The political experience of most of the Marxist-Leninists today dates, at most, to the upsurge of the student left movement and Black and other Third world movements of the mid ’60s. Both of these movements were influenced and shaped considerably by the sharpening struggles for national liberation, particularly the Vietnamese people’s struggle.
The leadership for both of these struggles initially included strong pacifist and liberal reformist elements. Increasingly, however, leadership included those who developed out of these struggles and who gained an anti-imperialist outlook, some a Marxist-Leninist outlook, from the model provided by the revolutionary forces internationally.
The more militantly anti-imperialist direction of SNCC by ’68 and the establishment of the Black Panther Party marked the development of a powerful revolutionary trend within the Black movement. This example and the example of the ’68 Tet Offensive (which undercut the moralists in the anti-war movement when people realized the Vietnamese were actually winning the war), influenced the development of a more revolutionary trend within the student movement. This took the organizational form within Students for Democratic Society (SDS), other local organizations, and in the growth of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and other existing opportunist organizations.
Some of this revolutionary energy was dissipated by the development of an anarchist outlook that was reflected in the Weatherman SDS line and the left adventurist and pro-lumpen development of the Panthers line. Venceremos and many organizations and collectives at this time embodied at least some elements of a left adventurist line. A number of factors made this development almost inevitable: 1) the absence of an experienced revolutionary party or movement, 2) this was in a period still of relative prosperity when the working class was under the influence of almost uncontested bourgeois leadership, and 3) because of the petty bourgeois background of the student and much of the Third World leadership and base, and the base in the equally unstable and individualistic lumpen.
As a serious theoretical trend, anarchism was long ago discredited, along with its chief tactical weapon, terrorism. Marx and Engels struggled against the anarchist trend, as did Lenin. Lenin noted the tendency in his time for left terrorism to merge with outright reformism (reflecting their common disdain for theory or principles, contempt for the masses, their common petty bourgeois class outlook). The successful Soviet revolution knocked many such non-Marxist theories for a loop, as has, more recently, the experience of the Chinese, Vietnamese and other revolutionary movements. But the development of modern revisionism has discredited communism enough to allow some anti-Marxist trends new room to operate. The left adventurist trend sometimes isolates itself fairly rapidly, and often tragically, and this has already happened, to a large extent, in our movement.
Trotskyism, like anarchism, most often maintains its base among intellectuals. Like anarchism, it was also given a new lease on life by the emergence of modern revisionism. Its appeal is a combination of purism, phrasemongering, reformism, anti-communism and dogmatism. Their chief stock-in-trade is providing analyses of the real or imagined mistakes of communists and, distorted as it is, they often know their history better than we know ours. The fact that Trotskyism is strongly rejected by so many is probably, again, by example of more developed revolutionary movements, rather than through understanding of Trotskyism in our own movement. This could explain how Trotskyite lines can emerge from staunch anti-Trotskyites such as PLP, Communist League (now Communist Labor Party, CLP) and even a bit in the Revolutionary Union (now Revolutionary Communist Party, RU or RCP). (For more of a discussion of Trotskyism, see Carl Davidson’s Guardian pamphlet. Also, Stalin’s speeches on Trotskyism. Also, the M.J. Olgin pamphlet has been reproduced by Proletarian Publishers.)
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is the original and most professionally opportunist U.S. Trotskyite party. It had great influence in the anti-war movement due to its hard work and its ability to hide its politics and concentrate on opportunist maneuvers.
The “left” period of the late ’6Os and early ’70s had its effects among Trotskyites too and the more “left” Trotskyite groups, i.e. Sparticist League, Workers’ League and Youth Against War and Fascism, gained followers and became more of a nuisance.
The anti-revisionist communist organizations have actually concentrated more, in recent years, on rank and file workers than the SWP or the revisionist Communist Party (CP) have. Both these organizations have now, however, begun to turn their attention more in this same direction, as working class consciousness increases, so as to channel it into their reformist directions and “smash” the Maoists. They will be formidable forces to contend with, rich already in opportunist experience.
