The Workers' Advocate

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VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

March 10, 1981

Volume 11, Number 3

[Front page:

The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement Requires a Stern Struggle Against Social-Democracy and Liquidationism]

IN THIS ISSUE

The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement Requires a Stern Struggle Against Social-Democracy and Liquidationism

'CPML' on the Verge of Dissolution

Against Mao Zedong Thought!

-- PART V --

ECONOMIST DISTORTIONS OF THE 'MAKE THE RICH PAY!' SLOGAN

Maoism in Decay

Maoist Joint Communique Is a 'Three Worldist' Document Which Gives a Call to 'Critically Sum Up' the October Revolution

Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement -- Part 6

Manifesto of a Liquidator

Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement -- Part 7

Bootlickers of the Democratic Party

The 'CPUSA(ML)' sabotages the anti-fascist struggle with its Browderite stand that the Democratic Party is the bulwark against fascism

The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement Requires a Stern Struggle Against Social-Democracy and Liquidationism

The Founding Congress of the MLP,USA set forth the perspective of the continuation, deepening and broadening of the intense struggle of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against revisionism and opportunism. The events of the last year have fully borne out the wisdom of this perspective. Today the revisionists and opportunists are stepping up their efforts to prevent the growing disgust of the masses with the capitalist parties from developing in a revolutionary direction. They are seeking to divert the mass ferment and chain the mass movement to abject dependence on bourgeois politics. Every step of the mass struggle comes up against the opportunist sabotage. To fight the capitalist offensive of starvation, fascism and war or to give the bourgeoisie a sugarcoating? To give all work a genuinely revolutionary content or to mock at revolution, at the party concept and at the energizing role of Marxist-Leninist theory? To work to build the independent class organization of the proletariat or to become a "left" tail of the Democratic Party? These questions are among the burning issues raised by the activities of the revisionists and opportunists. Today the renegade features of opportunism stand forth in full bloom. In the forefront of the struggle against opportunism today are the struggles against social-democracy and against the revisionist program of merger with social-democracy, liquidationism and the renegade spirit.

Social-Democrats -- Most Servile Flunkeys of the Democratic Party

The Founding Congress of the MLP pointed to the growing activation of social-democracy by the bourgeoisie. Social-democracy in the U.S. consists basically of prettifying the Democratic Party and putting forth its program in "progressive" or even "socialist" colors. Faced with the growing disgust of the masses with the two big capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans, the capitalists are calling on their reliable firemen, the social-democrats, to deflect the mass anger, sabotage the development of the independent class movement of the proletariat, and oppose the rise of the revolutionary temper among the masses. The bourgeoisie has stepped up its use of social-democratic hacks in the labor bureaucracy. The past few years has seen the founding of numerous social-democratic organizations, the holding of social-democratic conferences and their promotion in the bourgeois press. Whether it is in the movement against war preparations or in the struggle against racial discrimination or in any of the popular movements, the social-democrats have come forward as the main tool of the capitalists to cool down the movements, eliminate their oppositional character and subordinate them to "respectable" bourgeois politics.

The basic feature of the social-democrats is that they are the most servile flunkeys of the Democratic Party. Some openly work within the Democratic Party, such as the so-called Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). Others pretend to work outside it, such as the Citizens Party or Weisberg's sect, the MLOC/ "CPUSA(ML)." But in all cases they work to create illusions in the Democratic Party, to implement its program and to make it tolerable in the eyes of the people. The Democratic Party in particular and the bourgeoisie in general tolerate the social-democrats for they know, as Lenin points out, that "...it is to the advantage of all bourgeois parties that wish for influence over the workers, to have a Left wing for display (particularly when

that wing is unofficial) " 1 So the Democrats play with their unofficial "left" wing, the social-democrats, tolerate them, allow them to "win" meaningless "victories" in inserting points into the Democratic Party platform. The bourgeoisie funds the social-democrats, imposes them onto the mass movement -- and applauds as the social-democrats play their always impotent sandbox game of shoving the Democrats to the "left."

As enthusiasts for the program of the Democratic Party, the social-democrats are in fact supporters of the capitalist attacks upon the masses. The social-democrats can be found today in the front lines of the capitalist offensive. Today it is Doug Fraser, the social-democratic head of the United Auto Workers, who is the chief whiphand for the capitalists in imposing billions of dollars of "concessions" upon the workers, stripping them of COLA, cutting thousands of dollars from each worker's wage, and imposing the savage speedup and productivity drive upon them. Indeed it is the concessions championed by Fraser that are in fact the model being used by the capitalists in order to impose a "pattern" of concessions upon the workers in all industries.

As well, the social-democrats are the most enthusiastic advocates of wage-price controls, that measure of fascist government strikebreaking that was employed by the Nixon and Carter administrations. Their only complaint against Carter was that he did not go far enough and fast enough. Nor is it an accident that it is the "left" Democrat and darling of the social-democrats, Senator Ted Kennedy, who has given his all to push through Congress a fascist criminal code revision, the revised S-l bill of Nixon, that bill which provides exceptionally savage and repressive measures to smash the mass movement, to increase the length of prison terms, to step up the use of provocateurs and police spies and so forth.

While serving as an unofficial "left" wing of the Democrats, the social-democrats are in fact a true "government" party. That is, they will offer their services to the current capitalist administration no matter which party forms the government. Thus today they strive to work with the Republican administration. Their friendship for the Reaganites is another sign of their renegade features. Thus even prior to the election of Reagan, the social-democratic bigwigs in the leadership of certain anti-draft organizations insisted on bringing the Libertarians, sugarcoated Reaganites, into their organizations. They propagate the idea of a "national convergence of views" between the Kennedyites and the Reaganites for an "all-volunteer army." Since the election, some have advocated writing letters to Reagan begging him to implement his demagogical campaign promises. Many social-democrats, such as Tom Hayden of the Campaign for Economic Democracy, have used the occasion of Reagan's election to step up their propaganda about the "death of liberalism," which they interpret to mean that the liberals should seize back from the Reaganites the issues of "God, the flag, national defense, tax relief, personal safety and traditional family values." 2. Hayden's crude and frank cynicism was only an open expression of what the other social-democrats are all advocating in more polished and refined form. Harrington of the DSOC and others are all taking up Reaganite "supply-side economics" just as Hayden did before them. Others have rushed to kiss up to Reagan in other ways or to seek posts with his administration, including various of the traitors to the oppressed nationalities. The social-democrats love to threaten that everyone must support them for fear of the Reaganites -- and then the social-democrats give their hand in peace to these same racist, militarist and fascist fiends. What casehardened liars and hypocrites!

The social-democratic willingness to work with the Reaganites, their desire to keep their differences with the open reactionaries down to a squabble in pursuit of common aims -- is another sign of the sellout and counter-revolutionary nature of the social-democrats. Of course, it is a reflection of the policy of the Democratic Party regulars themselves. They responded to Reagan's election by using it as a pretext to announce that they were taking over major parts of Reagan's program themselves and to offer Reagan a "honeymoon." For that matter, prior to the election, Democratic savior Kennedy worked for years in close harmony with the ultra-reactionary Republican (and former Dixiecrat) Strom Thurmond to push the revised S-l bill through Congress. This shows that the Democrats and Republicans are both parties of monopoly capital, both parties with a common program of starvation, fascism and war. The social-democrats, by being slaves to one of the two big capitalist parties, are in fact simply little servants of monopoly capital, unable to oppose even the Reaganites.

Clearly there can be no thought of proletarian class politics or of the development of the revolutionary movement without a fierce, unrelenting war against social-democracy. The first step to the constituting of the proletariat into an independent class party has always been its separation from the bourgeois liberal-reform- ist parties, of which social-democracy today is just one variety.

The Neo-Revisionists Are Merging With Social-Democracy

The Founding Congress of the MLP,USA warned that the neo-revisionists are merging with social-democracy. Neo-revisionism is the anti-party trend fostered by Chinese revisionism, the anti-party trend that is thoroughly "three worldist" and that gave rise to the warmongering, social-chauvinist thesis of "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism." Today the neo-revisionists are rapidly shedding even the pretense of maintaining any independent position against the bourgeoisie and are working hard to get positions in the labor bureaucracy, to find the best forms and methods to merge with the avowed forces of social-democracy, and to take up the whole arsenal of social-democracy, both the program and the forms of activity and organization.

This disgusting spectacle proves once again the complete necessity of the movement against social-chauvinism that fought "three worlds-ism," the renegade thesis of "striking the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism" and Mao Zedong Thought. It proves that everything that was said about the fraudulent nature of the pretense of the neo-revisionists to be "revolutionary" was entirely correct. It proves that neo-revisionism is completely corrupt, unprincipled and utterly bourgeois and reactionary. It shows that the struggle against Chinese revisionism and the neo-revisionists must be carried through to the end.

The neo-revisionist "three worlders" have made no secret of their marriage to social-democracy. Take the Klonskyite "CPML," the fraternal party to the Hua-Deng clique in China and the ultra-chauvinist originators of "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism." The "CPML" calls for alliance with Doug Fraser's "Progressive Alliance" one day and for work with the Citizens Party the next. The Call, newspaper of the "CPML," goes into ecstasy whenever it reports on the actions of the various social-democratic and liberal- labor chieftains. ThusThe Call couldn't restrain itself in writing of the "National Anti-Klan Network." It wrote:

"Jointly sponsored by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the meeting was called to develop new strategies for countering the Ku Klux Klan. Individuals as well as members of over 70 religious, civil rights, labor, legal and community organizations participated. Slightly less than half were white.

'"Five years ago a conference with this many diverse groups wouldn't have been possible,' said one participant....

"In his militant keynote speech, SCLC chairman Rev. Joseph Lowery called for a fight against colonialism, capitalism and racism...." 3. This "Anti-Klan Network'' was actually nothing but an empty shell, a paper organization, a coalition of generals without soldiers. It comprises everything from Democratic Party politicians to cultural nationalists to both pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese revisionists. It put forth a program of appealing on the lowest common denominator, a program of legalism, liberalism and cooling down the movement. But The Call presents it in flaming anti-imperialist and socialist colors.

The "CPML'' has openly declared that its "strategy" for work in the working class movement is unity with the labor bureaucracy and the social-democrats. It calls this the "united front strategy." This strategy was elaborated in its theoretical journal, Class Struggle, in an article entitled "Summing Dp the CPML's Experiences in Trade Union Work" by Charles Costigan, member of the Central Committee. Under the pretext of fighting an allegedly deep-rooted and longstanding "ultra-'left' deviation from Marxism in our line and policies," the article in fact crystallizes and further extends the Browderite line that the Klonskyites have always adhered to. Costigan writes that:

"The main features of this ultra-'leftist' deviation and its application were:

"1) That we aim the main blow against the reformist and revisionist bureaucrats and further that we especially target the most liberal or 'left' social-democratic union leaders. [What a fraud! The Call praised the social-democrat Miller in the mine workers union and Fraser in the UAW. But Costigan moans that, alas, they boycotted Sadlow- ski's election campaign in steel -- ed.]

"2) That we only make alliances with reformist or revisionist bureaucrats from a position of strength....

"At present, communists are certainly not strong enough to sever the workers from the opportunists' influence.... We should utilize alliances with the trade union bureaucrats....

"3) That it is wrong to 'pressure' the bureaucrats to take actions that are in the interest of the workers.... The bureaucrats run the unions and we should demand that they implement policies that are in the interest of the workers and mobilize the rank and file to fight around those policies. Our policy should be: unity [with the bureaucrats -- ed.] around those issues which advance the workers struggle, develop their organization and struggle against class collaboration....

"4) Another example of ultra-'leftism' which affected our work was a one-sided emphasis on revolutionary education over day-to-day organizing. We quickly recognized and criticized this tendency.... For instance, over the past two years, we have consciously participated in a good number of official union newsletters and shop papers, apart from our own. A number of our comrades are now editors of these papers. " 4.

Thus the "CPML" plans an all-round strategy of merger with the labor bureaucracy and has worked at this through various positions for years. Costigan openly identifies tjhis question with the question of uniting with social-democracy. He goes on to write: "While our analysis of the forces presently controlling the trade unions is not complete, we are paying particular attention to the growing 'left' social-democratic trend within the labor movement. How should we assess this trend and its call for fighting 'corporate power,' for organizing the unorganized and opposition to discrimination? On the one hand, we consider this a positive development which should be pushed forward. We organize in, to the best of our abilities, activities such as Big Business day...and conferences like the one in Ann Arbor addressing the direction of the labor movement in the '80s...." While "on the other hand," Costigan adds a few words of gentle criticism. The conclusion of tliis criticism, however, is that "gains in any of these areas will only come about through mobilizing the rank and file to fight." 5. That is, he doesn't conclude that one should try to sever the masses from the social-democrats, but that "CPML's" role is to mobilize the rank and file behind the social-democratic leaders. So on the one hand, merge with the social-democrats. On the other hand, organize the rank and file to merge with the social-democrats.

Under the name of "united front strategy," Costigan goes on to stress the permanent character of this merger with social-democracy. He writes:

"Should our alliances have only an immediate and temporary character, or is there the possibility of splitting off a section of the trade union leadership, pushing them more in the direction of class struggle and in opposition to the capitalists and their parties?

"I believe this is not only possible but an absolutely necessary part of a communist strategy for transforming the trade unions. Without such a split it will be impossible to organize a progressive labor movement. It is in this context that we should examine the viability of building up a labor party [a party of labor bureaucrats and social-democrats -- ed.] which could provide a mass alternative for the progressive trend within the trade union movement and those disenchanted with the capitalist parties." 6.

Thus the "CPML" proclaims that it works to join the labor bureaucracy and to subvert the mass ferment against the capitalist parties into a ''labor party" composed of the labor bureaucrats and social-democrats. In fact, this ''labor party" already exists in the shape of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. The "CPML" proclaims that it is "ultra-left" to even think of leaving the confines of the liberal-labor marsh. The "CPML" gives itself the role of strengthening this liberal-labor party, of mobilizing the rank and file behind it and of working to prevent the masses, who "CPML" realizes are "disenchanted with the capitalist parties," from breaking with bourgeois and social-democratic politics and embarking on developing the independent movement of the proletariat.

The path of merger with social-democracy proclaimed from the housetops by the Klonskyite "CPML" is in fact the common path followed by all the neo-revisionists. Some proclaim it openly, while others hide it with phrasemongering, but all rush to embrace social-democracy.

The "RCP,USA" is a representative of the revolutionary phrasemongering wing of the "three worlders." It tries to cover over the corrupt rightism of the "three worlds" theory and the social-democratic essence oozing through Mao Zedong Thought with anarchist and trotskyite posturings. Nevertheless, in its practical activity it is on the same road of merger with social-democracy as the "CPML."

In its theorizing, the "RCP,USA" utterly deprecates the very idea of a serious threat to the working class movement from social-democracy. It writes, in one of its rare remarks on such a mundane subject, that "In the United States, on the other hand, social-democracy has never been a strong force, and the bourgeoisie has never governed through a social-democratic party." The "RCP,USA" calls social-democracy in the U.S. nothing but "a minor surface current." 7. The "RCP" closes its eyes to the fact that Browderite liberal-labor and social-democratic politics has been the curse of the working class movement for decades on end. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

The reason the "RCP,USA" pooh-poohs the strength of social-democracy is to justify the "RCP's" practical politics of seeking support from the liberal and social-democratic circles. While the "RCP,USA" has abandoned the factories in its new anarchist phase, thus creating certain difficulties for its longstanding economist work aimed at integration with the labor bureaucracy, they have never abandoned the social-democrats. The "RCP" has taken pains to develop an extensive network of contacts with the liberal and social-democratic circles. The building of this network, along with the recruiting of declassed elements, is the main content of their organizing activities today. They especially bring this network out for display during the "RCP's" various campaigns for legal defense or to organize various activities.

The Weisberg sect, the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)," is overjoyed about the path of merger with social-democracy being followed by the neo-revisionists. This is not surprising, as the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" is itself nothing but an agency of social-democracy trying to pretend that it is "Marxist-Leninist." Throughout its entire career the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" has always recognized the affinity of its social-democratic stand with the neo-revisionism and social-chauvinism of the Klonskyite OL/"CPML" and has always marched closely in step with them in its practical politics. Today too, the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" follows the "CPML." Like the "CPML," it too is crusading against the "left" in order to promote the policy of unity with social-democracy.

Thus the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" praises the social-democrats and revisionists as "progressive forces in the labor movement," gushes with enthusiasm at the various social-democratic conferences held in 1980 and endorses all of them, calls for unity in the "united labor front" with the labor bureaucrats, the social-democrats, the Khrushchovites and the "three worlders," all together in one pot. The MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" lectures repeatedly that no struggle is possible without the formation of a "united labor front," without "trade union unity," or "unity of action."

The meaning of this "united labor front" is examined in detail in our article "The 'United Labor Front' of the MLOC/'CPUSA(ML)' Means Unity with the Khrushchovite 'C'PUSA and All the Social Democrats." 8. This "united labor front," like "CPML's "alliances with bureaucrats" and its call for a "labor party" of labor bureaucrats and social-democrats, is designed to stop the development of the independent class movement of the proletariat. Just as "CPML" openly talks of working with the social-democratic bureaucrats, so too MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" defines this "united front of labor" as "tak(ing) over the halfhearted attempts by the reformist 'opposition' to build a united front of labor." 9. The working class is to entrust its faith to the utterly reactionary, yellow trade union hacks and to cheer on their wheelings and dealings. As Weisberg puts it: "there are some efforts underway for trade union unity, such as the proposed merger of the United Auto Workers and the International Association of Machinists...." 10. So the social-democrat Fraser of the UAW, fresh from selling the Chrysler workers down the drain and already suggesting concessions for Ford and GM workers, stands in the forefront of what MLOC/''CPUSA(ML)" considers as efforts for the "united labor front!"

Thus the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" and the "CPML" are working in harmony to tie the working class movement to social-democracy. The only difference is that what MCPML" calls the "united front strategy," the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" calls the "tactics of the united front." According to the fakers of the MLOC/"CPUSA (ML)," Marxism-Leninism allegedly consists of following the very same policy as that of the neo-revisionist "three worlders," but labeling it a "tactic" rather than a "strategy." Speaking of their draft program, they write: "This draft clarifies and removes many of the deviations that were allowed to creep into the last draft.... The present draft brings forward the correct understanding of the proper position of the united front: it makes it clear that the united front is a tactical question. Now this program stands in opposition to the 'three worlds' theory which places the united front as a strategic principle." 11. But treachery remains treachery, whether as a "strategy" of a "tactic." The difference between the Marxist-Leninist conception of the united front and the Browderite conception cannot be covered up by playing with words. Word-chopping and quibbling will not stop the struggle of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against social-democracy.

Merger With Social-Democracy -- a Fundamental Feature of Soviet Revisionism

The Founding Congress of the MLP,USA also stressed the danger of Soviet revisionism. The struggle against social-democracy and liquidationism is closely connected with the fight against Soviet revisionism. Indeed, in merging with social-democracy, the neo-revisionists are following the same path of treachery pioneered before them by the pro-Soviet revisionists.

Right from the start, the attitude towards social- democracy was one of the vital questions at stake in the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Khrushchovite revisionism. In 1964, for example, Comrade Enver Hoxha flayed the revisionists for becoming social-democrats in his article: "The Modern Revisionists on the Way to Degenerating Into Social-Democrats and to Fusing with Social-Democracy." He wrote:

"In addition to this [forming a united revisionist front with the Titoites -- ed.], the modern revisionists [the Khrushchovites and their followers -- ed.] have never given up their efforts to find other allies, too. And who could these be? It is quite natural for them to turn to, and they could not fail to turn to their 'brothers' in treachery -- the right-wing social-democrat leaders, for present-day revisionism and social-democracy are two manifestations of the same ideology -- bourgeois ideology. Social-democracy is the manifestation of bourgeois ideology in the workers' movement, while revisionism is the manifestation of bourgeois ideology in the communist movement.

"This is the common ideological basis that draws the revisionists closer to and unites them with the social-democrats and creates the premises for their complete fusion not only ideologically and politically, but also organizationally." Comrade Hoxha went on to show that this line had its origin at the infamous 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 where Khrushchovite revisionism put forward its platform. Furthermore Comrade Hoxha punctured the high-sounding pretensions and excuses of the Khrushchovites, pointing out:

"The attempts of the modern revisionists for rapprochement and unity with the social-democrats are a logical consequence of their betrayal of Marxism-Leninism.... To realize this objective the revisionists make extensive use of demagogical slogans. They are trying to justify their rapprochement and unity with...the social-democrats, the name of 'unity of the working class " 13.

Unity with social-democracy means out-and-out liquidationism. This was stressed in a pamphlet in 1965 from the PL A entitled "Modern Revisionists -- the Greatest Liquidators in the History of the International Communist Movement." It pointed out:

"But the liquidatory positions of Amendola [who proposed the fusion of the Italian social-democrats and communists into a 'single party' -- ed.], of the revisionist leaders of the Italian Communist Party and of the Khrushchovite revisionists have become the positions of the whole international modern revisionism. Thus, the discussion in the Italian communist Party on the 'single party,' Amendola's new traitorous and liquidatory initiative, is not a single and isolated phenomenon. In reality it represents one of the aspects, probably the most typical and clearcut aspect, of a whole new campaign, recently begun on an international scale by all the modern revisionists for contact, collaboration and fusion with social-democracy.... This is clearly borne out also by the round-table discussions on the problems of 'the unity of the workers and democratic movements of the capitalist countries,' organized by the international revisionist review called 'Problems of Peace and Socialism'...." 14.

Since then the revisionists of various trends have only stepped up their adoption of the whole program and ideological stock in trade of social-democracy, their conversion of their organizations into social-democratic abortions and their attempts at merger with social- democracy. For example, in his recent book Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism, Comrade Hoxha stresses the intimate connection between the "Eurocommunists" and social-democracy. The "Eurocommunists" of course are the descendants of the West European followers of Khrushchov of the 1960's. Comrade Hoxha writes:

''...the Eurocommunists have identified themselves, not only in theory but also in their practical activity, with old European social-democracy and have amalgamated with it in a single counterrevolutionary current in the service of the bourgeoisie." 15

Indeed, the "Eurocommunists" preach to the masses unity with social-democracy. Comrade Hoxha writes:

"For the sake of demagogy, and to throw dust in the eyes of the masses, the Eurocommunists mutter in an undertone that the 'third way,' or 'democratic socialism,' is not social-democracy, because it 'has not carried society beyond the logic of capitalism.' Nevertheless, they add immediately, we must unite with social-democracy and the other political forces, and together with them must exert influence on the state apparatus of the capitalist bourgeoisie...so that gradually this state power will assume a truly democratic form...." 16.

As a result of this process of merger with social-democracy, today the "Eurocommunist" and pro-Soviet revisionist parties in the capitalist countries are virtually indistinguishable from social-democratic parties. In the U.S., the so-called "C"PUSA pf Gus Hall and Angela Davis is today nothing but another social-democratic party, a mere echo of and apologist for the imperialist liberal-labor Democratic Party. It is following in the footsteps of the notorious American ultra-revisionist Browder, chairman of the "C"PUSA in the 1930's and early 1940's.

The Legacy of the Notorious Ultra-Revisionist Browder

The corrupt, reformist and American big-power chauvinist doctrine of Browderite revisionism began its undermining work, progressively corroding the Communist Party of the USA from within, starting in the mid-1930's. It was a forerunner of Khrushchovite revisionism. Among its fundamental features were social- democratic, liberal-labor politics and glorification of the Democratic Party.

Browderite liberal-labor politics fights the revolution and Marxism-Leninism by reducing the workers' and

communist movements to a "left" wing of the liberals, to a trade union caucus or special interest group inside the big "Rooseveltian" coalition of the Democratic Party. Browderism gives the leadership of the workers' movement to the trade union bureaucrats, the lawyers and the liberal demagogues among the imperialist politicians. It reduces the proletarian movement to bourgeois trade unionism, legalism and parliamentarism.

Browderite merger with the liberal-labor marsh and the "left" wing of the Democratic Party is connected with the well-known organizational liquidationism of Browderism. Browder worked step by step to disorganize the Party, to eliminate one after the other the independent revolutionary mass organizations, the party fractions in the mass organizations and the basic party organizations in the factories. He sought to reduce the Party to a loose "educational association," an organization built according to the social-democratic model and carrying a social-democratic political line. He carried' out this organizational and political liquidationism under the cover of demagogy about building "united fronts" and "popular fronts," completely departing from the Marxist-Leninist conception of these fronts and,giving them a liberal, social-democratic content and form.

Browderism led to the liquidation of the CPUS A in 1944 and its replacement by the non-party "educational" association, the "Communist Political Association." Although the CPUS A was reconstituted in 1945 and Browderism was formally condemned, it was not thoroughly repudiated. Consequently the CPUSA fell easy victim to Khrushchovite revisionism in the 1950's. As a result, it degenerated into a betrayer of the working class and an enemy of the revolution. Following an amalgam of Browderite and Khrushchovite revisionism, it utterly merged with social-democracy and the liberal-labor marsh long ago.

Thus today the so-called "C"PUSA has nothing in common with communism or the former revolutionary CPUSA founded in 1921 except the name. It is simply another social-democratic party, a mere shadow and fellow-traveler of the Democratic Party. Under the pretexts of the "unity of labor" and of building the "left- center coalition" and of working for an "anti-monopoly people's party," it advocates and practices unity with the labor bureaucrats, the Democratic Party and sundry enemies of the proletariat.

The neo-revisionists too borrow heavily from the Browderite arsenal. Since the time of Browder, merger with social-democracy in the U.S. has meant joining the always impotent "left" wing of the Democratic Party. Any phrasemongering about "independence" by such sorry creatures as the social-democrats or the neo-revisionist liquidators is nothing but a fraud. The "independent" Citizens Party not only adopted an utterly Carterite program, but worked hard to have Democratic Party politicians run on the Citizens Party ticket or on a joint Democratic Party-Citizens Party ticket. The Klonskyite "three worlders," for their part, spend their time putting a pleasing face on any plan of the bourgeoisie. From "reindustrialization" to the reintroduction of the draft, they simply whimper that the bourgeoisie should throw some crumbs in exchange for these programs. As the organizational secretary of the now defunct "Communist Youth Organization" put it with respect to the draft, "He (Carter) offers us nothing in return." 17.

Merger with Social-Democracy Means Liquidationism

Merger with social-democracy is Browderism. It is out-and-out liquidationism. It means abandoning the path of the independent class organization of the proletariat and renouncing the Marxist-Leninist strategy and tactics.

Organizationally it expresses itself in giving up the task of party-building, in mocking at the party principle, in justifying renegacy from the party, and in patterning oneself after the social-democratic parties. But it also expresses itself ideologically and politically: in renunciation of the revolution; conciliation with the bourgeoisie in exchange for cozy positions; legalism and abandonment of the mass revolutionary struggle; and in the wholesale taking up of the social-democratic ideology and politics. First we shall examine organizational liquidationism and then go on to describe the renegade spirit fostered by the liquidators on all questions.

