reproduced as in the original. Typographical errors have been corrected, however, and quotations have been verified with the original sources. All parenthetical and bracketed remarks in the text, even those marked “ – ed.,” are as in the original, except for those marked ”– W.A.”