In your letters of December 5 you make a mock proposal for a meeting between our two Parties. You write:
At the same time, we propose that a meeting of the delegation of the National Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and the delegation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) should take place at the soonest possible time. Until such a meeting can be convened, the CC of CPC(M-L) cannot accept your invitation to send a delegation to your Preparatory Conference for the Founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, or to the Founding Congress of the MLP, USA. Furthermore, we will not participate in any meeting which will include Joseph Green or in any meeting where any provocations are organized against our Party. (Letter of December 5 to the NC, emphasis added)
Now, it is the duty and communist responsibility of the National Committee of the COUSML to thoroughly and severely deal with those responsible for this provocation [our letter of comradely criticism of December 1 – ed.] against our Party and the fraternal relations between our two Parties. For this reason, we are also proposing an urgent meeting between the delegations of the CC of CPC(M-L) and the NC of COUSML at the earliest possible time. Because of the extremely serious and grave nature of these charges, this provocation must be ended before the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA is founded.(p. 7, emphasis added)
We call upon the National Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists to take resolute action against this agent-provocateur. As well, we propose that a meeting of the delegations of the National Committee of COUSML and the Central Committee of CPC (M-L) meet at once to resolve this issue – the elimination of this vile provocation against our Party by Joseph Green. (p. 26, emphasis added)
Our Party has always been for meetings as a method of dealing with and solving the problems in the fraternal relations between our two fraternal Parties. We have fought for such meetings for years. It is our opposition to frivolous and “middlemen” methods in the fraternal relations that was the reason that from the evening of March 13, 1976 and thereafter you labeled us as allegedly guilty of “formalism.” You have fought against such meetings. After you agreed in the later half of 1977 to hold a formal meeting on the question of the problems in the fraternal relations between our two Parties, you then refused to hold it, sought to create a diversion by accusing us of “acting like a bunch of U.S. imperialist gangsters” because we continued to insist on the implementation of the decision on holding the formal meeting, and finally you openly and unilaterally canceled the planned formal meeting in your letter of September 9, 1977. You stated that: “It is our view that considering the state of relations between us, a meeting of the delegations of the fraternal Parties will be of no use whatsoever.” (Letter of the NEC of CPC(M-L) to the NEC of COUSML of September 9, 1977) Since we continued to insist on holding the formal meeting, and since such a meeting is in fact a norm of proper relations, after a number of months you again agreed to a meeting. But you turned your “agreement” into a meaningless formality by not being prepared for the meeting by your own admission, and then by walking out at the very start of the meeting of March 4, 1978 on the flimsiest of pretexts. You then used your own walkout as further proof of your views denying the need for a meeting of the delegations of the two Parties and you advocated various diversionary suggestions. Now you alleged yourself to be for a meeting but this is a sheer mockery. You put the following preconditions on this meeting:
1. You insist that our leadership split prior to the meeting, and that you have the right to dictate the composition of our delegation.
2. You insist that we agree beforehand to accept any view of the CPC(M-L) on the pretext of avoiding “provocations,” with comradely criticism such as the letter of December 1 being defined as a “provocation,” and with our stand in defense of the integrity of our organization such as at the March 4, 1978 meeting also being defined as a “provocation.”
3. You insist that this meeting take place before the Preparatory Conference for the Founding of the MLP, USA. And later on, in your letter of early February 1980 (“January 19”) you altered this so that you will not recognize the MLP, USA and hence you address your letter to the now nonexistent COUSML.
4. You give no definition of the subject of the “urgent meeting” except for insistence that the meeting is for ending the so-called “provocation” against CPC(M-L) – that is, it is for the purpose of discussing how to split our Party and to eliminate the insistence of our Party on its organizational integrity.
Clearly, you have spared no effort in putting as many unacceptable and brutal preconditions on this meeting as possible.
Nevertheless, our Party is still in favor of a meeting of the delegations of the two leaderships to deal with the problems of fraternal relations. We believe that this is a proper method provided for in the Marxist-Leninist norms. We believe that such meetings are of great importance and should be approached in a serious manner. In the meeting of March 4, 1978 between the delegations of the two Parties, in the short time before you walked out we did manage to point out:
This meeting is an important meeting. It deals with matters of great significance. When problems arise in the fraternal relations between Marxist-Leninist parties, they must be handled correctly or else it will impair the fighting unity and maybe even degenerate into something portending great dangers. A meeting of this type, to be successful, must be undertaken with great seriousness from both sides, with both sides determined to make the meeting a success, to delve into and solve the problems at stake. Any halfhearted approach to such a meeting will mean the failure of such a meeting. (from the speech of our delegation to the March 4, 1978 meeting)
We further emphasized this point in our letter of April 19, 1978. We wrote:
“We are opposed to the unilateral violation of joint decisions of our two Parties. We seriously protest your violation of the mutual decision to hold a meeting of the delegations of the leaderships. We prepared very seriously for the March 4 meeting and set aside other work that was pressing urgently. Yet on March 4, you stated that you were not prepared and you also right at the outset stated your skepticism concerning this important meeting. With that spirit anything will be a flop. That is not carrying out the joint decision. A meeting is not an empty form, just two delegations sitting at the same table and nothing else.(Letter of April 19, 1978 of the NEC of the COUSML to the NEC of the CPC(M-L))
(In the letter of April 19, we also made further proposals on how to deal with the problems between the two Parties, including that “you send us a written statement of your views on the fraternal relations between our two Parties.” To this day, you have not replied to our letter beyond acknowledging receipt of it.) Thus we have consistently held to the necessity of a proper serious attitude to meetings.