The struggle against liquidationism is a life and death issue. It is no accident that our Party, which vigorously fights social-democracy and upholds the party principle in all its work, is lively, united and capable of persevering in revolutionary work under difficult and rapidly changing conditions. Meanwhile the neo-revisionists and revisionists, who pine after the heavenly joys of unity with social-democracy and freedom from party discipline, are in decay and rife with liquidationism. In particular, the decay of Maoism has gone to the extent that a number of Maoist parties have openly declared themselves bankrupt and dissolved. This has taken place in Germany, Portugal and elsewhere. In the U.S., the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters faction that split from the "RCP,USA" literally melted away to nothing before it could even negotiate the terms of a merger with the Klonskyite "CPML." Meanwhile the Klonskyites themselves report that they are in severe crisis. In this February's issue of The Call they go to the extent of publishing for discussion an article that claims that: "...it is evident that our conception of a single, vanguard communist party playing the only leading and revolutionary role in society was more than a little to blame for our hegemony-seeking and for the poor state of our united front work. Furthermore, the notion that the CPML was that vanguard party only added to the problem." 18.

The social-democratic MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" has always advocated anti-party ideas right from its formation down to the present. It started out by championing the neo-revisionist anti-party idea of the "pre-party collective" and "pre-party situation." Today it has taken up liquidationism through its Browderite distortion of the concept of "united front" and "popular front." A paper organization right from the start, the MLOC/ "CPUSA(ML)" remains an empty shell which, according to its own rose-colored account in the September 1979 issue of its journal Organize!, lacks activity, is isolated from the workers and has trouble distributing even free materials. According to Barry Weisberg himself, "From November 1979 through November 1980, the CPUSA/ML made the 'No Vote November 4th' campaign its main practical work. " 19. Although it calls itself a "communist party," its chairman Barry Weisberg now declares "the lack of a nation-wide Marxist-Leninist center" in the U.S. 20. Thus the MLOC/ "CPUSA(ML)" declares itself a liquidationist sect, which doesn't take even the idea of the party seriously.

On the surface, the decay of the "RCP, USA" takes somewhat different forms than that of the Klonskyites, but the same basic process is at work. In words, the "RCP,USA" acknowledges the revolution and glorifies itself as the party. But right from the start the "RCP, USA" has mocked the Marxist-Leninist conception of the party. Today the crisis in the "RCP,USA" is reflected not just through a loss of forces, but through: the depoliticization of its ranks; its anarchist actions, sporadic work and recruitment of declassed elements; the conversion of the whole organization into an empty shell revolving around the Revolutionary Worker, as manifested by the "100,000 co-conspirators" campaign; the abandonment of the working class movement; and so forth.

One of the basic ideas of liquidationism is to denounce the party in the name of seeking greater numbers. Water down the line, water down the organization, water down one's conviction, search among the declassed elements, kiss up to the bureaucrats, to the capitalist politicians, to the class traitors -- everything can be justified by the liquidators under the plea of getting larger numbers. Presently the liquidators are enraptured with the idea of building the so-called "broad organization," which is a coalition of chieftains of social-democracy, of the revisionists and trotskyites, of the cultural nationalists, and even of the Libertarians. They seek to shortcut the need for hard struggle on the organizational, ideological and political fronts by simply declaring on paper that one has a "mass organization" or convening an empty shell of generals without soldiers or dreaming of the labor bureaucrats and Democratic Party politicians attracting the masses to the cause.

It should be noted that the liquidators have developed a strange new type of arithmetic. Any number of people rallying around a revolutionary position is by definition "small." A single labor bureaucrat endorsing some position is regarded as guaranteeing mass support. The liquidator feels that the constraint of being in a Marxist-Leninist party by itself guarantees narrowness and smallness, while the act of leaving it allegedly makes one into a representative of millions and millions of workers. This is the typical sentiment of the liberal-labor politician who tries to incite the masses against their class conscious vanguard.

The "C"PUSA provides a model of where the various liquidationist theses lead. Just as the "C"PUSA long ago embarked on the path of merger with social-democracy, so too it exists today as a model of a social-democratic liquidators party. It is not a party of action, but is a loose and amorphous party with a depoliticized rank and file. It has developed a loose but extensive network in the liberal-labor circles. Its strength comes not from its own organization, which is weak and flabby, but from its ties with the bourgeoisie and its lackeys.

Gus Hall, General Secretary of the "C"PUSA, explained the relationship of this organizational liquidationism to the general policy of merging with social- democracy in a report to the Central Committee and National Council of the "C"PUSA on June 7,1980. This report has been printed by the "C"PUSA in a pamphlet entitled Solutions.

At the end of this report, it takes up the question of "the work of the party." Gus Hall moans about the lack of activity of the party membership, the sad shape of the "party clubs," the fact that "the Party does not call open or mass meetings of any kind" and the "invisibility of the Party." After describing the passivity and looseness typical of a social-democratic party, he then concludes with a section entitled "Party Building An Absolute Necessity." One might expect that here, of all places, Gus Hall would phrasemonger a little in order to pretend to be loyal to the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the party. But what does one find? The main problem that Gus Hall discusses under "party building" is: not to give offense to the social-democrats and respectable misleaders. He is especially concerned not to be too harsh against Michael Harrington, chairman of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), a faction of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party.

At first this appears to defy all logic. Why is the question of Harrington and company, who are not members of the "C"PUSA but of the DSOC and the Democratic Party and other groups, the main content of a section on party-building in the "C"PUSA? But, whether consciously or unconsciously, Gus Hall has expressed a profound truth when he describes revisionist party-building as being in essence the science of how to cozy up to the social-democrats. From this content of the revisionist activity follows the liquidationist character of the party.

Gus Hall's remarks are strikingly reminiscent of the very tone and methods of argument used by the neo-revisionist liquidators, who are Browderite to the core. It will therefore be of value to examine Hall's arguments further. Gus Hall begins by approaching the question from its general aspect. He elaborates that "the question very often is how to be critical, or how to be friendly, in building relationships with broader forces." 21 He wants that "the approach is to be one of 'friendly persuasion' so that the relationship is one of being helpful.... I'm speaking not only of the masses, but of leaders -- all kinds of trade unionists, community leaders, church leaders also." 22. Even "when people are moving to the right," the criticism is still supposed to be constructive. Hall states that in this case "we must have an attitude of cutting it off [the movement of the leaders to the right -- ed.]. Sometimes the way to stop this movement to the right is with a little sharp criticism." 23. Thus even in this situation Gus Hall doesn't want to sever the masses from the reactionary leaders, but to help these leaders preserve their credibility. All in all, Gus Hall wants to be "helpful" and "friendly" to the labor bureaucrats, social-democrats and "leaders" in general. Clearly he views party-building as winning over these "leaders" and building up a network in these circles.

Gus Hall then gives a practical example. He expresses the worry that the "C"PUSA's milquetoast Daily World was too harsh with the notorious ultra-right wing social-democrat Michael Harrington. Why, it accused Harrington of having "mouthed off militant-sounding phrases" and of having disagreed with the "C"PUSA's own social-democratic scheme to nationalize Chrysler's Dodge Main plant which was shut down. Gus Hall is horrified. Who cares about the "C"PUSA's program anyway? Not the "C"PUSA's general secretary. Gus Hall stresses that one should prettify Harrington and regard his speech as "the first speech about socialism inany trade union convention since Debs." 24. Hall pretends that he isn't so interested in Harrington as an individual, oh no, but about the objective significance of Harrington's speech, about Harrington's followers, ad nauseum.

Hall then sums up that "In other words, we should debate, but not with that tone." Thus Hall believes that it is OK to give the social-democrats a few taps on the wrist, in order to preserve the credibility of the "C"P USA, but that the squabbles among the opportunists must be kept within limits, keeping in mind the needs of overall unity. The "C"PUSA doesn't criticize or denounce the bourgeoisie or its lackeys, but it seeks to be "helpful." The "C"PUSA recognizes the stratum of labor bureaucrats and "respectable" misleaders as a social base of their revisionist politics. Thus nothing must be done to antagonize these "leaders." The "C"PUSA must as an organization merge with them.

Gus Hall then concludes with one additional short point on "party building." He describes the type of recruitment suitable to such a party. He adds that: "People come to know our Party through struggles for reforms.... Many will want to join our Party to strengthen these struggles. That's the only reason many of them will want to join. We may say that's not a good enough basis, but the fact is that's life." 25

Here Gus Hall proclaims that the "C"PUSA is not a party of the revolution or of Marxism-Leninism, but a party open to anyone, just like the typical social-democratic party. This shows that Hall's complaints about the passivity of the party, its lack of activity, etc., are just the pious wishes of a high priest of opportunism. Liquidationism is the inevitable accompaniment of a policy of merger with social-democracy.

The Atmosphere of Renegacy

Under the banner of struggle against the "ultra left," the liquidators are taking up the entire ideological and political stand of social-democracy. Particularly characteristic of the liquidators is the renunciation of revolution and of revolutionary struggle and spirit. The neo-revisionist big shots, who only yesterday sought to win support from the activists by giving themselves "revolutionary" and "anti-revisionist" credentials, today are all going to confession at the temples of social-democracy and reformism. At present, the mass upsurge that reached its highest boiling point at the very end of the 60's and extended into the 70's has exhausted itself, while the promising new upsurge of the 80's is only just beginning. In this situation, utilizing the present relative ebb in the mass movement, the liquidators are promoting the most abject renegacy, defeatism, pessimism, cowardice, etc. They are doing their best to foster an atmosphere of renegacy.

The central theme of liquidationist renegacy is the fight against "ultra-leftism." The liquidators are despondent and ask "why communism is not more of a force than it is today" and why isn't there a following "in the hundreds of thousands or millions?" 26 They find their answer in "ultra-leftism." Just like the Khrushchovites before them, the liquidators fight revolutionary Marxism-Leninism under the slogan of fighting "petty-bourgeois ultra-leftism" and, as Daniel Burstein puts it, "isolated band(s) of ultra-'left' splitters and Trotskyites of sorts." 27

Sneering at the Revolution

The characteristic feature of this renegacy is the open mocking at revolution and at the revolutionary spirit. This runs through and through the "reevaluation" and "reassessment" of the past that the Klonskyite "three worlders" are conducting in their press. They are seeking to wipe out the traditions of revolutionary mass struggle and to substitute the most craven legalism, parliamentary cretinism, and narrow-minded reformism. Thus Burstein writes: "Rooting out the tendency towards dogmatism is not a simple matter. The class background of much of our movement still remains that of the petty-bourgeoisie, particularly the intelligentsia radicalized through the mass movements of the 1960s and early 1970s. The experiences of those years -- when it was relatively easy to mobilize large-scale demonstrations and there was frequent talk of revolution in the air -- have left their impact on the thinking of many of us in one way or another, [and we must remove the memory of this revolutionary upsurge, so says Burstein -- ed.] and it is difficult to adapt to new conditions calling for new tactics and approaches." 28. No, mass struggle is not the answer, says Burstein. He writes: "...we have criticized the approach of relying chiefly on demonstrations, strikes and other forms of direct action in our mass work, rather than utilizing a more flexible arsenal of tactics." 29.

This theme is reiterated all through the liquidator literature. In the articles published by the "CPML" for discussion, there are those that characterize the whole struggle of the 1970's and indeed the 1960's too as basically negative. 30. While Jim Hamilton, in his "A Message to the Movement," denounces "our apocalyptic vision of the U.S. revolution" that "flowed from the anti-Marxist notion that armed struggle is the only strategic component of the revolutionary seizure of power. We interpreted the Chilean experience to mean that the electoral process was a fraud, rather than that any possible parliamentary transition had to be readily defended by the people's armed power." 31.

The social-democratic MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" joins in this chorus with its crusade against the "left." For the Weisberg sect, revolution is a mere phrase, a signboard, while "There is nothing more absurd than the wild proclamations...that a revolutionary situation can be predicted for the 1980's." 32. After all, "the majority of the working people...are moving toward the right." 33. Once again we are being treated to the tired old neo-revisionist refrain that genuinely revolutionary agitation and organization is absurd, doctrinaire, ultra-left, etc., on the pretext that the time for the insurrection is not yet here. Revolution is banished to a future never-never land, while nothing remains for the present but petty schemes for reform and for "realistic" politics, that is, dressing up the program of the Democratic Party in near-Marxist colors. As Lenin scornfully remarks: "Those, however, who preach to the masses their vulgar, intellectualist, Bundist-Trotskyist scepticism -- 'we don't knowwhether there will be a revolution or not, but the "current" issue is reforms' -- are already corrupting the masses, preaching liberal utopias to them." 34.

Sneering at Marxism-Leninism and the Very Idea of Revolutionary Theory

The liquidators mock at Marxism-Leninism itself as "doctrinairism." Burstein writes that "In the past, I think we have tended to rely too heavily on dogma and doctrines, whether it be Lenin's essays written under czarist repression in Russia, or Chairman Mao Zedong's Red Book of quotations assembled at the height of China's Cultural Revolution [remember -- the Maoists are criticizing Mao too nowadays -- ed.]. If you read Lenin or Mao, or any other great Marxist, they will all tell you not to take their words as gospel truth." 35. Hamilton, translating this into the language of crude sneers, writes: "Ish't there something wrong when many in our movement can quote Lenin or Mao but can't name even two of America's best-selling books?". 36. He goes on to say that : "The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is four vague words that have meant radically different things in every single country where it has been attempted." 37.

Indeed, revolutionary theory, the very idea of a coherent, integral world outlook is also being mocked at. The liquidators are echoing the social-democrats, who are lecturing that to worry about "correct position" is sectarian. As well, there are others who write condescendingly that concern with the correctness or incorrectness of political positions is nothing but "Maoist 'two-line struggle.' " The crusaders against ideological struggle, who are deviating towards the right, have raised this to a principle -- crying out that the fundamental error of Maoism is taking "the basis of change, development and motion (to be)...the contradiction between correct and incorrect." This is truly criticism of Maoism a la Klonsky and the present Maoists! But the crusaders against ideological struggle go on to proclaim shamelessly that..."The Marxist-Leninist tactics, the Marxist-Leninist tradition, the Marxist-Leninist style of work -- all show that it is not necessary to have correct analysis all the time....'' An atmosphere is created that one should simply brush aside all questions of theory and of the experience of the movement and instead judge matters by gossip, whispers and hurt feelings, by who has more prestige or who can offer a better deal.

Renouncing the Struggle Against Opportunism

The liquidators are especially cursing at the struggle against opportunism. Fighting the soldout labor bureaucrats is allegedly "ultra-left.'' Social-democracy and the labor bureaucrats are regarded by the liquidators as "progressive forces in the labor movement'' or as "the main rank-and-file thrusts for reform and democracy within the unions.'' "Unity'' with the devil himself under the banner of "united front tactics'' is the common stand of the Klonskyites, the MLOC/ "CPUSA(ML)'' and others, while the "RCP,USA" and others inclined to anarchist phrasemongering implement the same line in practice. But "unity'' with the opportunists and the labor lieutenants of the bourgeoisie means splitting the working class movement. It means not just abandoning the proletarian masses, but allying with the bourgeoisie against the overwhelming majority of the working and oppressed masses.

Renunciation of the struggle against opportunism naturally leads to abandoning the entire struggle against revisionism. This has gone to the extent that the idea of unity with the Soviet revisionists is becoming fashionable among the liquidators. The Titoite Guardian, that weather vane of opportunism, is once again reveling openly in the idea of a "socialist world'' embracing Khrushchovites, Titoites, Maoists, "Arab socialism," "African socialism" and everyone, all in one pot. The notorious Irwin Silber has left the Guardian in order to put forth straight-out Brezhnevite views, polemicizing that capitalism has not been restored in the Soviet Union. The Klonskyites, who talk of "striking the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism," are now beginning to wonder if this target isn't socialist too. Jim Hamilton raises for discussion his view that: "Isn't there also something wrong when we insist on describing the Soviet Union as 'capitalism restored' even though no one in our movement can offer a coherent proof of that contention?" 38. Hamilton thinks that "Soviet aggression flows" from a "far more complex (reality) than we have ever admitted to" for, this anticommunist renegade says, aren't there "all the unsolved problems of the historical experience of socialism -- such as the now-admitted mass killing... ?" 39. What an anti-communist renegade! Jim Hamilton repeats the big lies of the imperialists and fascists concerning socialism in the Soviet Union of Stalin's day.

Meanwhile the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" maintains verbal allegiance to the view that the Soviet Union is capitalist, but focuses their attention on finding the forms and methods to unite with the local pro-Soviets, the "C"PUSA, and on theorizing that U.S. imperialism, not the two superpowers, is really the main danger worldwide.

The liquidators are not only wooing the Democratic Party liberal-labor politicians, but "unity" is to extend to open reactionaries and to the Republican Party too. What renegades! The Libertarians, sugarcoated Reaganites, have been welcomed into the anti-draft movement by the social-democrats, trotskyites and liquidators. The "C"PUSA argues in defense of the presence of the Libertarians in the anti-draft movement, brazenly calling these reactionaries "peace forces." 40. Meanwhile the "three worlder" WVO/"CWP" has happily reported the presence of "a Young Republican opposed to the anti-Semitism and racism of the Klan" joining with them and others to "together...blast government complicity with Klan and Nazi terrorism." 41. Indeed, the WVO/"CWP" gives as an example of opposing "sectarianism in the anti-fascist united front" the mandate that one must include "Zionist organizations... willing to unite to fight fascism." They add: "On the basis of unity in this fight, we can struggle over their Zionist views." 42.

Thus liquidationism is fostering an all-round spirit of renegacy. Reconciliation with the bourgeoisie, seeking a safe and comfortable niche from the bourgeoisie, cursing anything that might irritate the bourgeoisie -- such is the spirit of liquidationism. Down with revolution, long live appeals to the bourgeoisie to be reasonable -- such is the spirit of liquidationism.

The Class Basis of Liquidationism and Renegacy

Liquidationism represents the influence of the bourgeoisie dressed up in pseudo-"Marxist" phrases. It is a reflection of the activation of social-democracy by the bourgeoisie and another manifestation of the influence of the Democratic Party inside the mass movement.

It is no accident that the liquidators have abandoned the proletariat. Instead they are dancing waltzes with the labor bureaucracy, the social-democrats, the liberal-labor politicians and so forth. Some among the liquidators, such as the "RCP,USA," have fled from factory work altogether. Meanwhile our Party, which fights social-democracy and liquidationism, is entrenching itself in the factories one after another. Our work finds favor among the proletarians awakening to class consciousness. Here is the class basis of the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and liquidationism. The proletariat provides the social basis for Marxism-Leninism in its fight against liquidationism, while a soldout stratum drawn from the labor aristocracy and the petty bourgeoisie provides the base for social-democracy and liquidationism within the working class movement.

Where do the liquidators look for support? Are they really for "unity" and for what type of "unity"? A vivid example is the liquidators' betrayal of the auto workers in favor of the social-democratic UAW bureaucracy.

From late 1979 to the present, the auto workers have been under fierce attack from the monopolies, the government and the UAW bureaucracy. After the sellout contract of 1979 was rammed down their throats, they have then been bludgeoned to take massive "concessions."

In this situation, two irreconcilable lines of action have been manifested. On one hand, our Party organizes among the mass of the auto workers in the struggle against the capitalists and their labor lieutenants. Our Party stands for the unity of the fighting masses against the class enemy. On the other hand, the liquidators are bogged down in renegacy. They looked the other way. Occasionally they wrung their hands in perplexity on the problem, but mainly they fell silent. They made sure to do nothing that would irritate the "left" social-democrat Fraser and the UAW bureaucracy, and they again and again found occasions to praise these fiends. They abandoned and betrayed the proletarian masses and adapted themselves to the needs of the labor bureaucracy.

With the bureaucrats and capitalists against the working masses -- this is what liquidationism has proved to be in practice. For the sake of their own cozy and tolerated positions in the labor aristocracy, the liquidators sell out the interests of the workers without even a twinge of conscience. The liquidators want to subordinate the whole movement to the goal of getting the liquidators comfortable positions in the labor bureaucracy, the labor studies programs, the trade union papers and indeed in the whole apparatus that sits, yes, literally sits, on the backs of the workers.

Hence it is clear that what the liquidators mean by "unity" is unity with the agents of the bourgeoisie against the interests of the vast majority of the working class. The true fighting unity of the proletariat and of all the oppressed is an essential weapon in the fight against the class enemy, but it is a unity that can only be forged against the influence of liquidationism and social-democracy. Leninism teaches that the opportunists represent only a privileged minority. It concludes that:

"...it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists, to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices." 43.

Early on in the struggle against social-chauvinism, the COUSML (predecessor of the MLP,USA) pointed to the existence of a stratum of "quiet 'respectable' communists" as the support for social-chauvinist politics. It pointed out that "the opportunist wing" from the movement of the 60's had "turned into the respectable communists of the early 70's, waving the flag against Soviet social-imperialism, calling the militants 'ultra-left' and 'CIA agents,' bickering over who is 'officially recognized,' and leading calm, bourgeois lives. " 44.

Today this phenomenon is even more open and disgusting. Just as Marxism-Leninism teaches, the liquidators have proved to be nothing but a soldout section of the labor aristocracy and the petty bourgeoisie, bribed out of imperialist super-profits and converted into watchdogs of capitalism, slave drivers and overseers for the bourgeoisie and corrupters of the working class movement. They are the channel for bourgeois ideology and bourgeois influence in the working class movement. The savage program of the bourgeoisie, clothed in "Marxist"-sounding phrases, that is the real basis of liquidationism.

From the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism to the Struggle Against Liquidationism

All the ugly characteristic features of liquidationism, including opposition to party-building, the striving to merge with social-democracy, conciliation with opportunism under the cover of a permanent campaign against the "ultra-left" and mocking at Marxism-Leninism, were already present in embryo or even in fairly developed form right from the start in neo-revisionism. The last decade has seen an unfolding and development of these features as neo-revisionism has gone bankrupt. At each stage in this process, different features came to the fore in the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism.

Right from the start, the question of party-building played a central role in the struggle against neo-revisionism. Today's liquidationist theses denouncing party-building in favor of building Browderite "broad organization" and opposing the independent movement of the proletariat in favor of merger with social-democracy are the direct continuation of the early neo-revisionist theses of the "pre-party situation." In the early days the neo-revisionists opposed the party openly, called for the building of ''pre-party collectives," counterposed building the mass movement to building the party so as to denounce party-building as sectarian, and so forth. At the end of the 60's and beginning of the 70's, the struggle against neo-revisionism centered on the upholding of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the need for the party, on carrying out a consistent struggle against opportunism and revisionism instead of the neo-revisionist conciliationism, and in upholding genuinely revolutionary agitation in place of the vulgar economism practiced by the neo-revisionists.

For a period in the 70's, under the impact of the struggle of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in favor of the party principle and against opportunism generally, the neo-revisionists had to abandon open advocacy of some of their poisonous ideas, such as the ''pre-party situation" and the ''pre-party collective." By feigning a more orthodox stance, they hoped to attract the wave of activists that was taking up Marxism-Leninism. They even formed their own "parties." At this time, the pro-Soviet "C"PUSA too began to half-heartedly feign a more militant posture. But all this proved to be just a superficial coat of paint, just as the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists said at the time.

In fact, the neo-revisionist trend proved incapable of leading the revolutionary movement. As the 70's wore on, the dramatic instability of neo-revisionism and its perpetual tendency to reconcile with the liberal-labor marsh manifested itself repeatedly. With the beginnings of the U.S.-China alliance in 1971-72, the Chinese leadership increasingly turned to renegade politics and renunciation of the revolution. This profoundly affected neo-revisionism in the U.S., which was in the main the American expression of Chinese revisionism. For this reason as well as others, the renegade features of neo-revisionism began to take on a rapid development. Whereas at the start neo-revisionism tried to give itself "revolutionary" credentials and to adapt itself to the widespread revolutionary mood among the activists, later on neo-revisionism began to express openly the mood of renunciation of the revolution.

The emergence in 1976 of the ultra-chauvinist thesis of "directing the main blow against Soviet social-imperialism" marked the beginning of the total bankruptcy of neo-revisionism. Neo-revisionism had come forward as open social-chauvinism. A fierce struggle ensued. The central, pivotal issue in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement became the fight against social-chauvinism. There were two paths put before the American proletariat: to organize for the socialist revolution or to join the U.S. imperialist war front. A powerful movement arose against social-chauvinism, against the counterrevolutionary theory of "three worlds" and, eventually, against Mao Zedong Thought itself as well. In the course of this struggle neo-revisionism went totally bankrupt by 1979 when the "RCP,USA" began its shameful attacks on socialism in Albania.

Our Party (and its predecessors) played its role at the head of the movement against social-chauvinism. But the struggle against social-chauvinism did not mean that the struggle against neo-revisionism had come to an end. On the contrary, the emergence of social-chauvinism as the central, pivotal issue in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement meant that the fight against social-chauvinism was essential for carrying through to the end the struggle against neo-revisionism. In the fight against social-chauvinism, our Party brought to the fore the questions of party-building, of social-chauvinism as the direct continuation and consummation of neo-revisionism, and of political clarification on the burning questions of the revolution.

Similarly, while the struggle against social-chauvinism hit directly at the neo-revisionists and "three worlders," it also gave a big impulse to the struggle a- gainst the other revisionist and opportunist trends. Indeed the Browderite and Khrushchovite "C"PUSA, the social-democrats, the Titoite Guardian and the other opportunist trends are all social-chauvinist to the core. Our Party carried forward the struggle against these revisionist and opportunist trends as well. We denounced the conciliation of Chinese revisionism with these other trends and called for and implemented a really consistent and revolutionary struggle against all opportunism.

The struggle against social-democracy is an important example. Our Party has maintained unwavering opposition to social-democracy right from the founding of our original predecessor, the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), in May 1969. The spirited fight by the ACWM(M-L) against illusions in the "left" Democrat George McGovern during our Don't Vote campaign in the 1972 presidential elections is particularly memorable. Later, starting from the latter part of 1375, we systematically strengthened and intensified all aspects of the fight against social-democracy. The struggle against social-democracy flourished and deepened all through the period of the movement against social-chauvinism of 1976-1980.

Today the struggle against liquidationism and merger with social-democracy has come to the fore of the struggle against the various currents of revisionism, including both the neo-revisionist followers of Chinese revisionism and also the "C"PUSA and other followers of Soviet revisionism, much as the struggle against social-chauvinism was the pivotal issue in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement in the period of 1976-1980. In this section we have traced the evolution of neo-revisionism leading to liquidationism becoming the central feature of its renegacy. But this Browderite liquidationism and merger with social-democracy is today equally the central feature of the other revisionist currents in the U.S. as well.

The emergence of liquidationism as the pivotal issue does not mean that the struggle against the social- chauvinist theses has come to an end. The social-chauvinist betrayal remains as disgusting and rotten as ever. It means that today the struggle against revisionism and opportunism unfolds itself around and can be characterized overall by the struggle against social- democracy and liquidationism, much as the situation in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement during 1976-1980 was characterized overall by the movement against social-chauvinism. The struggle against social-democracy and liquidationism will give a powerful impetus to the other fronts of the struggle against opportunism, just as the movement against social-chauvinism did in 1976- 1980. In particular, the struggle against social-chauvinism will continue. This is particularly noticeable in the movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations. The fight against the social-chauvinist sabotage of these movements, in which the social-chauvinist liquidators link themselves closely with the social-democrats to stamp out the anti-imperialist character of the movement, has broadened the issue of social-chauvinism and brought it to wider masses of activists.

On the Relationship Between Liquidationism and Social-Democracy

There is no Chinese Wall, no iron dividing line between liquidationism and social-democracy. Liquidationism is a reflection of social-democracy expressed in "Marxist''-sounding phrases. Furthermore, liquidationism is a striving to merge with social-democracy. This merger links the struggles against liquidationism and social-democracy even more closely.

