No party-building question has proved more vexing for U.S. communists than the problem of what forces should unite in party-building efforts. Most of the existing parties, or the organizations which preceded them, moved in and out of liaison committees, continuations committees, and “revolutionary wings” with groups they thought they could unite with. Among the remaining non-party forces, there are three loose groupings in the movement, primarily defined by their analyses of the international situation. Within each of them there is struggle over whether or not to limit current party-building efforts to forces within their own section of the movement.
The question of which forces should ally in a party-building effort cannot be answered simply by saying, “We must unite our own section of the movement.” The history of the appearance of these groupings gives none of them a basis for confidence that all in that grouping are reliable party-building forces. Nor does the origin of these groups justify a conclusion by any of them that the work, experience, and different perspectives on all questions (there is, after all, more to study than the international situation) of everyone from another section would do more harm than good within a party-building network.
There should be a radical realignment of the non-party communists who are now grouped according to some aspects of international line. The starting point for identifying those Marxist Leninists who should unite to build a party is this: identify those who can agree on how to build a party. Any organization should include or exclude members only on the basis of unity on the group’s main goals and its methods for achieving them, along with some evidence of the reliability of those who profess agreement with the organization’s goals and methods.
As of this writing, both the forces in the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center and the majority of a group of collectives who agree generally with the line on the international situation put forward by the Party of Labor of Albania and others[1] are making an error, in fact the same error. Each wants to engage in party-building with forces that lack substantial agreement on party-building line, having relied on international line as their basis of unity. Each grouping is bound to split, for even if it plays a useful role in organizing struggle over party-building line among its constituent circles, some forces will inevitably not be won over to the majority line.
We remind comrades that an analysis of the international situation is not the first crucial unresolved question to be held up as the touchstone of revolutionary Marxism. In fact, in choosing such a touchstone, the anti-“left” forces, too, are borrowing a technique from the old ultra-left party-building line. At different times in the last few years, the instant, easy “line of demarcation” has been the nature of Soviet social-imperialism, whom to support in Angola, parts of the Black national question, and whether political line is key. Those who saw their positions on these issues as magic means of distinguishing friends from enemies generally remained at each others’ throats anyway. Yet this fact has created few doubts about whether the overall analysis of the international situation–as important as it is–can function any better as an automatic means of unifying honest communists and isolating serious opportunists.
What is needed–instead of this spontaneous acceptance of existing divisions over international line–is a struggle over party-building line that includes all of the non-party communists in the country, leading eventually to formation of a party-building organization by those who can agree on its goals and methods.
In Appendix B we state our own proposal for what this unity should be. It includes both an attempt to summarize the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism, since those state communists’ long-range goals and basic methods, and what we consider the correct answers to the main questions about the tasks of communists in a pre-party organization. In general we think that questions of party program should be settled within the network. Studying such questions is, after all, one of its principal tasks.
However, in order to exclude comrades who for now, at least, are so thoroughly subjective, confused, or opportunist as to predictably hold back the work of the network more than they could contribute to it or benefit from it, we do add some points which should be clear to all who are willing to look at facts. (We are not saying that everyone who should be in the network accepts these positions now; but we think that with a moderate amount of struggle, they should be won over during the period of struggle to form the network.) These are, essentially, (1) that the USSR is under the rule of revisionists who exploit and oppress their own people and play a counter-revolutionary role on a wide scale internationally; (2) that there is no justification for a tactical or strategic alliance between the U.S. proletariat and bourgeoisie, and (3) that the current Chinese leadership is, or may be,[2] revisionist. To be left open are the questions whether the USSR is social-imperialist, playing a consistently counter-revolutionary role or whether it carries out some progressive actions, based on an economic system that is still essentially socialist; whether the Theory of Three Worlds necessarily leads to a social-chauvinist alliance with the U.S. bourgeoisie;[3] and all other unsettled questions of political line.
Some comrades have said to us, “We need the highest level of unity possible, to weld the core that can later win over other honest forces.” Or they have asked, “How can you struggle against the Theory of Three Worlds if you include those who accept it, even if only in its less blatant versions?” Similar points have been raised among the “anti-’lefts,’” and comparable positions are probably influential among the pro-Three-Worlds-Theory communists outside of the parties. Such comrades are absolutizing one aspect of a contradiction that they do not even recognize.
The side which they do recognize is those truths long overemphasized by the “left” sectarian line in our movement: the higher the level of unity in an organization, then the greater its discipline, the more its members can rely on the work of each other, the faster it can respond to events, the less there is to settle before it moves to a higher form of organization, and the less it must deal with internal struggle over every move and decision. And, if its members are lucky enough to have been very consistent Marxist-Leninists to start with, they minimize the presence of opportunism in their organization.
The less-recognized aspect of the contradiction is this: the lower the level of unity, then the larger will be an organization’s forces; the better the control which the best elements will have over those who would be deviating if left to themselves; and the more the members can correct their own one-sidedness an particular forms of opportunism, through struggle with the views of others.
The contradiction cannot be avoided by simply asserting that the network will struggle with outsiders, too, so its members could learn from, and teach, other forces without being in the same organization with them. As a practical matter, the small group that can unite on a developed party-building line and the nature and role of the Soviet Union and whether the Theory of Three Worlds can be reconciled with internationalism will have its hands full doing whatever it is they thought they could accomplish with their highly unified core. They would do some polemicizing with other forces, of course, but without nearly the organization, intensity, and desire for and commitment to achieving unity that will be evident in struggles conducted within the network. First there are the obvious problems of priorities for the network’s resources, which would have to be resolved by concentrating on internal struggles over differences. Moreover, the lack of democratic centralism means that the organization would have difficulty polemicizing with other forces. Either it would have to take a great deal of time to unite on the polemic, or individual circles would have to polemicize separately, to the extent that they could without neglecting their network tasks. (We suspect that the truth of this prediction could be confirmed by members of the OCIC, who, understandably, do not seem to have much time for struggling with other forces.)