Thus meetings should be taken seriously and properly prepared for. Therefore at this time, because of your letters of December 5, we agree with you that there are certain conditions that need to be fulfilled in preparation for such a meeting. We differ however on what those conditions are. Previously we posed no conditions. But with your letters of December 5 the situation has changed.
What would be the nature of the conditions needed to have a serious, fruitful meeting? Comrade Enver Hoxha points out that:
...and second, any discussion or meeting between two parties, whichever they may be, should be held on an equal footing, on the basis of consultations and mutual respect, avoiding any manifestation of imposing the will of one side upon the other side, or of any privileged position of one side over the other side, etc. Our Party has respected and will respect these principles. This is the principled position of our Party concerning the question of meetings, talks and consultations, we have maintained such a position in the past, and we shall maintain it in the future too.” (“Report Delivered by Comrade Enver Hoxha at the 21st Plenum of the CC of the PLA on the Meeting of the Representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, Held in Moscow in November 1960,” Through the Pages of Volume XIX of the Works of Comrade Enver Hoxha, NBI edition, pp. 269-70)
Therefore conditions should be created so that the above type of meeting can be held.
The following conditions are necessary for a proper comradely meeting held on an equal footing, with mutual respect, and without imposing the will of one side on the other and without any privileged position of one side over the other.
A. You must repudiate your letters of December 5 and your attempts to split the leadership of the MLP, USA and your hostile stand against our Party. You must also repudiate all past provocations to the effect “you are acting” or “some of you are behaving” like a bunch of “U.S. imperialist gangsters.” Since you have explicitly endorsed these earlier attacks on us in your letter of December 5, therefore they must now be explicitly repudiated. Without the repudiation of these hostile stands, it is impossible for the meetings to be held on truly equal conditions. Without such repudiation, you remain in the declared stand of hostility against our Party and with the declared aim of splitting our leadership. As the Central Committee of the CPC(M-L) signed the letters of December 5, it is the CC that must present its written repudiation with the necessary thoroughness of the letters of December 5 and other hostile stands.
B. You must specifically retract and repudiate the declaration of the CC of the CPC(M-L) that you give yourself the right to act in the U.S. independent of the Marxist-Leninist Party in the U.S. You have stated, in reference to acts inside the U.S., that: “Our Party will never seek ’approval’ from any fraternal Party for any of our actions, either before taking actions or after taking actions.” (p. 12)
This declaration is equivalent to not recognizing the necessity for the party principle in the U.S. and to not recognizing our Party and regarding it simply as a mere group of chance individuals. Therefore such a stand is a stand of brutal pressure and a most hostile stand, a stand that you feel free to violate our integrity, to interfere in our affairs and to act in opposition to the principle of the necessity in the U.S. for a Marxist-Leninist party as the single general staff of the revolution.
C. Our two Parties must maintain public solidarity in the press and at public functions. We have maintained support for you, but you are presently organizing an international boycott of the MLP, USA. You are not withholding political support because our two Parties are unknown to each other. On the contrary, you are using the withdrawal of political support as a method of putting savage pressure against us. As well, you have gone to the extent of starting down the road of public attacks against us. And furthermore you have been seeking to organize your own anti-party network in the U.S., and this too must cease as a prerequisite for a meeting. To meet without the removal of this political pressure is to meet on blatant conditions of inequality.
Without these conditions, any meeting would be a meeting where you have a gun pointed to our head. These conditions however would help prepare for a fruitful meeting. At the same time, these conditions do not require as a precondition for meetings that either Party make the slightest concessions or budge the slightest on their principles on the ideological differences under discussion between the two Parties. These conditions require only that you abstain or refrain from hostile acts against us and from putting brutal pressure upon us. Our Party has never engaged in hostile acts against you, has continued to give you firm and vigorous support right in the public resolutions from the Founding Congress that you have worked so hard against, and has never put pressure upon you. It is a proper condition that both Parties, and not just one, refrain from and abstain from hostile acts against each other and from putting savage pressure on each other. These conditions are appropriate for Parties with such a long history of common struggle and extremely close fraternal relations as our two Marxist-Leninist Parties.