Nevertheless, the struggles against liquidationism and social-democracy are distinct. Each has certain of its own particular characteristics. The struggle against liquidationism, that is, against the various trends that are merging or have merged with social-democracy, cannot be entirely subsumed under the struggle against social-democracy. This is because it is important to continue the struggle that directly hits at revisionism, the struggle that is directly on the questions of the Marxist- Leninist theory.

Naturally the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and social-democracy also raises certain of these questions, but in a different way. The avowed social-democrats openly reject Marxism-Leninism, rather than mainly distorting it. But the liquidators seek to distort Marxism-Leninism and to cover their treachery with pseudo-Marxist phrases. Hence the fight with the liqquidators includes a direct struggle over upholding or revising the Marxist-Leninist theory, a struggle with special relevance to the advanced section of activists who are taking up Marxism-Leninism. This struggle is necessary to uphold the honor of Marxism-Leninism and to preserve the dynamic, mobilizing content of the Marxist-Leninist teachings. The constant maintenance of the purity of Marxism-Leninism and the vigilant fight against revisionism are essential.

Thus, while social-democracy and liquidationism are identical in essence, they attack Marxism-Leninism with somewhat different methods. Therefore each must be dealt with specifically. The fight against one complements the fight against the other, just as social-democracy and liquidationism are themselves inseparably linked and complementary.

Furthermore, the history of the struggle against revisionism, including the ongoing struggle against Soviet revisionism, the movement against social-chauvinism and "three worlds-ism,'' and the present-day struggle against liquidationism, must be studied and propagated among the class conscious proletarians. This is an important part of the study of the revolutionary movement of the 60's and 70's, an indispensable part of upholding the revolutionary traditions. As Lenin teaches: "A worker who takes an anythingarian attitude towards the history of his own movement cannot be considered class-conscious." 45. Hence our Party must bring to the workers the summation of the- history of the building of the party in the U.S. and of the development of the international Marxist-Leninist movement, both the recent history of the 60's and 70's and the overall perspective.

Forward Along the Path of the Founding Congress of the MLP,USA!

1980 was a year of transition from the period in the struggle against neo-revisionism that was marked by the movement against social-chauvinism to the period of the struggle against liquidationism, merger with social-democracy, and renegacy. The founding of the MLP,USA on January 1, 1980 was the crowning point of the movement against social-chauvinism. Among its other work, the Founding Congress summed up the movement against social-chauvinism and set forth the task of further broadening and deepening the battle against revisionism and opportunism.

Today the struggle against social-democracy and liquidationism has come to the fore of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism. The Founding Congress set the orientation for this struggle. It declared the necessity of stepping up the fight against social-democracy. The Founding Congress did not use the term "liquidationism'' but it discussed and laid stress on refuting the main liquidator theses, especially merger with social-democracy and slighting the party. It called for continuing the struggle against social-chauvinism and pointed to the social-chauvinist merger with social-democracy. The Founding Congress also discussed in detail the relationship between party-building and the work of building mass organization and armed the cadres to resist all pressures to slight party-building.

Among the lessons of the Founding Congress of special relevance to the struggle against liquidationism were the following:

**The Founding Congress gave the call to "step up the war on social-democracy.'' The Congress analyzed the increasing activation of social-democracy by the bourgeoisie and the role of social-democracy as the trusted firemen of the exploiters to stamp out the revolutionary ferment. The Congress discussed the features of social-democracy and its role as the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. The Congress held that the struggle against social-democracy was an essential front of the struggle against opportunism, a front that directly involved large masses of the proletariat and revolutionary activists.

**The Founding Congress called for building the independent movement of the working class. It discussed this question in the context of finding the forms and methods of approach to the masses to help them step by step take up revolutionary positions. The program of splitting with the parties of the rich and of building the independent movement of the working class are especially designed to deal with work among those masses who are under the influence of the bourgeois trends but who are just now awakening to new life and struggle.

**The Founding Congress called for the continuation of the struggle against social-chauvinism. It pointed to the growing merger of social-chauvinism with social- democracy, that is, to the crucial feature marking liquidationism. As well, it stressed that the struggle against Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought must not be reduced to empty phrases, but instead must be given a profound content. In this regard, the Congress opposed certain opportunist distortions of the struggle against Mao Zedong Thought, distortions that have proved to be the ones that are fostered by the liquida- tionist mood. The Congress stressed the need to continue the work to disseminate the history of the Marx- ist-Leninist movement and of the struggle to build the party.

**The Founding Congress held that the struggle against the other trends of revisionism and opportunism, especially Soviet revisionism but also Titoite (Yugoslav) revisionism, "Eurocommunism," etc., must be carried through to the end. The Congress discussed the genesis and development of Browderite liberal-labor politics, the curse undermining the workers' movement for decades and the inspiration of both the pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese revisionists in the U.S. today.

**The Founding Congress upheld the decisive significance of party-building. It adopted the General Rules of the MLP,USA and discussed the current problems in party-building. The Congress opposed all ideas that slight the role of party-building and of the detailed organizational, political and ideological work of the party. It criticized counterposing party-building to work among the masses and instead showed how the party's work was essential to this work and to the building of mass organizations. The Congress conceived of party work and work in the masses as inseparably linked.

**The Founding Congress discussed the work in the revolutionary mass movements. It spent much time on analyzing the objective situation facing the mass movements, the present state of these movements, and the demands posed by work in these movements. The Congress held to the Marxist-Leninist conception of building the party in the midst of the flames of the class struggle.

This analysis lights the way forward for today's struggle against social-democracy and liquidationism. The year since the founding of the MLP,USA has been a year of victory for this orientation, a year of vigorous struggle. Forward along the path of the Founding Congress of the MLP, USA!

[Box: "Such is the lesson to be learned from Marx by the Russian Marxist intellectuals, who are debilitated by scepticism, dulled by pedantry, have a penchant for penitent speeches, rapidly tire of the revolution, and yearn, as for a holiday, for the interment of the revolution and its replacement by constitutional prose. From the theoretician and leader of the proletarians they should learn faith in the revolution, the ability to call on the working class to fight for its immediate revolutionary aims to the last, and a firmness of spirit which admits of no faint-hearted whimpering following temporary setbacks of the revolution.

"The pedants of Marxism think that this is all ethical twaddle, romanticism, and lack of a sense of reality! No, gentlemen, this is the combination of revolutionary theory and revolutionary policy, without which Marxism becomes Brentanoism, Struvism and Sombartism [bourgeois liberalism and trade unionism -- ed.]. The Marxian doctrine has fused the theory and practice of the class struggle into one inseparable whole. And he is no Marxist who takes a theory that soberly states the objective situation and distorts it into a justification of the existing order and even goes to the length of trying to adapt himself as quickly as possible to every temporary decline in the revolution, to discard 'revolutionary illusions' as quickly as possible, and to turn to 'realistic' tinkering.

In times that were most peaceful, seemingly 'idyllic,' as Marx expressed it, and 'wretchedly stagnant' (as Neue Zeit put it), Marx was able to sense the approach of revolution and to rouse the proletariat to a consciousness of its advanced revolutionary tasks. Our Russian intellectuals, who vulgarise Marx in a philistine manner, in the most revolutionary times teach the proletariat a policy of passivity, of submissively 'drifting with the current,' of timidly supporting the most unstable elements of the fashionable liberal party!" -- V.I. Lenin

"Preface to the Russian Translation of Karl Marx's Letters to Dr. Kugelmann," Collected Works, Vol. 12, pp. 107-108]

1. Lenin, "What Next?," Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 113.

2. Tom Hayden, "An 'Activist' Agenda for Liberals," The Wall Street Journal, November 14, 1980.

3. The Call, "Anti-Klan Meeting Calls Feb. 2 Action," December 24, 1979, pp. 1 and 6.

4. Class Struggle, Number 13 Summer 1980, pp. 15-18.

5. Ibid., pp. 19-20

6. Ibid., pp. 20-21

7. Revolution, "Social-Democratic Stirrings," September, 1979, pp. 26 and 30.

8. The Workers' Advocate, Vol. 10, No. 10, November 30, 1980.

9. Unite!, June 15, 1980, p. 3, col. 4.

10. Barry Weisberg, "The 1980 Elections, the Working Class and the Party," Class Against Class, No. 12, January 1981, p. 20.

11. Unite!, Special Supplement, January 15, 1979, p. 1, col. 2, emphasis added.

12. Enver Hoxha, Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 519.

13. Ibid., pp. 521-22, emphasis added.

14. Modern Revisionists -- the Greatest Liquidators in the History of the International Communist Movement, p. 67. (This article originally appeared in Rruga i Partise, theoretical organ of the Central Committee of the PLA, Issue No. 6, 1965.)

15. Proletarian Internationalism, Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 37, col. 1.

16. Ibid., p. 47, col. 2.

17. The Call, February 18, 1980, p. 3, col. 3.

18. Jim Hamilton, "A Message to the Movement," The Call, February, 1981, p. 11, col. 3, emphasis as in the original.

19. Class Against Class, January, 1981, No. 12, pp. 21-22.

20. Ibid., p. 21.

21. Solutions, p. 60

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid., p. 61.

25. Ibid., p. 62.

26. Daniel Burstein, "Communist movement in 1970s: Strengths and weaknesses," The Call, January 7, 1981, p. 12, col. 2.

27. Ibid., p. 13, col. 3.

28. Ibid., p. 13, col. 2.

29. Ibid., p. 12, col. 3.

30. See for example the article by Proletarian Unity League entitled "Roving On: Facts from the 70s, Lessons for the 80s," Class Struggle, No. 13, Summer 1980.

31. The Call, February 1981, p. 11, col. 4, emphasis as in the original.

32. Weisberg, "The November Elections and...the Future of U.S. Imperialism," Unite!, October 15,1980.

33. Unite!, "Report from the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee," May 15, 1980, p. 4, col. 1.

34. Lenin, "The Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of the Revolutionary Social-Democrats," Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 384, emphasis as in the original.

35. Burstein, Ibid.,p. 13, col. 1.

36. Hamilton, Ibid.,p. 11, col. 3.

37. Ibid., p. 12, col. 1, emphasis added.

38. Ibid., p. 12, col. 1.

39. Ibid.

40. Daily World, February 18, 1981, p. 11.

41. Workers Viewpoint, "Counter-Inaugural Demo Unites Broad Coalition," February 9-15,1981, p. 2, col. 4.

42. Workers Viewpoint, November 10-16, 1980, p. 15.

43. Lenin, "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 120, emphasis as in the original.

44. The Workers' Advocate, March 10, 1977, p. 3, col. 4; reprinted in the pamphlet U.S. Marxist-Leninist, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism! -- Two Articles on the Path Forward in Party Building, 1977, p. 32.

45. Lenin, "The Ideological Struggle in the Working-Class Movement," Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 279.

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'CPML' on the Verge of Dissolution

As we go to press, the March 1981 issue of the "CPML's" newspaper, The Call, has just arrived. This paper provides further striking evidence of the acute crisis which has gripped this pro-Chinese revisionist sect. It shows that the "CPML" is on the verge of dissolution.

This is yet another sign that Maoism is in ruins. Heading down the road towards dissolution is the inevitable logic of the blatant liquidationism that has become the hallmark of neo-revisionism today. The "CPML" is preparing to join a growing list of Maoist groups worldwide which are outright dissolving themselves. The situation with respect to the "CPML" completely confirms the correctness of the call of the Marxist-Leninist Party that the struggle against liquidationism is on the order of the day.

The Total Bankruptcy and Crisis of the "CPML"

In its March 1981 issue, The Call reports further on the crisis which has afflicted the "CPML" over the last several years. For over a year now they have been moaning and groaning about their pitiful condition. They have been shedding tears about how they have been losing members, how the circulation of their paper has dropped astronomically, how they have had to disband their youth and other "mass organizations," and so forth. Now The Call has come forward to openly acknowledge that in fact their sect has basically fallen apart and that their leadership including their Chairman, Klonsky, has altogether collapsed!

They write: "A serious situation developed in the Standing Committee, the national body charged with giving leadership on a day-to-day basis.... Unable to work together, the Standing Committee became incapable of...maintaining the organization. Exactly why this happened still needs to be summed up. Three members of that body have now left the CPML. The chairman resigned his position."

They further confess, thus completing the picture: "At the same time, organizationally things had begun to disintegrate in many ways." (The Call, "CPML holds special meeting to rebuild organization," March 1981, p. 2)

This is in effect a confession of the present-day near-dissolution of the "CPML." Disintegration overall, collapse of the leadership at the top -- such is the magnitude of the crisis of this miserable "three worldist" sect.

The Call reports that in this situation, some unknown heroes have stepped in to revive the corpse. They report: "Because of this, some leading members took the initiative to call for an Emergency Delegates Conference, which took place at the end of January. This conference was a step toward rebuilding organization, an organization that serves its membership and reflects their experience.... Decisions of the conference included election of an interim political committee (IPC) to organize the debate and other preparations for the Congress. This body will replace the former Central Committee." (Ibid.)

Thus things have reached the point where the "CPML's" Central Committee has been shunted aside. Despite the promises held out by the new leadership everything is quite clearly in a shambles. This new leadership claims that it seeks to rescue the "CPML" from its miserably situation. This is quite a tall order indeed. It is a task on the order of bailing out a ship which has already sunk. No matter what words it may mouth, everything in the March 1981 issue of The Call confirms that the "CPML" is headed down the inclined plane of liquidationism.

The "CPML" Is Mired in Renegacy, Liquidationism and Merger With Social-Democracy

For some time The Call has been printing articles "summing up" the work of the "CPML" over the last decade. It has run a continuing crusade against "ultra-leftism." In their February 1981 issue, they opened up an even wider "discussion" on this question with an extreme right-wing anti-communist renegade article by Jim Hamilton. Hamilton put forward the most renegade and liquidationist views on every single question facing the revolutionary movement. He sneered at Marxism, mocked at the idea of revolutionary struggle and revolution and denounced the very concept of a party. Now in their March issue, The Call is continuing the "discussion." Their report on the "special meeting" of the "CPML" confirms that Hamilton's views are in fact characteristic of the ideas being thrown about in the current discussion in the "CPML."

The various articles in the pages of The Call provide a vivid exposure of how the "CPML" is mired in renegacy, liquidationism and merger with social-democracy. The issues raised regarding the current "discussion" in these circles confirm the importance of the analysis of our Party on how it is these precise questions which have come to the fore in the struggle against revisionism today.

Under the banner of struggle against "ultra-leftism" and "dogmatism" the "CPML" is openly abandoning the pretense of adhering to Marxism. Hence they write with regard to their "summing up" campaign against "ultra-leftism" that their members "wanted to sum up where those errors came from -- to what extent did they represent dogmatism in applying our guiding principles, and to what extent were they caused by the principles themselves? Where the latter was true, were we wrong in calling those principles Marxism-Leninism or wasMarxism-Leninism wrong on certain points?" (Ibid., col. 1, emphasis added)

In renouncing Marxism, the "CPML" especially curses at the Marxist-Leninist conception of the vanguard party. This is at the very heart of their present- day liquidationism. Hence they write: "For example, many CPML members feel our mistakes of sectarianism flowed from our conception of ourselves as the vanguard party. But there is disagreement over whether the whole concept of vanguard party is invalid, or whether it was misapplied." (Ibid., col. 1-2, emphasis as in the original)

They reveal that they are in fact in the process of building another social-democratic federation. So while discussing the role of their "nationality commissions" they give up even the idea of a unified and centralized organization. They flagellate themselves for the"ultra-left" error of seeing these commissions only as "...' advisory' (not policy-making) bodies." They proclaim that the "CPML" is seriously considering the "calls for organizational autonomy" for their national minority members. In other words, the "CPML" is not just giving up the idea of a centralized organization in general, but they are even mocking at the idea of a single unified organization of communists of all nationalities in favor of a social-democratic federation with factions segregated according to nationality! Interestingly enough, elsewhere in this issue of The Call they openly advocate splitting the student movement according to nationality as well and sneer at building unity of the students of various nationalities as "rainbow coalitions."

The Debate Among the Various Factions in the "CPML" Is a Debate Among the Liquidators

The "CPML" has launched a "debate" within its ranks for some time, and now it has reached the pages of The Call. But this debate which has certain actors playing the "right" and others playing the "left" is not a debate between revolutionaries and opportunists. It is not a debate between Marxists and opportunists, but a squabble among different liquidationist factions. The articles in The Call confirm that all the factions in the debate have the common features of liquidationism and renegacy. The only difference is that on the one hand, there are those who seek to merge with social-democracy and adopt all the accompanying trappings while on the other side, stand those who seek to maintain a "Marxist" pretense while engaging in exactly the same sordid practices.

Let us examine, for instance, the views of one of the "militants" who have written into The Call on Jim Hamilton's disgusting "Message to the Movement." There is Susan K., who claims to disagree with Hamilton's cruder attacks on revolution and socialism. She's even willing to huff and puff that "I believe that revolution in the U.S. will be bloody. Hard fought. Violent...." But then she turns right around and proclaims, "In any case, we're not even in a pre-revolutionary situation and the actual manner in which revolutionary crisis will arise here can't be predicted." So, in the meantime, "We should discard all our old student- movement notions like contempt for electoral politics. Work inside all the political parties, not just those on the left." (The Call, March 1981, p. 4, 11) Thus Susan K. agrees with Hamilton down the line that for the present we must throw out the idea of revolutionary work and struggle, we must go for electoral cretinism, etc. In fact she advocates not just merger with social-democracy and the Democrats, but seeks to work with all the parties, presumably including the Republicans, Libertarians and who knows. The only difference with Hamilton is that Susan K. demands that the old Klonskyite cover must not be abandoned, i.e., the combination of the most extreme rightism with the pretense of standing for revolution tomorrow, in the distant, very distant future.

Forward in the Struggle Against Renegacy and Liquidationism

The crisis and near-dissolution of the "CPML" is a sign that Maoism is in ruins. It shows that neo-revision- ism has completely failed to meet the test of the revolutionary movement. The collapse of the "CPML" is a significant event, for this rotten sect has been the official standard-bearer of Chinese revisionism in the U.S. for years. It received the support and open endorsement of the ruling Deng/Hua clique in China. It even proclaimed itself as the "Marxist-Leninist party" in the U.S. in 1977. Only three years have gone by and it is on the verge of dissolution. This is testimony to the allround bankruptcy of Chinese revisionism.

The collapse and crisis of the "CPML" is also the victory of the resolute struggle waged by the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists against social-chauvinism and neo-revisionism. But the collapse of the "CPML" is not a time for complacency. The present-day ravings of the "CPML," its attempts to promote liquidationist and renegade ideas into the revolutionary movement are treacherous deeds. They are aimed at continuing in new ways the war on Marxism-Leninism, the war on the party concept and against the revolution and socialism. They are aimed at disorienting the activists coming up in the revolutionary movement. The struggle against revisionism remains a life and death question for the revolution.

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Against Mao Zedong Thought!

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-- PART V --

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ECONOMIST DISTORTIONS OF THE 'MAKE THE RICH PAY!' SLOGAN

Introduction

The crusaders against ideological struggle have declared a savage war against our Party. The immediate reasons for their frenzy against us are twofold. First, these gentlemen are opposed to our Party carrying the struggle against Chinese revisionism through to the end. Second, these gentlemen insist that we submit to a "special relationship'' with them, in complete violation of the norms of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.

It was on these questions that the crusaders began their war against our Party. Months later, in order to cover up their actions, they took to whispering slanders against our Party on other questions of the strategy and tactics of the revolution. They sought to cover over their dirty and unprincipled acts against our Party with a high-minded appearance and tried to divert attention away from the immediate issues behind their attacks. In particular they tried to allege that their differences with the Communique of the Founding Congress of our Party justify their hostility against us.

Although these other questions of strategy and tactics were not the immediate cause of their hostility against our Party and were raised by the crusaders only months afterwards, still our Party takes seriously all questions regarding strategy and tactics of the revolution. In Parts Two and Three of this series, we began to discuss some of these additional questions raised by them.

In particular we discussed the question of the relation between the struggle against foreign imperialist domination and the socialist revolution in the imperialist countries of Europe, Japan and Canada. In other words, we took up part of the celebrated question of the so-called "second world."

We pointed out that the crusaders have made grave Maoist blunders on this question. They are incapable of combining the struggle against U.S. imperialism with the socialist revolution. Hence, on the basis of the need to fight U.S. imperialist domination, the crusaders deny the proletarian socialist character of the revolution and deny that the basic contradiction in their imperialist country is that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In fact they take this blunder so far as to deny that their country is imperialist! On this basis they put forward a non-socialist, anti-colonial strategy for the revolution which calls for an alliance with the national bourgeoisie of an imperialist country, which they regard as a "patriotic," "pro-communist" and "pro-working class" bourgeoisie.

In this article we take up their use of the "Make the rich pay!" slogan. Here also the crusaders blunder on an important question of the Marxist program, showing their utter confusion on questions of strategy and tactics.

The "Make the rich pay!" slogan is a slogan for the struggle against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the toilers. But the crusaders have distorted this economic slogan and turned it into the entire "strategy and tactics" of the proletariat. This is a grave anti-Marxist blunder. Taking up such a distortion of the "Make the rich pay!" slogan is a manifestation of the economist and rightist positions the crusaders have adopted in their line on the working class movement.

At the same time, the crusaders continue to give a demagogic cover to their theories with semi-anarchist phrasemongering. With the crusaders, economism and semi-anarchism go hand in hand. On the one hand, they spout the most sophistical semi-anarchist arguments to sneer at defensive struggles, the struggles for partial demands, etc. On the other hand they subordinate the whole proletarian movement to the economic struggle by declaring that "Make the rich pay!" is "the soul, the commander" of the whole working class movement.

This combination of semi-anarchism and rightism is characteristic of Chinese revisionism and its ideological basis, Mao Zedong Thought. Taken as a whole, Mao Zedong Thought is saturated with theses reminiscent of the social- democracy of the Second International. But Mao Zedong Thought is not an integral theory. It is an eclectic brew of anti-Marxist ideas. It contains anarchist, economist, liberal, social-democratic and other elements all jumbled together.

In our Party's struggle against the neo-revisionists, the followers of Chinese revisionism in the U.S., we have seen that they too developed a similar amalgam of anarchism and economism. On the one hand, the neo-revisionists put forward the most blatant economist positions. They opposed revolutionary agitation, advocating instead that the masses could only be approached via vulgar economist talking down to them. They negated the struggle against revisionism and fought the party concept.

At the same time, while neo-revisionism is basically social-democratic and Browderite, it had a thin "left" veneer, which was a combination of special sectarian principles, anarcho-syndicalism and straight-out idealist sophistry. Their opposition to the party had certain anarchist features. As well, they could not take a consistent stand to the economic struggle. They went from reveling in economism to anarchist denunciation of the economic struggle as economist and reformist.

With their Maoist blunders, the crusaders against ideological struggle have also combined economism and semi-anarchism. In terms of their line on the working class movement they began with semi-anarchist deviations. Since the early 1970's they have moved to take up rightist positions which they justified with economist theories. This was sharply expressed by their adoption of "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics of the proletariat. They combine their marked swing to the right with semi-anarchist sophistry.

In this article we deal with the significance of their "Make the rich pay!" slogan. Not only do we show the practical consequences of their distortions of "Make the rich pay!" but we also go into the various theoretical arguments and reasoning that they make. This is important particularly because they have thrown up many demagogical and convoluted arguments on the question. They have used the slogan to mean almost anything and everything. At the same time, they have accompanied it with numerous anti- Marxist theories to justify their zigzags. We go into and repudiate a series of their economist as well as semi-anarchist theories.

The repudiation of these theories advanced by the crusaders provides further experience in eliminating the concrete manifestations of Mao Zedong Thought. In addition, the actual examination of their arguments and reasoning reveals a number of important issues regarding their attitude to theory. It shows that the crusaders take a cavalier attitude towards Marxism-Leninism and have no integral theoretical standpoint whatsoever.

On the Slogan "Make the Rich Pay!"

The crusaders against ideological struggle have distorted the slogan "Make the rich pay!" There is nothing wrong with the slogan in itself. The concept contained in this slogan has been advanced historically by various communist parties. Today as well, several genuine Marxist-Leninist parties in Europe put forward this slogan or variants of it. Our Party also uses phrases containing this idea in appropriate places in its literature.

Invariably, however, the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties, both historically and today, use this slogan not as a be-all and end-all but as a demand on the economic front. Faced with a severe economic crisis, the bourgeoisie seeks to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working masses at home and the oppressed nations abroad. In short, it attempts to make the working masses pay for the capitalist economic crisis. The proletariat fights this attack on the livelihood of the working masses and strives instead to have the exploiters bear the burden of the crisis or, so to speak, to make the exploiters pay. The "Make the rich pay!" slogan is a colorful and popular phrase which expresses this aspect of the economic struggle.

On one occasion when the crusaders tried to theorize on this slogan they traced it back to Dimitrov, a revolutionary leader of the Communist International. But this only serves to verify that Dimitrov advanced this concept in the same way as the Marxist-Leninists do today. Dimitrov says:

"We must point out to the masses what they must do today to defend themselves against capitalist spoliation and fascist barbarity.

"...This means:

"First, joint struggle really to shift the burden of the consequences of the crisis onto the shoulders of the ruling classes, the shoulders of the capitalists, landlords -- in a word, to the shoulders of the rich.

"Second, joint struggle against all forms of the fascist offensive, in defense of the gains and the rights of the working people, against the destruction of bourgeois-democratic liberties.

"Third, joint struggle against the approaching danger of imperialist war, a struggle that will make the preparations of such a war more difficult." (G. Dimitrov, The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International, Report to the 7th World Congress of the Communist International, 1935, Ch. II, Section entitled: "Content and Forms of the United Front," emphasis as in the original)

From the above it is clear that it is within the context of a series of immediate tasks for the working class that Dimitrov advances, for the economic front, the task of fighting to make the rich bear the burden of the economic crisis.

In a similar manner, when discussing the question of fighting the measures of the capitalist governments to impose bloodsucking tax burdens on the toiling masses, the Red International of Trade Unions, in its 1921 program of action, also put forward the slogan: "The capitalists must pay!"

This then, in short, is how the Marxist-Leninists use the slogan "Make the rich pay!" But naturally, with short and colorful phrases such as this, a great deal depends on what content is actually given to them. Indeed it can sometimes be found that the social-democrats and revisionists of various stripes make use of this slogan in order to put forward opportunist distortions of it.

The crusaders against ideological struggle have been using this slogan since the fall of 1975. But we shall see that they negate the Marxist-Leninist use of this slogan and instead use it to make economist and rightist blunders.

"Make the Rich Pay!" Is Not the Strategy and Tactics of the Proletariat But Simply a Slogan of Struggle on the Economic Front

In distorting the slogan "Make the rich pay! " our gallant crusaders have indeed gone to the extreme of declaring this slogan to be their "strategy and tactics." This was proclaimed in 1976 at a major national conference of theirs. (The main report to this conference is published in a pamphlet claiming to explain "the issue" regarding "questions of strategy and tactics." This pamphlet is still promoted and circulated by them.)

But "Make the rich pay!" is precisely not the strategy and tactics of the proletariat. To present a slogan for the economic front, a slogan of struggle against the effects of the economic crisis, as the entire strategy and tactics of the proletariat is to make a glaring anti-Marxist-Leninist blunder. It is to wipe out the revolution and revolutionary perspective and replace it with a reformist and social-democratic program. It is to wipe out the political and ideological struggle altogether and subordinate the program of the communists to what is acceptable to the trade union bureaucrats.