We will not do this big question justice here. Lenin wrote extensively against the revisionists of his time and many of the features are the same of modern revisionism, led by the Soviet imperialists. The Chinese and Albanian comrades have led a very hard and thorough struggle to expose the Soviet agents of revisionism. Also, the Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China showed to the world the far-reaching, fierce and often subtle manifestations of revisionism and bourgeois ideology, even among honest communists.
Lenin said to “make a sharp break with revisionism” and actually there has been a sharp break, politically and organizationally, and on a world scale since the early ’60s with the exposure of the revisionist line of the Soviet Union. Most of the communist parties followed the lead of the Soviet Union in consolidating revisionism. Some parties, breakaways from some parties and some new forces have since set about to reestablish Marxist-Leninist parties. In some cases, such as PLP in this country, these parties had very little development of a political line other than an opposition to the line of the revisionists. PLP’s Road to Revolution I, for example, was little more than a restatement of the views of the Chinese on the revisionist camp.
The revisionist CPUSA embraced entirely the peaceful transition to socialism, “make the imperialists be reasonable through class collaboration” line of the CPSU. The American CP had already gone a big part of the way toward revisionism by the end of the World War II period and this revisionist direction had only been temporarily curbed by intervention of the international movement in the late ’40s. The CP had become known for tailing behind the “liberal” bourgeoisie and trade union bureaucrats, the reformist practice of limiting its view to the day to day gains to be achieved under capitalism, renunciation of armed seizure of state power and proletarian dictatorship, renunciation of a fighting, class conscious approach to the trade unions in favor of collaboration with the bureaucrats, virtually discontinuing its work among Black and other oppressed minorities and around the question of the oppression of women (or else taking the revolutionary heart out of these questions by reducing them to a reformist level), neglect of revolutionary propaganda and disdain for theory.
The question of revisionism today in the U.S. involves: l)the role of the CP, which distorts fundamental questions of Marxism so as to lead a developing revolutionary movement along a reformist path into collaboration with the capitalists (they also have the task of building support for the Soviet social-imperialists), 2)the role of various other forces that have or will emerge who share to some extent a revisionist line and who attempt to maintain unity with the CF and the Soviet Union, and 3)the possibility of revisionism developing within the new communist movement.
As for the CP, they must be exposed as the betrayers of the working class movement that they are. Rightists, however, are not as easily exposed as ultra-leftists and Trotskyites who often show themselves quickly as being incapable of uniting with the mass movements or of giving any effective, even short range, direction. (Ultra-leftists, nevertheless, can damage the credibility of communists and will often be unable or unwilling to learn from and correct their own mistakes.)
Rightists play on people’s vacillation, willingness to compromise principles, and lack of political development or solid class stand. Here lies the difficulty because the real task is to isolate the revisionists before the masses in practice and before those who have illusions about the revisionist camp, not to congratulate ourselves by endlessly talking about how strongly opposed we are to revisionism in all its forms.
Sometimes the struggle to isolate the revisionists may take the form of participating in revisionist-led or initiated actions, what some refer to as “joint actions”, as undesirable as we may find it. We would be very naive to think that ultimately people can learn the real nature of the revisionists any differently than they can that of the trade union opportunists or bourgeois politicians, i.e. by showing in practice how they hold back the struggle and betray the needs of the people.
In any such tactical coalition we strive to maintain initiative and independence, in particular our right to criticize the opportunists. When our forces are small, our ability to play an effective independent role or influence the mass action is correspondingly small. Therefore, to make a principle of remaining separate with only our own forces, however, would assure the CP or other such opportunists of unopposed leadership of many mass activities and probably of a good section of the masses. Lenin pointed out in “Left-wing Communism” that we should be extremely unyielding in principle and extremely flexible in tactics. The principle here is to expose the revisionists and maintain our political independence. The tactic is how best to do it.
This question could become increasingly important as more forces will almost certainly develop who are not solidly in the revisionist camp or the anti-revisionist camp and who are not convinced that working with the revisionists is impossible. So many on the Left are fond of substituting phrases and formulas for an analysis that they probably vacillate here between defining these forces as “centrists”, who Lenin said should be isolated, or “middle forces”, who we should win over.
