Reason and experience have long since proved that the more unified and organized the communists of a country are, and the more they include in their ranks the activists of the working class, the better they can fulfill their theoretical and practical tasks. A high level of unity, organization, and working-class composition requires the formation and continued development of a single, correct, Leninist party. Nothing can contribute more to the fulfillment of all our duties to the international proletariat than building such a party.
There are, of course, a half dozen self-appointed U.S. “vanguard parties,” and other groups are organized like parties and try to fulfill the functions of one, regardless of what they call themselves. Conspicuously absent, however, is a party that consistently promotes a correct line on the major questions facing the proletariat, unites most communists, and leads the workers’ movement, while counting many revolutionary workers among its members. Furthermore, none of the existing parties and party-like organizations can become such a party without rectifying serious opportunist deviations. This book is directed to those who agree with this assessment, and we will not try to prove its correctness here.
Because a vanguard party is the most basic tool for enabling communists to carry out our revolutionary work, the absence of such a party means that party-building is the central task of U.S. communists. A party that can lead a revolutionary proletarian movement will not arise spontaneously. In planning and evaluating our work, every task communists undertake, every commitment we make of our resources, must be considered in light of how it will contribute to the work of building a vanguard party. Any other ordering of priorities would cause us to make choices, consciously or unconsciously, that seriously delay the work of party-building. Such delays are indefensible.
A widespread contrary view was most openly articulated by the former August 29th Movement (now part of the League for Revolutionary Struggle). The A.T.M. opposed judging all communist tasks in the context of party-building and argued that there are no significant differences in the tasks of communists before and after we have built a vanguard party.[1] We will later show that the party-building line then put forward was essentially this: act today as if we are the party, and sooner or later we will somehow become it.
The Revolutionary Union expressed the same line under the slogan, “Build the mass movement.” The same approach to party-building could well reappear, in new forms, among forces like the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee, which believe that party-building is, essentially, fusing communism with the workers’ movement. Moreover, the line of building the party simply by trying to work as one also guided those who created the parties which we have today, groups that still blind themselves to the fact that they have yet to develop the advanced theory, the ties to the masses, and the communist unity around a correct political line which are hallmarks of a true vanguard party.
Communists must analyze our movement’s continued weaknesses in each of these areas and identify means for overcoming them, not just work now in the mass movement as if we had a vanguard party capable of leading that movement well. We, too, strongly emphasize the need for practice in the workers’ movement in this period; but one of our differences with the party-building positions of the former A.T.M. and other “pre-parties” is our recognition that communists’ goals in this practice, and our commitment of resources to it, must be less than what they would be if we had a vanguard party. It takes a more discerning analysis of what is required to move from what communists are, to what we want to become, than to decide that we can transform our movement simply by acting as if we have achieved that transformation. The same applies to those groups that call themselves the vanguard party, with no sense of how far we all must go to create such a party.
Spontaneity in party-building takes other forms, too. Many collectives and individuals, perhaps painfully aware of their own limitations, wait for someone else to take the initiative. Or they ignore discussions on party-building, having heard the “Revolutionary Wing” talk the subject to death, and do so in terms of meaningless–or wrong–formulas. In the meantime, they try to develop political line independently and carry out practice on their own. Because they generally seem to be more open to struggle over their ideas, and thus more capable of rectifying weaknesses, than members of the consolidated parties and “pre-parties,” it is imperative for such comrades to turn their attention to the problem of how the party will be built and what they can do to help.
Because party-building is our central task, and because our movement certainly lacks agreement on a correct party-building line, we agree with the Proletarian Unity League’s statement that a correct party-building line is the key link in permitting U.S. communists to move forward on our tasks.[2]
(We also agree with the P.U.L.’s pointing out the distinction between party-building line and political line. Political line is the line to guide the proletariat in its struggle against the bourgeoisie. It addresses issues like the national question, other questions of democratic rights, the state and the struggle against it, etc.[3] Party-building line covers such questions as the theoretical and practical tasks facing communists outside the existing parties, how to organize ourselves to carry out those tasks, who should be united in a joint party-building effort, and what conditions must be met to form a party. It is about such questions that we write this pamphlet, and in the immediate period it is mainly about them that we hope to engage in struggle for unity with other comrades.)
Many communists in entirely different sections of the movement think it incorrect to speak of party-building line apart from political line. They believe that the way to begin building a party is to use fundamental political line questions (especially the international situation, at present) to “demarcate” the genuine, or at least the most correct, Marxist-Leninists. According to this position, the best forces should begin discussing party-building line with each other only after they have been grouped by this process of demarcation.