In a chapter of their pamphlet on "the issue" entitled "Strategy and Tactics of the Revolutionary Proletariat: Make the Rich Pay!," the crusaders trace this slogan to Dimitrov. But as we have seen, Dimitrov does not identify this concept as the "strategy and tactics." Instead he advanced it as a slogan for the economic front, one among a series of immediate tasks he poses for the proletariat. But our crusaders were so intent on asserting "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics that they deliberately distort what Dimitrov said. They only use the quote from Dimitrov where he speaks of the "Make the rich pay" concept, but leave out the other tasks that he puts forward, such as the struggle against the fascist attacks and the threat of imperialist war. This misquoting reveals their blatant economist error.

But our crusaders may complain that they hold "Make the rich pay!" only as the "tactics" of the proletariat. True enough, there have been many other occasions when the crusaders have merely claimed "Make the rich pay!" as the tactics. But even when they did so, "Make the rich pay!" was asserted to be their entire tactics. Thus, for instance, in early 1976, they held "Make the rich pay!" to be "the tactical policy and plan," while at their last regular congress in 1977 they declared that: "make the rich pay is the tactical line and slogan of the Party to bring millions of masses to the revolutionary position and to prepare them for the period when the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie is on the order of the day."

But this does not destroy the economist blunder at all. The tactics of the Party, too, as well as the strategy, can by no means be restricted to the economic struggle against the capitalist offensive. By their guilt-ridden shifts from "strategy and tactics" to "tactics" to what not, they have not solved the problem but only revealed a guilty conscience.

This also shows that the crusaders have no consistent definition of their slogan. While on the one hand they assert that this slogan is the line for the present period to prepare for the revolution, on the other hand they try to paint it in the colors of the revolution itself. Hence, for instance, on one occasion during their 1980 election campaign they presented "Make the rich pay" as the whole program up to the "decisive struggle." They declared that "Make the rich pay!" was to be implemented "by overthrowing the rich in a revolutionary war." But they hastened to add that they were not calling for revolutionary violence "at this time." At the same time, on other occasions during the elections, and in the first version of their election program itself, announced in December 1979, they said that "Make the rich pay" was their "minimum program."

Whichever the case, whether they call it "the strategy and tactics" or "the tactics" or whatever, the fact remains that it is this slogan which the crusaders put forward as their whole revolutionary program, the sum total of their activity. Hence, no matter how they define it on any particular day, it remains a blatant economist blunder to place an economic slogan in command of the whole proletarian struggle.

"Make the Rich Pay!" as the Strategy and Tactics Is Economism

A little later in this article we shall see some of the practical consequences of the distortion of the "Make the rich pay!" slogan by the crusaders. Here we show from the theoretical angle that "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics is an anti-Marxist-Leninist blunder, an expression of economism.

In terms of their line on the working class movement, the crusaders have fallen into one deviation from Marxism-Leninism after another. They began with semi-anarchist theory and practice and made a marked swing to the right in the early 1970's justified by various economist theories. With these theories the crusaders introduced complete confusion on the Marxist-Leninist theoretical teachings concerning the relationship between the political and economic and ideological struggle.

Lenin waged a powerful struggle against the opportunist Economists, the forerunners of the Mensheviks in Russia. The Economists opposed the Marxist teachings on the class struggle. The Economists limited the perspective of the working class movement to the economic struggle, maintaining that in the political struggle the workers should trail behind the liberal bourgeoisie. At the same time, making a fetish out of the spontaneity of the working class movement, they belittled the role of theory and the ideological struggle. In this way they worked to clear the way for the domination of bourgeois ideology over the proletariat.

The crusaders have adopted a series of economist theories to justify their rightist turn beginning in the early 1970's. These theories are particularly concentrated in their attempts to theorize on the "general line on the working class movement" in 1974 and on the "Make the rich pay!" slogan itself in 1976. They negate the ideological struggle and belittle the role of theory. They negate the distinctions between the three forms of class struggle -- economic, political and ideological -- in order to deny the higher forms of struggle and justify removing the revolutionary perspective from the political struggle. In the convoluted method they use to do this, they begin with the claim that one cannot make any distinctions between the three basic forms of class struggle because "they are all political." Then after proceeding to confuse every question, they reach the conclusion that "politics is the soul, the commander of all three forms of class struggle." But the politics they are speaking about is not revolutionary politics -- it is the "politics of Make the rich pay. " This is what is made the commander of the whole class struggle. In this way the crusaders subordinate the entire proletarian struggle to the economic struggle against the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers.

Let us examine the economist theories of the crusaders.

I.

To begin with, our crusaders deny the concept of the three basic forms of the proletarian class struggle.

Marxism-Leninism recognizes three fundamental forms of the class struggle: political, economic and ideological. In his celebrated work What Is to Be Done?, Lenin wrote:

"Let us quote what Engels said in 1874 concerning the significance of theory in the Social-Democratic movement. Engels recognizes not two forms of the great struggle of Social-Democracy (political and economic), as is the fashion among us, but three, placing on a par with the first two the theoretical struggle." (What Is to Be Done?, Ch. I, Sec. D, emphasis as in the original)

Lenin then proceeded to give a long quotation from Engels which includes the following passage:

" '...For the first time since the working-class movement has existed, the struggle is being waged in a planned way from its three coordinated and interconnected sides, the theoretical, the political and the practical-economic (resistance to the capitalists). It is precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack, that the strength and invincibility of the German movement lies!' "(Ibid., Ch. I, Sec. D)

Marxism-Leninism teaches that there are three basic forms of class struggle in order to explain that all three forms have to be waged. This necessarily requires grasping the distinction between the three forms of struggle, the role of each and how to properly combine them. Marxism-Leninism clearly explains these questions.

But the crusaders negate the distinctions between the three forms of class struggle. They argue that since there are three basic forms, all three being necessary, therefore no distinctions can be drawn between them. And so they proceed to mock the Marxist teachings on the relationship between the economic and political struggle and on the need for skillful combinations and transitions from one form of struggle to another. By denying the political struggle and denouncing the very idea of higher and lower forms of struggle, the crusaders write off the revolution and thus limit the class struggle to its narrowest and lowest forms.

So when they attempt to "theorize" on this question, they substitute sophistry for science. A spectacular example of this can be seen in their 1976 pamphlet purporting to be on "the issue." Here, in order to negate the actual distinctions between the three basic forms of class struggle, they create a false and absurd distinction. They make a ludicrous parody of the Marxist teachings. Here they claim that the real distinction of significance to be grasped is that between the formulation "three basic forms of proletarian struggle" and the formulation "three forms in which the class struggle is waged." They claimed that the former formulation is the Leninist line while the latter expresses the revisionist line. And the proof for this? The Khrushchovite revisionists used the second formulation in one of their articles -- that's it.

This is nonsense. There is no difference at all between these formulations. To say that one can find the distinction between Marxism and revisionism here is to reduce the struggle against revisionism into a joke. One can quite easily find the much-maligned second formulation in many Marxist-Leninist writings. For instance, Comrade Enver Hoxha uses a variant of this formulation in his Report to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania:

"...unless it is waged in all its main directions, political, economic and ideological, no class struggle can ever be complete." (Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 116)

But there is a conscious method behind this rubbish put forward by our crusaders. Through these incomprehensible stupidities, the crusaders try to paint themselves as "most profound," "brilliant" and "deep" theoreticians. This is just posing.

II.

We shall see that the crusaders negate both the political and ideological struggle in order to subordinate everything to the "Make the rich pay" slogan. In this section we examine the negation of the ideological struggle by the crusaders.

In the quotes from Lenin's work What Is to Be Done? mentioned in the last section, we can see the great importance Lenin attached to revolutionary theory and the ideological struggle. The Economists in Russia yesterday and the crusaders today both denounce the ideological struggle. The Economists leaped and danced against the "exaggeration of the importance of ideology," and counterposed practical work to the ideological struggle.

Likewise, our crusaders take denunciation of the ideological struggle as one of the basic principles of existence. Their crusade against ideological struggle has been going on for years. Just like the Economists in Russia, the crusaders, too, counterpose "practical work" to ideological struggle. As early as 1970 the crusaders were counterposing "ideological struggle" to the task of taking "practical measures to overthrow the incorrect line from the mass movement." But how can "practical measures to overthrow the incorrect line" be taken without waging the ideological struggle? Indeed it cannot. The sad result of this counterposition is to give lip service to opposing the incorrect line while mocking at the Marxist-Leninist teachings on ideological struggle.

Our crusaders still put forward the same counterposition today. In fact they think themselves oh-so clever by even putting the word PRACTICAL in bold type, while spewing out venom against the ideological struggle. They categorically declare that "there is no such thing as solving...practical problems through endless 'debates' and 'ideological struggle'...."

This counterposition also reflects the crusaders' disdain for theory. No wonder they made so many blunders in dealing with the practical questions of the revolution. With such an attitude they also block the repudiation of past errors. Thus last year, while summing up a decade of their work, they made the following declaration in order to justify their Maoist errors: "The Marxist-Leninist tactics, the Marxist- Leninist tradition, the Marxist-Leninist style of work -- all show that it is not necessary to have correct analysis all the time...." This statement is nothing but straightforward ridicule of the energizing and mobilizing role of the Marxist-Leninist theory.

Lenin emphatically pointed out that "without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." To downplay theory is to sink into the bog of opportunism. The spontaneous development of the working class movement and the active efforts by the bourgeoisie to subvert and liquidate the class struggle are always putting forward all kinds of problems for the development of the revolutionary movement. As well there is the question of rectifying one's errors and deviations that one may have made. Only Marxist-Leninist theory can guide the proletariat and its party forward. The result of belittling theory is to be rendered helpless in the face of the tasks brought forward by the development of the class struggle and incapable of resisting any fashionable deviations spread by the bourgeoisie to confuse the revolutionary masses.

It is as a result of this disdain for theory and the theoretical struggle that our crusaders create total confusion on the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the class struggle. No matter how much they may scoff at the ideological struggle, our crusaders do, after all, live in the real world. And in the real world, one has to deal with the revisionists and opportunists. So, for instance, one has to deal with the fact that the revisionists and opportunists will use Marxist-Leninist terminology and caricature certain theses of Marxism-Leninism in order to put forward opportunist and reformist politics. How one deals with this phenomenon is a serious question. The Marxist-Leninists must deal with the actual lines and practices of the opportunists and expose the hypocritical distortions of Marxism made by them. But instead of doing this, our crusaders denounce the Marxist-Leninist theses themselves! Hence they denounce the concepts of three forms of class struggle, as we have seen. As well, we shall see in the next sections that the crusaders denounce the concepts of higher and lower forms of struggle and of combinations of and transition from one form of struggle to another, etc., on the basis that these phrases occur in this or that revisionist article. This shows their incapability of dealing with revisionism and opportunism. But such is only the natural consequence of belittling theory and ideological struggle.

III.

In this section we examine the theories by which the crusaders negate the political struggle in general and remove the revolutionary content from the political struggle in particular.

The Economists of Lenin's day developed various kinds of theories to justify making the economic struggle primary over the political struggle. They limited the perspective of the proletarian movement to economic questions alone. However, the Economist negation of political struggle does not mean the negation of all politics. The Economists were willing to recognize that aspect of the political struggle which arises from the economic struggle, that is, the struggle for economic reforms. But on all general democratic and revolutionary questions, the Economists argued that the workers should leave these questions for the liberal bourgeoisie. In other words, the Economists removed the revolutionary content from the political struggle of the proletariat.

When our crusaders made their marked swing towards rightist positions in terms of line on the working class movement, they began to advance various economist theories. One such theory they advanced was that because all three forms of class struggle " serve the economic base," therefore no distinctions can be drawn between them as to higher and lower forms of struggle. This is of course a most typical economist theory to negate the political struggle.

These arguments were put forward in a 1974 document on the "general line on the working class movement." This is a major document of the crusaders and they still promote this document in a prominent manner. In this document the crusaders write:

"Erroneous views have been advanced in the past by both the anarcho-syndicalists and the modern revisionists which hold that the struggles on the economic front are detached from the struggles on the political front. They further state that the struggles on the economic front are 'lower forms' of struggle while struggles on the political front are 'higher forms'....

"... There are two fronts of struggle: 1) economic and 2) political. There are other fronts too, for example, the cultural, juridical, military, etc., but all these fronts serve the economic base. Political struggles reflect the ripples, the conflicts and storms taking place on the economic front and reflect them in a concentrated form. So to make distinctions between the two in a manner to belittle one struggle over the other or magnify the significance of one over the other is pure sophistry and deception." (emphasis added)

This is deliberately turning Marxism-Leninism upside down. Lenin also pointed out that politics is the concentrated expression of economics. But the conclusion Lenin drew is the opposite of the crusaders. He wrote:

"... I said again in my speech that politics is a concentrated expression of economics, because I had earlier heard my 'political' approach rebuked in a manner which is inconsistent and inadmissible for a Marxist. Politics must take precedence over economics. To argue otherwise is to forget the ABC of Marxism." ("Once Again on the Trade Unions," Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 83)

The crusaders, however, draw an economist conclusion that one cannot "magnify the significance of one (form of struggle) over the other." The crusaders justified this with the pretext that to say one form is lower than another is to deny the need to participate in it. They argued later that their document on the "general line" was written "in order to oppose those who did not want to work...in the economic organizations of the working class, who did not want to support the economic struggles of the working class...." But the crusaders are confusing two separate questions here. It is not necessary at all to denounce the Marxist teachings on the distinction between higher and lower forms of struggle in order to explain that the communists must participate in the lower forms of struggle.

Marxism-Leninism teaches that there are three basic forms of class struggle and ail three have to be waged. It opposes all those who refuse to dirty their hands in the lower forms of struggle. It is interesting to note in this regard that it is precisely the crusaders who have at various times put forward semi-anarchist views in order to deny the need to participate in the economic struggle in particular and the lower forms of struggle generally.

Marxism-Leninism is opposed to all denigration of the economic struggle. It shows the need for persevering work on this front and its relationship to organizing the revolutionary upsurge. At the same time, it warns against exaggerating the importance of this struggle. Lenin, in his struggle against the Economists, commented on the Marxist attitude with which to view the economic struggle:

"For the socialist, the economic struggle serves as a basis for the organization of the workers into a revolutionary party, for the strengthening and development of their class struggle against the whole capitalist system. If the economic struggle is taken as something complete in itself there will be nothing socialist in it; the experience of all European countries shows us many examples, not only of socialist, but also anti-socialist trade unions.

"... The task of the socialist is to further the indissoluble fusion of the economic and the political struggle into the single class struggle of the socialist working-class masses." ("Apropos of the Profession de Foi," Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 293-94)

Besides the distinction which Marxists must make between political and economic struggle, within the realm of politics itself there are also distinctions which must be made and there are higher and lower forms. Here too it is necessary to utilize all forms of struggle. In fact there are times when the communists participate in certain forms of struggle precisely because they are lower forms of struggle. For instance, Lenin, in his struggle against the "left" liquidators, wrote:

"... when the conditions of acute and increasing reaction are really present, when the mechanical force of this reaction really severs the connection with the masses, makes sufficiently broad work difficult and weakens the Party, it is then that the specific task of the Party becomes to master the parliamentary weapon of struggle; and that, O unjustly removed ones, is not because parliamentary struggle is higher than any other forms of struggle; no, it is just because it is lower than them, lower, for example, than a struggle which draws into the mass movement even the armed forces, which gives rise to mass strikes, uprisings, etc." ("The Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and God-Building," Collected Works, Vol. 16, p. 33, emphasis as in the original)

Clearly it is absurd to suggest that the communists must not participate in the lower forms of struggle. But in order to fight such a misconception it is not necessary to denounce the Marxist teachings on higher and lower forms of struggle. The crusaders do precisely that in order to negate the higher forms of political struggle.

As we pointed out earlier, the Economists did not use their negation of political struggle to deny all politics, but specifically to repudiate the revolutionary content from politics. The same is the case for our crusaders today.

This is reflected, for instance, when they equate economic and political struggle in their document on the "general line on the working class movement" by comparing the economic struggle to the political struggle for the reform of a particular piece of anti-labor legislation. Thus they equate politics with the parliamentary struggle for a certain reform. They do not compare the economic struggle to the political revolution, but solely to the political struggle for reform. This reveals a highly restricted conception of politics. The crusaders are willing to recognize the "political struggle" against an anti-labor bill, but leave out the revolutionary struggle for state power. They forget that in politics there are higher and lower forms. The fight against an antilabor bill can never be equated with the nationwide insurrection. But if one removes the revolution from one's practical politics, if one restricts it to a liberal conception of politics, then of course it is useless to argue whether or not liberal politics is higher than liberal economics.

The crusaders have repeatedly restricted politics to a liberal conception of it. Thus, for instance, while speaking of a recent strike of hospital workers, the crusaders wrote in their newspaper on January 31, 1981 that this strike was "first and foremost...a political struggle." This is justified under the pretext that this strike, which was over questions of wages and working conditions, violated the "no-strike" law against hospital workers. Of course it is true that any strike which comes into confrontation with the state attains certain political features and it is necessary to agitate on these questions. But what the crusaders are doing here is vulgarizing the conception of political struggle. By redefining this economic strike as "first and foremost...a political struggle" the crusaders are once again belittling the scope of the political struggle.

The economist negation of politics always means lowering politics to trailing behind the liberals. It is to write off the particular tasks needed to prepare for the revolution. Lenin flailed the liberal conception of politics. He wrote in this regard:

"The question of the class struggle is one of the fundamental questions of Marxism. It is, therefore, worthwhile dealing with the concept of class struggle in greater detail.

"Every class struggle is a political struggle. We know that the opportunists, slaves to the ideas of liberalism, understood these profound words of Marx incorrectly and tried to put a distorted interpretation on them. Among the opportunists there were, for instance, the Economists, the elder brothers of the liquidators. The Economists believed that any clash between classes was a political struggle. The Economists therefore recognized as 'class the struggle' the struggle for a wage increase of five kopeks on the ruble, and refused to recognize a higher, more developed, nationwide class struggle, the struggle for political aims. The Economists, therefore, recognized the embryonic class struggle but did not recognize it in its developed form. The Economists recognized, in other words, only that part of the class struggle that was more tolerable to the liberal bourgeoisie, they refused to go farther than the liberals, they refused to recognize the higher form of class struggle that is unacceptable to the liberals. By so doing, the Economists became liberal workers' politicians. By so doing, the Economists rejected the Marxist, revolutionary conception of the class struggle.

"To continue. It is not enough that the class struggle becomes real, consistent and developed only when it embraces the sphere of politics. In politics, too, it is possible to restrict oneself to minor matters, and it is possible to go deeper, to the very foundations. Marxism recognizes a class struggle as fully developed, 'nation-wide, only if it does not merely embrace politics but takes on the most significant thing in politics -- the organization of state power.

"On the other hand, the liberals, when the working class movement has grown a little stronger, dare not deny the class struggle but attempt to narrow down, to curtail and emasculate the concept of class struggle. Liberals are prepared to recognize the class struggle in the sphere of politics, too, but on one condition -- that the organization of state power should not enter into that sphere. It is not hard to understand which of the bourgeoisie's class interests give rise to the liberal distortion of the concept of class struggle." ("Liberal and Marxist Conceptions of the Class Struggle," Collected Works, Vol. 19, pp. 121-22, emphasis as in the original)

IV.

We have seen that the crusaders negate the ideological and political struggles. Now we shall proceed to see that the whole point of this is to put the economic struggle in command of the working class movement.

The economist theories advanced in the crusaders' document on the "general line on the working class movement" were further elaborated in their 1976 pamphlet purporting to explain what "the issue" is.

We examine one idea they put forward in this pamphlet. The crusaders complain that an opportunist group wrote about them that: "Thus, the political struggle of the working class becomes [for the crusaders -- ed.] nothing more than one front amongst others, instead of being the only way of overthrowing the bourgeois state and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat." On this pretext, the crusaders write that " 'Political struggle' is not 'the only way of overthrowing the bourgeois state' as all three basic forms of proletarian struggle are in essence political struggles." This is the height of absurdity. Everyone knows that revolution is a political act. But our crusaders will even adopt such utterly absurd positions as denying this elementary concept in order to renounce revolutionary content from the political struggle.

Furthermore, the crusaders mock the concept of revolution by their claim that "all three basic forms of proletarian struggle are in essence political struggle." Elsewhere in this pamphlet they put this thesis in even starker terms: "When we say that there are three forms of proletarian struggle, we mean that all these struggles are political." This is the crux of the matter. This shows what is behind their "recognition" of the three forms of struggle. It is clearly to deny all distinctions between them at all. With this blatantly economist thesis, the crusaders can reduce politics to the lowest possible level and exalt the economic struggle to the skies. This thesis obliterates the distinction, say, between a struggle of the workers of a particular factory for higher wages and the proletarian revolution itself. It belittles entirely the significance of the struggle for state power. It means to renounce the revolutionary content from politics. But Marxism-Leninism stresses the central importance of the question of state power and the methods of obtaining and maintaining that power. On this, the Party of Labor of Albania points out:

"It is necessary to understand, also, that irrespective of the interconnection of all the main directions of the class struggle and the equally great importance of each of these directions, until the classes and enemies are eliminated, the political struggle remains the highest form of this struggle, in the sense that over no other question does the class struggle become so severe and mount to such a climax, as over the question of state power. The socialist revolutionary upheavals, as well as the bourgeois revisionist counterrevolutionary upheavals, always begin with the state power. This is the source of the stern struggle that has always been waged, and which is being waged today between the Marxist-Leninists and the revisionists, over the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat." (Nexhmije Hoxha, Some Fundamental Questions of the Revolutionary Policy of the PLA About the Development of the Class Struggle, Tirana, 1977, pp. 23-24, emphasis as in the original)

The crusaders also put forward this same thesis that all three forms are political struggles in another, more picturesque way. They write that: "All three forms of proletarian struggle -- economic, political and theoretical -- are commanded by the politics of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Politics is the commander, the very soul of proletarian class struggle.... "

This is indeed a true gem. First they denounce the very idea of a higher form of struggle. Then they turn around and say that politics is the soul, the commander (isn't this "magnifying the .significance of one over the other"?) of all three forms of proletarian struggle. Just imagine how profound and brilliant our crusaders are -- they have discovered that politics is the soul...of political struggle! What utter trash! What obscurantism! What theoretical mindlessness!

These sophistries are of course aimed to mock at the Marxist-Leninist teachings. At the same time, through them, our crusaders get back to their economist position. Politics is the soul, the commander. But what kind of politics are they talking about? It is politics in the general sense, the strategy and tactics, in short -- you guessed it -- it is "the politics of Make the Rich Pay!" which is the soul, the commander. Thus they write that "the slogan commanding the proletarian struggle on all three fronts, economic, political and theoretical is Make the Rich Pay! This slogan is the organizer, mobilizer and unifier of the proletariat...."

Thus the formulation of politics as the soul, the commander of everything, of even politics -- this mystery from the ancient Greek oracles -- is used to reduce everything to the point where "Make the rich pay!" becomes the soul, the commander, in other words, everything. In this way, the whole working class movement is subordinated to the economic struggle against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the people.

V.

Finally we take up the crusaders' argument by which they mock at the Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning the need for transition from one form of struggle to another. Once again, the immediate pretext is that somewhere the revisionists write: "In the political struggle, which is a higher form of class struggle, the workers move from defense of their own immediate daily interests, to defending their fundamental class interests.'' This formulation, in which there is nothing wrong in itself, is mocked at in the most incredible terms as the allegedly revisionist "move over" theory.

When one sees the way they mock this concept, it is clear that the crusaders are mocking the very idea of preparing for the revolution itself. They write: "According to the revisionist schema, first we have earthly workers participating in economic struggles. They decide to have trade union consciousness. Then sometime in 1975, (the government chieftain) comes along with his 'wage-cutting Bill....' So the workers decide -- enough of this economic struggle. Let us 'move over' to political struggle. In the process, they give themselves a 'truly class, i.e. socialist consciousness.' Then they decide to have their 'theoretical, ideological' struggle in order to free their minds of 'capitalist views, ideas, illusions and prejudices.' Then they decide that this level is not high enough, and drink a potion of 'socialist ideology' thus raising their 'spontaneous working class movement' to a 'higher level of development,' en route to Nirvana."

This is simply amazing. The above statement epitomizes their mocking of the Marxist teachings on the class struggle. The crusaders may think themselves very clever but they have only succeeded in revealing their economist prejudices.

How can one possible denounce transition from one form of struggle to another? All intelligent political parties constantly shift from one form of struggle to another. Revolutionary parties do so in order to advance the revolutionary struggle. Liberal parties do it to liquidate and divert the class struggle away from revolution. It is quite well known that the revisionists put forward the idea of transition in order to liquidate the mass forms of struggle and justify moving instead towards parliamentary cretinism. This is justified under the hoax that allegedly their parliamentary cretinism, because it is "political struggle," is higher than mass actions. But any kind of parliamentary struggle without mass action is actually a lower form of struggle. Lenin explains in this regard:

"... since the action of the masses -- a big strike, for instance, is more important than parliamentary activity at all times, and not only during a revolution or in a revolutionary situation." (Left-Wing Communism, an

Infantile Disorder, Ch. VII, emphasis as in the original)

The parliamentary cretinism of the revisionists cannot be opposed by denouncing "moving over." The idea of transition and skillful combination of different forms of struggle is a Marxist conception. In this respect Lenin wrote:

"Marxist tactics consist in combining the different forms of struggle, in the skillful transition from one form to another, in steadily enhancing the consciousness of the masses and extending the arena of their collective actions, each of which, taken separately, may be aggressive or defensive, and all of which, taken together, lead to a more intensive and decisive conflict." ("Forms of the Working Class Movement," Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 210, emphasis as in the original)

By negating the issue of transition to higher forms of struggle, the crusaders are only proclaiming their economist prejudice which seeks to confine the proletarian movement to the lowest forms and to the economic struggle alone.

VI.

Finally a further characteristic of economism to be found among our crusaders must be pointed out. They have never worked out their "Make the rich pay!" slogan in any comprehensive manner. When they first issued it, they declared that "as this tactic develops, proletarians will also give rise to forms consistent with the tactic," and they promised that "in the coming years, we will sort out the question relating to actual struggle To Make the Rich Pay." But almost five years have gone by and they still have not developed any content for their slogan. Even at the beginning of 1980 they could only utter some gibberish to the effect that "when the issue does come up in a clear radical way -- when it comes up on the agenda, then of course various practical measures, practical politics will be advanced to deal with it." Just imagine, "Make the rich pay!" is meant to be an immediate program, but to our crusaders, it hasn't arrived on the agenda yet! This amounts to having a program to work out the program. In other words our crusaders are bankrupt on the question. They can only advocate drifting with the stream, to tail after the spontaneous movement which will somehow magically "give rise to the forms consistent with this tactic." This is nothing but the tactics-as-a-process advocated by the Economists in Russia who also called for tailing after the spontaneous movement. This spirit has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism which is a theory that provides consciousness to the movement.

The Economist Deviation Concretized in the Browderite Program of Structural Reform for the 1980 Elections

While it is true that the "Make the rich pay!" slogan has never been worked out, and it is constantly being redefined as this or that, in all fairness it must be granted to the crusaders that they did indeed make one attempt to present "Make the rich pay!" in a somewhat worked-out fashion. And they completely fell on their face in this attempt. This was during the 1980 national elections. The program that they put forward was truly revealing. It was nothing but a blatant Browderite right-opportunist program of "structural reform." It expressed in a very glaring manner the economist blunder reflected in adopting "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics of the proletariat.