The contradiction between the advantages of a smaller, more unified group, and those of a larger one, with more and broader human resources and a broader audience for representatives of consistent Marxism-Leninism, can be resolved neither by insisting on “the highest level of unity,” nor by throwing the doors open to all who consider themselves Marxist-Leninists (a tendency towards which our collective deviated in an earlier draft of this book). An organization must be narrowed to those who can agree on what the real principles of Marxism-Leninism and who have genuine agreement on the organization’s tasks and basic methods of taking them up. We should also limit our forces to those who can recognize the truly obvious realities in the world mentioned above (on the U.S., the USSR, and the possibility of Chinese revisionism), but we should not require acceptance of positions that one would normally hold only by having been positioned in the part of a divided movement which was exposed to the best polemics on the question. Comrades should not try to restrict efforts to “our trend” or “our tendency,” as currently defined by international line, out of subjective sectarian impulses and fear of struggle. Doing so will diminish the organization’s resources; greatly diminish its ability to arrive at an all-sided and correct line, through struggle with those who have different experiences and different strengths and weaknesses; and greatly diminish its ability to involve, in its positive motion, forces which would otherwise play their part in the class struggle with their own deviations uncorrected.
Ideally, “lines of demarcation”[4] that resolve the problem should be based on a very concrete analysis of the different circles in the movement, not on abstract ideas about “what any honest communist ought to understand by now.” But the disorganization and divisions within the movement make all but the sketchiest of such analyses very difficult to develop. As far as we know, no one within “our tendency” (that agreeing with the P.L.A. international line) has had substantial contact with those who identify themselves as anti-“left” or “anti-dogmatist” for several years, and vice versa. (Our own initial contact with a few such forces, however, has shown us not only some sharp and serious differences, but some startling areas of apparent unity, often on matters on which there is broad unity within “our tendency” as well.) Nor do we, at least, have much real knowledge about the general grasp of Marxism-Leninism and openness to struggle of those still seeking to reconcile the Theory of Three Worlds with genuine internationalism. Moreover, many circles have no public presence at all and are unknown except to comrades who have accidentally come into contact with them. Thus our own attempt at drawing “lines of demarcation” is based on a combination of sketchy knowledge, and some inferences about what can and cannot be presumed to have been demonstrated to the more objective forces in this movement, given the nature of the debates that have taken place, events that are well known in the world, and the relative newness of some of the communist forces.
The level of unity that we do propose for a party-building network will be quite significant and will, in fact, take real struggle to achieve. Many comrades minimize the extent to which unity on a party-building line would narrow our forces to a group capable of being more consistent, objective Marxist-Leninists. In Appendix B, a statement of party-building principles that we propose as a basis for unity, we also state in brackets what common erroneous positions would thereby be excluded from the organization. The unity is much narrower than the current unity on party-building of any existing section of the movement. Moreover, the whole purpose and concept of the network imply a willingness to struggle, on the part of its members, that is rare in the U.S. communist movement. Furthermore, a unified application of Marxism-Leninism to the basic problems of party-building would itself reflect a certain degree of ideological unity, although line disagreements will still be sharp.
Nevertheless, while a statement of Marxist-Leninist principles and the essentials of a party-building line permit at least formal agreement on the main goals and methods of a party-building organization, we do think that it is necessary to go somewhat farther in trying to insure some reliability and objectivity among the comrades who join, which is why we add the points listed in part I.B of the proposed basis of unity. Those points mean that all in the network would agree on the basic internationalist duties of the U.S. proletariat, including opposition to the CP(M-L) line, agree that the social order run by the Soviet revisionists is not the kind of revolutionary society we seek to build and that its role in the world is far from consistently internationalist, and agree that it is at least possible that the C.P.C. leadership is also revisionist.
“Lines of demarcation” abound in this movement. Many of us are positive that we will not be in the same party with those who do not think as we do today on the international situation, the nature of the Soviet social system, the Black national question, basic trade union tactics, etc. Certainly these are all crucial questions, and there will come a point in the debate over each and the accumulation of experience, where few besides diehard opportunists will cling to an incorrect line on any such question. But we are nowhere near that point today. The poor quality of many of the polemics in this movement, the scattered nature of the topics covered by millions of words of such polemics, and the fact that few lines have yet been verified in practice here, all make it wrong for us to conclude that all those with an incorrect line are so opportunist that they should be excluded from the exchange of views and experiences and the struggle for unity.
Our standard for whether a position on a particular question of the application of Marxism-Leninism should be taken as a point to separate those who can contribute to party-building from those who, on balance, cannot, is based neither on how important the question is nor on how clear the answer is to us. The standard must be whether events in the world and ideological struggles in the communist movement can be said to have proven the correctness of the line in question to most communists who are open to struggle.
This standard has been met on very few questions in the United States. The communist movement has been so divided that in many cases comrades accepting incorrect lines have not even been exposed to good polemics for the correct line. The outpouring of so much polemical literature that no one could keep up with it, sectarian refusal to write good polemics (which take opposing arguments seriously enough to actually try to refute them), the frequent instances of one incorrect line being opposed mainly by another incorrect line, sectarian and slavish refusals to pay much attention to other groups’ writings, and the general total anarchy in which ideological struggle is conducted in this movement have all guaranteed the maintenance of the disunity, confusion, and acceptance of opportunist lines that abound here–well beyond that which is unavoidable because of the particular opportunist tendencies of individual comrades. Take the class character of the USSR, or the Black national question, for example. We have trouble seeing how anyone who opposes Soviet revisionism and its ruling group’s exploitation of the Russian people could doubt that the USSR is a bureaucrat-capitalist, imperialist country. Nor is it easy to understand how anyone could demand the “right” of about half the population in the old Black Belt area of the South to determine the destiny of all the inhabitants of the region. But we also know that many comrades have been left unexposed to persuasive arguments for the correct lines on these questions,[5] while possessing at least a plausible rationale for their own views.
