Matchmakers of Opportunism was initially distributed in limited number on April 6, 1977. It was written as an open letter updating and extending our November 1976 polemic against En Lutte!’s ’unity’ plan. The letter traces out the development and further consolidation of EL!’s opportunism from the second congress of its organization to its second national ’unity’ conference, and briefly responds to its attack on the OCW(ML). The positions advanced in the open letter concerning the evolution of modern revisionism and its prevalence throughout the current international movement represent a correction of some of the views advanced in The Movement for the Party. Our analysis of this question in The Movement... – for example, our failure to tie the development of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA) to the general course of opportunist and social-chauvinist consolidation throughout the international movement, and, in consequence, our acceptance of the myth that the formal deference to principle by the CCP/PLA against the CPSU in the early 1960’s actually constituted a principled split from revisionism – expressed an embryonic and inconsistent understanding of the historical continuity and adaptability of petty-bourgeois ’socialism’. Further investigation being done for Against the Tide, a detailed historical polemic against this petty-bourgeois domination and corruption of the world communist movement, led us to reject such commonplace ’ML’ illusions and draw the conclusions briefly outlined in the open letter. The correctness of these conclusions is clearly and concretely affirmed by the further widening and consolidation of the rift between the two leading parties of the ’anti-revisionist’ movement, the PLA and CCP. And nowhere is this process more graphically displayed than in the CCP’s recent recognition of the arch social-chauvinist Communist Party (ML) of the USA (formerly the October League) as the genuine proletarian party of that country; and in the triumphal tour of Albania by our own ’people’s party’ of reaction, the CPC(ML), at the official invitation of the Central Committee of the PLA.
En Lutte!’s activities during and since the second ’unity’ conference fully confirm the assessment made in both The Movement for the Party and the open letter. Since the Canadian Communist League (ML) remains as stand-offish and sectarian as ever (and has been encouraged in this direction by its own trip to China at the invitation of the CCP), EL!’s longstanding ’critical but comradely’ attitude towards it has not changed one iota. EL! has added “ultra-nationalist” (May 26, p.7) and “ultra-reactionary” (June 23, Supp p.1) to its list of honorary epithets for the League’s line, and now brands it as the “principal bearer of social-chauvinism” (ibid p.5). but the League remains EL!’s little darling “within the Marxist-Leninist movement.” That is, the League is still the “comrade” organization EL! would most like to have at its side. Factional consolidation and confrontation is not, however, limited to EL!’s relations with the “dogmatic” League. EL!’s arch-enemy, resistance to group amalgamation, is rampant even among the circles cooperating in its ’unity’ fetes. Here the problem rests with the Red Star Collective (RSC) and the Bolshevik Union (BU), and EL! has drawn ’lines of demarcation’ against each accordingly.
As pointed out in the open letter, prior to its second conference, EL! employed some of its most consiliatory diplomacy towards the RSC. But the RSC simply would not recant in the face of EL!’s hints and innuendos, and instead, published a defense of its brazenly nationalist line. EL! was thereby forced to abandon its previous policy of side-stepping any criticism whatsoever of the RSC ’s line. Now, EL! applies the same technique of “severe criticism”, as it formerly did towards the RSC’s principal ’man of letters’, Jack Scott, and as it has always done towards the League. On the one hand, EL! attacks the RSC for having failed to “arm itself” with Marxism-Leninism in its “concrete analysis” (April 28, p.10), labels it the “principal carrier of bourgeois nationalism” among ’MLs’ (May 26, Supp p.2), raps it for refusing to even “acknowledge its nationalist errors and their ultimate consequence” (ibid p.3). and characterizes its line as an “expression of clearly identifiable class interests...the interests of...the labor aristocracy, and also that of the petty-bourgeoisie.” (April 28, p. 10) And, on the other hand, EL! commends this“clearly identifiable” petty-bourgeois “principal carrier” of the “principal danger to the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement” (May 26, Supp. 1) for the extent of (non-Marxist-Leninist) “concrete analysis” it has “produced” (April 28, p.10, 13). EL! applauds the RSC’s “genuinely positive gesture” (ibid p.13) of not boycotting its precious conferences. It pronounces that the RSC actually only represents “empiricist thinking” and a “nationalist deviation” (ibid), and not a consolidated political trend. And,irrespective of the RSC’s long-standing ultra-opportunist, reactionary line, EL! upholds it as a full-fledged member of its ’genuine’ ’ML’ movement.