This kind of question cannot be approached in a static and ahistorical way. It may take years of experience and struggle to differentiate those who in fact can be won over, or who at least we can gain essential programmatic unity with, from the “centrists” who, while posing as either “unifiers” or “non-committed”, are in essential unity with the line of the revisionists. (We have reservations about even using the term “centrist”. Like any Marxist phrase, the term “centrist” arose in a particular historical context. “Centrist” never meant those who were merely unconvinced between the Marxist and revisionist forces, or between a correct or revisionist line on a certain question. Usually, the approach to unconvinced people is to patiently struggle to convince them, not issue ultimatums to choose sides.
Lenin’s attack on centrists was aimed at leaders who refused, under whatever pretext, to break with or expel the revisionists who supported the Imperialist War. The revisionists of our time are every bit as dangerous, especially in regard to defending the role of the Soviet Union. Every contradiction has its own particularities and its own development, however. The Chinese, for example, do not condemn as centrists the Vietnamese or others who do not yet share their views of the Soviet Union but who maintain their independence from the control of Soviet Imperialism.)
Around ’59 and ’60 there were at least two breakaways from the CP. The first, the provisional Organizing Committee, quickly degenerated into ultra-“leftist” phrasemongering. The other, PLP, seemed to play a positive role for a time. PLP defended the position of the Chinese and Albanians internationally, organized many of the early anti-war actions, organized trips to Cuba breaking the travel ban, upheld many Marxist-Leninist positions within the early student movement, made a mockery of HUAC by boldly declaring its politics, and began pointing toward the working class. On the other hand, PLP was always subjective and pragmatic, sectarian in relation to other forces, and could never self-critically sum up its mistakes. Around about the time of the Communist defeat in Indonesia in ’65, PLP began conjuring up some theories of its own; “Can there be a progressive national movement that is not led by communists?”, and later, “Isn’t all nationalism reactionary?, Shouldn’t the Vietnamese be criticized for accepting Russian aid?”, and eventually, “Isn’t the entire new democratic alliance of classes an opportunist conception?”. When it was clear that the Cultural Revolution would not take the splitist, Trotskyite course PLP thought it should, PLP denounced the Chinese Party as revisionist.
Within PLP there was an hysterical campaign against revisionism and a “tightening up” of centralism which tended to intimidate or remove opposition. Meanwhile, PLP was viciously denouncing any progressive national minority movements, such as the Panthers, attempting to sabotage the anti-war movement by its anti-NLF position and denouncing anti-war demonstrations as being led by the “Trotskyite-revisionist-pacifist cabal.” PLP helped to destroy SDS by pushing its “left” Trotskyite politics and seeking organizational hegemony.
How can a group go so far off track? There could have been agents who waited until PLP had some standing before wreaking havoc on the movement. It could have been that there were always ultra-leftists and Trotskyites in leadership who were biding their time before springing their views. Regardless of that, there had to be some social base for such a trend, some weakness in the outlook of all those who slavishly followed such a trend – after all, PLP was the largest “anti-revisionist” organization for some time.
PLP had people mostly inexperienced in political struggle, who knew phrases but had little understanding of Marxism, who mainly reelected a subjective, one-sided, simplistic approach to problems, no understanding of dialectics and no confidence in the people. (“Why should the Vietnamese negotiate? The U.S. will only trick them.”, PLP would say.)
We have dealt on PLP at length to show: 1) that left sectarianism and dogmatism come very easily given the class make-up, and lack of experience and roots among the people of the present movement, and 2) some similar type of thinking still has currency among the new communist forces.
By 1969 it was clear that PLP could only play a reactionary role and had to be opposed (although PLP remained the largest “anti-revisionist” organization until 1970 when they took their position on China). At the same time more people had gained a Marxist-Leninist outlook and recognized the need for a revolutionary organization.