Needless to say, different lines on such questions cannot coexist in one party. We cannot have one wing of the party pointing to “the internationalist assistance provided by socialist Cuba,” while another condemns purported attempts to export revolution that actually seek to establish a beachhead for Soviet neo-colonialism. Nor is this an issue on which the minority should subordinate itself to the majority; we cannot agitate for socialism without agreeing on what it is. The same goes for the Black national question. It is a matter of basic programmatic unity because no one should assist in promoting what they see as a social-chauvinist line.
But to say that the two lines cannot coexist in one party does not mean that communists beginning an extended process of settling these and other questions, and of otherwise building the party, cannot work together to do so. Though those with opportunist views on the class nature and international role of the USSR thereby show a likelihood of inclining towards opportunism on other questions, this one cannot be a “line of demarcation” for participation in the network for two reasons. First, as we have said before, the polemic on the question has not been fully unfolded in a way that means that all those with an incorrect line on it have had a good opportunity to have the errors pointed out to them, and yet still cling to those errors. Second, and partly because of the half-developed state of the polemics, there is no 100% correlation between having a fairly good or very bad grasp of this issue, and being able or unable to apply Marxism-Leninism to other problems facing us. Some comrades with an incorrect line on the international situation, who may be won over sooner or later, may have a great deal to contribute to the solution of other questions. And certainly within the anti-Three-Worlds, anti-social-imperialist “camp” at least, there are forces which do agree on the international situation but which have such major differences on other questions that they regard each other as serious opportunists.
The movement will only be unified if a tendency forms which is willing to organize the struggle over the international situation, the national question, and other crucial issues. One sectarian alternative is that generally taken by those who believe, or believed, that “political line is the key link”: each organization, large or tiny, must develop its own partial program through internal study and summing up its own practice. We have nothing against comrades’ studying political line questions on their own when there is no more organized way to take them up, but the “political-line-is-key” view assumes that a group will then look for eventual unity with those with whom it can match up programs. The inevitable corollary is that the circle’s political line positions should be used as “lines of demarcation” to show who is too “dishonest” to even bother to draw into patient struggle in this pre-party period, despite the absense of the experience and organized and effective line struggle required to win most honest revolutionaries over to correct lines. (Alternatively, of course, such formations as the OCIC could follow the old path of unifying in a democratic-centralist form and relying on a designated “center” to decide unresolved programmatic questions, without “interference” from other forces, after using one or two political line questions and some shared general critiques of other groups as a basis of unity.)
A party needs its program–those who accept democratic centralism in the work of winning the proletariat to certain “aims and objects” and the means of attaining them must agree on those aims and objects and methods. But our “aims and objects,” in this period, should be to struggle over those programmatic questions and tactical lines; try different ones in practice–as we must while we disagree; learn from others’ experiences as well as from our own; and begin the scientific study of U.S. society in its imperialist decline. Without unity on a political program, we should certainly not form a fully disciplined, party-like organization, but we can form a party-building network.
Incidentally, now is as good a time as any to point out the consistency with which communists have misused a quotation from Lenin about lines of demarcation, with a unanimity that runs from the old “Revolutionary Wing” to the “anti-dogmatist” Steering Committee of the OCIC. All who are ready to anoint their own section of the movement as the “genuine” Marxist-Leninists and justify walling themselves off from serious struggle with others reprint these words: “Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation.”[6]/p>
Well, here it is, right? V.I. Lenin says that it would be a mistake to unite in a joint party-building project without first demarcating the genuine from the sham Marxists.
Wrong.
In 1900, when the Economist deviation[7] was influential among Russian communists, Lenin was saying that the communists could not yet unite in a party. First they had to struggle–together–to resolve their differences where possible, and to draw lines of demarcation between consistent Marxism and opportunism, so that they could form that party. Here is the entire passage: /p>
..We Russian Social-Democrats must unite and direct all our efforts towards the formation of a strong party. . .. What plan of activity must we adopt to revive the Party on the firmest possible basis?
The reply usually made to this question is that it is necessary to elect anew a central Party body and instruct it to resume the publication of the Party organ. But in the period of confusion through which we are now passing, such a simple method is hardly expedient.