EL! has taken a somewhat different tack towards the BU. As demonstrated by its previous relations with the CPC(ML), En Lutte! is far more politically shrewd than to tie itself to dead weight when the majority of its cohorts pronounced its favour on a fellow. The sharpness of the League’s denunciations of the BU – calling it a group of “outright counter-revolutionary saboteurs” and a “disgusting little sect” (April 28, p.11) – was clear indication that it did not speak alone, that the patience of EL!’s ’ML’ comrades as a whole was at an end with the BU. Further, EL! apparently began to grasp the obvious fact that the BU was trying to outmaneuver it, was utilizing EL!’s own conferences to rally opposition not only to the League, but to EL! as well. The combination was too much for EL!. The ultra-opportunism of the BU’s political line, consistent in all essentials since its introduction into the movement over two years ago in Canadian Revolution #I, has always been something EL! could live with comfortably, never evoking more than the standard nebish comments. But to take advantage of EL!’s hospitality, and to refuse to recognize EL! as the leading centre of the ’MLs’ – that is the limit! Scarcely five months after being praised by En Lutte! for the “determination with which this group has undertaken the struggle for unity” and for “the importance that it attaches to this struggle” (Feb 17, p.8), the Bolshevik Union has, without altering its line or unity tactics, been suddenly ’transformed’ into a “profoundly scissionist” group, advancing a “thoroughly anti-Leninist and anti-Party”, “Trotskyist plan”, and interested only in the “sabotage” and “splitting and wrecking” of EL!’s movement (July 7, p.12). In addition, En Lutte! has so “deepened its criticism” (ibid) that, for the first time since defining the contours of its movement, EL! even threatens a comrade organization with concrete punishment.
Of course, from EL!’s standpoint, ’deepening’ its ’severe criticism’ can be accomplished with the most miniscule gesture. The mere possibility of measures against one of its friends will suffice. But not only does EL! limit itself to empty threats against this long consolidated reactionary sect, it does not even threaten what would be most crucial for communist unity and Party-building: expulsion from the movement. Instead, EL! promises that if the BU does not mend its ways in matters of ’tactical unity’, it will face EL!’s refusal of “all unity of action” (Ibid). EL! may very well want to be done with the BU once and for all, but these are matters of timing, not principle. Since the BU has been fully accepted within EL!’s ’ML’ criteria from the beginning, it cannot be expelled without concocting some violation of those criteria. But to expel the BU because of its hitherto acceptable line would immediately raise the question of expulsion of all the other opportunist groups EL! has befriended, as well as EL! itself. EL! has not yet gotten far enough along in its plan, is not yet close enough to its own declaration, to successfully weather the inevitable sectarian backlash that would accompany any active elmination of troublesome comrades on the basis of line. Threatening refusal of ’unity of action’ while officially retaining the BU within its movement allows EL! to placate those demanding action. And, if the BU is not intimidated into subservience, EL! can deny it viability within the movement, without touching the opportunism common to all ’MLs’ and without having to significantly alter its party-forming plan. ELl’s ability to guage mood changes within its movement and maneuver against individual, expendable opportunist groups in defense of the rotten whole, is nowhere more clearly shown.