Collectives were formed in various parts of the country, including RU in the San Francisco Bay Area and Communist League (CL) in Los Angeles. There was a Marxist-Leninist trend in SDS, the Revolutionary Youth Movement 2 (RYM2) faction, some of whom later formed October League (OL) in Los Angeles.
The RU played a positive role for several years in helping to rebuild a Marxist-Leninist movement. They helped to isolate PLP, later the left adventurist trend and to some extent, the dogmatism of the CL variety. RU correctly defended the line of joining with the workers, taking part in and providing direction for workers’ struggles and linking them with communist and anti-imperialist agitation. The struggle against some openly petty bourgeois leftist lines, particularly the split over military adventurism, brought about a firmer commitment to the working class and a greater respect for Marxist theory.
Amid the enthusiasm for integrating with the workers movement, there was some economist tendency to overestimate the political development that would come of economic struggle per se. There also developed a pragmatic style that tended to minimize a long-term strategy for work, i.e. the need to make a Marxist analysis of concrete conditions in various areas of work.
In 1972 the RU’s line on several questions changed, or its emphasis was radically shifted so that essentially the line changed, previously regarding petty bourgeois leftism as the main problem, now they decided right errors i.e. economism, were primary. (This is no academic question. It can have great bearing on the type of internal education done, and on the way in which problems are analyzed and approached.)
Also at this time, the RU developed as its strategy for the working class the building of “intermediate workers’ organizations” to be led by the RU as the form for building a “revolutionary workers’ movement”.
The incorrectness of this “strategy” is dealt with in the section of this pamphlet on ”Approach to Trade Union Work”. Briefly, it reflects the “dual unionist” tendency toward building organizations and activities off to the side of the workers’ movement, a “movement” of our own.
Much of RU’s thinking, while taking an ultra “left” direction retains in new forms the pragmatism of its earlier period. In this case there is the expectation of catching workers up in a student type activism while workers are forced to deal with the pressing needs of their everyday lives and to approach political questions and look for deeper answers on that basis. Taking the latter into account, the need for cadre to make concrete analyses of concrete conditions in every shop or area of mass work becomes very important, to make an analysis of what level struggle can be initiated around and how communist ideas can effectively be brought out in those circumstances. This type of base building is slow as a rule and there is a tendency for many ex-student revolutionaries to try shortcut schemes. These shortcut schemes occur most often when the “success” of mass work (and that is most quickly measured by numbers at demonstrations and on committees) is used as the wedge to gain leadership of the Marxist-Leninist movement.
Workers are seldom interested in kidding themselves about the level of struggle, flaunting a few phrases to make it appear that their organization is scaling the heights or that the revolution is around the corner. They sometimes may be influenced by cynicism or “narrowness of outlook” but most often they are interested in making a sound analysis of where things are at, and it is the “Marxists” who seem to find themselves guided by narrow organizational interests.
Neither the RU nor any other of the new communist organizations have made a decent analysis of the objective and subjective position of various classes and strata, of the effect of bourgeois ideology and how that can be turned about, of the various contradictions within the working class and among the people. Having never learned the Marxist method very well or had sufficient practice in applying it to their own conditions, the habits of subjectivism (one-sidedness), wishful thinking, purism, dogmatism (find a formula that seems to fit), and “small group mentality” come easily.
A seriously subjectivist and purist outlook almost always lacks confidence in dialectics and in the people themselves to make revolution, in spite of declarations to the contrary. Such people see every reform struggle as one more opportunity for the people to come under the sway of reformist ideology, therefore fashionable schemes are concocted so that the struggle can be conducted in as pure a manner as possible and on the organization’s own terms. For example, the RU tells people they are falling for a ruling class trick by joining and attempting to change the character of the Conference of Labor Union Women. Likewise for those who support the passage of the ERA. Likewise for those in general who attach much significance to the fight to change the trade unions, at least those who go so far as to call this task a “strategy”.
In each of these cases, there is the reflection of a contradiction developing within the system and of the peoples’ determination to resist. We should unite with these moves, define the struggle clearly, and direct the fire at the enemy and those who cover for him. We attempt to use these stirrings to the people’s advantage, the ruling class to theirs through their trade union and political hirelings.