To establish and consolidate the party means to establish and consolidate unity among all Russian Social-Democrats, and, for the reasons indicated above [“an ideological wavering. . . an infatuation with the fashionable ’criticism of Marxism’ and with ’Bernsteinism,’ the spread of the views of the so-called ’economist’ trend” (p. 352)]. such unity cannot be decreed, it cannot be brought about by a decision, say, of a meeting of representatives; it must be worked for. In the first place, it is necessary to work for solid ideological unity. . . and to this end it is, in our opinion, necessary to have an open and all-embracing discussion of the fundamental questions of principle and tactics raised by the present-day “economists,” Bernsteinians, and “critics.” Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation. Otherwise, our unity will be purely fictitious, it will conceal the prevailing confusion and hinder its radical elimination./p>
The Declaration went on to explain that the Iskra newspaper would contribute to this process by expressing its editors’ points of view on all questions of principle and by providing space in its columns for others’ polemics./p>
The Economist and Bernsteinian deviations were extremely serious turns away from revolutionary Marxism. They were certainly no more tolerable within a communist party than a view of the world that could lead to social-chauvinism, than a sentimental unwillingness to analyze a superpower’s actions in light of the interests of a social-imperialist ruling class, or than serious ultra-leftism. But Lenin’s plan was to conduct a line struggle with the exponents of anti-Marxist deviations among the Russian Marxists, in order to either win them over or defeat their considerable influence among communists and class-conscious workers. Conducting this struggle was what Lenin called drawing lines of demarcation. He did not say, “To hell with the Economists and those under their sway, let’s demarcate them out of our efforts to build the party and set up forms where we consistent Marxists can talk to ourselves.”/p>
Naturally, with this approach, not everyone involved in the party-building struggles that culminated in the Second Congress left that Congress as a member of the Party, though Iskra’s defeat of Economism obviously increased the ranks of those who were won to the correct line. But there is an extremely important lesson in this. If party-building is a process, U.S. communists, too, can engage in it without guarantees that all who now join to struggle for unity will succeed, and it is fortunate that we can do so. There are no such guarantees, and the futile pursuit of them, through refusal to see in party-building itself a process of drawing lines of demarcation, would lead to one more unnecessarily narrow grouping of forces going its own way, guided not only by its members’ common strengths, but by their unchallenged common weaknesses as well./p>
Separate polemics must be addressed to each section of the non-party communists, as to why those who agree with part of them on party-building line but still have some important differences on international questions are fit to work closely with in party-building. We will not attempt such polemics in the present book. Here we merely remind our “pro-P.L.A.” friends that members of “the Trend” opposed the Theory of Three Worlds and its social-chauvinist implications long before we did, even if partly for the wrong reasons; that at least some of them are quite critical of the Soviet revisionists and their role in the world but are unable to grasp how capitalism could be restored without the legal forms of private ownership of the means of production; that to the extent that they were exposed to our polemics and Peking Review articles on social-imperialism–and many were not–our arguments were discredited by being connected to a Three Worlds Theory that even then justified a leaning towards the U.S. imperialists; and that in these circumstances these comrades’ regrettable reliance on the Guardian and the Organizer for “objective” reporting of world events is understandable and, for some, remediable./p>
Similarly, we point out to “Trend” comrades that it is not totally unreasonable that we and many other Marxist-Leninists–here and worldwide–believe that the revisionist bureaucrats and managers in the USSR, whose benefits and privileges are the fruits of the labor of the Russian working people, have discovered a new kind of capitalism, not a new kind of socialism; that it is quite possible that even the “progressive” actions of such a group internationally are aimed at serving their own material interests and often succeed in doing so; that beliefs of the communists who hold this view are based on published facts–or at least alleged facts–not, as the PWOC has claimed, on a dogmatic belief that the rise to power of revisionism logically proves the rise to power of the bourgeoisie; that we firmly oppose the Theory of Three Worlds and any suggestion of alliance or even a “soft line on” the U.S. or any other imperialists; and that we are as unexposed to any serious polemics supporting your views as you are to ours./p>
As for the inconsistent upholders of the Theory of Three Worlds, they should not be surprised that when the Communist Party of China and its affiliated party here believe that the Theory of Three Worlds calls for “a strong United States,” identifies the U.S. as “a force for peace,” and attacks the less enthusiastic bourgeois supporters of imperialist war preparations as “appeasers,” that many of the rest of us also believe that your theory leads to these policies. But other comrades should not overlook the fact that the Three Worlds Theory has a certain vitality because of the prestige of Mao Tse-tung and because of the theory’s ability to highlight oppressed nations’ struggles and other real phenomena in the world (while twisting such phenomena to make the secondary aspect–like real contradictions between the West European and U.S. imperialists–into the primary aspect); the fact that at least some of these comrades do in general support internationalism and oppose social-chauvinism; and the fact that little attention has been paid to exposing this “centrist” line./p>
The point we are making is not, of course, that all these points of view are correct, or even that the erroneous ones are relatively harmless and should remain free from attack. We do hold that, under the conditions and methods by which our movement has divided over these issues, it is possible to hold a deviant line today without being constitutionally wedded to serious opportunism. This is why the deviations should be attacked, not left free to do their damage. And the best way to attack them now is struggle within an organization, one of the purposes of which is to conduct such struggle./p>
Therefore, to comrades who ask, “How can we struggle against the Theory of Three Worlds if we unite with people who think it can be reconciled with internationalism?” or “How can we struggle against the ultra-left line if we unite with people who have not completely broken with it?”, our reply is this: “Better.” You can struggle better because the anti-Theory-of-Three-Worlds forces or the anti-“lefts” do not need to close themselves up in separate organizations, any more than the consistent Marxists in Russia needed to make Iskra a paper that Economists and their followers could not contribute to and, therefore, would not read. The struggle against an erroneous line is precisely the struggle to win other comrades away from that line, while taking the correct line to the workers. Such struggles can be carried out within a single party-building network, where the polemics will be serious and organized and the goal will be unity. Some in the network will not be won over to the correct line on all questions, but as the contradictions are sharpened and die-hards move to a more consolidated opportunist stance, there will be time enough then for a split. In the meantime, however, more comrades will be won over to the correct line than if we limit the struggles to a pre-network or outside-of-the-network setting.
There is more than a kernel of truth to many comrades’ idea about rallying the few best forces among U.S. communists. But, to an important extent, the proposed network itself does this. And beyond that, the best forces among those in the network can collaborate to play an objectively leading role, just as the editors of Iskra collaborated among themselves when they used that paper for a common effort among Economists and consistent Marxists to struggle out differences. Remember, this is not a party that we are talking about, where separate lines of communication between different circles are the first step to factionalism. It is a transitional form to the party, from the anarchy of separate circles. And if we and some other comrades form a loose bloc to coordinate our attempts to prove the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, or the PWOC and others form such a bloc to struggle for the deformed workers’ state analysis of that country, or the P.U.L. and others collaborate in trying to prove their critique of “left” sectarianism in the movement, such collaboration, conducted in a principled manner, can only help organize the debates and raise their level. But no one needs their own party-building organization just to struggle for such views.
