This criticism, then, has nothing to do with liquidating the “mass movement” or the “support movement”, a position which others have so generously attributed to EN LUTTE!. The fundamental question concerning the C.S.L.O., as well as other “intermediate organizations”, is their place, and role in the carrying out of the central task of communists at this stage. For it is clear that these “intermediate organizations” in no way help the merger of Marxism-Leninism and the workers’ movement; they in fact act more as an obstacle in the carrying out of this work. Marxist-Leninists should not, then, devote any time to such activities which, in the end only serves reformist and social-democratic ends.
In addition, the line backing up this conception is an opportunist one, characterized by its economism. It leads to having Marxist-Leninists trail behind the workers movement instead of resolutely climbing to its lead. Such a line should be fought vigourously, as it prevents the unity of Marxist-Leninists, a unity based on a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary line.
The central task of Marxist-Leninists, at this stage, is to work for the merger of communism and the workers’ movement. It is through communist propaganda and agitation that they will accomplish this, that they will link themselves to the masses and have a communist leadership triumph in the struggles of the masses.
The struggle for the unity of Marxist-Leninists (the movement’s immediate preoccupation) will not be correctly carried out if there is not a vigourous criticism made of all the forms of opportunism present in the movement at this time. A real unity of Marxist-Leninists into an organization cannot precede the elimination of the incorrect tendencies which are found in the movement. Simi1iarly, the struggle for the merger of Marxism-Leninism and the workers’ movement, and the struggle for the unity of Marxist-Leninists, are only fundamentally, two particular forms of the struggle against opportunism, in the workers’ movement and the Marxist-Leninist movement.