PLP carried this type of non-dialectical thinking to its extreme. They argued, “The Arabs and Israelis are ruled by reactionaries. The people on both sides must overthrow their reactionary leaders and establish socialism. To support the Arabs over the Israelis only divides the working class. That’s how bourgeois nationalism works.” Actually, that’s how Trotskyite thinking works. And it is not a far cry from RU’s position on Boston bussing. We paraphrase, “The ruling class is responsible for the poor education of white students as well as Black students. We don’t want to encourage divisions among the people, therefore we don’t support Black students’ demands for integration. It’s a trick to take the ruling class off the hook.”
The ruling class was, of course, here trying to use liberal integrationist measures to cover its own role. It was also a reflection of the determination of Black people for equal rights and, unfortunately, of the racism that exists among many white people, including petty bourgeois and workers. To diminish either aspect of this contradiction, or rather, either of these contradictions, is to replace a real analysis with our own idealist intentions.
As with PLP, a characteristic that compounds these idealistic mistakes is that of seeing only itself and those who support its peculiar positions as on the correct revolutionary road. Organizational sectarianism arises necessarily from idealist politics and the tendency is toward increasingly self-serving positions and inability to work within mass organizations without playing a role that is destructive of unity.
Sectarianism, purism, adventurism and all other “left” or right mistakes may reflect one’s class background, lack of experience, lack of study, or even lack of devotion to communism. These and other factors have their bearing but mistakes in political line occur concretely because we are not able, or not willing, to correctly sum up experience to solve particular problems. Some problems can be solved from the experience gained in previous revolutionary struggles. Some problems can only be solved by combining historical experience with the experience gained in current investigation and practice. Most problems of current revolutionary theory fall within this category. If our analysis of something is incomplete, if we do not understand how to handle a problem correctly, idealist mistakes will be made. These idealist mistakes provide the basis, the assumption of incorrect facts, for other, possibly more serious mistakes.
All of this is elementary Marxism but herein lies the reason that organizations and individuals who make some contributions at a certain stage, make serious mistakes when given more difficult tasks and may end up playing a backward role altogether.
The leadership of the RU was able to deal with much of the outright nonsense carried over from the student movement very well – the military adventurism, the anti-working class bias, the resistance to discipline, organization and theory. When faced with the task of beginning to build the united front, of creating unity for a party, of building a solid base in the working class and of laying the political groundwork for the merging of the Black Liberation movement with the workers’ movement – then RU’s knowledge and experience proved no match for its ambitions.
When this happens, the gap is filled by various forms of subjectively and mechanically developed lines, and inflated, metaphysical rhetoric.
Those who once said, “if we begin to act as an authority, a quick kick in the pants would be appreciated” (Red Papers 1, 1969), now inform us that the working class has much to celebrate because of the “solidifying of its general staff” (Avakian’s speech in the October issue of Revolution, in reference to changing their name from RU to RCP). Abandoning any real effort to achieve political unity among Marxist-Leninists, the question of “party building” became very simple.
As to their approach to the problems of building a base in the working class, their inability to correctly analyze and tackle that problem was very basic to their drift, beginning in 1972, into “left” subjectivism.
Dissatisfied with the slow pace of rank and file organizing and recruitment of workers, the RU’s estimation of its own tasks changed considerably. Rather than examining their own lack of understanding of the problems in the work, their own lack of a concrete and realistic analysis and strategy (including an understanding of the divisions within the working class and of the hold of bourgeois ideology), they began to blame the cadre, reinterpret much of their previous work as economist and to develop subjective and adventurist plans and tactics.
The RU also found itself gaining no significant influence in the Black movement or in recruiting Black cadre. Differences arose over views of the Black Liberation question with most of the Black cadre they had and with the Black organization, Black Workers Congress (BWC), with which they had ties. They decided thereafter that the time was ripe, especially in view of their party building plans, to launch an attack on what they considered various forms of “bourgeois nationalism”. In addition to this being one of the RU’s most sectarian and self-serving moves, it established a completely mechanical, one-sided approach to the relationship between the aims of the Black movement and the question of multi-national working class unity.