We return to this issue below, as we examine the question of how leadership or an ideological center will develop, but first we must examine certain concepts about opportunism and lines of demarcation.
Our differences on whom to unite with boil down to this: the predominant line says, “First we look for the genuine forces to unite with, then we worry about what to do”; we say, “First struggle over what is to be done, then unite those willing and able to do it.” The first line rests on a mistaken conception of opportunism and how to fight it.
A large number of comrades who do not agree that people with major political line differences can join in a common party-building effort do not fully understand what real lines of demarcation are. Somewhere they have gotten the impression that opportunism is a very static and “either-or” sort of a thing. Either you have it, and you cannot be worked with, or you are 98% free of it and should be united with. And to find out, all we need are certain test questions–lines of demarcation–to see whether you are infected or immune. The MLOC, even in the days when it admitted the magnitude of our theoretical tasks and the degree of confusion in our movement on political line, was sure that you could demarcate communists from revisionists on the basis of whether they demanded a right of secession for Black people in the Black Belt South. For the original “revolutionary wing,” it was some aspects of party-building line. For many today, it is the international situation.
The view of opportunism that this concept of lines of demarcation corresponds to has been exemplified in many other ways as well. The A.T.M. used to write of building a party “free from opportunism.” The W.V.O. thought we could “innoculate” ourselves against revisionism with “anti-revisionist premises.” MLOC representatives told us that their soon-to-be-published line on the Chicano National Question would draw another line of demarcation. Though they had no idea how widely it would be studied, how adequate their propaganda would turn out to be in explaining and defending it, how firm a grip on the movement bourgeois ideology has on the subject, or whether they could be shown weaknesses in their own line in the course of struggle, they obviously felt true Marxist-Leninists would go for it, opportunists would reject it, and that would be that.
Finally, last year we struggled with other comrades about who should be united in a Marxist-Leninist coalition to deepen study of the international situation and oppose the CP(M-L) line. The question of inviting the participation of the MLOC and the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists arose. We all agreed that these organizations are pursuing seriously opportunist lines in important areas of their work. But our own view was that they could each contribute to the struggle for an internationalist line within the movement and should therefore be invited to participate. They could always be expelled later for any seriously disruptive practice, if necessary. The other comrades saw the work as a crucial way of unifying the honest communists in this movement. Most of them believed, at one and the same time, that the struggle over the Theory of Three Worlds would create the honest, party-building trend in the movement and also that the MLOC, the COUSML, and other strictly opportunist forces were also encamped on the proletarian internationalist side of this line of demarcation. Hoping for deeper unity, they were totally uncomprehending of the notion that organizations characterized by serious opportunism should be invited to join in the work. What we could not (and cannot) understand is how joint work of those united on an analysis of the international situation would automatically group the true party-building forces, if it was already known that some with that analysis had to be excluded.
This whole conception of opportunism and lines of demarcation is wrong on four counts. First, according to this metaphysical view, no quantitative distinctions are recognized–either you are an opportunist or not. Second, despite what people may say about things changing and developing, their belief that we must “demarcate” all opportunists out of whatever we are doing–party-building, opposing the Theory of Three Worlds, etc.–reflects an assumption that no one changes, that no one can be won away from their opportunist errors. Third, and following from the first two, is the hope of freeing ourselves and our organizations from opportunism by keeping out opportunists, as if the two-line struggle will not be with us as long as we have class society. Finally, no distinction is made between an organization’s leaders, who are likely to be most consolidated in the line they are actively developing and struggling for, and its members, who will sometimes be more open.
Those who recognize no quantitative distinctions, who see lines of demarcation as tests for separating Marxist-Leninists from opportunists– period–must surely wonder why Lenin made judgments such as these:
[Participants in the RSDLP’s Second Congress broke down into] four groups: 1) consistent revolutionary Social-Democrats; 2) minor opportunists; 3) middling opportunists; and 4) major opportunists (major by our Russian standards).[8]
In Russia–as usual–people have been found who have made it their business to enlarge on a little opportunist error and develop it into a system of opportunist policy.[9]
Rosa Luxemburg cannot, of course, be classed with the Liebmans, Yurkeviches and Semkovskys [previously described as “nationalist philistines, who are engaged in splitting the ranks of the proletariat”], but the fact that it was this kind of people who seized upon her error shows with particular clarity the opportunism she has lapsed into.[10]
Rosa Luxemburg was mistaken on the question of the independence of Poland; she was mistaken in 1903 in her appraisal of Menshevism; she was mistaken on the theory of the accumulation of capital; she was mistaken in July, 1914, when together with Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Kautsky and others, she advocated unity between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks; she was mistaken in what she wrote in prison in 1918 (she corrected most of these mistakes at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919 after she was released). But in spite of her mistakes she was–and remains for us–an eagle. And not only will Communists all over the world cherish her memory, but her biography and her complete works. . . will serve as useful manuals for training many generations of Communists all over the world.[11]
. . . the notorious Akimov, . . .an extreme opportunist...[12]
.. .[L]et us quote. . . Otto Bauer, who also has his own “pet little point”–“cultural and national autonomy” [against which Lenin and Stalin struggled furiously]–but who argues quite correctly on a large number of most important questions.[13]
Opportunism is any form of putting one’s own short-term interests, or those of a small group, above the long-term interests of the international proletariat. The adherents of an incorrect line on a political question generally deviate not only away from what the proletariat requires, but towards some narrow, short-term interest or need of their own. If they are willing to look at a problem objectively and evaluate it from a proletarian class stand, rather than being swayed by their wishes, fears, or selfish interests, they can be shown their errors fairly readily. Others, those with more significant opportunism to be struggled against, are less willing to see and correct their mistakes; and they make them over a broader range of issues. Then there can be increasingly greater degrees of resistance to change, consistency in opportunist views, resort to equivocal statements and dishonest methods of argument, and use of factional means of struggle, culminating in the “extreme opportunist.” Consistent opportunists serve the bourgeoisie, not the proletariat, whether they want to or not.[14] Obviously, quantitative increases in opportunism reach qualitative significance, and at some point forces become those who would hold back the work more than help it, even considering the possibility of winning them over in the long run or the tactical benefits of continuing work with them long enough to better expose them before others. But this fact is a far cry from saying that opportunism on this or that question–even granting the ultimate importance of the question–makes people the kind of thorough-going opportunists who should be “demarcated” from our party-building efforts on the basis of their opportunism per se.