The program we are referring to here is the second version of their 1980 election program. It was announced in their press on February 15, 1980 under an appeal to "vote for the candidates" of their party. It was elaborated in a speech given at an election rally two days later.

The most shocking thing about this program is that it is silent on the need for struggle and revolution! The program gives no call for struggle on the political or economic fronts. The only exception to this is that the crusaders give a feeble call for struggle on the question of war. But this only calls on the people to "oppose all imperialist blocs and powers" and not to side with "one bloc or the other." It should be remembered that they do not consider their country to be imperialist. Thus, this is only a call for struggle against the imperialist bourgeoisie outside the country.

So how is this program to be implemented? The clear impression is given that this will be done by voting the crusaders to power through the bourgeois elections. Obviously the crusaders have fallen into the pit of parliamentary cretinism.

Let us examine the actual content of this program (emphasis as in the original):

1. As the "real solution" to the problem of unemployment, the crusaders propose: "...in order to create jobs and stimulate production, instead of doling out millions and billions of dollars to the rich, the wages of the workers who are employed should be increased. The increase in wages of the workers will create increased demand for the basic necessities of life which will spur the sectors of the economy involved in the production of the basic necessities of life. "

2. As the "real solution" to the problem of inflation, the crusaders propose: "...in order to eliminate inflation, instead of deficit budgets, the prices of all commodities must be frozen at current levels, and as the economy recovers, prices should be steadily cut down. The freezing of prices and their steady reduction will decrease inflation while the profits of the capitalists will be curtailed.

3. In order to "develop an all-sided economic base," the crusaders propose that: "...instead of catering to the foreign and native financial oligarchs, these financial oligarchs who constitute the rich should be expropriated without compensation and the wealth expropriated in this manner should be invested in those sectors of the economy which are ruined or in a slump."

4. In order to eliminate the "political, cultural, social, financial and credibility crisis," the crusaders call on the workers and broad masses to vote for them, and they will "end all these crises." The crusaders "will turn...words into deeds and proclaim a new constitution."

This, in brief, is the program which the crusaders call: "The only solution to the crisis: Make the Rich Pay!"

Far from taking any step towards eliminating the credibility crisis of capitalism, the crusaders have only succeeded in exacerbating their own credibility crisis! The actual content of this program reveals that it is a program of perfecting capitalism. It is a Browderite program of structural reform, of promises of all kinds of good things to be achieved under capitalism. The followers of Browderite revisionism are always putting forward various kinds of panaceas which will allegedly solve the capitalist crisis under capitalism. For instance, the Khrushchovite revisionists put forward programs which include many similar features as those proposed by the crusaders. The Khrushchovites, too, call for some nationalization of monopoly capital (i.e. expropriation), price freezes and controls to allegedly fight inflation, and all kinds of "constitutional reforms" such as "a bill of rights for working people," "outlawing racism," and so on. Perhaps the only difference is that the crusaders are making even wilder promises than the Khrushchovites. But the basic perspective they hold out is essentially the same -- that the crisis can be ended under capitalism, without the socialist revolution.

It is quite clear that the crusaders are talking about ending the crisis under capitalism. When they elaborated their February 15 program, they explained that their measures will "mean that the capitalists will have less profits than they do now but it will in no way give rise to the elimination of the economy or to what the capitalists are suggesting, that doomsday will come if the profits of the capitalists are cut down." Hence, since they themselves claim that profits will continue to exist, the crusaders are obviously talking about a capitalist economy. As well, the fact that their program contains the typically social-democratic idea that increased wages will increase demand and spur investment also shows that it is the laws of capitalist economy which are meant to be in operation.

The sad story of this attempt to work out "Make the rich pay!" does not end here. In their 1980 election campaign, the crusaders went even further than throwing out the revolution and suggesting that the capitalist crisis could be ended under capitalism. They proclaimed that the type of reforms they propose could even be implemented piecemeal by the present capitalist government as "structural reforms." Only a few days before the elections, the crusaders declared at one of their election rallies:

"There is propaganda carried out that to vote for the Marxist-Leninists is a waste because they will not form a government.... Only a vote for the Marxist-Leninists is a useful vote. This will put a lot of pressure on the rich and even this can force some structural reform which is advantageous to the people."

This then is the sad story of one major attempt made by the crusaders to work out "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics of the proletariat. The result is a gross form of social-reformism. The call for implementation of such a program under capitalism will not solve the crisis. It is simply a variant of the program of the liberals and social-democrats. Nationalization of capitalist enterprises will not gradually transform capitalism into socialism. It does not change state monopoly capitalism, which continues to impose a brutal yoke on the toiling masses.

As to price controls, despite the glorification of the capitalist state by the social-democrats and labor bureaucrats, the truth is that price controls do not eliminate the underlying causes of inflation. Hence price controls at most hold down prices temporarily, after which they zoom up again. Furthermore, it is well known that the slogan of "price controls" is the way the bourgeois parties dress up the savage demand for wage controls to destroy the workers' livelihood. Similarly, to talk about higher wages while negating the need for mass struggle is another social-democratic fraud. But the crusaders go to the extent of reviving the Keynesian economic theories that stimulating demand will rid capitalism of economic crisis.

As well, the idea of subsidies to weak sectors of the economy in order to overcome the anarchy and disproportionate development which are characteristic of capitalism is the most vulgar reformism. A government could grant some relief to certain sections of the population. But this could never end anarchy and bring capitalism under a unified plan. The glorification of state capitalism is, however, used by the bourgeois parties to justify giving handouts from the government to the capitalists, the money of course coming from the savage tax burdens imposed on the working masses.

Finally it should be pointed out that this whole idea of solving the crisis under capitalism is not too strange coming from our crusaders since they hold to the strategic perspective of a non-socialist revolution in an imperialist country. At their last regular congress in 1977, the crusaders had declared "Make the rich pay!'' as the tactical line "subordinate to the strategic aims of the Party, the implementation of which leads to the fulfilling of the strategic aims of the Party." Most interestingly, the strategic aims proclaimed by this congress, like the previous congresses, are non-socialist and do not include the expropriation of the national bourgeoisie, which they refer to as a "pro-communist" bourgeoisie, etc. Since "Make the rich pay" is subordinate to these aims, it is quite consistent for the February 15, 1980 "Make the rich pay" program to call for solving the crisis under capitalism.

"Make the Rich Pay!" as Strategy and Tactics Means Subordinating the Communist Program to What Is Acceptable to the Trade Union Bureaucrats

In distinguishing between the liberal and Marxist conceptions of the class struggle, Lenin showed that the economists only recognized that part of the class struggle which was tolerable to the liberals. The Economists refused to recognize the higher forms of the class struggle which are unacceptable to the liberals. We have shown above that proclaiming "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics means to adopt an economist program. This indicates that the crusaders refuse to recognize the higher forms of struggle which are unacceptable to the liberal-labor trade union bureaucrats and social-democrats. In other words, the crusaders have proclaimed a program which is meant to be acceptable to the trade union bureaucrats.

This tendency towards accommodation with the labor bureaucrats coincides with their swing to the right. The ideological basis for this was spelled out, for instance, in 1974 on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of their founding when the crusaders issued guidelines for their work in the reactionary trade unions. They stated: "For the Marxist - Leninists, the struggle is to seize the fortresses of the enemy. Some comrades incorrectly believe, however, that the best way of entering the fortress when there are watch-dogs sleeping outside is by raising one's fist and shouting 'Down with the watch-dogs!' This method only succeeds in arousing the watch-dogs. Marxist-Leninists should instead devise methods to storm the fortress, wipe out the enemy and deal with the watch-dogs as well."

This is an interesting view. Perhaps one might think that the crusaders are raising the issue that it is wrong to approach the work in the reactionary trade unions by generalized denunciations of the bureaucrats. It is true that the struggle against the labor bureaucrats cannot be approached in this simple and mechanical fashion. This struggle is a complex one. The Marxist-Leninists have to develop the fight against the labor bureaucrats in the course of developing the overall class struggle. In any particular situation, various factors have to be taken into consideration in sorting out when and how to come out against the labor traitors. But the crusaders are raising an entirely different issue. They raise that the watchdogs, i.e. the bureaucrats, are sleeping and must not be aroused. In other words, the crusaders are giving the view that one can develop communist work without the opposition of the bureaucrats. Of course they promise to deal with the bureaucrats on some distant day.

The crusaders make a serious mistake by considering the bureaucrats as sleeping dogs. They are living in a world of fancy if they think that they can sneak into the fortress without "arousing the watch-dogs." The labor bureaucrats are not sleeping at all, but are very active in sabotaging the workers' struggles and in fighting against the revolution. How can the bureaucrats be unaware of the revolutionary nature of a genuine fighting Marxist-Leninist party? Clearly they cannot. Then the only way to enter the fortress without arousing the bureaucrats is by subordinating oneself to them, to wipe out anything that would unduly alarm them, in sum, to keep within the limits of a tolerated faction. In other words, the plan to "storm the fortress" without arousing the watchdogs is essentially a plan to merge with the trade union bureaucracy.

"Make the rich pay!" is used for this purpose. Interestingly enough, when the crusaders first discussed this slogan in early 1976, they accompanied it with a call to tone down the criticism of the trade union bureaucrats. Thus, in their pamphlet on "two points," they say: "make the rich pay is the only tactical policy and plan and we must not waste time in secondary issues like attacking the (reactionary trade union center) or someone else for the failure of the revolutionary movement."

The crusaders present "Make the rich pay!" as the strategy and tactics of the proletariat. To present the whole communist program in this manner as simply the economic struggle is to reduce it to something which is acceptable to the trade union bureaucrats. At the same time the actual criticism of the bureaucrats which is absolutely necessary for any serious struggle to make the rich pay is toned down or removed altogether. What criticism remains is basically limited to questions of general politics while the crusaders refrain from any sharp fight on the direct betrayal of the workers' struggles by the labor traitors. For that matter, in the last year, any type of criticism, even for form's sake, has been almost completely extinguished.

Of course it is possible that the crusaders may at some point decide to jettison the "Make the rich pay!" slogan in order to make their program and activity even more acceptable to the bureaucrats. Since the labor bureaucrats are saboteurs of the economic struggle, this slogan could turn out to be too militant for them and thus prove to be an obstacle to the further progress of the crusaders' attempts to merge with the labor bureaucracy.

A Flood of Semi-Anarchist Blunders

Having deviated from Marxism-Leninism, the crusaders against ideological struggle combine both semi-anarchist and rightist blunders. At one time their semi-anarchist deviations were very obvious. This included denunciation of the economic struggle entirely as revisionism and opportunism. Thus, in the political report which was their founding document, they sneered at the economic struggle as the allegedly revisionist "theory of workers' struggles for standard of living and leisure time.'' Later the crusaders tacked on to their semi-anarchism very blatant economist and rightist positions.

The crusaders combine both semi-anarchism and rightism today. They can still be found cursing "defensive struggles" as any good semi-anarchist will. At the same time, the lowest defensive struggle becomes on par with the insurrection and the revolution -- if only the crusaders tack on it the inscription "Make the rich pay!" This was shown, for instance, in the spring of 1980 when the crusaders attached the signboard of "offensive struggle" to a whole series of student struggles such as against cafeteria price increases, etc.

Thus the basic core of their position today is characterized by deep economist and rightist blunders which are masked by a coat of extravagant semi-anarchist phrasemongering. We have already examined some of the major rightist blunders that our crusaders are making. It is also necessary to lay bare their semi-anarchist conceptions. We examine a few of these below.

First, let us take up the theory of "the offensive." This was put forward in a particularly striking form (or if you will, especially offensive form) during the 1980 elections. Our crusaders said that "many defensive struggles are organized at the place of work which are, in our estimation, the kiss of death for the working class. No class in history has ever survived the onslaught of the enemy by participating in defensive battles alone. The only attitude of a class is the offensive and it must organize this offensive...and the slogan to Make the rich pay for the crisis! is an offensive slogan."

This is balderdash. This sneering at defensive struggles, this categorical declaration that the "only attitude of a class is the offensive" has nothing in common with Marxism. Marxism teaches that if the workers do not fight the defensive battles against the encroachment by the bourgeoisie then the workers will disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement. The Marxists use all the day-to-day struggles, including defensive battles, in order to organize the workers for the social revolution.

Our crusaders use their semi-anarchist arguments such as this theory of "the offensive" in order to justify refusal to dirty their hands with "mere" defensive struggles. At the same time, as we saw earlier, they redefine the present-day defensive struggle against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers as the strategy and tactics of the proletariat and subordinate everything to "Make the rich pay!" This shows how semi-anarchism and economism are twin brothers. As well, it reveals how our crusaders use semi-anarchist sophistry to hide their rightist positions behind a mask of r-r-revolutionary phrasemongering.

Second, we examine the theory of "making trouble for the bourgeoisie." This theory, too, was promulgated in a concentrated form during the 1980 elections. The crusaders said then that "of course there are defensive battles, and resistance struggles as well, but these defensive battles and resistance struggles must be subordinated to the fact that we must cause trouble for the bourgeoisie...." Here too, the crusaders sneer at the defensive struggles, but a somewhat different anarchist twist is put forward.

This theory is actually a variant of the terrorist theory of "causing material damage to the bourgeoisie." Instead of placing attention on organizing the class struggle and on correctly formulating and fighting to attain the tactical and strategic goals of the revolution, the crusaders instead substitute the concept of "making trouble for the bourgeoisie." But this only shows that either they do not understand the necessity to organize the class struggle or that they have lost faith in organizing and given up in despair. This phrase shows that the crusaders have no real standard to measure their work with. The standard they advance is very elastic; because without precisely defined objectives, how can one judge if one's work has "made trouble" or not? Without clear objectives, this phrase -- which might have a limited use as an agitational phrase -- degenerates into semi-anarchist phrasemongering. And the convenient thing about the elasticity of such a phrase is that with it one doesn't really have to judge whether one has advanced the struggle. Anything at all can be justified. Thus even the narrowest struggles can be justified as "making trouble for the bourgeoisie" and equated with the insurrection itself. Whatever our crusaders choose to declare.

Third, let us examine the theory that contract struggles are no good. Especially in 1979, the crusaders repeatedly pontificated in their press with regard to the trade union struggle that "the proletarian class struggle cannot be waged in fits and starts, going from one set of contract negotiations to another," etc. On first sight, such a general statement may appear to be only an agitational chiding that struggle should be continued during the periods between contracts. But no. This actually reflects a semi-anarchist prejudice against contract struggles. This is shown by the fact that this "theory" was put forward precisely at those times when the contract struggles were being fiercely waged!

This was revealed in a shocking manner during the struggle against the savage concessions demanded by a huge auto monopoly in late 1979. Here was a situation where a crucial contract battle was going on. The auto capitalists, with the full assistance of the union bureaucrats, were forcing savage concessions down the workers' throats. The capitalist class sought to use these concessions in order to force down concessions throughout the auto industry and on the whole working class generally. In this situation, what did our brave crusaders do? Did they show any sensitivity to the anger boiling among the auto workers? Did they call for vigorous struggle against the concessions, calling on the workers to use every possible means at their disposal? No, they did not. Instead they concentrated their agitation on a series of lectures to the workers, such as on how "this contract exposes that this whole system of waiting two or three years and then fighting for a 'new contract' is all wrong and does not advance the struggles of the workers,'' etc.

Such an attitude towards contract struggles is nothing but anarcho-syndicalist phrasemongering. Indeed the IWW was famous for such views. But even while rejecting contracts, the IWW actually fought on a day-to-day basis, while our crusaders use this conception to justify sitting on their hands and leaving the workers to the tender mercies of the labor traitors. As their practice shows, under the present conditions, this attitude towards contract struggles is to set up an anarchist idea against the actual struggles of the workers. In contrast, Marxism-Leninism teaches the communists to support powerful struggles of the workers, whether they be contract battles or wildcat actions.

Finally we take up the constant refrain from the crusaders that everything is a "diversion." No matter what the real world, the needs of the practical movement, calls for, the crusaders have a penchant for denouncing it all as a diversion. This too was strikingly revealed in their propaganda during the 1980 elections. They refused to deal with the actual policies put forward by the capitalist parties under the hoax that this was all "diversionary." They denounced the struggle for a shorter workweek as "diversionary." With respect to the struggle against national oppression, they declared: "To our estimation, the rich raise this question as a diversion." On other occasions, they have declared all kinds of things -- such as the ideological struggle, the struggle against the trade union bureaucrats, the question of trade union democracy -- as "diversions." And any request to explain how to "make the rich pay" has been denounced as the biggest diversion of all!

What this amounts to is essentially anarchist mocking of the real world and the actual class struggle. Instead of dealing with the real world as it exists, the crusaders denounce the real world. They proclaim their fury at it because it won't fit their preconceived ideas. In this respect, it is not strange at all that they denounce our Party as the theoreticians of "the movement." This reveals in a concentrated form their disdain for the actual class movement of the proletariat. Instead of dealing with the actual class movement, the crusaders counterpose to it their particular shibboleth of the day, such as their distorted conceptions of "Make the rich pay! " In this respect, Marx wrote in criticism of the reformist sectarianism of Lasalle:

"...just because he was the founder of a sect, he denied all natural connection with the earlier movement both in Germany and outside. He fell into the same mistake as Proudhon, and instead of looking among the genuine elements of the class movement for the real basis of his agitation, he tried to prescribe their course to these elements according to a certain dogmatic recipe.

"...The sect sees the justification for its existence and its 'point of honor' -- not in what it has in common with the class movement but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes it from it." (Letter from Marx to Schweitzer, October 13, 1868, Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence, 1935 edition, pp. 250-51, emphasis as in the original)

From Semi-Anarchist Negation of the Partial Demands to the Browderite Program of Structural Reform

In the last section, we noted how the crusaders use semi-anarchist arguments in order to negate defensive and resistance struggles. Indeed they denounce any mention of partial demands or the "immediate aims and momentary interests" of the proletariat as allegedly opportunist. On this basis, for instance, they attack the Communique of the Founding Congress of our Party. They justify their negation of the struggle for any immediate aim of the proletariat with the claim that the only immediate aim of the proletariat is for the seizure of state power.

This shows that the crusaders adopt semi-anarchist arguments characteristic of imperialist economism. Imperialist economism holds that in the era of imperialism there can be no talk of struggle for reforms or any democratic demands. The struggle for partial demands is denounced as contradictory to the socialist revolution. But despite their "militant" posturing, Lenin punctured the arguments of the imperialist economists and showed that they negated the democratic and political struggles just like the earlier Economists. He wrote:

"... That is the 'crux' of his misadventures: he can not solve the problem of how to link the advent of imperialism with the struggle for reforms and democracy--just as the Economism of blessed memory could not link the advent of capitalism with the struggle for democracy.

''Hence -- complete confusion concerning the 'unachievability of democratic demands under imperialism.

"Hence -- ignoring of the political struggle now, at present, immediately, and at all times, which is impermissible for a Marxist (and permissible only for a Rabochaya Mysl Economist).

"Hence -- the knack of persistently 'sliding' from recognition of imperialism to apology for imperialism (just as the Economists of blessed memory slid from recognition of capitalism to apology for capitalism)." ("The Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism," Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 15-16, Emphasis as in the original)

Like the adherents of imperialist economism that Lenin fought, the crusaders today are unable to correctly define the relationship between the immediate struggles and the socialist revolution. On this basis they do not recognize any distinctions between the minimum and maximum program. They are utterly confused on this question. They claim that it is opportunist to consider that the minimum and maximum program are two separate things. This is a longstanding position of theirs. A concentrated example of this appeared in their New Year's speech for 1980. They said: "the opportunist groups advance the minimum program as the reform of the capitalist system and their maximum program is to have socialism one day. How can the minimum program and maximum programs be so detached from one another?" Just a few months earlier, they had splashed in big bold red headlines across their paper: "Day-to-day struggle and the reform of the capitalist system cannot be the minimum program of the proletariat." (June 13, 1979) Through such a statement, the crusaders show clearly that they are afraid that the day-to-day struggles are reformist. They equate the struggle for reforms with reformism. And on this basis, they mock the idea of a "minimum program." They obliterate the distinction between minimum and maximum program with their view that ' 'the minimum program of the proletariat is to bring about the revolutionary transformation of society and overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and overthrow capitalism and build socialism." (Ibid.)

But the opportunists cannot be fought this way, simply because they raise the issue of reforms or minimum program. The issue is how one looks at reforms and uses them. In this connection Stalin wrote:

"Some think that Leninism is opposed to reforms, opposed to compromises and to agreements in general. This is absolutely wrong. Bolsheviks know as well as anybody else that in a certain sense 'every little helps,' that under certain conditions reforms in general, and compromises and agreements in particular, are necessary and useful...

"Obviously, therefore, it is not a matter of reforms or of compromises and agreements, but of the use people make of reforms and agreements.

"To a reformist, reforms are everything, while revolutionary work is something incidental, something just to talk about, mere eyewash. That is why, with reformist tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are inevitably transformed into an instrument for strengthening that rule, an instrument for disintegrating the revolution.

"To a revolutionary, on the contrary, the main thing is revolutionary work and not reforms; to him reforms are a byproduct of the revolution. That is why, with revolutionary tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are naturally transformed into an instrument for disintegrating that rule, into an instrument for strengthening the revolution, into a strongpoint for the further development of the revolutionary movement." (Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, Ch. VII, Sec. 6)

On the one hand the crusaders denounce the minimum program and struggle for political and economic partial demands as reformism. On the other hand they seek a so-called minimum program that will somehow imply the revolution within its demands. Hence they complain of the opportunists, that: in their so-called 'minimum programs.' there is not a single ultimate aim and there is a Chinese Wall between themovement and the ultimate aims." (June 13, 1979) Herein lies the heart of the quandary the crusaders find themselves in. They seek a "minimum program" which will have 'ultimate-aims' within its demands. But this is altogether wrong. It is an imperialist economist position. Speaking in the European context in general, Lenin wrote in 1916 of such a view:

"... Never is a 'transition to a basically different social system' achieved either by the definite demands of the minimum program...or the sum total of the minimum-program demands. To think so is to move over to the reformist position in principle and to abandon the standpoint of the socialist revolution.

"The minimum program is one which is in compatible with capitalism and does not go beyond its framework.

"... it is most probable in practice that out of any serious struggle for the major minimum-pro gram demands there will flare up a struggle for socialism and that we, at any rate, are working in that direction." ("Remarks on an Article About Maximalism," Collected Works, Vol. 41, pp. 384-85, emphasis as in the original)

Neither can one have a minimum program which will imply the revolution. Nor can one do as the revisionists and opportunists do, which is to simply add to demands for reform mere talk of socialism, mere eyewash, which they call the "struggle for socialism." Instead the issue is that the struggle for socialism requires the combination of different types of struggle. But as we noted earlier, the crusaders do not recognize any distinctions between different forms of struggle which is essential in order to combine them. Lenin wrote on this question:

"The struggle for socialism lies in the unity of the struggle for the immediate interests of the workers (including reforms) and the revolutionary struggle for power, for expropriation of the bourgeoisie, for the overthrow of the bourgeois government and the bourgeoisie.

"What have to be combined are not the struggle for reforms + phrases about socialism, the struggle for socialism,' but two forms of struggle.

''For example:

1. Voting for reforms + revolutionary action by the masses

2. Parliamentarism + demonstrations

3. The demand for reforms + the (concrete) demand for revolution....'' (Lenin's notes on Pannekoek's "State Expenditure and Imperialism," "Notebooks on Imperialism," [written between 1912 and 1916], Collected Works, Vol. 39, p. 271)

Instead of following the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, the crusaders went on their search for a minimum program which would imply the revolution. But since no program of partial demands would oblige them in this regard, they decided instead to have a transitional program as their minimum program. They think that with a transitional program they have solved the problem of the connection between the immediate aims and the ultimate aim.

This transitional program is their February 15, 1980 program, a program we showed earlier to be nothing but a Browderite reformist program. In this program they preserve their economist program by leaving out revolution altogether. On the other hand they try to formulate demands that they think will, when taken together lead to revolution. A hopeless attempt, as the results sadly testify.

A real Marxist-Leninist transitional program is not a mental concoction. It is not designed to get semi-anarchists out of difficulty. It is designed for a particular situation in the real world which is immediately transitional to the revolution. At that time, various demands are given that help to bring the revolution directly into existence. In this regard the Program of the Communist International adopted at the Sixth World Congress explained:

"When a revolutionary situation is developing, the Party advances certain transitional slogans and partial demands corresponding to the concrete situation; but these demands and slogans must be bent to the revolutionary aim of capturing power and of overthrowing bourgeois capitalist society....

"In the event of a revolutionary upsurge, if the ruling classes are disorganized, the masses are in a state of revolutionary ferment and the intermediary strata are inclining towards the proletariat, if the masses are ready for action and for sacrifice, the Party of the proletariat is confronted with the task of leading the masses to a direct attack on the bourgeois state. This it does by carrying on propaganda in favor of increasingly radical transitional slogans (for Soviets, workers' control of industry, for peasant committees for the seizure of the big landed properties, for disarming the bourgeoisie and arming the proletariat, etc.), and by organizing mass action, upon which all branches of the Party agitation and propaganda, including parliamentary activity, must be concentrated.'' (Program of the Communist International, 1936 edition, p. 80, emphasis as in the original)

At the same time the Comintern warned sternly against advancing transitional slogans in a period where there is no revolutionary upsurge:

"When there is no revolutionary upsurge, the Communist Parties must advance partial slogans and demands that correspond to the everyday needs of the toilers, linking them up with the fundamental tasks of the Communist International. The Communist Parties must not, however, at such a time, advance transitional slogans that are applicable only to revolutionary situations (for example, workers' control of industry, etc.). To advance such slogans when there is no revolutionary situation means to transform them into slogans that favor merging with the system of capitalist organization." (Ibid., p. 81, emphasis added except for "partial'' and "transitional")

Thus one can see that to give transitional demands, even of the most correct type and not the bastardized ideas of the crusaders, in a period which is not directly transitional to the revolution, is to give rise to the worst reformism. And indeed it does for our crusaders. For example, demands such as workers' control, nationalization, etc., are transitional demands, but are not in general suitable for other times. To present nationalization under monopoly capitalism as socialism, or a step toward socialism or in any type of socialist colors is to fall into the pit of reformism. It is precisely the Khruschovite revisionists, the "Eurocommunists," etc. who try to justify their promotion of the fraud of the gradual integration of capitalism into socialism by lecturing on and on about how Lenin advanced demands such as nationalization and workers' control, etc. They bastardize the concept of transitional demands into a program of "structural reforms," i.e. prettification of the already existing system of state monopoly capitalism.

Thus the crusaders -- in their semi-anarchist desire to jump over the minimum program -- have fallen into the lowest type of reformism. We have shown earlier how their program promotes the reformist idea of solving the crisis under capitalism. Thus it ends up simply being a program in favor of "merging with the system of capitalist organization." Displaying a guilty conscience about this, the crusaders rave that their demand for expropriation is what ensures that their program is not really opportunist or reformist. They try to appear very revolutionary with this demand, and claim that what distinguishes them from the liberal capitalist parties is that the crusaders call for expropriation without compensation, while the others do not. Of course, it may be a more radical bourgeois fraud to omit compensation than to nationalize with compensation, but omitting compensation does not in itself take one outside the bounds of capitalism. Their entire Browderite program of structural reforms can only serve to help maintain state monopoly capitalism and prettify its role.

