First Published: Marxist-Leninist Vanguard, Vol. 1, No. 2, October 1958.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Innumerable questions have been directed at us, in letters to the editor. Lack of space does not permit us to print an answer to all. We have selected five key questions for this issue and in subsequent issues will attempt to answer as many as space will allow.
Q. Could you give us a brief statement of the aims and purposes of the Provisional Organizing Committee?
A. Our aim and purpose is explicit in our name. Our organization is called “The Provisional Committee for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party”. Clearly, we do not consider the existing organization, which still clings to the name of CPUSA, as a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party. The line and polices of that organization do not conform to the principles upon which Communist Parties are founded. The line of the CPUSA is most akin to that of the Yugoslav League of Communists, which in the opinion of the world Communist movement, is not to be considered a Marxist-Leninist vanguard-type of organization. Demagogically, the CPUSA “joins” in this opinion. But the CPUSA today is in fact a Social-Democratic, reformist organization, similar to Tito’s party.
We make no arrogant claims to being a “party”. We merely represent one of the many groupings and movements which are inevitably developing within and outside of the CPUSA as a reaction to the political and ideological bankruptcy which has overcome its leadership. Our aim is to forge ahead in our movement, and later join in a constitutional convention with any other movement which is fighting for the creation of a genuine Communist vanguard party.
Q. What progress are you making in that direction?
A. Our founding conference took place on Aug. 16-17. That is less than two months ago. We are beginning to reach tens and hundreds of people, especially workers. Among these, there are some who are still members of the Party, others who left the Party in protest against the revisionist policies of the leadership, and still others who have never been members of the CPUSA. Growth and expansion in area where previously we had no influence, points toward the possibilities that lie ahead. Our monthly publication. The Marxist-Leninist Vanguard, has received a hearty welcome throughout the nation.
Q. What is your movement’s approach to the rank and file membership of the CPUSA?
A. We make a fundamental distinction between the leadership and membership of the CPUSA. The membership of the CPUSA is essentially sound ideologically. It was the leadership, and no one else, which was and continues to be responsible for the revisionist, anti-working class policies which were adopted and are still being pursued. The overwhelming part of the membership left the Party in disgust, but those who remain as a rank and file do so only because the leadership demagogically promises to reestablish the Party as a real Marxist-Leninist vanguard. We know that it is only a matter of time before the bulk of those still remaining in the Party catch up with the false promises and demagogy of the leadership.
The strivings for a real Communist party in the heartland of world imperialism is not a matter of subjective will of individuals. This is a matter of social and historical necessity. The only-way the leadership of the CPUSA CAN once more reestablish the Party on Marxist-Leninist basis is by self-critically recognizing the great harm that has been done by their projection of the reformist policy and the revisionist line which was adopted at the 16th Party convention. The leadership is doing nothing of the kind, and we feel assured that sooner or later, the remaining rank and file must leave them and seek the only way out of this mess: the reconstitution of real Marxist-Leninist organization outside of the politically bankrupt CPUSA.
Q. What about the international Communist movement? The leadership of the CPUSA claims its support. What are your opinions on this?
A. I’m sure that Tito was making similar claims back in 1955 and 1956 before his Pula speech. Indeed both the CPUSA and the CPC in the past referred to Yugoslavia as an integral part of the camp of socialism. But Tito and his cohorts repudiated Marxism-Leninism and refused the honor of being a component part of the camp of socialism. As a result, thousands and thousands of Yugoslav Communists were able to understand for the first time that it was Tito’s regime and not the camp of socialism that was responsible for the split in 1948. Tito’s main commodity, which he daily barters to the imperialists, is his claim to being a “Communist.” What better way was there to expose him than the insistence of the CPUSA and the CPC that he act as a Communist and adhere to the tried and tested principles of Marxism-Leninism.
Greetings on anniversary dates by Communist Party do not by themselves prove endorsement, nor agreement with policy. At the time of the Convention, greetings from Communist Parties throughout the world were received by the CPUSA. That does not mean that those Parties agreed with the line of the Convention. The leadership of the CPUSA has resorted to deception in the past as regards information to other Communist Parties. For instance, in Peking Review we read, on article to the effect that the CPUSA had endorsed the 12 Party Declaration. Who gave the Chinese comrades such information? Is that a fact? Of course not. These are the facts. This is what Eugene Dennis said: “We reject . . . the sectarian view of those who look upon the Declaration and its conclusions concerning universally valid Marxist-Leninist principles as a dogma and a substitute for our own independent theoretical and political work.” (Resolution approved by N.C. Feb. 1958) And here is what Bob Thompson stated: “Certainly our Party is not called upon to endorse the 12-Party Declaration, and it should not endorse as its own that Declaration.” (Political Affairs, Jan. 1958). The international movement did help in pulling the CPUSA leadership out of a revisionist crisis on two different occasions. During the Lovestone (1929) and the Browder (1945) revisionist mess. We do welcome any effort made by the international movement to help the American Communists gel back into the revolutionary groove, but, as in the case of the Yugoslav Party, the CPUSA is already beyond the line of salvation.
Q. Would you give us your opinion of the Independent Socialist Unity Ticket in the N.Y. election. Does your Committee support or reject this movement?
A. At a N.Y. State Board meeting last December (1957) the leader of the Party organization in N. Y., George Charney, raised the slogan of a “Socialist Unity” electoral ticket in 1958, which would include the Trotskyites and the Communists. Neither Ben Davis nor anyone in his faction opposed this proposal. The only ones who did were Comrade Marino and myself. We stated that under no circumstances should we agree to join the Trotzkyites. They are counter-revolutionaries and wreckers and nothing else. We object to this ’socialist-minded’ mish-mash in general, but are willing to join honest socialists on specific issues of the fight for reform. However, when it comes to the Trotzkyites, we state categorically that we want to disassociate ourselves from ‘unity’ with them under any guise.
Subsequently, what Charney proposed in December 1957, was realized by Ben Davis in June 1958. The so-called “Independent Socialist Party” ticket is nothing else but a Trotzkyite gimmick to further their wrecking influence in the labor movement and in the Communist ranks. Just examine that array of names in the “Continuation Committee” of the “Unity Conference” and observe the preponderance of Trotzkyites and also the smattering of “Ben Davis’ faction” representatives included in it. Like Marxist-Leninists the world over, we condemn Trotzkyism as the most deadly enemy of the revolutionary working class movement. The fact that it appears concealed in the so-called “Independent Socialist Unity” ticket itself not make Trotzkyism less dangerous.
There are many honest sympathizers of the Communist movement who have been taken in by the so-called “Independent-Socialist” ticket maneuver. Their support represents a form of protest against the present revisionist line of the CPUSA and especially against the Party leadership’s opportunist electoral policy of tailing the Democratic Party.