Second, comrades do change their views and recognize their mistakes. This is why Lenin and others wrote so many polemics aimed at winning at least rank and file communists away from opportunist lines, and why Mao called for criticism aimed at “curing the disease to save the patient.” The histories of the Russian, Chinese, and Albanian parties all provide examples of the defeat of serious opportunist lines. This is why internal struggle is a constant feature of the life of every vital party, and why even very important disputes are generally settled by the minority submitting to the majority and lower bodies to higher bodies. For if the metaphysical view of opportunism were adopted (i.e., that if opportunism is there at all, it is primary and permanent), then differences would be constantly solved by expulsions, purges, and splits, not by trying to maintain the united action and united testing of a line by both those who uphold the correct line and “the opportunists.” For why not just get rid of “the opportunists” once they are exposed? Yet the leadership of the three parties named above all worked hard to keep quite serious struggles within their parties, before resorting to expulsions or splits.
The third part of the metaphysical picture of opportunism, that we can keep opportunism out of our parties and organizations if only we do enough “demarcating,” is equally wrong. Lenin and Mao explained why in bourgeois society–and in new socialist societies–both the ideological and the material pressure of the bourgeoisie on the people and the party is enough to cause constant intra-party struggle between proletarian and bourgeois or petty-bourgeois outlooks. We are all subject to opportunist influence; it is as wrong to look at ourselves metaphysically as flawless, consistent Marxist-Leninists as it is to look at all those with whom we differ as fatally flawed, consistent opportunists. Comrades should know from their own experience–in a movement already fragmented into organizations tiny enough to have a high level of internal unity–that splitting away from the most broadly-conceived categories of opportunism still does not free communist groups from internal struggle between at least one objectively opportunist line and (we hope) the proletarian line on each important question.
Finally, there is the leadership-membership distinction, which we discussed at length in our pamphlet Learning From Past Mistakes. . .. That distinction should not be absolutized, for those who receive their training in a given organization are often unreceptive to others’ criticisms of its line, and they have often internalized its whole ideological approach. On the other hand, the distinction should not be overlooked. Comrades who cannot think of working with, say, the authors of the Guardian positions on party-building, or the PWOC’s articles, or the Workers Congress’s positions, must remember that the price of avoiding those whom they consider serious opportunists is denial of access to whatever misled members can be won over. And some could be won over, with good ideological struggle, while events that verify some correct lines unfold in practice and in the world at large.(This is why we lay such heavy stress on the organizational principle of the network that requires all comrades in participating groups to read and discuss documents promoting the different positions on major controversies within the network. To defeat opportunism it is necessary to reach more than the leading promoters of the opportunist lines.)
The point of this discussion of opportunism is not to minimize its danger. Serious opportunists in the revolutionary camp have long functioned as “better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself.” We know that Engels complained of having spent most of his life in struggles with other socialists, that a high proportion of Lenin’s works were polemics against opportunist lines, and that right and “left” opportunist leaders led the Chinese party and people into a series of disasters. For that matter, probably 80% of the present book is directed against the views of other communists, views that we consider objectively opportunist and damaging to the proletarian movement.
But the fact remains that the discovery of opportunism in other comrades does not even begin to settle the question of whether and how to work with them. Therefore disagreement with one or another (or even several) important programmatic points does not settle the question either. In a party where communists must agree on the proletariat’s goals, on agitation and propaganda concerning those goals, and on the most basic issues of with whom, and on what terms, the working class should unite to seek them, obviously such points must be lines of demarcation. In a movement–or a part of a movement–that has been unable to come to grips with a way of solving those and other questions–they must not be lines of demarcation.
Many comrades who agree with this would still question formation of a party-building organization without limiting it to those who agree on either “left” or right opportunism as the main current danger to our movement. We think that this is an extremely important question and should be taken up as soon as possible, but our own experience as victims of the confusion that has been sown in this movement on what are “left” and right errors convinces us that in large measure it is a question which should be taken up within the network, rather than used to narrow it in the beginning to those with a certain view.
The question of what lines on party-building itself are right opportunist and “left” sectarian should definitely be taken up in the context of the struggle over party-building line, a struggle that must precede formation of the network. For as we struggle for the correct line, we should struggle to understand the nature of the deviations. Inability to achieve general unity on the nature of the deviations would reflect lack of firm unity on a correct party-building line as well.[15] But the conditions that permit taking up this question are absent for demanding clarity on whether the main political line deviations (e.g., on the national question, the international situation, the development of fascism) and erroneous methods of mass work are “left” or right. As valuable as such clarity would be, the demand for it is simply a disguised form of the premise that “political line is key” and that communists should either merge or avoid each other, depending on their programmatic and tactical views as they exist today. For how can one’s overall view of the extent of “left” and right deviations exist apart from views on the correct line on every question considered? What we need is an organization for members committed to study and struggle over political line questions in an organized way–which includes struggling over what is “left,” correct, and rightist–not yet another narrower, tighter organization composed of people who are already sure that they have all the answers and cannot do much with those who have different answers.
