In its declaration IS! displays a readiness to distort our positions, to take statements out of context, and to deal with what they assume to be minor contradictions in our positions rather than to deal with the many substantial points raised. For instance, we say on page 17 of our pamphlet that the transformation of war into revolution must be our “long-term guiding line” on the question of war. We could be charitable and say that IS! has misunderstood (on p. 14-15) the meaning of “long-term”. For us the meaning is clear – it is ’overall, general, permanent, fundamental’ rather than ’distant, far-off, which IS! has taken it to mean. Our statement means that all communist work on the question of war must be based on the overall understanding that only the overthrow of imperialism can abolish war.
But the distortion which IS! creates on p. 14-15 of the declaration is too elaborate to be based on a semantic misunderstanding. It says that our position “could also mean that the revolution is only a long-term objective”. Well, this sterling logic could also lead IS! to say that our position could mean that the world is flat. To protect their own line they claim that the opposing position capitulates to the class enemy and puts off the revolution. On the basis of the nonsense that RSC makes revolution only a long-term goal, IS! asserts without substantiation that we propose the short-term goal of independence and liberty for the European peoples. To “prove” that this is our proposed strategic goal, they quote us to the effect that what we want is an independent Europe. Well, we make it abundantly clear throughout our pamphlet, and especially at the end, where we defend the European MLs from the charge of social-chauvinism, that we believe that the building of broad united fronts in European countries to defend the independence of these countries should go on without stopping the struggle internal to each country to overthrow the national capitalist ruling class and install socialism. For example, on p. 49 we state: “...how does IS! explain the fact that rather than proceeding to defend its “own” bourgeoisie, the PCMLB (Communist Party of Belgium, Marxist-Leninist) links this closely with a firm denunciation of capitalism, the Belgian state, and the revisionist schemes of peaceful transition and structural reform? The goal of proletarian revolution is advanced not as some far-off goal which can be contemplated when the superpowers have been repulsed, but as the immediate goal of the working class.”
IS! ignores this and other evidence which clearly shows that we don’t see revolution as a far-off activity in Europe. But even without it, their statements don’t make any sense. They quote us to the effect that “It would constitute an infinitely better situation if the countries of Western Europe were fully independent as to their relations with both superpowers.” (p. 22 of our pamphlet) But IS! judiciously avoids talking about anything else in this section of our pamphlet; the topic of the section is the drive to war and Europe as the focus. In the context of superpower contention over Europe, and since capitalism will last at least another year or two in Europe, we put forward the position that rather than being in a US-controlled NATO, or else undefended against Soviet attack, that it would be a better situation for Western Europe to have its own defense-oriented military alliance, answering to the interests of Europe rather than the superpowers.
There is no contradiction between the struggle for socialism and the building of a united front against the superpowers. On the one hand uniting with bourgeois forces against the main enemy on a world scale in no way stops the proletarian forces from waging revolutionary struggle against that same bourgeoisie in each country. In our pamphlet #2 on the international situation we go into some detail on the experience of some European Marxist-Leninists in this regard. On the other hand the struggle for socialism within a country applies great pressure on the bourgeois ruling class to fight harder to maintain national independence from the superpowers. And, should this struggle prove successful in any country, then obviously a socialist country would make a far greater contribution to the world united front than would a capitalist one.
After the above-mentioned quote regarding European relations with the superpowers was ripped violently from its context and made to look like RSC’s notion of the strategic goal for Western Europe, IS! threw in another quote, again out of context, to: attempt to “prove” that RSC wants communists to help Europe become a new superpower. What we in fact say on p. 26 of our pamphlet is that this is a negative possibility which conditions our support for Europe’s struggle against the superpowers: “It seems obvious that Western Europe, if operating as a single unit, possesses tremendous economic and military potential which could make it a formidable power able to challenge the superpowers. This is a positive development in that Western Europe would be able to maintain an independent posture and resist the encroachments of both superpowers.
But there is an aspect of the realizable potential that is negative. Western Europe, still under the rule of capitalists and imperialists, could itself become a superpower engaging in the struggle for world hegemony.
Marxist-Leninists must confront the real world. Western Europe can and conceivably will become united and a great economic and military base. At the present time the Marxist-Leninist movement cannot take a stand against the emergence of a powerful Western Europe. Such a position would only aid the existing superpowers and contribute nothing to the struggles of the people for freedom.
The only proper course for Marxist-Leninists to follow is to recognize and support what is positive in the developing unity of Western Europe, while resolutely struggling to strengthen the Marxist-Leninist Party and the mass mobilization so that a revolutionary transformation can be effected.