The RU’s most serious mistake has been in carrying this logic to the extreme of downplaying and, in fact, opposing certain important demands for national equality. Their approach to the racist-led anti-bussing movements has been totally idealist to the point of playing a thoroughly reactionary role in this struggle, i.e. attempting to build unity with the most racist and backward movement among the masses. (The October issue of Revolution stated in regard to the white riots to stop integration in Louisville, that this “spontaneous fight-back was tremendous.”)
Unlike revisionist, Trotskyite and provocateur organizations (such as CP, SWP, or PLP), the RU, or RCP, is not considered by us to be a counter-revolutionary organization. RU is part of the communist movement and contradictions with them are contradictions among the people, not the enemy. Hopefully they will correct their errors in time and become part of a genuine communist party. That will only be achieved after serious political struggle, however, and not by dealing lightly with their mistakes. We have dealt with the RU in such detail because we are well acquainted with this organization and its mistakes and because, in fact, they manifest the most dominant type of errors made by the new communist movement in their most extreme form. The errors some others make, such as outright dogmatism, are even more destructive in most cases, but it is the kind of mistakes the RU makes that are the most subtle, usually difficult to expose, and characteristic of weaknesses in the thinking of the new communist movement, especially in its larger organizations.
Our experience with OL is much more limited. However, we need to attempt an analysis, even if a tentative one, because CL is a major organization within the new communist movement.
OL’s early period, ’70 to ’71, was characterized by a tendency toward left sectarianism and dogmatism, although less extreme than, say, CL. By about ’72, OL had seemed to correct many of its previous left errors. However, there was never any concrete self-criticism in print.
During the next period the OL seemed to have a good ability to pull together broad coalitions, to have good relations with many third world and other left organizations, and by stressing the approach of “moving the unions to the left”, building ties with some of the broader rank and file caucuses across the country.
At the same time, OL was criticized by many for not fighting for a communist position within coalitions and unions, of tailing behind reformist leaders, and of a non-struggle approach to the differences among the left, leaving its own position on many questions vague and undefined.
The OL seemed to be gaining in influence recently, partly because of the vacuum left by RU’s relative isolation and partly because of some good union and united front work. OL also continued to emphasize the special demands of minorities and women, while RU’s record on this score has become very poor.
Recently OL seems to have changed its emphasis again, apparently in an attempt to correct right errors. More apparent than the correction of right errors, however, seems to be a tendency to return to some of its old dogmatism and sectarianism.
It seems more than coincidental that as both RU and OL began talking of the “time to build a party”, sectarian and ultra left trends became more apparent. Both apparently felt the historic moment had arrived to stop being liberal, to combat their respective version of opportunist trends and gain leadership of the anti-revisionist movement. The added touch of arrogance that comes from this self-appraisal was enough for RU to attack those groups who were not willing to merge with it or stood in its way as “bundist” (if they were third world), Browderite (CL), “creature from the white skin privilege lagoon” and “cockroaches”.
OL was apparently so annoyed, on its part, by the unwillingness of the Guardian to unite more closely behind OL’s leadership and its nerve in openly criticizing OL around the New York Women’s Day demonstration, that it attacked the Guardian as a “cover for social imperialism”. (In New York, OL had opposed the march of 4,000, initiated by the CP, among others, as a “march of opportunists” while they held their own demonstration that drew 200.)
We agree with some of OL’s criticisms of the Guardian, e.g. failing to recognize the two superpowers as equally enemies of the world’s people. On the other hand, mistakes like this and others should be kept in perspective because the Guardian has been probably the most effective U.S. opponent of Social Imperialism and the American CP. The ability to distinguish friends from enemies is a very basic test of the maturity of an organization. Especially to allow narrow organizational purposes to color such a decision is a very bad habit to get into.
