The great struggle of labour against capital has cost the workers of all countries immense sacrifices. They have shed rivers of blood in behalf of their fight to a better life and real freedom. Those who fight for the workers’ cause are subjected by the government to untold persecution. But in spite of all persecutions the solidarity of the workers of the world is growing and gaining in strength. The workers are uniting more and more in the socialist parties, the supporters of those parties are mounting into millions and are advancing steadily, step by step, towards complete victory over the class of capitalists. (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 200)
Comrades, we celebrate May Day 1976 with the publication of our political organ, BOLSHEVIK. The quote from our great teacher, Comrade V.I. Lenin, speaks clearly to the irresistable historical current of proletarian revolution. It is in striving to uphold the revolutionary tradition of the great Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Stalin that we dedicate the publication of BOLSHEVIK.
BOLSHEVIK is an organ directed to gorging the U.S. Bolshevik Party through hammering out the party’s basic line and program – the key link we mutt firmly grasp in this period to unite the genuine Marxist-Leninists and win the advanced to communism.
BOLSHEVIK is dedicated to upholding the purity of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought by waging ruthless struggle against all forms of opportunism particularly the dangerous Menshevik trend that must be defeated in this period as we move forward to the U.S. Bolshevik Party.
We plan to publish BOLSHEVIK four times a year. Its basic objective is to contribute to the struggle for the party’s basic line and program by developing propaganda which raises the political consciousness of the proletariat by scientifically developed polemics aimed at advanced workers “which everywhere determine the character of the movement”. BOLSHEVIK will not be “non-partisan”. We strive to work in unity with a definite trend, the revolutionary wing especially, the comrades from Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization and the August Twenty-nine Movement. We will seek to introduce the struggle over the party’s program into these polemics, struggling to draw sharp and clean lines of demarcation.
BOLSHEVIK #1 contains four articles:
1) “Forward to the US Bolshevik Party” is taken from the text of a speech delivered at a party building forum in Atlanta on March 19, 1976. Certain sections have been expanded to sharpen the polemic against the Menshevik line on party building and for the deepening of the Bolshevik line on our central task. The polemic is focused at the October League and Workers Viewpoint Organization two major representatives of this dangerous trend. In it we lay out our basic view on party building – key link, two wings, main form of work, and tasks at hand.
2) “Steeled in Struggle” is a brief history of the two line struggles in the RWL. This article is written from the standpoint of genuine Marxist-Leninist openly criticizing one’s errors in front of the masses. We hold that we must ruthlessly criticize our own opportunism in a thorough manner and submit this initial criticism as only a step that we are certain other comrades (Marxist-Leninist and advanced) will deepen.
3) “Party Building And The Woman Question” is the reprint of a propaganda leaflet by the New York Anti-Imperialist Coalition which was developed around International Working Women’s Day. The struggle that developed in this coalition was an essential component of exposure of the Menshevik line on party building. We have added an introduction which sums up important aspects of this struggle. Comrades, should also study the speech presented by the Revolutionary wing in Palante, (April, ’76 – The Political Organ of PRRWO).
4) “Revolution Is The Main Trend” is a repudiation of the “Theory of two contending trends” and lays out the theoretical basis for the current line, and tactical implications of the bourgeois line of WVO. This article is submitted in thesis form to sharpen the polemic as we simultaneously strive to elaborate a fuller view of the international and domestic situation. Thus we urge comrades to study each point of the thesis, closely link it with other study on the international situation, and contrast it to the Menshevik line on the relationship of growing danger of war to party building.
We urge comrades to study BOLSHEVIK critically and we await criticism which will sharpen the two line struggle to firmly grasp the key link of political line and build the party on an ideological plane. Suggestions regarding future articles, or technical aspects of BOLSHEVIK are also invited.
FORWARD TO THE US BOLSHEVIK PARTY!
Revolutionary Workers League (Marxist-Leninist)