As elaborated throughout The Movement for the Party, the factionalism prevailing in the ’ML’ movement is a characteristic feature of its petty-bourgeois social base. In admitting that the “proletarian composition of the movement is still low” (June 9, p.11), EL! inadvertently verifies that not only the founders of the groups, but also the new recruits and sympathizers, remain almost exclusively petty-bourgeois elements. Given such consistency of class base, there should be little wonder why the instinctive petty-bourgeois striving for self-interested ’independence’, politically expressed as sectarianism, inevitably dominates and will continue to dominate the ’MLs’. This instinctive factionalism is, in turn, reinforced and justified by the national separateness – the expression of petty-bourgeois factionalism on an international scale inherent in the social-chauvinist revision of Marxism-Leninism upon which the ’ML’ movement is based. This is most vividly shown when EL! correctly pronounces the most “precious lesson” of the CCP’s (and by implication, the PLA’s) “ferocious struggle against the modern revisionists” to be that it “has never imposed neither its line nor its programme on anybody” and that it wants “each organization or party in any given country to develop its programme in a completely independent manner” (July 12, p.10). The CCP and PLA defend independent development so well, in fact,that these once inseparable ’foes’ of modern revisionism are presently in the process of splitting along ’independent’, i.e. particular, national lines. The inevitable conflict of independent national interests between these two ’internationalist’ parties, the true source of their ’independent’ political lines, has reached the level of innuendo and veiled criticism, and blocs of equally independent (actually, p.b. nationalist) supporters are forming up (see the Political Resolution of the Third Congress of the CPC(ML) as an excellent example). The intensification of this conflict of independent interests will certainly provide weighty verification for factional independence throughout the international movement and result in further splintering. In Canada, this tendency has, within the brief span of two years, already put an end to the days of anti-CPC(ML) unity and publication of C.R.,and has led to the consolidation of several rival factional groupings.
Plainly the CCL(ML) (plus its associate organizations) has already set its course for ’independent’ party declaration, and nothing will cause it to deviate from its path, especially now that it has a sister party in the US (among others) which has finally secured an ’in’ with the CCP. As for the RSC, it simply approaches its factionalism from the opposite end of the spectrum. Mr. Scott, the ’great helmsman’ of the RSC groupings, has managed to establish a solid and secure enclave in the western provinces over the past few decades, and he is not likely to be loosened from this stronghold easily. However, if the ’party’ pull is strong enough among the younger elements, and the compromise extensive enough, the RSC groupings may be drawn into a non-CCL(ML) party-building effort such as EL! offers. If the compromise offered is not sufficient, but the ’party’ urge remains, these groups may, over time, band together and attract enough petty-bourgeois nationalist following to declare a “liberation nationalist” party along the lines of the 1920’s CP of Canada. The BU is too ingrown to submit to larger group discipline, and will undoubtedly remain a lunatic fringe fraction attracting other fringe elements. As to EL!, it has, throughout the course of its ’anti-sectarian’ ’unity’ plan, quietly retained and attempted to bolster its own factional existence as well. It has extended its newspaper; has begun to master the all important art of fund-raising a la The Guardian (New York); has developed its own ’study cells’; has gone amongst all strata of ’the people’, particularly the petty-bourgeoisie, its only potentially secure base; is drafting a programme; and constantly puts forward the call for all and sundry to rally to its organization... in short, all the necessary items for a new ’ML’ party. Most recently, EL! has set its general timetable for party formation. It has announced “a third, fourth, and maybe a fifth” conference, the last two of which will apparently be “conferences on the Marxist-Leninist programme” at which “the demarcation will finally take place” (Documents of the 2nd Conference pp 78-79). All the “conditions” therein being “brought together” (Proletarian Unity #I p. 30), a new ’ML’ pre-party ’party’ will appear.
The maturation of the current factions into two or more parties can only intensify the contention and strife that already saps the energy of the opportunist groups. Such incessant squabbling and working at cross-purposes greatly limits the range of each group’s activities, and thereby negatively effects the penetration of their common opportunism, not only into the working class, but into the petty-bourgeoisie as well. Herein lies the ’great’ contradiction of both the national and international ’ML’ movements: how to strike a proper balance between the distinct national interests and petty-bourgeois sectarianism that necessarily pulls the parties and groups apart, and the common class outlook and tradition that binds them together against the proletariat. Tactics had to be found which could bridge the gap among the factions and allow joint activity to advance their mutual interests, while allowing the factions to remain intact and fully ’independent’. EL! has historically been in the vanguard in providing the Canadian ’ML’ movement with the only possible solution to the dilemma, the same tactic used among petty-bourgeois ’socialists’ from the Second International to the present: opportunist unity of action.