We hold that building the genuine vanguard party must begin with uniting basically all who can be united on how to build it, including how to resolve disputed political line questions. The international situation is undeniably a crucial issue, and the revolution will not succeed either in a period in which the proletariat is led by social-chauvinists or one in which propaganda for internationalism has little credibility because the communists base their position on a whitewashing of the USSR’s imperialism. Nor, we might add, will the revolution succeed if communists consistently adopt incorrect tactics towards reformist trade union leaders, or fail to resolve the national question correctly, etc.
We believe that it is only the correct party-building line that will permit many communists to systematically take up these and other burning questions, solve them, and win over additional forces through both our polemics and the test of practice. Secondarily, we do think that, beyond agreement on party-building, there are additional limits to those who could contribute to a party-building effort, as we explain later.
In the pages that follow, and especially in Chapter V, we defend our point of view on who should unite. What we want to make clear here, for those who doubt the correctness of considering party-building line apart from political line, is that their belief that the way to begin is to use political line to draw lines of demarcation is itself a party-building line. Rather, it is a common feature of several different party-building lines. We will state the basis for our views; and comrades who believe party-building should begin with the use of political line to identify the party-builders surely have a rationale, which they can explain as well. They should enter the debate over party-building line and provide that explanation, not act as if there is nothing to debate because they have assumed that one of the key questions of party-building is not a question at all.
(Occasionally, as in the preceding paragraphs, we criticize the views of other comrades without naming any group in particular. We do so only when we are unaware of any published statement of the views on which we are commenting, but have heard those views expressed privately enough so that we believe that they have some influence.)
Here we provide an overview of our position on how to create a communist Party that can educate and organize the proletariat and provide strategic and tactical leadership in its struggle for the overthrow of capital.
Such a party must be theoretically advanced, i.e., its line must be based on a deep grasp of Marxism-Leninism and a thorough Marxist understanding of U.S. society, both in order to chart the revolutionary path and in order to prove to the workers and their allies that socialist revolution is the solution to the contradictions facing them in daily life. Second, it must make every effort to include within it as large a proportion of the country’s genuine socialist revolutionaries as possible, keeping its members united around a correct communist line. Every failing on this score weakens the party’s forces and strengthens those forces which, consciously or unconsciously, urge opportunist lines on the working class. Finally, the successful communist party must be a workers’ party; it must attract ever-growing numbers of working-class comrades into its ranks and become the actual leader of the working-class movement as rapidly as conditions permit.
These three essentials, revolutionary theory, communist unity, and fusion of the communist and workers’ movements, certainly do not exhaust the requirements for a party which is to lead the revolution. We have said nothing about the development of the press, military training, etc., each of which will be needed for the party to grow and do its work. However, theory, unity, and fusion are the most basic factors which must exist for communists to be the organized vanguard of the working class. (This is not to say, however, that no party should be formed until these three factors are at a high level. As the P.U.L. has pointed out, the process of building the party, i.e., expanding and strengthening it, always continues after its formation; and communists must distinguish between the requirements for party-formation, and what it will take for that party to play its vanguard role.[4] We discuss the requirements for party-formation in Chapters IV and IX, below.)
The development of theory, unity, and fusion is extremely low right now. Many communists consider themselves weak in their grasp of basic Marxist-Leninist theory on some important questions, and many who consider their grasp stronger must be mistaken, since there are so many differences among us (and we cannot all be right). The same observation is true of the application of fundamental principles to the development of political line. In addition, our movement’s theoretical weakness is most striking of all in the area of a concrete grasp of the particular motion and development of U.S. society, for which we lack even a basic class analysis.
The crippling disunity among Marxist-Leninists needs little documentation. Only those who are convinced that everyone outside of their own small group is an immutable opportunist can think that communists are anywhere near uniting our forces for fighting the class enemy. We have to agree with the terse judgment of a bourgeois observer, writing in a book which assesses the “communist threat” in each country of the world:
Maoist Groups. The Maoist [i.e., anti-revisionist] movement in the USA is composed of a large number of small groups which disagree very strongly with each other. The recent upheavals in China have caused a great deal of uncertainty and confusion. . ..[5]
As of this writing, we see signs that the “left” sectarianism that led to this state of affairs might be starting to erode, but both serious line disagreements and sectarian evaluations of how to handle those disagreements continue to give us “a large number of small groups,” with nowhere near the unity needed to carry out serious revolutionary work.