A Cavalier Attitude Towards Marxism-Leninism in Particular and Theory in General

In this article we examined some issues of the program, strategy and tactics of the crusaders. In the course of this examination of their justifications, theories and methods of reasoning, several serious questions regarding the attitude of the crusaders towards theory in general and Marxism- Leninism in particular have become apparent.

First and foremost, the crusaders display an extremely cavalier attitude towards Marxist-Leninist theory. In the most shocking manner they parody and outright mock the Marxist-Leninist teachings on a number of questions. In this article, we examined in particular their mocking of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the three forms of class struggle, the relationship between economic and political struggle, and on questions regarding minimum and maximum program. The pretext the crusaders use to do this is that the revisionists and opportunists use certain of the Marxist-Leninist formulations and caricature some of the Marxist-Leninist ideas. But one cannot denounce Marxism- Leninism to fight the opportunists' caricatures. Our crusaders only show their utter incapability of dealing with the actual theories and practices of the revisionists and opportunists.

Second, our crusaders display an extreme eclecticism. What is said one day is not said the next. One day they will denounce a slogan as the worst revisionism which only a knave and fool could give, while the next day it is paraded as the acme of brilliance and profundity. The crusaders combine an eclectic brew of semi-anarchism and economism. This of course is characteristic of Mao Zedong Thought. Mao Zedong would give one slogan one day and the next day turn around and deny it. It is a characteristic of all revisionism, as the PLA points out with reference to Khrushchov:

"But Khrushchov's policy had a demagogical, eclectic and contradictory character -- a feature of every

kind of revisionism. On the one hand, he praised the USA and demanded close collaboration with it, on the other, he attacked it as an aggressor and world gendarme. At one time, he would call the U.S. president 'a friend,' 'a great man,' 'reasonable' and 'peace-loving,' at another time, 'a hangman' and ' a man who could not even run a kindergarten.' On one occasion, he would praise Tito and the Yugoslav experience to the skies, on another he would call Yugoslav revisionism 'the Trojan horse' and Tito a person 'who is out of step with the rest of the platoon.' Likewise, he felt obliged to halfheartedly condemn the anti-Marxist program of the Yugoslav League of Communists (YLC). In this way the Khrushchov group went down the road to revisionism, trying to confuse the minds of the people, jumping from opportunism to adventurism and vice versa, while preparing the final stab in the back of the socialist camp and the international communist movement." (History of the Party of Albania, pp. 449-50)

The blatant contradictions in the line and activity of our crusaders reveal that they do not have any integral theoretical standpoint. This is so extreme that over the years one could compile an index of their sayings: for an issue, and against the same issue.

For instance in 1973, the crusaders denounced such slogans as ''Tax the rich" and ''Make the monopolies pay" as social-democratic and revisionist. But within three years, ''Make the rich pay" became the strategy and tactics of the revolution.

Another example is their program for the 1980 elections in which they advocated increasing wages and decreasing profits as the way out of the crisis. Is this perhaps a consistent view of theirs? No. Only a few years earlier in 1976 in their pamphlet on ''two points," they had this to say about such a call:

"Revisionists are fond of giving calls: decrease profits and increase wages. We ask: who are these revisionists calling upon? Those who want to procure maximum profits and give minimum wages?... When answers are given to these questions we find that the issue is not one of decreasing the volume or rate of profit because this tendency actually exists in capitalism and it is because of this tendency that the capitalists must shift the burden of their crisis onto the backs of the workers. Decreasing amount and rate of profit necessarily means increasing exploitation of the workers."

Of course this argument they presented in 1976 is totally absurd. It is a well known economic principle that profits and wages bear an inverse relation to one another: a rise of wages causes a fall in profits. But the crusaders argue that a fall in profits increases the exploitation of the workers on the grounds that profits can fall for other reasons than a rise in wages, for example, because of the general law of the falling rate of profit. What conclusion can follow from this convoluted logic? Do the workers and capitalists therefore have a common interest in maintaining high profits? What nonsense!

A further example is the issue they raise that the actual forms for the "Make the rich pay?" tactic will only come from the development of the proletarian movement. They gave this view in 1976 and in 1980. But in between, at their Congress in 1977 our crusaders, however, took "a resolute stand against the opportunist thesis of building strategy and tactics on 'experience.'" They went on to say that ' 'those who pursue this line necessarily have retrogression and counter-revolution in mind."

We will stop at that. These are a few typical examples which show that the crusaders lack a consistent theoretical standpoint.

Their cavalier attitude towards Marxism-Leninism and their lack of an integral theoretical standpoint are in part the sad results of negating the ideological struggle and their belittling of theory. Instead of cursing the ideological struggle, they should have participated in carrying the struggle against Chinese revisionism through to the end. Only in this way could they have freed themselves from Maoist blunders and provided themselves with an integral theoretical base. But their opposition to ideological struggle reflected their desire to cling to their Maoist blunders, their desire to block the elimination of the consequences of Mao Zedong Thought. Their semi-anarchism and economism, and their present-day swing towards rightism even up to liquidationist theories and practices, are the sad results of the Maoist cavalier attitude towards Marxism-Leninism.

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Maoism in Decay

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Maoist Joint Communique Is a 'Three Worldist' Document Which Gives a Call to 'Critically Sum Up' the October Revolution

The international trend of Chinese revisionism is disintegrating like a rotting corpse. Rapid decay has beset the entire body of Chinese revisionism, from that section which sings praise to the fascist Deng/Hua ruling clique (typified by the "CPML" in the U.S.) to that section which disclaims loyalty to the current Chinese leaders but are nevertheless ardent defenders of Chinese revisionism and its ideological mainstay, Mao Zedong Thought (typified in the U.S. by the "RCP,USA").

Presently all over the world the "three worlders" and Maoists are in acute crisis. Some have even disbanded and others are headed down the same path. None of the Maoists have any internal unity nor is there any unity between the various groups. Besides the decay of the straightforward Chinese revisionist sects of the "CPML" or "RCP,USA" variety, Mao Zedong Thought has also brought tragedy to those revolutionary forces which have fallen prey to its corrosive influence with some of these forces setting out on the path of betrayal and others in serious difficulty.

The marked disintegration of Chinese revisionism over the past five or so years is the result of several factors including:

First, the open, flagrant and disgusting betrayal of the Chinese revisionists has gone even further. The Chinese leaders have dropped any pretense of being revolutionary communists and are openly reveling in their alliances with U.S. imperialism and all the forces of international reaction. The sharpening of the ideological-political crisis within the Deng/Hua ruling clique itself has meant that Mao's name has been dragged through the mud, the so-called "Cultural Revolution" has been denounced and the ugly, pragmatic nature of the successors of Mao has been brought to the surface.

Second, not only in China, but in all countries Mao Zedong Thought has proved itself to be an impotent and bankrupt ideology in the course of the development of the revolutionary process. Maoism is not in accord with objective social development. Hence invariably those who have been guided by it have found themselves at an impasse or completely off the rails of the revolution with each zigzag and turn of the revolutionary movement. In the U.S. and some other capitalist countries, the Maoist ideology gained influence and had its disorganizing effect under the conditions of the high tide of the youth and student movements and other popular movements during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Later on, in the face of the growing capitalist offensive which demanded arduous and systematic Marxist-Leninist work to prepare the proletariat for the coming revolutionary storms, Maoism suffered fiasco.

Finally, and of great importance, the struggle of the world's Marxist-Leninists against Chinese revisionism has proceeded nonstop. Since the time of the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania in November of 1976, the PLA and the other genuine Marxist-Leninist parties have mercilessly exposed Chinese revisionism, condemning its revolting social-chauvinism, its counter-revolutionary theory of "three worlds," and its revisionist ideology of Mao Zedong Thought. The militant work of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement in defense of Marxism-Leninism against the betrayal of Chinese revisionism has dealt this international trend of opportunism very heavy blows. Any remaining prestige of Chinese revisionism among the revolutionaries is falling like the setting sun.

Nevertheless, Chinese revisionism has not given up the ghost. The Maoist revisionists continue their desperate war against revolutionary Marxism-Leninism in their futile efforts to bail out their sinking ship. It is in this context that, from the ranks of those Maoists who disagree with the Deng/Hua clique, a Communique to the Marxist-Leninists, the Workers and the Oppressed of All Countries has recently appeared. The signatories of this Communique include: the RCP of Chile, the CP of Ceylon, the Maoist desperadoes of the "RCP, USA," and ten miniscule Maoist sects set up solely to fight the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties. This Communique cites approvingly an accompanying "draft position paper for discussion" written up jointly by the "RCP, USA" and the RCP, Chile which is entitled Basic Principles for the Unity of Marxist-Leninists and for the Line of the International Communist Movement.

The declared purpose of these two documents is to "draw clear lines of demarcation" between those who uphold "the contributions of Mao" and those who uphold Marxism-Leninism as exemplified by the stand of the Party of Labor of Albania. Hence they succeed in drawing a "clear line" of undying loyalty to the bankrupt cause of Chinese revisionism and rabid opposition to revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. For this reason, these documents are of value as the latest confessions of the bankruptcy and thoroughly renegade stand of present-day Maoism.

The list of signatories is itself quite revealing. This Communique is supposed to be the rallying point for all the true "defenders of Mao" who are opposed to the Deng/Hua clique. But even several of the main such groups which are still in existence did not sign this Communique. Further most of the signatories could hardly be called political groups at all as they are no more than a ragtag collection of insignificant Maoist sects. The role played by the "RCP,USA" in this Maoist adventure is also quite revealing. The "RCP,USA" is a diehard Maoist sect which has never contributed anything but neo-revisionist poison to the revolutionary movement in this country. Among other things in recent years it has earned the wrath of the class conscious proletarians for its gangster-like ravings against the Party of Labor of Albania and J.V. Stalin. Nevertheless, the "defenders of Mao" internationally have picked up these anti-communist scum and have even given them a place of honor in their ranks. Embracing such a despicable sect as the "RCP,USA" is a good indicator of the depth to which international Maoism has sunk.

Another striking feature of these documents is their ability to evade major issues. This is a reflection of the complete lack of unity among the Maoists themselves. This is not surprising given the blows which Chinese revisionism has suffered and given the fact that Mao Zedong Thought is an eclectic mishmash of ideologies, subject to a multitude of conflicting interpretations, which precludes any real unity among its adherents. For instance, the "RCP,USA" has been theorizing about how Lenin's and Stalin's teachings on the significance and role of the trade unions have become outdated. At the same time, another one of these Maoist groups is based completely on the trade unions. In fact this cabal of Maoists cannot even agree on the most basic questions of Maoism.

For example, these documents stress that Mao Zedong's so-called "contributions" are "a crucial dividing line within the international communist movement." (Basic Principles, p. 27; all references are to the RCP Publications edition which contains both documents) Nevertheless, it seems that our Maoists cannot even come to an agreement on their evaluation of these "contributions." Through 50 magazine pages of text, their documents refer to the phrase "Mao Zedong Thought" in only a handful of places, and the phrase "Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought" doesn't even appear once. This is quite strange given the fact that the new Constitution of the "RCP,USA" refers solely to this latter phrase as its guiding ideology. Apparently these Maoists have not even been able to reach an agreement on the name of the opportunist ideology that they hold so dear, or even as to whether Mao's "contributions" rate the title "Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought" or not!

The fact that they couldn't get anyone to sign their Communique; the influence of such notorious scum as the "RCP,USA"; and the noticeable lack of unity even among themselves -- these are all telling indicators of the wretched state these shock troops of Chinese revisionism have been reduced to.

Shock Troops of Chinese Revisionism

The open betrayal of the Deng/Hua ruling clique in China and the disgusting social-chauvinist betrayal of its loyal followers internationally has necessitated setting up a second line of defense to shield the opportunist trend of Chinese revisionism from the blows of the world's proletarian revolutionaries. This is the objective role of such Maoists as the "RCP,US A." This wing of Chinese revisionism is in stated opposition to the current rulers of China. At the same time, they declare themselves to be the true "defenders of Mao," the last and most faithful adherents of Mao Zedong Thought which is the ideological mainspring of Chinese revisionism.

Despite a great number of revolutionary phrases the theorizing of these "defenders of Mao" constitutes nothing more than a miserable appendage to the stinking mass of Chinese revisionism. As witnessed by their recent Communique and their Basic Principles, these Maoists are even willing to mouth phrases taken from the genuine Marxist-Leninists' criticism of the present Chinese leaders. They do so, however, with the sole aim of rescuing Chinese revisionism from total ideological rout. Where Deng Xiaoping or Mike Klonsky have abandoned the battlefield, the "RCP,USA" and their friends have taken up their cudgels to defend Chinese revisionism from principled exposure by the Marxist-Leninists. In short, these "defenders of Mao" play the role of shock troops in Chinese revisionism's war against the forces of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism.

Slaves to Mao's Ultra-Revisionist Theory of "Three Worlds''

As the "defenders of Mao," the "RCP,USA" and co. cannot and never will be able to separate themselves in any meaningful way from Chinese revisionist doctrine. This is clearly underscored by the fact that to this day these Maoists remain slaves of Mao's ultra-revisionist theory of "three worlds." At least one of the signers of the Communique has in the past condemned the "three worlds" theory. On the other hand the "RCP, USA" has preferred to make false distinctions between Mao's "three worlds" theory and Deng's "three worlds" theory, defending the former and allegedly disagreeing with the latter. Hence in their recent documents these Maoists try to give a weak impression that they oppose "three worlds" while in fact leaving the question open. At the same time they express their solidarity with all the anti-Leninist premises of "three worlds-ism."

The notorious "three worlds" theory is a most concentrated expression of the anti-Marxist-Leninist line of the Chinese revisionists. This totally revisionist theory is nothing but a counter-revolutionary, pro-imperialist and social-chauvinist fallacy which has been firmly repudiated and condemned by the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries on all continents.

Our brave Maoists like to talk about "drawing clear lines of demarcation" from the Chinese revisionists. But do they consider opposition to "three worlds" a "line of demarcation"? No they don't! In fact, they don't even demarcate themselves from this putrid revisionist theory. Rather they prettify the "three worlds" theory and in countless ways they cling on for dear life to its fundamental concepts.

This explains why in their Communique and Basic Principles these Maoists all but avoid even mentioning "three worlds" like a criminal avoids the scene of his crime, preferring instead to write about China's "international line." In this regard, an examination of the section of their Communique entitled "On the Unity of Marxist-Leninists" is most revealing. As to be expected, this section contains a paragraph of filthy lies and slander against the glorious Party of Labor of Albania. It also contains major paragraphs criticizing the Soviet revisionists and the trotskyites. But it contains only two sentences against the "new revisionist rulers in China." Here we find the phrase the "reactionary 'strategic theory of the three worlds' which they [the Chinese rulers -- ed.] have fraudulently tried to pass off to the ignorant as the work of Mao himself." (p. 48) Thus, the Communique only brings up the question of "three worlds" in order to make the totally groundless assertion that Mao was not the author of this infamous theory! And they do this despite the fact that Mao was the Chairman of the Communist Party of China which publically proclaimed "three worlds" as its basic line at least two years before Mao's death.

As to this one reference to the "strategic theory of the three worlds," it should not be forgotten that the "RCP,USA" has always upheld the revisionist concepts of "three worlds" as a correct "tactic" as opposed to a "strategy" of the international proletariat! It is therefore hardly a surprise to find that these documents of the "RCP,USA" and their friends endorse all the underlying concepts of "three worlds-ism."

The general characterization of the international situation presented in these Maoist documents is "three worldist" through and through. According to Marxist-Leninist class analysis the world is fundamentally divided into two conflicting forces: the forces of capitalism, imperialism and social-imperialism, and reaction on the one hand; and the forces of socialism, proletarian revolution and national liberation on the other.

However, like all "three worldists," these Maoists deny this fundamental division. In its place they see the fundamental division in the world as between the two rival imperialist superpowers. This is what lies behind the following accusation with which the Maoists charge the Party of Labor of Albania: they accuse the PLA of "the unmistakable tendency to seriously downgrade the intensity of the rivalry between the two imperialist blocs and the danger of world war arising from this and to stress instead the collusion between the Soviet revisionists and the U.S. imperialists. Thus, while calling the Soviet ruling class 'social-imperialist' and referring at times to the 'fierce contradictions' among the imperialists and reactionaries and to the danger of world war, Enver Hoxha repeatedly talks about how all these reactionary forces together are 'seeking a modus vivendi, a hybrid "new society," in order to keep the bourgeois-capitalist system on its feet."' And the Maoists go on to add that "Such an analysis...actually serves the Soviet social-imperialists"! (Basic Principles, p. 23-24)

Thus the Maoists condemn the PLA for its Leninist assessment that despite inter-imperialist conflicts, no matter how sharp they may become, world imperialism and reaction as a whole is fighting against the revolution.

Combined with this the Maoists also condemn the PLA for refusing to participate in the Chinese revisionists' war hysteria. Like all "three worldists," our Maoists scream hysterically about the inevitability of the imminent World War III which is "looming on the horizon," etc., etc. This type of hysteria is most harmful to organizing serious revolutionary mass struggle against the real danger of war and can only serve to disarm the proletariat.

But with such condemnations of the PLA as these, our Maoist hacks are defending the fundamental concepts of "three worlds-ism"; revisionist concepts to justify abandoning the revolution and lining up with one imperialist bloc or the other in the face of the danger of war. But that is not all. These Maoists, as the dyed-in-the-wool "three worldists" that they are, lay all the ideological groundwork as to which superpower the proletariat should line up with!

These Chinese revisionist diehards go so far as to condemn the Party of Labor of Albania for criticizing Mao's thesis that the Soviet Union is the "main danger"! Moreover, they defend Mao s stand! In the Basic

Principles they write that the leaders of the PLA: "...not only attack the Chinese revisionists' counterrevolutionary international line but they also attack Mao for the analysis that in the recent period the Soviet Union had become the main danger. Again, this analysis was correct and important with regard to the dangers faced by China. And again, even if we admit the possibility that Mao made certain errors in connection with this, that certainly cannot justify the stand of the Albanian leaders, who opportunistically act as if Mao were the first to take positions of this kind and moreover falsely accuse him of selling out to imperialism while they steadfastly uphold the errors of Stalin, who after all declared the German-led bloc of imperialists the 'main enemy'...." (p. 23, emphasis added)

Well, dear "three worldist" sirs, you have let the cat out of the bag.

First of all you defend as "correct and important," at least in regard to China, Mao's concept of "Soviet main danger." However, whether or not Mao was wrong to declare that the "Soviet Union had become the main danger" to the people of the world, you leave this in the realm of "possibility" of "certain errors." Good grief! Does the "Soviet main danger" thesis only contain the "possibility" of "certain errors" or is it at the very center of "three worldist" treachery?!!

Moreover, like all the other "three worldist," social- chauvinist scum, you claim that Mao is beyond reproach for giving this treacherous thesis, because, after all, remember Stalin and the anti-fascist coalition at the time of World War II. But this historical analogy is just as inappropriate and false coming from you as it is when dished out by Deng Xiaoping or Mike Klonsky. In either case it remains a "three worldist" fraud, a hoax to justify a social-chauvinist alliance with U.S. imperialism when in fact both superpowers, either together or separately, are the main warmongering enemies of the proletariat and peoples.

The revolutionary forces of the whole world have condemned the renegade thesis of "Soviet main danger" and the U.S.-China alliance which was engineered by Mao Zedong and his good friend Richard Nixon. Nevertheless, the "RCP,USA" and co. are venting their spleen against the heroic Party of Labor of Albania for "opportunistically" criticizing Mao for his "correct and important" analysis that "The Soviet Union had become the main danger"! These Maoist mongrels are totally without shame!

Similarly these "defenders of Mao" whitewash the blatantly warmongering and social-imperialist nature of the "three worlds" theory. Guided by Mao's "three worlds" theory, the Deng/Hua ruling clique is among the most fiendish and criminal warmongers. They are brazen advocates of war, who laud to the skies every step taken by U.S. imperialism in preparation for war and who daily call on the warmakers of the Pentagon to build more nuclear bombs and weapons. Nevertheless, our Maoists in their Basic Principles have the nerve to condemn the PLA for "the completely subjective assertion that a major factor for the danger of world war comes from China's incitement of it, and specifically its incitement of the U.S. against the Soviet Union -- a line consistently put forward by the Soviet social-imperialists themselves...." (p. 24, emphasis added) Yes, dear Maoist sirs, and for its own social-imperialist, warmongering ends the Kremlin also puts forward the line that U.S. imperialism is also a dangerous source of war. But only someone whose mind has been addled by "three worlds-ism" could claim that hence U.S. imperialism is not a dangerous warmonger! The entire world knows that the Chinese leaders are openly egging on the war preparations of U.S.-led imperialism, eagerly licking their chops over the prospects of an inter-imperialist slaughter between the two superpowers. It is only front men and bootlickers of the Deng Xiaoping ruling clique such as yourselves who would attempt to cover up this reality.

In fact, the "RCP,USA" and co. vehemently deny even the existence of Chinese social-imperialism. Their documents go on at great length about the aggressive activities of the Cubans and the Vietnamese. But the terrible crimes of Chinese social-imperialism, such as the fascist invasion of Viet Nam to "teach the Vietnamese a lesson," are not even worth mentioning. After all, our "three worldist" apologists will surely tell us, Chinese social-imperialism is merely a figment of the imagination of the "pro-Soviet" propagandists!

Chinese Revisionist Shock Troops Concentrate Their Fire on Socialism and the Heroic Party of Labor of Albania

While whitewashing the crimes of the Chinese renegades and defending "three worldist" treachery, the "RCP,USA" and their fellow Maoists unleash vicious, gangster-like attacks on the glorious Party of Labor of Albania. In fact, these shock troops of Chinese revisionism make it perfectly clear in their documents that bitter opposition to the PLA and socialist Albania is at the top of the list of their "principles of unity."

The Party of Labor of Albania is in the van of the international Marxist-Leninist movement. The PLA holds aloft the red banner of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, upholds the dictatorship of the proletariat and is leading the Albanian working class and people in building the new socialist society according to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The PLA has proved itself to be the most implacable foe of all forms of modern revisionism. The heroic principled struggle waged by the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha against Yugoslav, Soviet and Chinese modern revisionism will always remain immortal contributions to the cause of Marxism-Leninism and the international proletariat.

So why then do our Maoist gentlemen spend their time venting their spleen against the PLA? Has perhaps the PLA ever advocated or entered into an alliance with imperialism or social-imperialism as Mao and his followers have done? Of course not! Or has perhaps the PLA ever advocated or allowed the bourgeoisie and revisionists to flourish inside socialist Albania in the manner of Mao and the Chinese revisionists? Never!

These shock troops of Chinese revisionism have declared that the heroic PLA has "fallen completely into the revisionist swamp" (pp. 22 and 49) precisely because it is the PLA which has been at the fore of the principled Marxist-Leninist exposure of Chinese revisionism and its ideological foundation, Mao Zedong Thought. It is precisely this which has driven the "RCP,USA" and their friends into an utter frenzy of disgusting lies and slanders against the PLA. In their Communique the Maoists scream themselves hoarse that the PLA is in "Trotskyite positions" and "grows daily closer to the made-in-Moscow revisionist line...." (p. 49) But these impotent screams are nothing but another voice in the Chinese revisionist chorus, a chorus sung in unison by Deng Xiaoping, Mike Klonsky and Bob Avakian, that all opponents of "three worlds-ism" and Maoism are "trotskyites" or "pro-Soviet revisionists."

Mao and the Maoists Have Always Opposed Resolute Struggle Against Revisionism and Opportunism

But since our "defenders of Mao" have raised the question, we would like to ask them who is it that has opposed a resolute struggle against revisionism including the "made-in-Moscow revisionist line"? Among others, it has been Mao Zedong and his followers.

Mao and the Communist Party of China were among the first to reach out a hand for the rehabilitation of the arch-renegade Tito immediately after the death of Stalin. In 1956, the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of China not only approved the major revisionist theses of the Khrushchovites' 20th Congress but went even further with its Maoist concepts of "harmony" and "long-term coexistence" between the working class and the bourgeoisie under socialism. When the leaders of the CPC finally did adopt a more or less anti- Khrushchovite position, they were opposed to unfolding a principled struggle against the Khrushchovite renegades. In fact every few years they advocated a united front with the Soviet revisionists against U.S. imperialism. Moreover, Mao and the CPC maintained their ties with the Yugoslav, Romanian, "Eurocommunist" and other revisionist scum under the hoax that these were anti-Soviet revisionist forces. Today, Mao's heirs in Beijing have dropped even the pretense of anti-revisionism and are in complete ideological agreement with the most corrupt revisionist forces the world over.

Being faithful to Mao's teachings, it is well known that the "RCP,USA," too, stands opposed to the principled struggle against revisionism. For years the neo-revisionist scribblers who produce "RCP,USA's" journals have been railing against the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the anti-revisionist struggle. At the same time they uphold Mao's dogma to the effect that revisionism and opportunism are "middle forces" to be united with. In particular, the "RCP,USA" raves against the assessments of Stalin and the Communist International on the importance of the struggle against social-democracy. Thus today, despite their "anti-revisionist" posturings and anarchist antics, the "RCP, USA" continues to embrace some of the most corrupt social-democratic forces as their political allies. And, of course, the opposition of our Maoists to the anti-revisionist struggle is best demonstrated by their dirty role as front men for Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese revisionists.

Our Maoist heroes, who have the arrogance to charge the Party of Labor of Albania and the other Marxist- Leninist parties with being pro-revisionist, do not have a leg to stand on. Rather they should be advised that if they are seeking out pro-revisionist forces they have to go no farther than the nearest mirror.

Chinese Revisionist Critics of Revolutionary Marxism-Leninism

In their recent documents, our "defenders of Mao" stress repeatedly ' 'the necessity of developing a much fuller and deeper understanding of the history of the international communist movement." (p. 49) On the surface such appeals for "summing up experience" and "analyzing past mistakes" seem quite reasonable in the face of the Soviet and the Chinese revisionist betrayal. But analyzing the experience of either the Khrushchovite counter-revolution much less the opportunist zigzag course of the Chinese revisionist betrayal is not in the slightest what they have in mind.

Quite the contrary. It is revolutionary Marxism-Leninism itself which the Maoists want to "critically sum up'"! Thus their Communique makes the appeal:

"While recognizing the undeniable contributions made by the Third International to the unity of the international proletariat, to the founding of communist parties and to their struggles; and while recognizing the tremendous role played by the October Revolution, which initiated the epoch of proletarian revolutions and opened the way for the construction of socialism in the USSR, Communists must endeavor to critically sum up these experiences... making it possible to learn from the errors and deviations which were committed and to evaluate to what extent they had bearing on the degeneration into opportunism of the majority of the international communist movement." (p. 49, emphasis added)

How splendid! Our Maoists are now going to "learn from the errors and deviations" of the October Revolution! What an amazing self-confession! The path of the October Revolution is the invincible path charted by

Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin for the emancipation of the proletariat and the oppressed people the world over. All revisionism, including the "degeneration into opportunism'' of the former communist parties, has its roots in deviations from this revolutionary Marxist-Leninist road. Apart from this the very concept "revisionism'' has no other meaning. But the "RCP,USA" and co. want to turn this on its head. They want to find the roots of the revisionist betrayal by "critically summing up" the road of the October Revolution. This is nothing but a shameless appeal of Chinese revisionist renegades to "criticize" and reject the Marxist-Leninist path.