This is proven by a deep contradiction in the very form of the P.U.L. book. On the one hand, the comrades argue forcefully that “political line is not key” and in fact even see a party forming with room for an amazing degree of internal disagreement on political line. Yet on the other hand, they call for the building of an anti-“left”-sectarian trend. And how do they seek to prove that “left” sectarianism is the main danger in the movement? In part by showing the prevalence of a voluntarist, “left,” party-building line, and in part by pages and pages of trying to show “left” sectarianism in political and tactical lines of different communist organizations. We were unable to study their book without getting deep into the national question, the woman question, the united front, etc.–matters which they and we supposedly agree should be taking a back seat until the struggle over party-building line permits the movement (P.U.L.’s view), or a section of it (our view), to take up the questions together in an organized way!
Moreover, as a practical matter, we know of some circles which we think tend towards “left” deviations and others which make right ones–and which, respectively, consider right and “left” opportunism to be the main danger–which nonetheless express very similar views on the need for theory, the need for genuine forms of practice, and the need to centralize the ideological struggle and share experience. And some, at least, have shown the kind of openness to struggle and self-critical attitude towards their own work that signify that struggle for unity could be worthwhile. Such forces should not be split on the basis of present inability to agree on the main danger.
One reason our party-building line permits leaving the overall relative prevalence of rightism and ultra-leftism unresolved is that it does not define party-building as destruction of this or that form of opportunism. Too many comrades have defined party-building as “making a break with” revisionism or with ultra-leftism, without explicitly elaborating a positive plan for the work of party-building. This is backwards; one cannot find the way forward just by firmly resolving to avoid the obstacles that have diverted others from the correct path. One must first find the correct path, though seeing the route others have travelled does help in discovering that path. Then the deviations which others have made from it can be assessed, and further analysis of those deviations can help prevent repetition of the same mistakes.
This is why it should be understood that it is ultra-left to try to be a ready-made vanguard of the working class, to expect to take truly effective “action” in mass work without being patient enough to develop theory dealing with our concrete conditions, to limit treatment of members of competing groups to “exposing” them before one’s own members and the workers, and to organize as a party long before the preconditions for democratic centralism have been met. And it is, after all, deviations on party-building line that have done the most damage to our movement, including making it difficult to rectify opportunism on political line.
The fact remains, however, that opposition to “leftism” or rightism as the main danger overall–in party-building line and political line and style of work–is not a plan for party-building, nor is it a necessary part of such a plan. Therefore questions of the relative prevalence of “left” and right opportunism in political line can be reserved for struggle within a network that does have a party-building plan.
Our belief that the relative incidence of “left” and right political and tactical lines can be assessed as comrades try to develop correct lines is reinforced by a peculiarity of the U.S. communist movement’s current situation: neither deviation is insignificant today. Therefore comrades do need to understand and recognize both forms that opportunism takes. (The Russian communists, too, often had to wage “the fight on two fronts–against the Right deviation and against the ’Left’ deviation.”[16]) We doubt that dealing with one or another group’s possible preoccupation with what is in fact the secondary danger would be a serious waste of the network’s time, since the secondary danger, too, must be understood. Moreover, it would be better to risk spending extra time on such questions than to risk grouping only those forces who are so clear on what they consider the primary danger that they neglect what is secondary but real.
One can take this too far, of course. We are not trying to make a virtue out of ignorance or justify our own lack of a position. Many forces within the network will, of course, have definite views as to what is the main danger in the movement, and some will take initiative in seeking to combat that danger within the network itself. But the point is that this is one of those questions over which all those who have enough ideological unity to similarly assess our tasks should struggle together, not one that need narrow the circle of those who will seek to organize the line struggle, exchange of practical experiences, and so on.
* * *
Why, then, if so many questions are to be left for struggle within the network, do we suggest previous unity on revisionism and oppression in significant foreign and domestic policies of the USSR, opposition to the Chinese and CP(M-L) type of alliance with the U.S. bourgeoisie, and openness to the possibility of the rise of revisionism in China? Because we think that these positions meet the standard for lines of demarcation set forth above. It does not take a lot of polemical struggle for comrades with even a moderately good grasp of Marxism-Leninism and moderate objectivity to accept these positions. Events in the world have demonstrated their correctness to anyone conceivably reliable enough in their politics to contribute to the work of a party-building organization. Furthermore, as a practical matter, explicit unity on these points would make it much easier for comrades who agree on party-building line to trust each other enough to break out of their own international-line-determined sector of the movement, to work with others. For now many “pro-P.L.A.” people would be surprised to learn that many ”Guardian-types” include opposition to Soviet revisionism in their own points of unity, while many anti-“lefts” do not know that there is firm and consistent opposition to the CP(M-L) international line among forces who do believe that there is another imperialist superpower in the world, besides the one which it is our duty to destroy. Finally, many in both camps forget that there are “Three-Worlders” who oppose any worldwide united front with the U.S. bourgeoisie. For such forces to work together, explicit reminders that there are limits to our disunity would be important.
Hearing both our opposition to premature use of democratic centralism and our call for a network that does not really try to use political line questions to weed out opportunists in advance, some comrades think that we believe that all views will be equally correct, that all comrades will be able to make an equal contribution. We believe no such thing.
Once a party-building network develops and begins its work, all previous communist history tells us that there will be serious line struggle within it. Definite groupings will probably evolve, as they often do even in parties. Leadership will develop within the network as well.
Many comrades–in totally different sections of today’s movement–now raise the question of creating an ideological center. (We refer to the groups forming the OCIC, and to the Wichita Communist Cell and the Kansas City Revolutionary Workers Collective, two “pro-P.L.A.” groups.) We think that those who speak of creating such a center pose the question incorrectly.