It is also evident that the communist and workers’ movements are much more separate, than merged into one, and that our tasks in changing that situation are very great.
The discussion that follows is divided according to the tasks facing U.S. communists today. These tasks include the study, development, and advocacy of revolutionary theory; certain forms of practice, mainly in workers’ struggles; and creating the form of organization corresponding to those tasks and the state of our forces. These tasks correspond only roughly with the creation of the theory, level of fusion, and unity that we need, since work on each task helps further the development of each of the essential factors for a vanguard party.
We can discuss these tasks only one at a time in the chapters below, but we consider them all interconnected and absolutely essential. There are extremely pressing theoretical tasks which must be taken up immediately. In fact, theoretical weakness is the main obstacle to moving all our work forward. Comrades must simultaneously do as much agitation, propaganda, and providing practical leadership to the workers’ struggles as we can now, within limits set by the need to devote substantial resources to our other tasks and by current weaknesses in our abilities to lead the people.
Finally, carrying out our theoretical and practical tasks will be impossible unless those communists presently willing to engage in an open-minded struggle for unity organize ourselves into a network. Such a network cannot form immediately; those circles and individuals who would join it must struggle for a common analysis of the situation and our tasks in this period. The network must develop an agenda for carrying out our theoretical work, including settling political line questions; carry out a division of labor for doing that work; provide the forms for struggling systematically for unity on the questions taken up; encourage the widest exchange of summations of practical work and agitational and propaganda materials; and develop and implement plans for the long-term struggle for unity with at least the better rank and file communists in other organizations that are now too sectarian to even see the need for such joint efforts.
Such a network needs to be well organized, with central coordination. But it should not have a leading body with special responsibility for the elaboration of Political line, or for publishing agitation and propaganda that all constituent groups are committed to circulating as their own. True ideological and Practical leadership will have to emerge in the course of the work of the organization.
When a significant body, hopefully the majority, of the members of the network agree on a political program, agree on how a nationwide democratic-centralist organization should function internally, and have developed tested leaders, they should adopt the democratic-centralist form. (A decision for only part of the network to do so, however, should only be made if it becomes clear that continued struggle with the remainder is fruitless.) This form of organization, as we show later, is a party, though it will probably not yet be the party of U.S. communists or the organization of the proletarian vanguard. However, by using the democratic-centralist form of organization, the new party will be better suited to continue the development of theory, improve its vanguard character in practice, and struggle for unity with other communists.
In the next three sections of this chapter, we describe the forces to which this book is directed; address, inconclusively, the question of the main danger among U.S. communists; and add some concluding remarks.
Obviously the party-building tasks we have listed will not be taken up by those who already consider an existing party (declared or, like the L.R.S., undeclared) to be the answer. Therefore this book is directed mainly to “independents” and members of local circles and collectives. (Sometimes we refer to these groups as the “non-party forces”; the term does not. of course, mean “against building a party.”)
Among these forces, we are aware of perhaps 30 collectives with a more or less public presence; but it is also obvious that there are many comrades who consider themselves communists and are meeting in groups that are either less developed or have had no occasion to announce their existence publically. Furthermore, the disorganization of non-party forces is so extreme that there are undoubtedly groups that we have never heard of, even though they have published pamphlets or articles.
Among the less visible forces, some comrades have temporarily withdrawn from even following the seemingly endless, and fruitless, polemics of the communist movement. They concentrate on their own practice and independent study of one or another political question. The remaining forces are roughly grouped into three camps, according to. of all things, their analysis of the international situation. One group supports the opportunist Theory of Three Worlds, although they have such important differences over its meaning and application that some would define the internationalist duties of the U.S. working class in essentially the same way as opponents of the Theory of Three Worlds would. We do not know how much these groups are in communication with each other or look to each other as the best party-building forces. But they are probably influenced by the fact that most of the communist movement, including the pro-Three-Worlds organizers of the CP(M-L) and L.R.S. “unity committee,” does consider an analysis of the international situation the means of finding such forces.