IS!’s two quotes from our pamphlet – which as we’ve seen they have taken totally out of context – are the entire basis for their repeated and elaborated claim that the RSC advocates nothing but changing the present main enemy at any particular time for a new superpower and main enemy.
IS! goes on to claim that we propose that European Marxist-Leninists fight to “weaken.. .the superpowers and promote the independence of the European imperialist countries in the perspective of attaining the rank of another superpower. And this is what RSC qualifies as a “revolutionary transformation”! (p. 15) This last sentence is an outright lie. We mention the possibility of Europe becoming a superpower and explicitly oppose this (see above). Nowhere do we even hint that this has anything to do with “revolutionary transformation”. This phrase must be taken from the passage on p. 26 of our pamphlet quoted above. This passage is extremely clear in contrasting the conditional support for the unity of capitalist Europe with the fundamental ongoing task of mobilizing the people of Europe to overthrow capitalism in their countries – i.e. to “effect a revolutionary transformation”. IS’s tendency in their declaration to use such a method of “debate” is cowardly and unprincipled – nothing else.
Another example of where IS! attempts to expose RSC’s “inconsistency” and succeeds only in exposing its own one-dimensional approach is on p. 13-14. Here IS! quotes us to try to show that we can’t make up our minds on whether the Three Worlds analysis is an analysis of state to state relations or of class struggle. The first quote says that “the three worlds analysis is a global analysis, that is, it deals with interaction be between states. It does not deny internal contradictions within states.” (p.34 of our pamphlet). This statement was written to answer those who claim that the Three Worlds analysis liquidates internal class struggle. What we were saying here is that it is a global analysis which looks at the interaction of forces at that level. Thus,for example, the main enemy on the global level may be quite different from that on the national level (although there is always the possibility of external contradictions becoming internal).
The second quote is that “the Bolshevik Union’s wording obscures the three worlds analysis and makes it seem as if it is only an analysis of the state-to-state relations and not class relations .”(p. 39 of our pamphlet). Obviously IS! has spent time going through our pamphlet from the perspective of trying to ’prove’ that the RSC is attempting to make into class struggle things which are not. We wish they would devote as much energy to trying to actually grasp and debate the substance of our positions. If one looks at the context, it’s obvious that we are refuting the BU which is saying that the division of the world into three places all classes of each country into the same ’world’ as the ruling class of that country. As we say on page 34 of our pamphlet, “the three worlds theory is founded on opposition to imperialism as the main enemy.” In this perspective the quotes are quite consistent. On the global scale, both peoples who are struggling for state power, plus ruling classesof various sorts who possess state power contribute in varying degrees to the struggle against the main enemy. This in no way liquidates the struggle peculiar to each country for the people to seize and maintain state power.
In terms of unprincipled attacks, the contempt which IS! shows for proper methods of debate within the movement is graphically displayed in their reference to the positions held by the Australian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). Not only does IS! highhandedly attack this party, but also it uses this as a means to attack RSC. If IS! wishes to produce a detailed analysis of the positions of the CPA(ML) as a contribution to the international debates that would be fine. But we reject the approach which reduces a fraternal communist party to the level cf a debating point.
We believe we’ve shown that IS!’s criticisms of our position in their communique do not hold water; however, to leave the question there is misleading. IS! has chosen to do really no concrete examination of our views, but rather pulls out a few isolated quotes, and otherwise simply asserts that our line means this or that (e.g., giving up the revolutionary struggle, supporting colonialism, not upholding the’class viewpoint’, etc.). We realize there were time and space restrictions, but we would like to know why IS! chose to remain silent on all these significant parts of our pamphlet:
(1) the types of war under imperialism; concrete analysis of the drive to war; the inevitability or imminence of war; (2) the world as a process, and the inter-connection between the struggle internal to a country and the struggle on the global level; Lenin’s division of the world, and Mao’s concepts of “New Democracy” and “intermediate zone”; (3) our understanding of the four fundamental contradictions of the imperialist era, and of the principal contradiction in the world today; (4) our description of the Three Worlds, and concrete examples of Second World countries opposing the First World; (5) our view of the international tasks of the Canadian working class; (6) our critique of IS!’s views expressed in Proletarian Unity #2 and in #91 of their newspaper, and our defence of the parties considered to be social-chauvanist by IS! (from page 5 of the RSC Plenary Speech at the Vancouver Regional Conference of Marxist-Leninists on the International Situation, October, 1977.)