Like all the other modern revisionists before them, our Maoists too try to justify their revisionist "criticisms" of Marxism-Leninism by slinging mud at Lenin's loyal disciple and the outstanding leader of the international proletariat, J.V. Stalin. In fact one of the principal "accusations" that they level against the Party of Labor of Albania is that the PLA adheres firmly to the teachings of Stalin. Their Basic Principles is sprinkled with revealing curses such as: "the Albania Party is following a seriously erroneous position put forward by Stalin" (p. 23); "they insist on defending the serious errors made by Stalin" (p. 23); and so on and so forth. As well, these Maoist documents hurl mud at the glorious epoch of socialist construction in the Soviet Union and the militant revolutionary work of the Communist International, both of which are inseparable from Stalin's name. This is what lies behind the repeated refrain in the Maoists' documents that: "we must investigate and struggle over the experiences of the Third International...." (p. 49)

At the end of their appeal to "critically sum up" the experience of the October Revolution, etc., the Maoist Communique warns of the need for "staying clear of the slander of the Trotskyites and other enemies of the revolution." (p. 50) This warning indicates that these Maoists know full well whose company they find themselves in. They have hurled themselves headlong into the revisionist swamp inhabited by all the notorious revisionist "critics" of Marxism-Leninism and the October Revolution including: Kautsky, Trotsky, Browder, Tito, Khrushchov, the Eurorevisionists, and, of course, Mao Zedong himself.

Deepen the Marxist-Leninist Criticism of Chinese Revisionism!

Our "defenders of Mao" are very keen about "learning from the errors and deviations" of the October Revolution, Stalin, etc. But when it comes to the "errors and deviations" of the Communist Party of China and Mao Zedong -- well that is a different story altogether.

Why did Mao Zedong kiss the fascist war criminal Richard Nixon in 1972 when Nixon's bombs were falling like rain on Viet Nam? Why did Mao welcome Nixon like a good friend in 1976 after Nixon had already been driven from office in disgrace and hence no questions of diplomacy were involved? Why did Mao and the leaders of the CPC treat with so much tenderness the fascist Shah of Iran and the bloodstained fascist dictator Pinochet in Chile? Why did Mao declare the "Soviet main danger" thesis? Why did Mao authorize the counterrevolutionary "three worlds" theory, with his cronies declaring this theory from the highest places in Beijing and around the world?

Why did Mao advocate and demand that the Chinese capitalist parties be allowed to share power with the CPC even after 25 years of liberation? Why did Mao's "Cultural Revolution" fail to clear out from their strongholds of power the ultra-right revisionists and why did Mao personally protect many of the most notorious "capitalist roaders"? Why did Mao personally bring back to power the fascist cutthroat Deng Xiaoping, the self-confessed "number two revisionist" in China, and put him in charge of running the affairs of the Party and state?

These are but a few of the countless similar questions which drive the "RCP,USA" and their like into incoherent ravings about "attacks on Mao." In this way, the "defenders of Mao" have tried with might and main to block the deepening of the Marxist-Leninist criticism of Chinese revisionism. But the Maoists' efforts have been to no avail.

With the collapse of China into open alliance with U.S. imperialism and into counter-revolution, our Party and the Marxist-Leninist forces the world over shouldered their responsibility to critically examine the process of the Chinese revisionist betrayal. And what Marxist-Leninist critical analysis revealed was that this betrayal did not drop from the heavens at the time of the death of Mao nor in 1972 when Mao kissed with Nixon. Rather its roots go back much further.

Its roots go back to before the period of the Second World War when Mao and the CPC shared the views of the renegade Earl Browder about the prospects for a capitalist, democratic China under the wing of U.S. imperialism (see the MLP's pamphlet Mao, Browder and Social-Democracy). Its roots go back across the decades of China's post-liberation construction which always followed a bourgeois-democratic, liberal and opportunist course. Its roots go back across the decades of the CPC's agreement with and conciliation towards the Yugoslav, S6viet, Eurorevisionist and all other trends of modern revisionism.

Moreover, Marxist-Leninist critical analysis reveals that it is Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought which are responsible for the zigzag, opportunist course of the CPC and for the disaster which has befallen the heroic Chinese people. Mao's social-democratic theories of "new democracy" are diametrically opposed to Lenin's theory of the uninterrupted transformation of the anti-imperialist, democratic revolution into the socialist revolution. Mao's right opportunist concepts of "longterm coexistence" between the working class and the bourgeoisie under socialism and related concepts are a direct negation of the Marxist-Leninist principles of class struggle, socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. And Mao's social-democratic, factionalist and anarchist concepts of party-building are the opposite of the Leninist principles of the proletarian party of the new type. Because it lacked the Marxist-Leninist ideology the Chinese revolution never advanced beyond the anti-imperialist, democratic stage, and socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat were never consolidated. The collapse of the Chinese revolution was inevitable so long as it was guided by the eclectic brew of

revisionist "thoughts" of Mao.

The repudiation of Chinese revisionism cannot be separated from the repudiation of Mao Zedong Thought because the one is based on the other. Maoism has been badly shaken. Nevertheless, the struggle against Chinese revisionism, along with Soviet revisionism and all other currents of modern revisionism must be deepened and broadened in an all-sided and thoroughgoing manner. It is only uncompromising struggle which will assure the complete destruction of modern revisionism and the inevitable triumph of Marxism-Leninism!

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Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement -- Part 6

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Manifesto of a Liquidator

In January, after a gap of two and one half years, Barry Weisberg's MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" put out issue No. 12 of their theoretical journal Class Against Class. This issue contains two articles. The first is called "The 1980 Elections, the Working Class and the Party.'' It is written by the chieftain of this miserable social-democratic sect, Barry Weisberg. This article presents a number of arguments to justify the "CPUSA/ML's'' appeal for unity with the "left'' wing of the Democratic Party, an appeal being made in the name of a "struggle for a united front'' or "popular front,'' that is, not a Marxist "united'' or "popular front'' but ones modeled after those of the renegade Earl Browder. The second article is entitled "The Illegal Party and its Legal Work.'' It was written by Emily Keppler with the aim of giving a theoretical rationale for legalism, electoral cretinism and opposition to revolutionary methods of struggle. Taken together these two articles comprise a manifesto of a liquidator.

With this issue of Class Against Class, the "CPUSA/ ML" presents a theoretical elaboration of the typical theses of present-day liquidationism which it has eagerly adopted as its own. Merger with social-democracy and liquidationism, that is, renunciation of the party, renunciation of revolution and revolutionary work, and a general atmosphere of renegacy -- these have become the hallmarks of all the revisionist and neo-revisionist groups. (See The Workers' Advocate article "The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement Requires a Stern Struggle Against Social-Democracy and Liquidationism" in this issue) As usual, in this case too, Barry Weisberg's theorizing is not in the least bit original. Rather it is a mere aping of the open liquidationism of such notorious social-chauvinists as the "CPML." ) For example, while the "CPML" "three worlders" call for a "united front strategy" with the social-democrats and trade union chieftains, the Weisberg sect calls for the "tactic" of a "united front" with these same forces.

In the last few years, the MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" has elaborated a new Browderite strategy to replace its former support for the rotten "three worlds" theory. (See part 4 of this series in The Workers' Advocate of November 30, 1980) The new manifesto of Weisberg and Keppler clearly confirms that this strategy is nothing but present-day liquidationism in a concentrated form. For this reason, this manifesto of a liquidator deserves careful examination.

Electoral Tactics Based on Chasing After Unity With the Social-Democrats

The manifesto centers on a summation of the 1980 elections. The "CPUSA/ML" placed such importance on these elections that Weisberg proudly boasts that they were its "main practical work" for an entire year! And what they say about these elections reveals the essence of their liquidationist tactics. First of all, the Weisberg sect based their entire electoral tactics on chasing after unity with various social-democrats and other "progressives" comprising the "left'' wing of the Democratic Party.

Hence Weisberg raves against the revolutionary tactics of the "Don't Vote!" campaign of our Party: "While the MLP did call for a 'No Vote' campaign, they did it in such a way as to block any possibility of unity of action on the question. Thus there were a few slogans shouted, a demonstration here and there, but absolutely no unity of action with the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist forces of the country." (Class Against Class, p. 23, emphasis added)

Thus, according to the liquidators themselves the great gulf between their tactics and the tactics of the MLP in regard to the elections resides in the question of unity. So how did their approach to unity differ from ours?

In its "Don't Vote!" campaign our Party sought and achieved wide unity of action at the base. We worked extensively with activists in the anti-draft and anti-imperialist movement, in the anti-racist struggles and with class conscious workers in the factories. The MLP organized an Anti-Imperialist Contingent in the mass action at the Democratic Convention, participated in the mass action at the Republican Convention, and brought the condemnation of the capitalist parties into the anti-imperialist and anti-racist demonstrations. In this work our Party successfully cooperated with a number of local organizations as well.

Meanwhile Weisberg confesses himself that his sect achieved nothing by way of "unity." They chased after the social-democratic chieftains and came up empty-handed. He admits that they "...sought contact to establish unity of action with various local and national groups. Most organizations did not grasp the importance of struggle against the bourgeois election circus." (Ibid., p. 24)

Thus, on one hand, the MLP achieved both extensive activity and unity at the base, while on the other hand, the Weisberg sect achieved neither any degree of activity nor any degree of unity. So then why the fearsome charge that the MLP "block(ed) any possibility of unity of action"? It is because our "Don't Vote!" campaign was directed firmly against both Reagan and the Republicans, and Carter and the Democrats, the twin parties of monopoly capitalist reaction. The Weisberg sect, on the other hand, based its campaign on prettifying the capitalist reaction of the Democratic Party. This is the heart of the "unity" question.

The election campaign of the social-democratic liquidators of the "CPUSA/ML" was in fact a campaign to whitewash the Democratic Party; a campaign to portray all the evils in the world as stemming from the Republicans and Reaganites alone. While for form's sake a few words were said against the Democrats, their campaign was clearly tailored to stay within the tolerated limits of a faction of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. Not only that, Weisberg admits that they would have been even more silent about Carter if they had only realized in advance that Carter might lose: "While the bulk of the propaganda of the Party was aimed at the fascist danger, and at Reagan, the possibility that Reagan would win by a large number of votes was not grasped." (Ibid., p. 24) What a revealing self-confession! Weisberg is no different from the other social- democratic and trade union hacks who every four years "get out the vote" with their "lesser evil" whitewash of the Democratic Party.

So why then did this miserable tail of the Democrats adopt the slogan "No Vote"? Weisberg explains that it was "...because the sentiment against voting represented the actual sentiment of the most progressive sections of the masses, it was the obligation of the Party to organize and mobilize this sentiment." (Ibid., p. 23) Of course, this was not Weisberg's sentiment nor can his sect be included among "the most progressive sections of the masses." Weisberg, however, was fully aware that the slogan "Vote Carter!" would have been a debacle.

It must be noted that in this election even a significant section of social-democrats did not support the discredited old rag Carter even though they supported Carter's general program. This included those who, like the social-democratic journal In These Times of the Institute for Policy Studies, supported a "political realignment" to strengthen the Democratic Party. Seeing that the masses were disgusted with Carter and the two big capitalist parties, these social-democrats felt that something had to be done to trap the masses and bring them back into the confines of Democratic Party politics. Hence, while In These Times held that "realignment is a process that will go forward primarily within the Democratic Party," still it was friendly to the Citizens Party running Barry Commoner against Carter in the election. It wrote: "...to the degree that the new party can bring people who cannot bring themselves to be active within the Democratic Party into political life, it will...accelerate the process of realignment." (Editorial: "It's time for political realignment," In These Times, May 21-27, 1980, emphasis added; cited in the MLP pamphlet The Citizens Party is nothing but warmed-over Carter stew, Section IV, pp. 29-30)

For the same reasons, Weisberg abstained from the election. It is significant that in his meeting summing up the elections in Chicago on February 22, 1981, he declared that he would have supported the Citizens Party in the election if it had only been larger. It is clear that it was precisely towards the social-democrats that "CPUSA/ML" geared their election campaign. "CPUSA/ML" especially sought to make contacts and alliances with these forces.

This is the meaning behind Weisberg's statement that: "The most important political objective of the campaign was to expand the struggle for the united and popular fronts. The Party sought contact to establish unity of action with various local and national groups." (Class Against Class, p. 24) Thus it was not even intended to be a campaign of action, of struggle against the capitalist parties. Instead its avowed objective was to build links with "various local and national groups." So who then are these "progressive" and "anti-fascist, anti-imperialist forces" which Mr. Weisberg is so infatuated with? For some reason they are so important to unite with that he doesn't even say who they might be! Nevertheless, Weisberg makes it perfectly clear that he is referring to the forces of the "left" fringe of the Democratic Party including the social-democrats, the labor bureaucrats and other opportunist hacks.

This fact is blatantly obvious and is confirmed entirely by Weisberg's analysis of the political forces in this country. According to this bourgeois hack there is "...a deep polarization that is occurring between the Left and the Right in the U.S., in which the Right is accumulating its forces geometrically compared to the Left." ("The Fascist Menace in the Oval Office," (Unite!, January 15, 1981, p. 2, col. 2) So how is this determined? Not by Marxist class analysis but by dribble about the "donor bases" of the capitalist parties! Weisberg moans "we must recognize that the conservative donor base probably consists of a core of some 6 million people. The liberal or social democratic donor base can only call upon something under one million supporters"! Thus Mr. Weisberg concludes: "The organized Right in the U.S. is several times larger than theliberal, social democratic or revisionist Left, let alone the Marxist-Leninists." (Ibid., col. 3, emphasis added) Thus, the struggle between "Right and Left" is between the Reaganites on the one hand and the Democratic Party "liberals," the social-democrats and the revisionists on the other. And it is precisely this "left" which Weisberg endearingly refers to as the "progressive," "democratic," "anti-imperialist, anti-fascist forces of the country"!

"Unity" of the Democratic Party "liberals," social- democrats and revisionists -- that is precisely what Mr. Weisberg means when he declares that: "In the present political situation, the struggle for the unity of the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist forces is paramount." (Class Against Class, p. 27)

The trade union bureaucrats are the other bulwark of this glorious, liberal-labor "unity." Hence, for example, Weisberg praises the possible merger of the UAW and the IAM as one of the few bright spots in the struggle for "trade union unity." (Ibid., p. 20) Of course what Weisberg is praising is nothing but the wheeling and dealing of some of the most notorious social-democratic strikebreakers and scabs, including capitalist slave driver Doug Fraser himself who sits on the Chrysler Board of Directors so as to better saddle the workers with wage cuts, productivity drives and other "sacrifices."

In short, the opposition of the MLP to the Democratic Party, the social-democrats and the trade union chieftains, the "CPUSA/ML" condemns as "blocking unity." On the other hand, whitewashing the Democrats in an electoral campaign so as to better chase after "unity" with these same reactionary and corrupt chieftains is the essence of Mr. Weisberg's "united front tactics."!

This, by the way, explains the reply to our article "The 'United Labor Front' of the MLOC/'CPUSA(ML)' Means Unity with the Khrushchovite 'C'PUSA and All the Social-Democrats." (Part 5 of this series, in The Workers' Advocate, November 30, 1980) In this article we explained how Weisberg's "united front tactics" are not Marxist-Leninist united front tactics but thoroughly Browderite tactics for merging with the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. Interestingly enough, the "CPUSA/ML" did not refute one word of our assessment of their tactics. On the contrary. They simply sputtered that: "The MLP/USA continues down its counter-revolutionary road by attacking the entire tactics of the united front, a long-standing position which has led them to isolate themselves from the democratic and progressive movement in this country...." (Unite! editorial, January 15, 1981, p. 2, col. 2)

No, Mr. Weisberg, it is you who are opposed to Marxist-Leninist tactics and who are totally isolated from the revolutionary movement. One thing or the other: either for unity of action of the proletariat and the downtrodden masses against the class enemy; or for unity of action with the social-democrats and trade union bureaucrats against the workers. That is how the matter stands.

Merger With Social-Democracy Is the Very Essence of Liquidationism

Liquidationism means renunciation of the Marxist-Leninist party and renunciation of revolutionary struggle in favor of a liberal-labor policy and merger with the forces of social-democracy and bourgeois liberal-re- formism. Summing up the struggle against the Menshevik liquidators in Russia, Lenin pointed out: The Bolsheviks "rallied about themselves the overwhelming majority of the class-conscious workers, whereas the liquidators... banked on the all-round support of the liberal-bourgeois elements." ("Socialism and War," Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 333-34) "Liquidationism,'' Lenin explained, "is a trend of national liberal- labor policy. It is an alliance of a section of the radical petty bourgeoisie and a tiny section of privileged workers, with their 'own' national bourgeoisie, against the mass of the proletariat." (Ibid., p. 335, emphasis as in the original)

Browderite tactics for merger with the social-democrats are a concentrated expression of liquidationism. Weisberg's manifesto presents1 precisely the liquidationist course first charted by the arch-renegade Earl Browder, who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA in the 1930's and early 1940's. Browder distorted the Marxist-Leninist united front policies of the Communist International into their opposite. In the disguise of building a "people's front," a "united front" and then a "democratic front," he step by step liquidated the party organization and promoted submersion of the Party within the liberal-labor Rooseveltian coalition of the Democratic Party and finally even unity with the mainstream of both capitalist parties. This revisionist policy is what led to the dissolution of the CPUS A and its replacement by an "educational association" in 1944. The Party was reconstituted in 1945 but it never thoroughly settled accounts with Browderism. Hence it fell easy prey to Khrushchovite revisionism in the 1950's. The present-day pro-Soviet revisionist "C" PUS A is the direct heir to Browderism and is nothing more than a social-fascist echo of the Democratic Party.

The historic legacy of Browderism is that for decades the curse of the working class movement has been its subordination to a liberal-labor marsh. Complete submersion in this very same marsh is precisely what Weisberg is advertising today in the disguise of his Browderite "united front tactics."

Undisguised Anti-Party Liquidators

The liquidators of Lenin's day renounced the underground Marxist party in the face of the counter-revolution. They argued that the Party was only "a handful," and some even questioned the very existence of the "underground" in order to reject the Party as of little use in the face of reaction. Thus the Menshevik liquidators came out against the Party in favor of reliance on the liberal bourgeoisie.

Browder set about liquidating the CPUS A with similar arguments. After all, in the face of the danger of fascism and war, what good is the "tiny" communist party. In Browder's eyes it was much better to abandon the Party for the vast numbers that could be won by simply defining and redefining "united fronts" to include the labor bureaucrats, the Democratic Party and even the devil himself. Who cares if these "united fronts" exist only on paper? Who cares if such a policy means subordinating the proletariat to the tender mercies of the big bourgeoisie? Such trifles were of little concern to Browder who had discovered how to win tens of millions with a stroke of a pen!

The "CPUSA/ML's" liquidationist manifesto is based on this very same renegade premise. Mr. Weisberg is constantly wringing his hands about the relatively small numbers of Marxist-Leninists. He moans aloud that: "The organized Right in the U.S. is several times larger than the liberal, social democratic or revisionist Left, let alone the Marxist-Leninists." (Unite!, January 15, 1981, p. 2, col. 3, emphasis added) In fact, in Weisberg's Browderite vision the Marxist-Leninists are something less than insignificant. And it is on this basis that Weisberg concludes that the only "realistic" hope of fighting "the growing fascist menace" is a "united front" of the liberal, social-democratic and revisionist forces!

This logic reveals the totally undisguised anti-partyism of Weisberg's "united front tactics." They are tactics whose fundamental precondition is the renunciation of the role of the vanguard party of the proletariat. They are the tactics of an anti-party renegade who has "soberly" measured the Marxist-Leninist forces against the prospects of a "united front" of the liberal- labor marsh, arriving at the only "realistic" assessment to abandon any thought of the vanguard role of the party and to throw in his lot with the liberal-labor marsh. After all, the "liberal donor base," though it may be smaller than that of the "Right," deserves its proper respect when compared to a mere handful of Marxist-Leninists!

In this regard, Weisberg's manifesto makes an extremely revealing declaration. It declares that there is no Marxist-Leninist communist party in the U.S. Speaking of the "...actual state of the class struggle in the U.S." In 1980, Mr. Weisberg writes of: "...the lack of a nation-wide Marxist-Leninist center...." (Class Against Class, p. 21, emphasis added) And he also writes of there being: "...no revolutionary Marxist-Leninist center in the workers' movement...." (Ibid., p. 20, emphasis added)

What an anti-party lackey!

Weisberg's declaration that there is no "Marxist-Leninist center" confirms a great many things about the thoroughly social-democratic and Browderite nature of the "CPUSA/ML." It confirms the totally reactionary character of its "united front tactics." Mr. Weisberg's despondent moaning about "the lack of a Marxist-Leninist center" is simply an anti-party liquidator's argument in favor of "united front tactics" of merger with social-democracy. These are "united front tactics" in which it is predetermined that the vanguard party of the working class neither leads nor even takes part in because it is not even supposed to exist. It is building a "united front" which looks simply beautiful in the journals of social-democrats falsely posing as Marxist-Leninists. But in the real world it is nothing but the ugly "left" wing of the Democratic Party.

There is no party! Therefore down with the Party! Down with the Party for blocking any possibility of unity with the liberal-labor marsh! Such is the very essence of Mr. Weisberg's liquidationist manifesto.

Weisberg's declaration that there is "no revolutionary Marxist-Leninist center" is a further confirmation of the truth that the "CPUSA/ML" is nothing but a miserable social-democratic sect. We would very much like to ask Mr. Weisberg: Since you hold that there is "no Marxist-Leninist center" then what is the so-called "CPUSA/ML" if not a wretched sect of social-democratic imposters as our Party has demonstrated all along? Seeing as you claim that there is "no Marxist-Leninist center' ' then what is your sect if not a gang of desperate political adventurers which through fraud tries to pass itself off as a "communist party"? And for what possible purpose do you maintain this despicable fraud if not to infiltrate the revolutionary movement with the sole aim of wrecking activity?

Mr. Weisberg's declaration that there is "no Marxist-Leninist center" in the U.S. today is an outright self-confession that the so-called "CPUSA/ML" is simply a cynical lie, a bourgeois wrecking maneuver to combat the existing revolutionary, nationwide Marxist-Leninist center, the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.

What a brazen self-confession of an anti-party liquidator who only yesterday fought the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists with the notorious anti-party theory of "pre-party collectives"! Now Mr. Weisberg is fighting the MLP with a phantom "party," with a so-called "party" which however is not a "Marxist-Leninist center"! And it is this totally renegade, anti-party, liquidationist idea which provides the pivot for Weisberg's Browderite "united front tactics" of merger with social-democracy.

Electoral Cretinism and Opposition to the Revolutionary Mass Struggle

A central plank of Weisberg's liquidationist manifesto is electoral cretinism. Mr. Weisberg finds nothing out of place about his proudful boast that "From November 1979 through November 1980, the CPUSA/ML made the 'No Vote November 4th' campaign its main practical work.'' (Class Against Class, pp. 21-22) And Weisberg is already promising more of the same in '82 and '84! Thus Weisberg is boasting that for an entire year his sect devoted its primary attention to the elections. This is a telling self-confession of a chieftain of a social-democratic sect which is the opposite of a party of mass struggle. As Stalin pointed out, the social-democratic parties "are unfit for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, that they are not militant parties of the proletariat, leading the workers to power, but election machines adopted for parliamentary elections and parliamentary struggle." (The Foundations of Leninism, Ch. VIII)

The year preceding the November elections witnessed important developments in the mass movements: the rise in the anti-draft and anti-imperialist movement; the struggle against racist attacks; the strike movement; and so on. The Weisberg sect scornfully threw aside these movements. Meanwhile our Party laid stress on the work in these movements and on giving them guidance and orientation. This is because our Party is a party of revolutionary action as opposed to a mere paper organization such as the "CPUSA/ML,'' which has proven itself to be a sect of sublime inactivity.

In his manifesto, Mr. Weisberg attempts to give a rationale to justify a year of electoral cretinism. He writes: "The problem to be solved to advance the revolution in the U.S. is not the lack of spontaneous struggle. Every day new evidence emerges of struggle on many fronts." Hence he concludes: "Rather we must take up the nationwide political struggles of the working class which must advance the revolutionary consciousness and organization required to overcome the disunity which exists and to unite the working class with its allies." (Class Against Class, p. 21, emphasis added)

Thus Weisberg ridicules the importance of the broad mass movements developing on a national scale against the reintroduction of the draft, against the wage-cutting offensive of the capitalists, against racist attacks, and so forth, as "spontaneous struggle." The task is not to concern oneself with something so low as mere "spontaneous struggle." But an electoral campaign, now that's a "nation-wide political struggle" (Ibid., p. 25) of much greater significance than any of these "spontaneous struggles." And if the campaign is geared toward hobnobbing with the other hacks of the liberal-labor marsh, then it is even better yet. Such is Mr. Weisberg's logic, logic which is parliamentary cretinist through and through.

However, as Lenin taught the proletariat: "the action of the masses -- a big strike, for instance -- more important than parliamentary activity at all times." ('Left-Wing ' Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Chapter VII) Parliamentary activity without the mass struggle is a lower form of struggle than the mass struggle that Weisberg scorns. There can be conscious mass actions and unconscious mass actions. But only a social-democratic liquidator can equate the raising of consciousness with the replacement of the mass struggle by an electoral campaign.

Liquidationism in Theory to Justify Liquidationism in Practice

At this point we come to Emily Keppler's article "The Illegal Party and Its Legal Work." This article is intended as further "theoretical" justification for the parliamentary cretinism and legalism of these Browderite liquidators. The method of the article is the most incredible sophistry. It tries to tear a few phrases from Lenin and attribute to them the exact opposite of the point that Lenin is making.

The basic theme of the article is that all the real work of the party, all the work that takes it among the masses, all the real organizing of the masses, is allegedly "legal work." But Lenin fought the liquidators and denounced them for their denial of illegal work and illegal organization. Keppler is thus faced with the problem of attributing to Lenin the exact opposite of his teachings. So she turns Lenin's writings on their head and coins the formulation that the party is illegal but its work is legal. She makes this into an allegedly "Leninist" formulation. Very pleased with herself, she repeats this over and over, saying that the main thing "is precisely the formulation of the 'illegal party' and 'its legal work' " (Class Against Class, p. 6) and that "Any tendency, in theory or practice, which opposes Leninism on how to build the illegal party and advance its legal work, must be defeated." Ibid., p. 10, emphasis added) and so on and so forth. In this way she thinks that she has discovered a loophole in Leninism, a loophole which provides room for renouncing revolutionary methods and struggle and everything but the narrowest and lowest forms of electoral and legal activity. Allegedly all that is required is to pay lip service to the party being illegal while carrying out in practice only legal work. Indeed, even the illegal party itself need only be "viewed" (Ibid.,p. 8) as illegal, while actually functioning openly and legally.