A second grouping is unconvinced that the Soviet Union is a consolidated social-imperialist superpower and that its “progressive” aid to liberation movements is a tactic for seeking neo-colonial footholds, though they readily admit that it is run by revisionist leaders who exploit their own people, oppress Eastern Europe, play a counter-revolutionary role by supporting revisionist parties elsewhere, and are not always allies of national liberation struggles. These forces generally rely on the Guardian to tell them about international events. Some, in basic agreement with at least elements of the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee’s party-building line, are affiliated nationally in the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center, whose members sometimes call themselves “the Trend.” Others are in Guardian clubs or are not organized in any national form. Most of these forces see their grouping as anti-ultra-left, or as “anti-dogmatist” (and anti-revisionist).
We are in the third camp, one sometimes ignored by the first two. These circles and individuals believe that both the U.S. and the USSR are imperialist superpowers but absolutely reject the Theory of Three Worlds and its implications, including the idea that strengthening the U.S. or Western European bourgeoisie in any way could benefit the people of the world. This is the line of quite a few anti-revisionist parties in the world, including the Party of Labor of Albania. Here we sometimes use the term “pro-P.L.A.” as a convenient label for these circles, but in fact they have widely varying assessments of the consistency of the P.L.A.’s ideological leadership. The predominant tendency within this section of the movement, too, is to look internally for close allies in party-building.
These groupings are not homogenous or static. A counter-current among the OCIC forces, though on the verge of expulsion at this writing, gravitates towards some form of the Three Worlds Theory and also tries to bring about a realignment that would group all opposed to ultra-leftism as the main danger in the communist movement. The New Voice, a staunchly pro-Three-Worlds group, has criticized the CP(M-L) and L.R.S. “unity committee” for using the international situation as a means of excluding forces who would otherwise struggle over political line differences. There are comparable doubts within the “pro-P.L.A. tendency” that this grouping that has arisen spontaneously happens to contain all of the best party-building forces, although our own collective has been the only vigorous advocate of struggling over party-building line with comrades outside of the pro-P.L.A. camp.
As we already suggested in our previous discussion of the relationship between party-building line and political line, we do not think that struggles over party-building line should be taking place only within each of these three historically-evolved groupings. To give a further explanation of our position, at this point, would only anticipate much of the material in the chapters that follow. Here we simply want to make it explicit that what we are urging, and seeking to assist, is the radical realignment of non-party forces, temporarily ignoring the international-situation-defined boundaries, to unite those who can cooperate in struggling out all our differences and taking up our other Party-building tasks.
This book is not the beginning of attempts to bring about such an alignment. That beginning was apparently made by the P.U.L., even before the pro-Three-Worlds and pro-P.L.A. forces split. Nor can this book possibly be the end of a struggle to regroup the non-party forces. In fact one of its shortest chapters is one of the most important: the one that calls for the publication of a theoretical journal devoted solely to continuing the struggle over party-building line.
The attempt to address such different segments of the communist movement in a single work makes this book somewhat difficult to follow. It vastly increases the number of questions that must be dealt with, and it sometimes takes the reader through polemics against mistaken views that he or she never held in the first place. We saw no practical way to avoid this weakness.
In addition, our polemics do not focus on the lines of one or two representative organizations. This is because the confusion and diversity of views on party-building line is so great that no such representative organization exists. In general, when explaining our differences with some other common position on a party-building question, we try to consider the arguments of those who appear to be the most serious and persuasive advocates of that position. In addition, we try to give examples of both the “left” and the right deviations on each important question, even on questions where the only influential deviation has been towards an ultra-left party-building line, in an attempt to help clear away some of the existing confusion on whether particular forms of opportunism are “left” or right.
It will become clear below why we consider the line that led to the formation of the existing parties to be an ultra-left party-building line. But identifying a main deviation in the communist movement overall also requires an analysis of the political lines and of the tactics in mass work of a myriad of organizations. For petty bourgeois communists who deviate from the correct line are not always consistent in their opportunism; vacillation and inconsistency can, and do, produce right opportunism in some areas of work while “leftism” emerges in others. Our own limitations have prevented us from developing an overall analysis of the prevalence of “leftism” and rightism in the U.S. communist movement. We do know that both types of deviations are significant enough here that it is not self-evident, to all with eyes to see, which is the more influential.