We say opportunist unity of action, because joint action between reformist and revolutionary parties is, if conducted on a proper basis, at times an essential and necessary tactic. However, as Lenin constantly emphasized, such tactics can be applied correctly only with specific conditions and with definite revolutionary intentions in mind. The basic premises of any tactics of joint action with opportunist parties is a split in the working class engendered by the reformists, at a time when the communist party has not yet won the support of the majority in opposition to the reformist parties. Given such conditions, the intention of joint action is obvious: to “expose the political error of the (opportunists’) entire position” (Lenin, Letter to Bukharin and Zinoviev 2-1-22, Vol 42 p.394), “to overthrow the leaders of the (opportunists)” (Lenin, Letter to the Politbureau of the RCP(B) 2-23-22, Vol 42 p.401), and thereby to win the workers, semi-proletarians and lower petty bourgeoisie to the banner of communism. And, given this intention, the conditions for such tactics are equally obvious. In the first place, joint action can only be considered with opportunist parties still retaining a significant influence among the workers, the tactic being designed to draw into action and win over the masses, not stragglers attached to one or another sect. And, in the second place, the heart of any joint action must be the exposure and ousting of the opportunist leadership, not an attempt to establish ,the ’unity’ of the class around a programme of reforms, nor to join with the reformist and revisionist parties to wage a common ’revolutionary’ struggle. Joint action cannot be undertaken without active propaganda and agitation against the reactionary leadership of these parties, since to abstain from such polemical activity would sacrifice the independent revolutionary interests of the proletariat.
The whole content of principled tactics of joint activity with opportunist parties is to undercut and defeat the opportunist leaders. The whole content of EL!’s ’unity of action’, on the other hand, is and always has been to unite the divided forces of opportunism and revisionism, organizationally if possible, or as a common front of opportunist parties if not. EL! ’points out’, but in practice ignores, the opportunism of all but the weakest of its opportunist competitors, preferring to concentrate on the “factors that unite”. In this way, EL! is able to ’transcend’ the factional disputes that tear at the ’ML’ movement, and, as we will see shortly, to “deal” at any time and with any agreeable form, not only of ’ML’, but of ’Marxist’ or ’socialist’ opportunism as well. Each faction’s individual activity benefits by the greater numbers involved in joint actions, while all factions remain intact, immune to in-depth and concrete exposure. This method has proven so reliable in protecting and advancing the interests of every ’ML’ faction that all of them, the CPC(ML) and the League included, have to the present proposed, approved and actively participated in such opportunist united fronts. In fact, it is so advantageous to the ’MLs’ as a whole that, barring a significant shift in the balance of forces in the movement, or the development of some catastrophe such as imperialist war (either of which could throw all the ’MLs’ into a single social-chauvinist stewing pot),this will continue to be the standard modus operandi for the majority of ’MLs’ even after the fractions have ’graduated’ into political parties. Of the current ’ML’ groups, only the League is likely to violate this collective protective mechanism.
The CCL(ML) opposes, following the line of the CPC and PLA, all unity of action with “sworn enemies of the working class like revisionists and Trotskyists” (May 26, p.14). As with the CPC and PLA, the CCL(ML) takes this left-sounding stance solely in order to prettify its own opportunism while discrediting its opposition’s. The League’s use of this hypocritical and arbitrary ’line of demarcation’ in its recently intensified attacks on EL! (accusing EL! of compromising with revisionism and Trotskyism), shows that the League has no intention of letting ’unity of action’ stand in the way of its ’party’ declaration. As with the CP-ML USA, AKP(ML) of Norway, and others, the closer the League gets to the CPC’s official blessings, the less it needs to negotiate with any of the ’local’ ’ML’ riffraff. The League’s comradely relations with the CPC have strengthened its prestige to such an extent, in fact, that not only can it confidently refuse ’unity of action’ with EL!, but can now directly challenge EL!’s credibility as a pro-CPC ’ML’ organization.