But in no way can such vulgar opportunist concepts be reconciled with Leninism. Leninism demands a correct combination of legal and illegal work as well as legal and illegal organization. In his Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin pointed out:

"12. In all countries, even in those that are freest, most 'legal,' and most 'peaceful' in the sense that the class struggle is least acute there, it is now absolutely indispensable for every Communist Party to systematically combine legal and illegal work, legal and illegal organizations." ( ed Works, Vol. 31, p. 195, emphasis added)

This teaching of Lenin is well known and upheld by all true Marxist-Leninist parties. As Comrade Enver Hoxha stressed in his celebrated work Imperialism and the Revolution:

"The Marxist-Leninist parties are parties of revolution. Contrary to the theories and practices of the revisionist parties, which are totally immersed in bourgeois legality and 'parliamentary cretinism,' they do not reduce their struggle simply to legal work nor do they see this as their main activity. In the context of efforts to master all forms of struggle, they attach special importance to the combination of legal with illegal working priority to the latter, as decisive for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the real guarantee of victory.'' (Proletarian Internationalism, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 66-67, emphasis as in the original)

These very clear ideas and the formulation of combining legal and illegal work cannot possibly be reconciled with Keppler's opportunist formula that while the party is "viewed'' as being illegal, its work is legal. Keppler tries to save herself by consciously distorting Lenin. She cites one of Lenin's articles that is precisely written against her own parliamentary cretinism and legalism. This article is "The Illegal Party and Legal Work,'' written in November 1912. Keppler incorrectly cites the title as "The Illegal Party and Its Legal Work.'' She does this to try to imply that all the work of the party is legal. But with or without the extra word "its,'' it is clear that Lenin was discussing the relationship between legal work and the underground party, not saying that all the work of the party is legal. This is obvious.

Indeed, Lenin goes on to denounce Keppler's formulation of an "illegal party'' carrying out "its legal work" as a liquidationist and liberal bourgeois idea. Writing at a time when the Cadet Party, the party of the counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie, was illegal, Lenin stated that:

"Clause2 of the [liquidators'] resolution reads:

'2. In view of the changed social and political conditions compared with the pre-revolutionary epoch, the illegal Party organisations already existing or coming into existence must adapt themselves to the new forms and methods of the open working-class movement.'

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Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement -- Part 7

Bootlickers of the Democratic Party

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The 'CPUSA(ML)' sabotages the anti-fascist struggle with its Browderite stand that the Democratic Party is the bulwark against fascism

In Parts Four and Five of this series, The Workers' Advocate began to expose how, over the last couple of years, Mr. Barry Weisberg's MLOC/"CPUSA(ML)" has set forth a new Browderite strategy and tactics to replace the equally Browderite formulas of the "three worlds" theory that they were forced to reluctantly abandon in the fall of 1977.

As we have repeatedly shown in the pages of this newspaper, Mr. Weisberg's group is nothing but an agency of social-democracy trying to smuggle itself into the Marxist-Leninist movement. Weisberg has particular affinity for the teachings of Earl Browder precisely because Browderism is social-democracy disguised as communism. It was Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA in the 1930's and early 1940's, who worked to destroy the revolutionary character of the CPUSA by corroding it with liberal-labor and social-democratic politics. Ever since, Browderism has remained a deadly curse subverting the working class movement. It provides theoretical guidance for all the revisionist and right opportunist trends in the U.S.

In this article we take up the question of how the "CPUSA/ML" prettifies the Democratic Party in the name of opposing fascism. For years these social-democrats ridiculed and opposed the struggle against fascization in the U.S. by preaching Browderite illusions about the great wonders of "American democracy." Recently, however, the Weisberg sect has discovered the "fascist tide" in the U.S. They are even trying to pass themselves off as "theoreticians" for the antifascist struggle. In this article we show that the "CPUS A /ML" is merely giving lip service to the fight against fascism. Its policy remains a Browderite policy of sabotage of this struggle. The Weisberg sect simply seeks to use the threat of fascism in order to keep the working masses tied to the bourgeois liberal-labor politics of the Democratic Party. They seek to prevent the building of the independent political movement of the proletariat.

The "CPUSA/ML" and Its Browderite Attitude Towards "American Democracy"

Today under the conditions of deepening crisis, the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators are carrying out a fascist offensive against the working class and people. The fascization of the state and society is the program of the entire monopoly capitalist class. It is spearheaded by the two big parties of monopoly capitalist reaction, the Republicans and the Democrats. The question of developing the fight against the fascist offensive of the bourgeoisie is a serious question facing the working masses.

Browderism denies the fascization of the state and society. As an important part of the ideological underpinning of its American great-power chauvinism and American exceptionalism, it stands in complete awe of "American democracy." It whitewashes the reactionary violence of the bourgeoisie. However, in the face of the reactionary offensive against the working masses, the Browderites will concede that there is a certain threat of reaction. But in order to continue to glorify "American democracy" and prettify the imperialist bourgeoisie, they claim that the fascist danger only comes from an "ultra-right fringe," for example, from the right wing of the Republicans. In this way Browderism lauds the "democratic" pretensions of the bloodstained imperialist bourgeoisie, especially of the Democratic Party. The Browderites talk of the fascist threat not to arouse the masses to struggle, but to scare them and have another pretext for unity with the big bourgeoisie. In this way Browderism saps the revolutionary energy of the masses and works to keep them attached as a tail of the imperialist bourgeoisie.

This Browderite stance is precisely the stand of the "CPUSA/ML." For years they ridiculed the analysis of fascization in the U.S. and sang paeans to bourgeois democracy. Today, in the face of the capitalist offensive against the working masses, the "CPUSA/ML" has begun to give lip service to the danger of fascism. But this is a fraud. In the most typical Browderite fashion, these social-democrats propagate the myth that fascism is only the policy of the "ultra-right." They completely whitewash and prettify the role of the Democrats. Indeed they consider the Democrats to be the great bulwark against fascism.

Let us briefly review the evolution of the "CPUSA/ ML's" line on this question over the last few years.

In 1979 Mr. Weisberg was still busy glorifying "American democracy" and denying the process of fascization. He ridiculed the very idea of fascization and wrote, "An all-out fascist offensive is not taking place in the U.S. today. The basic form of rule remains bourgeois democracy." (Unite!, June 15, 1979, p. 6, col. 5) A year ago they reiterated this view by caricaturing the analysis of fascization as the "ultra-left" view that ''fascism is imminent in the U.S." (Unite!, February 1, 1980, p. 5, col. 4)

That the Weisberg sect denies fascization and embellishes bourgeois democracy is also shown by their repeated attacks on our Party's analysis of fascization. Right from the formation of the predecessors of our Party in the late 1960's, we denounced the fascization which has been taking place particularly since the end of World War II. Over the years this has earned us the wrath of revisionist elements, including the Browderites of the "CPUSA/ML." In 1979 they caricatured our assessment of fascization by writing that "COUSML [the immediate predecessor of the MLP -- ed.], in a flight of wild imagination, believes that the U.S. today is.a fascist state." (Unite!, April 1,1979, p. 10, col. 3-4) Recently they repeated this ridicule of our position: "...the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA (MLPUSA), has for nearly a decade insisted that open fascist terror is the form of bourgeois rule in the U.S." (Class Against Class, No. 12, p. 5) With their flimsy parodies, the Weisberg social-democrats are emphasizing their denial of the process of fascization.

In the spring of 1980 the "CPUSA/ML" seemed to make a 180-degree turn in its position on fascism. The pages of Unite! began to be filled with stories about the "fascist tide" sweeping the country. The 5th Plenum of their Central Committee pronounced itself on the "growing foundation for fascism in the U.S " (Unite!, May 15, 1980, p. 4, col. 1) And this propaganda has intensified ten times over in their literature with the November election of Reagan. Today, according to the "CPUSA/ML," "For the first time since WWII, a large, relatively unified fascist movement has captured control of the State apparatus nationally and has also captured much of the local government structure." (Unite!, January 15,1981, p. 1, col. 1)

It is interesting that it was only in the spring of 1980 that the "CPUSA/ML" came to recognize the "fascist threat" in the U.S. It is no secret that this coincides with the victory of Reagan in the Republican presidential primaries. After the elections were over, the Weisberg social-democrats chided themselves for not recognizing the Reagan danger earlier. They offer the following explanation for this failure:

"Among the most important conclusions the Central Committee drew from last year was the fact that the Party as a whole had not grasped the actual dimensions of the growing Reagan victory early enough. While the bulk of the propaganda of the Party was aimed at the fascist danger, and at Reagan, the possibility that Reagan would win by a large number of votes was not grasped. Among Party members, by virtue of their deeds, there remain aspects of thinking that 'it can't happen here'...." (Class Against Class, No. 12, p. 24)

Here the "CPUSA/ML" openly admits that they considered only Reagan to represent the fascist danger and hence concentrated the bulk of their propaganda on him. Carter was let off the hook, although it is quite well known that he stood for the same program of starvation, fascism and rampant militarism. In addition, the "CPUSA/ML" admits here in a somewhat back- handed way that it was their Browderite illusions in "American democracy" (i.e. "it can't happen here") which prevented them from grasping the fascist danger early enough. Sincelhe "CPUSA/ML" only recognized the fascist danger with the victory of Reagan in the Republican primaries, one must assume that these social- democrats were pinning their hopes on Reagan being blocked by the "democratic forces" in the Republican Party (no doubt, like such luminaries as Bush, Connally, Anderson, etc.).

Of course there will be new sections of the masses who come to recognize the need for struggle against fascism as a result of the threat of Reaganite reaction. But the Weisberg sect does not fall into such a category. Weisberg and co. do not represent new forces coming to life. On the contrary they are hardened and cynical social-democrats. Weisberg himself is a professional social-democrat with years of training in the bourgeois Institute for Policy Studies. When this social- democratic sect talks of the threat of Reaganite reaction, it does not do so because it is interested in a serious fight against fascization. Instead it seeks to hoodwink the new forces coming up in struggle and chain them to the Democratic Party.

Bootlickers of the Democratic Party

Our Party takes seriously the threatening situation of the bourgeoisie's reaction. We fought tooth and nail against reaction under Carter and we are throwing ourselves into the fight against Reaganite reaction.

But Reaganite reaction can only be fought through the revolutionary struggle of the masses. It cannot be fought by whitewashing and relying on the Democratic Party. The Democrats are not at all an oppositional force against the reactionary onslaught of monopoly capital. They are simply the twin party of the Republicans. Indeed it was the Democratic Carter administration which laid the foundations for the militarist and fascist policies that Reagan is now taking over and pushing against the working masses.

The Democratic Party's leadership has declared an open "honeymoon" with Reagan and is cozily collaborating with the administration in implementing the savage program of monopoly capital. This is not surprising for it shares a common program. It too stands for capitalist "reindustrialization" which aims to give huge handouts to the rich while turning the work places into hellholes of speedup and laying off millions of workers. It too stands for even more severe measures to suppress the working class and popular movements. It too supports increased militarization and preparations for imperialist war. The only difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats are somewhat concealed about their fascism. Monopoly capital has given this party the role to mobilize support among the masses for reactionary policies by draping them in the cloak of "reform," "human rights" and "democracy."

In order to play its role as the bourgeoisie's main party to deceive the masses, the Democrats are today also trying to play the role of an "opposition." They seek to infiltrate the mass movements that come up against the bourgeoisie. The Democrats thus play the particular role of both trying to hunt with the hound and run with the hare. They work in the mass movements to prevent them from developing in any serious oppositional and revolutionary direction. Hence the advance of the struggle against Reaganite reaction and the whole offensive of the bourgeoisie requires a stern struggle against the Democratic Party and all its flunkeys.

The "CPUSA/ML" is one such servile flunkey of the Democrats. It completely whitewashes the reactionary nature of the Democrats in order to paint this imperialist party as an alleged bulwark against fascism.

The Weisberg sect carried out this prettification of the Democrats throughout the 1980 election campaign. They themselves acknowledge that they ignored Carter and the Democratic Party. In fact they went so far as to chide Carter for not being enough of a bulwark against Reagan and even showed irritation at the capitalist economic crisis because it hurt the election chances of the Democrats! They wrote on one occasion: "Today it almost appears as if Carter has decided to assist Reagan in his bid for the White House, with the endless announcements of yet further economic crisis." (Unite!, August 1, 1980, p. 2, col. 3-4) Let the workers starve, but the Democrats must be returned to the White House!

They also favorably quoted one of their leading cadre, Leodoris Rose, to the effect that support for Reagan, but apparently not support for Carter, amounts to betrayal of the Afro-American people's struggle. She stated: "...Ralph Abernathy's support for Reagan or the past courting of Reagan by Jesse Jackson reveals their betrayal of the Black working people." (cited in a front page editorial in Unite!, October 15, 1980, p. 1, col. 3) This is very interesting indeed. The "CPUSA/ ML" has never said a word about how Jesse Jackson's support for Carter and the Democrats also amounts to a betrayal of the black people. Indeed the Weisberg social-democrats have repeatedly sought unity with Jesse Jackson and his PUSH organization, and they consider him to be one of the "national reformists" whom they seek to include in their "popular front." What lackeys of the Democrats the "CPUSA/ML" is! When Jesse Jackson campaigns for Carter, when he flies to Miami to cool things down on behalf of Carter, when he goes to Buffalo to tell the black people to sit on their hands in the face of bestial murders by racists and instead vote for Carter, then he is allegedly not betraying the black people. Oh no, only support for Reagan is a betrayal, according to the new Browderites of the "CPUSA/ML."

The entire campaign of the "CPUSA/ML during the 1980 elections proves that although they gave the "no vote" slogan, they were completely hypocritical about it. They did not use the disgust of the masses for the capitalist elections fraud in order to inspire hatred for both the bourgeois political parties. They refused to put forward any real opposition to the Democrats. Indeed the "CPUSA/ML" only gave the "no vote" slogan in order to maintain some credibility with the masses. Thus, in their review of the 1980 elections, after first complaining that they did not "...have a large voting bloc which could be mobilized for a boycott.", they write, "However because the sentiment against voting represented the actual sentiment of the most progressive sections of the masses, it was the obligation of the Party to organize and mobilize this sentiment." (Class Against Class, No. 12, p. 23) This is a telling self-confession of how they conducted the "no vote" campaign only because it was expected of them! Incidentally it should be remembered that in the 1980 elections even a section of the avowed social-democrats could not openly support Carter because this would have hurt their credibility among the masses.

Denying the Role of the Democrats in the Post-World War II Capitalist Offensive

Before Reagan's victory in the 1980 elections the "CPUSA/ML" used to gently chide the Democrats here and there. It is quite likely that they will do so again, but in the immediate panic after the elections the Weisberg sect has altogether extinguished any criticism whatsoever of the Democrats. With Reagan's victory, the Weisberg sect has declared "a new political situation" in the U.S. Apparently, this "new situation" mandates the social-democrats of the "CPUSA/ML" to take the whitewashing of the crimes of the Democrats to the most disgusting extremes. This is exactly what they are doing. Today Mr. Weisberg shamelessly scribbles the most baldfaced lies in order to rewrite history in such a way as to cover up for the fascist crimes of the Democrats over the last several decades!

Take for example an authoritative article by Mr. Weisberg in the January 15, 1981 issue of Unite! entitled: "Fascist Menace in the Oval Office." In this article, which claims to review the process of fascization in the U.S. over the last several decades, Mr. Weisberg does not expose any of the reactionary crimes of the Democrats. Indeed the word "Democrat" does not appear even once. This is done in spite of the fact that the Democrats have been in power for most of the time since the end of World War II, during which they have carried out untold crimes against the masses. Even where Mr. Weisberg is forced to speak of certain reactionary measures which are well known to have been supported and implemented by the Democrats, this social-democratic liar tries to pass these measures off as the handiwork of the Republicans!

For instance, Mr. Weisberg writes: "This process [i.e. fascization -- ed.] has been visible since the end of WWII, particularly during the Eisenhower regime, where a flood of repressive legislative measures were implemented aimed both at communists and the working class as a whole. These included the Smith Act, Taft-Hartley, the McCarran Act, and the Communist Control Act." (Unite!, January 15, 1981, p. 1, col. 2, emphasis added)

What shameless liars! Almost everything Weisberg mentions was carried out by Truman and the Democrats but Weisberg tries to pass all of it off as solely due to Eisenhower! Mr. Weisberg, you may try to rewrite history but surely, you don't think that everyone was born yesterday? In any case, since you have raised these pieces of reactionary legislation, let us briefly review how and when they were passed.

The Smith Act was passed in June 1940 by a Democratic Congress during the Roosevelt administration. This law provides ferocious sentences for the alleged crime of "teaching and advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force and violence" and for conspiring to do this. It was first used to force the Hitlerlike fingerprinting and registration of more than 3.5 million foreign-born residents of the U.S. Later the Democratic Truman administration used the Smith Act from 1948 onwards to persecute the Communist Party. When Truman was replaced by the Republican Eisenhower administration, the Smith Act was used to continue the persecution of the communists.

The Taft-Hartley Act was a vicious piece of fascist legislation aimed at the workers' movement. This was passed in June 1947 by a Republican-dominated Congress with the full assistance of many Democrats. Although Truman formally vetoed the bill (the veto was overridden), he nevertheless made repeated use of it in breaking strikes, especially against the coal miners.

The McCarran Act was passed by the Democratic Congress under Truman in September 1950. This is a fascist law which is aimed at government control of the communist party and progressive mass organizations. As well it provides for the establishment of concentration camps in which to throw revolutionaries and antiwar protestors, etc. This law was particularly supported by many liberals and social-democratic elements.

We now come to the Communist Control Act. This was passed in 1954. Finally we have come to a piece of legislation which was passed by the Eisenhower administration and the Republican Congress. This, too, was a further piece of fascist legislation aimed at virtually outlawing the communist party. However in this instance also, it was the Democratic Party "liberals" who were among the most vociferous in enacting this piece of legislation. This included such "liberal" luminaries as Senators Humphrey and Fulbright.

It may also be pointed out that it was the Truman administration which launched the war of aggression against Korea, a war which was carried on by Eisenhower. What this brief review of the history of the fascist offensive in the post-World War II period shows is that it was first launched by the Democratic administration of Truman and then carried forward by the Republicans and Eisenhower. The fascist offensive against the masses was then, as it is today, a bipartisan policy, and a prominent place in pushing it forward was taken by the "liberals" of the Democratic Party. As well it received the support of social-democracy. But today, Mr. Weisberg tries to pass all this off as simply the work of the Republican Eisenhower administration! What craven apologists and bootlickers of the Democrats!

This whitewash of the Democratic Party's crimes of the past several decades is carried forward for the present day as well. For instance, even where Mr. Weisberg mentions the Criminal Code Reform Act ("grandson of S-l") he neglects to expose that this bill is the pet project of the prince of liberals, Ted Kennedy. This bill is a piece of fascist legislation to suppress the mass movements and extend and develop the federal police force. Kennedy rescued this bill from the Nixon regime and made an alliance with first the notorious reactionary Dixiecrat McClellan and later with the Republican ex-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in repeated attempts to push it through the Senate. Kennedy's role in spearheading this bill is a big exposure of how the Democrats prettify and embellish the fascist measures of the bourgeoisie in the name of "reform." But Weisberg hides Kennedy's role in this because exposure of Kennedy's role would show exactly what kind of bulwark the Democratic Party is against fascism.

Indeed the post-election propaganda of the "CPUSA/ ML" reads as if it could have been written by one of the Democratic Party "liberals" who were defeated in the last elections. Some of these elements, like McGovern, are busy establishing groups to "rejuvenate" the Democratic Party. For this reason these gentlemen are hypocritically mouthing slogans of "fighting the right" and so forth.

Weisberg speaks exactly in the same manner as these gentlemen. For instance, in his article "Fascist Menace in the Oval Office" (Unite!, January 15, 1981), he writes: "This [i.e., preparations for a fascist state -- ed.] corresponds to a deep polarization that is occurring between the Left and the Right in the U.S. in which the Right is accumulating its forces geometrically compared to the Left." So what is Weisberg's conception of "Left" and "Right"? He informs us quite precisely as he continues, "By comparison, we must recognize that the conservative donor base probably consists of a core of some 6 million people. The liberal or social democratic donor base can only call upon something under one million supporters.... The organized Right in the U.S. is several times larger than the liberal, social democratic or revisionist Left, let alone the Marxist-Leninists." (Unite!, January 15,1981, p. 2, col. 2-3)

This is quite a revealing glimpse of Weisberg's thoroughly liberal bourgeois views. He succeeds here in showing once again that his views have nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, that he is an outsider, an intruder into the Marxist-Leninist movement. The liberal and conservative "donor bases" Weisberg refers to are the "donor bases" of the Democrats and Republicans. Hence, according to Weisberg, the "Left" is the Democratic Party! Furthermore, Weisberg is particularly in love with that section which makes financial contributions to the Democrats. This is made up mainly of the corporate political action committees, the trade union bureaucrats who use the workers' union funds, and other wealthy supporters of the party.

Conciliation With the Bourgeois Political System as a Whole

Prettification of the Democratic Party of monopoly capital means to adopt a thoroughly bourgeois standpoint. It means abandoning any pretense of standing for an independent proletarian position vis-a-vis the bourgeoisie. Hence it inevitably leads to conciliation with the bourgeois political system as a whole.

This is the logic of Browderism. Browder himself went from singing praise to the Rooseveltian Democratic coalition to unity with the whole Democratic Party. Later he extended his hand for unity with the liberal Republicans and finally even called for unity with J.P. Morgan and the National Association of Manufacturers! He accepted the "two-party system" as the natural and progressive order of things and liquidated the communist party altogether in favor of an association to educate the liberals within the two-party system.

Hence it is not surprising to find that licking the boots of the Democrats also leads Weisberg to conciliate with the bourgeois political system as a whole. Already he has found occasion to praise the Republicans and finds good things in the two-party system. In this way the "CPUSA/ML" has come out against the independent political movement of the proletariat in favor of keeping the working masses within the confines of the two bourgeois political parties.

Speaking of the role of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, Weisberg writes in his recent Class Against Class article: "But Nixon went a little too far, a little too fast, and Watergate proved to be his undoing. Ford and Carter, however, reversed the field as supposed defenders of democracy. They succeeded only in portraying democracy as feeble, inept and incapable of solving the crisis." (Class Against Class, No. 12, p. 13) Just imagine, according to the social-democrats of the "CPUSA/ ML," Ford and Carter did not carry forward the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie, they did not carry forward the cause of Nixonite fascism -- oh no, they "reversed the field." And when they failed to solve the capitalist crisis, this was not something which discredited the bourgeoisie and its political parties -- oh no, this discredited democracy! This strikingly illustrates Mr. Weisberg's assessment of the so-called "moderates" of the Republican and Democratic parties. According to him, these elements are not reactionaries but a brand of democrats. The mild criticism Weisberg has of these elements is that unfortunately they are "feeble" and ''inept" democrats.

But the "CPUSA/ML" does not stop at praise for Gerald Ford. It even finds praiseworthy things in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations.

In a recent article, the "CPUSA/ML" writes, with regard to Reagan's cabinet, that: "Not even during the Eisenhower or Nixon regimes were Wall Street and the Pentagon so firmly and overtly in the government." (Unite!, January 15, 1981, p. 1, col. 5) This is simply ridiculous. Only a professional liar like Weisberg can spin such a fairy tale that under the Nixon and Eisenhower administrations the monopoly capitalists were not "firmly" and "overtly" in the government. If it wasn't Wall Street, then undoubtedly it must have been "democratic forces" which had a big place in the Nixon and Eisenhower regimes. What rubbish! Furthermore, to say that under those administrations the Pentagon wasn't "firmly" and "overtly" in the administration is also a brazen denial of the facts. What does Weisberg think the U.S. government is, if not a government of big capital and a huge military machine? Furthermore, do we have to remind Mr. Weisberg and co. that Eisenhower was a general from the imperialist armed forces, and it was he who hypocritically moaned of the power of the "military-industrial complex" in the U.S.? Or do we have to point out that General Alexander Haig, Reagan's Secretary of State, was a prominent member of Nixon's ruling clique?

But this sort of prettification of Nixon is not some isolated slip of the pen. Weisberg develops it further in the "CPUSA/ML's" theoretical journal. He writes that one cannot compare Reagan with Nixon because "...Nixon always stood within the mainstream of the two-party bourgeois system. Goldwater, Reagan and Wallace, however, stand with one foot in the bourgeois two-party system and one foot in the extreme right wing, fascist movement." (Class Against Class, No. 12, p. 15) If this is allegedly the case then Weisberg must stand with two feet in his mouth. What a prettification of Nixonite fascism! What a bunch of lackeys of the bourgeoisie! According to Weisberg, fascism comes from outside the two-party system. So now it is the two- party system as a whole which is the bulwark of democracy! But the fact of the matter is that for decades it as been from within the mainstream of the two-party system that the process of fascization has been spearheaded. And it is hardly necessary to remind Weisberg of the fascist crimes of the Nixon administration, which included the armed repression against the mass movements, massive police spying and terrorism against the progressive and revolutionary organizations, and fascist wage controls to smash the strike movement, not to mention the barbaric war of aggression against the Indochinese people.

Of course, when it serves his interest Weisberg goes to the other extreme and writes hysterical articles about Nixon. For instance, just last year he wrote: "Richard Nixon, who has stood as the arch-defender of U.S. imperialism for over three decades, could provide Reagan with the ideological and practical advice required to transform his vague Hollywood script into an ironclad fascist regime." (Unite!, July 15, 1980, p. 4, col. 2) Quite obviously, Weisberg has a penchant for saying one thing today and another thing tomorrow -- whatever is convenient at any particular time to prettify and serve the bourgeoisie.

But what does it mean to endorse the two-party system as a bastion of democracy? Today there is widespread mass disgust with the two main political parties of monopoly capital. The Democrats and Republicans are widely exposed as nothing but twins, standing for a common program aimed against the vital interests of the working masses. This mass disaffection with the two parties is a positive phenomenon. It is a significant step that should be utilized to develop the independent political movement of the proletariat. Hence it must be encouraged and provided consciousness and orientation. But instead of doing this, Weisberg and the "CPUSA/ML" are singing praises of both the two parties and endorsing the two-party system. This shows quite clearly that the "CPUSA/ML" stands against any break with the two parties; it stands against the independent movement of the working class.

For a Real Fight Against Fascism!

Today with the threatening reaction of the bourgeoisie spearheaded by the Reagan administration, there is growing sentiment among the masses to develop the fight against fascism. But fascism cannot be fought by following the Browderite road. The "CPUSA/ML" is not interested in a serious fight against fascism. It merely seeks to use the name of fighting fascism in order to serve up the masses to the big bourgeoisie.

The Browderite road advocated by the "CPUSA/ ML" is a road of suicide. To call for unity with the Democrats in the name of fighting fascism is to lay out a red carpet for the imperialists to infiltrate the mass movements. It means to liquidate the mass struggles, for the main interest of the Democrats is to prevent the mass movements from becoming any serious threat to the bourgeoisie. It means to turn the anti-fascist sentiments of the masses into a tool to serve the electoral ambitions of the Democrats.

The anti-fascist struggle requires splitting with both the Republicans and the Democrats. It must target fascism whether it comes in the open Republican face or whether it comes covered with "liberal" phrases from the Democrats. It must be carried out by developing the mass struggle, not by building paper coalitions with the bourgeoisie and its flunkeys. The anti-fascist struggle must be based on the proletarian and oppressed masses; these forces are the mainstay of the fight against fascism. In other words, the struggle against fascism must be based on building the independent political movement of the proletariat.

Our Party and its predecessors have from the outset thrown ourselves heart and soul into the anti-fascist struggle. We fought against fascization whether it wore the Republican or the Democratic face. The Founding Congress of the MLP reaffirmed this longstanding position. It stressed that the fight against growing fascism is an important part of the socialist revolution. The Marxist-Leninist Party stands for advancing the antifascist struggle along the line of building the independent movement of the working class. This is the only stand which serves the cause of the anti-fascist struggle.

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