For comrades who have no doubt that right opportunism is the main danger, we note the following points which, among others, have caused us to reexamine the matter: (1) Neglect of theory can come from the “left,” particularly from anarcho-syndicalist influence, as well as from the right.[6] (2) Over-ambitious attempts by an unprepared “vanguard” to lead the mass movement are “left” errors, despite the commonplace that “building the mass movement” is always rightist. (3) The communist movement is, by and large, failing to lead and merge with the workers’ movement because of lack of credibility and inability to win workers over to our perspective, not because we have moved in so quietly and raise so few new ideas that we are indistinguishable from the masses of workers. (4) Relations between each major communist organization and other communists–often called “hegemonist”–manifest “left” sectarian abhorrence of compromise, refusal to be open to struggle and criticism, and elevation of every difference to “lines of demarcation,” not the unprincipled unity of right opportunists who compromise on everything to have us all join one big happy party.[7] (5) Until recently at least, reports in the communist press on mass work gave much attention to the “correctness” of the slogans of a “coalition” (e.g., “Fight national oppression”) and little to the problems of forging a real united front with reformist forces and correctly struggling for our views within the united front. (6) The idea of running presidential and congressional candidates– historically a favorite of right opportunists, mandatory for communists in most circumstances (if done correctly), and anathema to ultra-lefts[8]–is never even mentioned in our movement. (7) The Revolutionary Communist Party applies thinly-disguised dual-unionist trade union tactics, and the CP(M-L) took some less consistent steps in the same direction.
Nevertheless, we are not convinced that “left” opportunism is the main danger. We have seen too much right opportunism in the practice of some forces locally, and we see real signs of right opportunism among the emerging “anti-’left’ ” forces. Most such signs, in aspects of party-building line, are discussed in the body of this book. In addition, the PWOC at least, seems to accept the right opportunist essence of the Theory of Three Worlds’ concept of propping up weaker imperialists against the stronger, disagreeing only on which international forces are which. And, as those who were apparently being expelled from the OCIC as this book went to press pointed out, “the Trend’s” vagueness on the Soviet Union is tied to a tendency to underrate the danger of revisionism. This may be a natural reaction to ”lefts” always ”aiming the main blow” at reformists and revisionists while forgetting the bourgeoisie itself, but it our opinion it is a rightist reaction nonetheless.
Moreover, the “anti-’lefts’” vastly oversimplify things when they identify the Theory of Three Worlds as a line that is ultra-left in form because it is premised on a sharper struggle against revisionism (the USSR) than against the open imperialist superpower in which we live. That observation may be valuable in helping to understand why some forces accept the social-chauvinist line, but it raises a small part of that line to the predominant aspect. Most of the rationale for the “theory” is based on classic right opportunist reasoning about drawing forces that are in fact enemies into the united front by (1) ignoring an analysis of their class interests, (2) ignoring the costs of giving up proletarian independence and initiative, concessions that are necessary to forge the alliance called for, and (3) trying to stampede people into tactics of retreat by overstating the gravity of a situation facing them (in this case, the war danger). (See Peking Review #45 (1977).)[9]
On the question of “left” and right opportunism, we should say a few words about the Proletarian Unity League’s Two, Three Many Parties of a New Type?. This book is a very serious and ambitious attempt to examine the U.S. communist movement as a whole and the problems plaguing it. We found it extremely helpful in exposing some of the outright falsehoods about how to tell “leftism” from rightism, and in showing the real seriousness of “left” sectarianism in the communist movement. However, the book is weakened by over-reliance on examples, often the most blatant ones, to prove its case on the overwhelming hegemony of ultra-leftism among U.S. communists, rather than taking up the even more difficult task of proving that the examples are as typical as the P.U.L. believes. Equally important, and this is one reason why we fear the rise of rightist tendencies within what the P.U.L. calls the ”anti-’left’ reaction,” the comrades’ own solutions veer to the right–or at least leave the door open for right errors–on almost every question they address.[10] We examine some of these deviations in the chapters that follow.
(Note: Because of widespread confusion, which we shared, leading to the identification of many forms of “leftism” as right opportunism, we have prepared an internal document which attempts to outline the different forms opportunism can take. It is heavily footnoted to “classical” sources for further study. If we can, we will revise it for publication; but we will be happy to send a copy of the present document to comrades who request it.)
* * *
We conclude this introductory chapter with two more comments. First, in this book we polemicize quite sharply against the lines of other organizations, including several with which we would like to build comradely relations. Sharp public polemics do not signify a break, at least if they are based on a serious analysis of opposing arguments, rather than on mere name-calling. What they do mean is that the polemicizing party takes seriously its responsibility to identify and oppose erroneous lines and opportunist arguments, even if the promoters of those lines and arguments are not at all consolidated opportunists.