To avoid complete isolation, EL! has no choice but to continue and expand its ’unity of action’ programme. This is the principal content of its recent advice to the League to take ’inspiration’ from the very ’non-sectarian’ example of the PLO. In this first important theoretical formulation of its future course of action, it is apparent that EL! no longer intends to limit itself to simple tactical unities for limited joint actions of ’MLs’. Instead, it recommends an alliance of conflicting parties after the PLO model, “alliances even with enemies who are secondary at this stage of the revolutionary struggle” (June 9, p. 14). This joint action is intended, not to manipulate and weaken these enemies, but to jointly advance the ’revolution’ against “the main enemy”. Here EL! has carried the logic of its unity efforts among the ’MLs’, and its hostility towards the political independence of the proletariat, to the necessary and inevitable conclusion. Having failed to weld the ’MLs’ into one opportunist party, there is no longer any sense, and certainly no more benefit, in distinguishing the ’ML’ and non-’ML’ forms of opportunism. EL! has, consequently, set the stage for both tactical and strategic unity with all “non-obstructionist”, quasi -’socialist’ and ’communist’ opportunism, and is preparing to deal with its former ’ML’ comrades as oppositional parties on a par with the “revisionists and Trotskyists”. That is, except for perhaps the BU, EL! will proceed with business as usual , ever striving for the greatest unity possible among opportunists ’from all walks of life’. As for the CPC(ML), since this “phony party of the working class” and “revisionist clique” (May 12, p. 11) has just received de facto sanction as a genuine Marxist-Leninist party by the’great and glorious’ PLA, EL! may very well return to its earlier accomodating approach towards it.
EL!’s policy of unity among the ’radical’ social props of imperialism to “defeat the main enemy” is not, contrary to the League’s apologetics, a distortion of the line of the PLO or the CCP. It is, in fact, the mainstream of the past half century of development of the world ’ML’ movement, traceable from the anti-superpower hegemony united fronts of the CCP and the PLA, back through the post-World War II ’socialist’ camp’s united front against US imperialism and Mao Tse Tung’s “intermediate zones”, through the social-chauvinism of every ’communist’ party during WWII (the CP Canada’s “National Front for Victory” for example), through the Popular and United Fronts Against Fascism prior to the war, to the “united front of the working class” of 1928-1930’s, to the “workers’ and peasants’ governments of the mid-twenties, and to the ”united front against reaction” of Millerand and Co. of the Second International. Certainly an authoritative and prestigious history by all commonplace ’ML’ standards. The urge for unity among petty bourgeois opportunists, the counterpart to their efforts to merge antagonistic class interests, is one of the strongest and most fundamental Social-Democratic carry-overs into the communist movement. This striving has not been expressed so much in terms of organizational merger as in the Second International, the ’communist’ parties generally maintaining the formality of separate, “completely independent” organizations. It has instead taken the form of reform coalitions, parliamentary blocs, joint reformist activity to protect or win democratic liberties, and alliances in defense of the rights of plunder of ’democratic’ imperialist nations against ’aggressive’, ’reactionary’ imperialist nations. All this ’unity’ is premised on a mutual effort to restrict exposure and obscure the actual content and function of Social-Democratic, ’CP’ and ’ML’ opportunism in the working class movement. It aims at restricting the instinctively revolutionary and mass movement of the proletariat to the bounds of capitalist society.