OL seems increasingly to display the one-sidedness, subjectivism and sectarianism characteristic of the RU. The newer OL lines are more one-sided to the left, such as making a principle of no participation in revisionist initiated demonstrations, while their older lines are more one-sided to the right, such as feeling they nave to say nothing but good about a fascist regime like the Shah’s of Iran. (Iran, while under the wing of U.S. Imperialism, strongly opposes the Soviets and is thereby willing to have friendly relations on a diplomatic level with China. It could be argued that in Iran’s case its moves toward independence and third world solidarity, while to be encouraged, mainly provide the necessary cover to put forward a pro-U.S. policy.) OL has now announced its party program. Like RU, it is now ready to proclaim itself the working class “general staff”.
Several other organizations, sometimes loosely known as the “party building trend”, we see as having a strong tendency toward dogmatism. This line goes, our paraphrase again, “Communists should not speak of such tasks as ’building the mass movement’. Only economists and opportunists would lead advanced workers away from their study groups to involve them in the mire of mass struggle. The present task is uniting these advanced workers and consolidating them to build a party.” (This line is sometimes expressed with more subtlety than our paraphrase.)
Their idea of theory is finding neat formulas that provide instant unquestionable solutions. This trend enjoyed popularity recently as more people came to understand the need for Marxist theory and a party and became disillusioned with the major organizations, especially the RU. Although a few third world groups and workers have been impressed with this line for a time, essentially this is the “straight up” mentality of the petty bourgeois intellectual.
The Communist Labor Party, formerly CL, previously pioneered this line and was known for unequaled dogmatism and sectarianism. Of late, they have corrected many of their unnecessarily sectarian habits, much as PLP has, and also declared their intention to seek unity wherever possible with the CP and the line of the Soviet Union. Many well meaning people are in CLP, as well as all these organizations, but attempts to 1) kill the anti-revisionist movement with dogmatism and then, failing that, to 2) deliver it into the hands of the CP is either the work of some hopelessly confused minds or police agents.
Several other organizations and collectives exist, some of which do not seem to have taken up the mistakes common to the more longstanding new communist groups, seem to be developing a Marxist-Leninist approach, and have some roots in the working class or national minority communities. Our experience with these collectives and organizations is not sufficient to attempt any detailed analysis, but we do feel that as the mistakes of the present organizations become more broadly recognized, and as both understanding of Marxism and roots in the class become much deeper, new leadership is bound to develop and we are hopeful that this has already begun to happen, particularly among some third world groups.
There are other organizations, some of which fall under the category we referred to earlier of not having a clear stand on revisionism, whose political line is far from settled. We feel that it is a mistake to write some of these organizations off as hopelessly petty bourgeois or on their way to the revisionist camp. Sometimes these organizations show more flexibility, imagination and ability to unite with people than the other organizations possess because they are less inclined to dogmatism. Their mistakes are more in the direction of outright pragmatism and eclecticism (inconsistent mixture of Marxist and non-Marxist ideas). These organizations should, whenever possible, be approached with a view of struggling with incorrect ideas, seeking unity and learning from their strengths.
More struggle is being waged now than before for a correct political line, as more people have come to see the need for a communist party and for Marxism-Leninism. Struggle is good, shows people are thinking, and, along with experience, is the only way mistakes can be corrected.
The current state of disunity is not good and is a reflection of the individualism of our student movement backgrounds. At this point, however, more unity will only come about with more clarity on areas where mistakes have been made. More clarity will probably only come when we have gained deeper roots among the masses, particularly in mass struggles, which is the only real testing ground between correct and incorrect ideas.
At this time, the anti-revisionist movement is, to a large extent, characterized by sectarianism, subjectivism and dogmatism, while within the broader movement, at the same time, pragmatism and right opportunism may be gaining ground. These tendencies tend to confirm each other, at least the credibility of each among its followers.
What will happen at this point? Elements within present organizations may lead in making important breakthroughs and mistakes may be corrected. Or new leadership may develop that is better at applying Marxism to American conditions and thereby provide the basis for broader unity. In the long run, however, we can be sure that the revolutionary possibilities and needs of the time and the people themselves will demand unity around a theory that is a correct summation of practice (both today’s and that of history) and a guide to changing reality.