Second, the importance of comrades’ taking up party-building cannot be emphasized too strongly, especially in this period when the rise of revisionism in China and splits in the world communist movement give a special urgency to the study of many other questions as well. “Independents” in particular, trying to fight off demoralization and any doubts about the viability of communism itself, often want to retreat from the “hassles” of the communist movement and study independently these new developments and the basic questions which they raise. For that matter, some collectives, too, are still following U.S. communists’ decade-old pattern of wanting to quickly study, adopt a position on, and polemicize furiously about every new, important question that the flow of events continually raises. (At this date the leading candidate for the 1979 Demarcating Question of the Year is the historical role of Mao Tse-tung.) To these comrades we say, your duties to the working class demand a party spirit, demand partially foregoing individual attempts to satisfy yourselves on all the unsettling questions that have been–and will always be–raised. As the Wichita Communist Cell recently wrote to an extreme advocate of individual circles’ separately taking positions on each new question,
. . .[A]nd what after Mao Tse-tung Thought? What if imperialist war breaks out? Is the most important thing deciding questions on imperialist war? And what if there would be a revisionist take-over in the PLA–would this be the most important thing to deal with? What if after that our bourgeois “democracy” turns fascist–would the main thing be debates on the nature of fascism? What if all these things happened about the same time in the near future? If deciding these things were the main thing when we don’t have a party, how will building and actually forming the party and putting it firmly on its feet (Stalin) ever take place? Wouldn’t it be better to have a party which can decide lines on burning questions a thousand times better than we can now? When do we form the party in all this?
Though the question of how to build the proletarian party is not the only one communists should deal with now, it should receive such concentrated attention that every comrade becomes satisfied that he or she can answer it and joins an organized effort to carry out the work with forces who can agree on the situation and our tasks.
[1] Revolutionary Cause, 11/76, p. 11
[2] P.U.L., 2, 3, Many Parties of a New Type?: Against the Ultra-Left Line, p. 28. In later citations to this book, we simply refer to “P.U.L.”
[3] Ibid., pp. 44-45.
[4] P.U.L., pp. 80-82.
[5] Richard F. Starr, ed., Yearbook on International Communist Affairs: 1978 (Hoover Institution Press: Stanford, 1978), p. 419.
[6] This proposition will sound outrageous to some, for there is immense confusion on this question within our movement. Just the same, “left” opposition to theory has long been recognized internationally. In a very useful article, “The Objective and Subjective Factors in the Revolution,” (Albania Today, Jan.-Feb., 1973), Foto Cami wrote,
“In fact, some representatives of the “leftist” forces, irrespective of their subjective aims and objectives, also stand on a position of advocating spontaneity. They negate the necessity of theory, scientific consciousness, they rise against Lenin’s thesis that without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement, they deny the role of the vanguard armed with the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism, they oppose the necessity of working out clear political programmes, scientific strategy and tactics.”
For further study of “left” disdain for theory in favor of “action,” see Marx, letter to F. Bolte, in Marx, Engels, Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism (International Publishers: N.Y., 1972), p. 56; Marx and Engels, The Alliance of Socialist Democracy.., Ibid., p. 113; “Anarchism and Socialism,” LCW 5: 327-28; What is to be Done?, ibid., 511-13 & fn. on 513; “Revolutionary Adventurism,” LCW 6: 185-87; “Bellicose Militarism,” LCW 15: 195; ’“Left-Wing’ Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality,” LCW 27: 343; History of the CPSU(B), p. 116; “Introducing the Communist,” MSW II: 293.
In the event that a later writer upbraids us for stating that inattention to theory can be a manifestation of “left” opportunism, without quoting these sources and claiming that we have somehow misinterpreted them, we urge the reader to regard such an author as an obfuscator, not an honest polemicist.
[7] Has the reader ever tried explaining to a non-communist that one of the differences between Trotskyists and Marxist-Leninists is that Trotskyists continually split into competing organizations?
[8] See Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism–An Infantile Disorder.
[9] Thus the Bay Area Communist Union has not, as the PWOC claims, defected from the anti-“lefts” and thereby proven the instability of those who accept the supposedly “left” international line. The ideological foundations of that line fit their rightist united-front practice to a T, and a careful reading of their pamphlet Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, where they supposedly have switched to “revisionism as the main danger” among U.S. communists, shows that they have accomplished this switch only by accepting the Chinese revisionists’ decision to call ultra-leftism a form of revisionism.
[10] This is further confirmation that the Theory of Three Worlds, which the P.U.L. apparently supports in some measure, can appeal to those with right opportunist tendencies as well as to those who make fighting revisionism an end in itself.