Anyone familiar with EL!’s political development will immediately recognize it as a classic example of such Social-Democratic traditions. Prior to its recent exchanges with the RSC, EL! was preoccupied with denying the existence of consolidated opportunist trends in the ’ML’ movement. EL! had, in the best ’independent’ manner, decided that an extremely “long march” was necessary before any of its friends could be considered opportunist. In EL!’s imaginary ’ML’ world, ’errors’ were always “opening the door to opportunism”, but no one ever walked through. The League was social-chauvinist, but not opportunist; the RSC was nationalist, but not social-chauvinist, and so on. Now, in a final effort to convince any prospective party mates, and to advise all other contending parties, that it harbors no ill-will towards ’reasonable’ opportunism, EL! has duplicated the prototype Social-Democratic ’struggle against revisionism’ with even more remarkable high fidelity.
In true Trotskyian style, EL! increasingly couches its criticisms in ’left’ terms, more than ever noting the class interests represented by ’errors’ and ’deviations’. Particularly regarding questions of basic strategy, EL! now suddenly finds that the League, the RSC, the BU, and others, all express petty bourgeois class interests. But EL! does not, actually cannot, elaborate why its opponents’ nationalist lines are petty bourgeois, nor can it draw any principled conclusions from its assertions. To explain the petty bourgeois content of these lines, EL! would have to delve into the question of the defense of Canadian national interests, i.e. the ’ML’ opportunist defense of imperialist interests. But it is precisely on this basic question that EL! shares a common chauvinist ground with its opportunist contenders. A principled, concrete exposure of this ultra-opportunism would necessarily mean exposure of its entire movement. This, in turn, would raise further questions and lead to the exposure of social-chauvinism throughout the international ’ML’ movement upon which the Canadian groups are based. Such dangerous line struggle can well wait, in EL!’s view, until ’the week of three Thursdays’. So, instead of precise disclosure of class interests, EL! employs the empty and fashionable catch-phrase “...this is petty-bourgeois.. .” and leaves it readers with the ’profound’ thought that any struggle against opportunism “must take into account the class interests that are its basis” (April 28, p.10).
EL! has, of course, thoroughly mastered this esoteric concept of “taking into account” to the full advantage of opportunism. Where Lenin concluded that opportunism = bourgeois and petty-bourgeois influence in the working class, and was the direct and immediate means by which the bourgeoisie most securely binds the proletariat to wage slavery; from its “account” EL! concludes, on the contrary, that “erroneous positions” (not solid opportunist trends, of course) “in our movement represent in the long run, the interests of the bourgeoisie” (May 26, Sup p.2). “...in the long run...” the blatant opportunism, social-chauvinism, nationalism, reformism, etc. on which EL! and its friends thrive and which constitutes the whole of their propaganda within the working class, ’in the long run’ this may represent the interests of the bourgeoisie! And as for the present interests such opportunism serves? EL! is at a loss to say. It must simply deny, for its own sake, that opportunism and opportunists exist in the here and now, and hope that its “long run” is sufficient for its own petty-bourgeois class interests to be fully represented. Where Lenin concluded that “the mark of true communism is a break with opportunism” (Vol 32, p.464), EL! advises that opportunism cannot be “combatted” by “excommunicating it” (April 28, p.13). A difficult feat indeed, to excommunicate opportunist trends which, in EL!’s view, do not even exist.
Here is En Lutte!, which, like all its fellow ’MLs’, claims orthodox Leninism as its birthright, waging a ’fierce’ party-building campaign against “revisionism and all forms of opportunism”, guided by the Social-Democratic premise that opportunism and principle (or what it considers principle) rightfully belong side-by-side. Here is En Lutte!, that ’rigorous’ and ’principled’ ’ML’ party-to-be, completely rejecting the Leninist norm of a complete and decisive split with opportunism. Here is En Lutte!, the ’staunch’, ’Leninist’ opponent of opportunism coddling its fellow opportunists at every turn. The formal recognition of opportunism as an expression of bourgeois class interests, and the simultaneous acceptance of this main social prop of imperialism as a legitimate wing of the communist movement: such is En Lutte!’s conception of the struggle against opportunism.