As those with unity on party-building organize to take up our tasks, the law of uneven development means that here and there some comrades and some local groupings will emerge to play a more active role, develop a correct line more consistently, and win people over to that line more articulately and energetically. (Such “leadership” will also develop among those who more consistently take opportunist positions. The task of the better forces will be to defeat their influence, which is possible if their followers are in the same party-building network, rather than under the sole sway of the opportunists.) Just as, in the heat of class struggle, some unusually committed and talented workers develop their skills as leaders, so our leaders will emerge as our tendency in the movement takes up its tasks.
There are things we can do to encourage this process. We should urge all comrades to direct their attention to the problems facing the movement as a whole. We can give members of our own groups who show leadership potential work assignments that will help them to develop further, as well as firm criticism to help them overcome their weaknesses. In addition, we should pay enough attention, in an open-minded manner, to the work produced by other circles so that we can recognize good leadership as it develops. Among the various people with some of the qualities of good leaders, we can only identify those who are politically reliable by observing their work, carefully considering the points raised by their opponents, and watching for results that show that they can solve the problems facing communists.
In this manner, we can and should create the best conditions for the development of leadership in a party-building organization. Contributions will not be equal, and whatever unity develops will arise only as the result of struggle to defeat the influence of incorrect views. (This is why, in Chapter II, we stated that the members of task forces assigned to theoretical work should represent different viewpoints that emerge in the network, and that much of their work should be carried out in full view of the entire organization.) Perhaps leaders of the struggle for the correct line will emerge who are so consistent and effective that they function as much as a center as Lenin’s Iskra group did in Russia, perhaps not.
For now, more able comrades can try to provide leadership, and we can all work to create the conditions in which leaders will develop. Beyond this, however, we think that the current groping for ways to create a center is voluntarist, an attempt to wish our own Lenins into being. At best, trying to concoct plans for developing a reliable center is a distraction from the work out of which leaders will really develop. At worst, real attempts at a shortcut to such development would just reincarnate, in some form, the premature adoption of centralized leadership implemented by today’s parties.
Neither the OCIC forces nor the Kansas comrades have stated publically what they have in mind, but a few things we have heard or read make us think that both are contemplating organizational measures which invest major leadership powers in yet another central committee chosen on the basis of apparently showing some leadership ability beforehand. Certainly some OCIC members envision creating a leading circle for the larger group of “anti-’left’” forces. (See, e.g., Clay Newlin’s references to “the building of a single genuine ideological center for the emerging Marxist-Leninist trend.”[17])
Other comrades, who are unconnected to the “ideological center” proposals but who see a network without a designated center as anarchistic, have even reminded us of Lenin’s statements about the party developing from the top down, speaking of the Iskra group’s role in unifying the Russian communists.[18] What they forget is that no one elected that group as a center and gave it authority in advance to decide questions for the movement. Its role as a center came from its ability to convince members of other circles of the correctness of its line, on each question, in open ideological struggle. It is likely that such leadership will eventually be asserted within a U.S. party-building organization, too. But the last thing this movement needs is one more Marxist-Leninist “pre-party” that has skipped to the party form and thinks that it is Leninist democratic centralism to choose leaders to elaborate programmatic line.
On the other hand, there seems to be a contrary tendency among both proponents of an ideological center (the OCIC, and the Kansas circles), to think not only that a group of circles can create an ideological center, but to see the organization of circles as the center itself. This may not be the real plan of anyone, but all the vagueness on what an ideological center would be permits this broader conception to creep into discussions of “lines of demarcation.” There it justifies the “left” sectarian line on who should unite. For if, say, the entire OCIC or the entire group of collectives that oppose both the Three Worlds line and Soviet social-imperialism is to be transformed into an ideological center, then in come all the arguments of “We need the highest level of unity possible,” “We need those with the most consistent grasp of Marxism-Leninism,” “How can we fight the XYZ line if we let those who conciliate with it into the Center?,” etc. But we have answered all these points already, and comrades should guard against any confusion of the issue by suggestions that an entire nationwide organization can itself be a leading circle.
A leading circle will inevitably develop within a larger pre-party network, and it will require “the highest level of unity.” At the same time, the entire pre-party organization, if it carries out its work effectively, will eventually play a leading role in the entire communist movement and increasingly draw comrades away from the organizations that combine Marxism-Leninism with serious opportunism. But confusing that function with those to be fulfilled by a leading circle only serves to perpetuate the ultra-left demand for a narrow basis of unity for an entire pre-party organization.
If we are less fearful than others of letting those who appear to be opportunists join a pre-party organization, it is in part because we have no illusions about the entire organization being capable of functioning as an ideological center. It is also because we know that joining the party-building network will not be a ticket to party membership. (See p. 116, above.) There will be splits–that is unavoidable. But we are split up already. The question is whether we remain split, according to our present international-situation groupings, before struggling to overcome differences, or whether we later break with a smaller number of proven incorrigible opportunists. For, if history is any guide, the organization we call for can eventually develop ideological and programmatic unity among many of the forces who at present have widely divergent views on the questions the network will have to take up, if it applies the science of Marxism-Leninism, the practical experience of its members and of the proletariat internationally, and principled and systematic methods of struggle.
The P.C. demand for a broad enough network to permit such struggle to take place does not, therefore, come from any misconceptions about all comrades’ views having equal validity. What we do favor is an equal right to be heard, and to be won over, on the part of all who unite on basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and the correct solutions to the problems of party-building and some easily-seen basics of the international situation. It is that equality that will encourage the development of the most all-sided and correct line and unite the greatest number of comrades on it, not the attempt to find shortcuts to unity through pre-existing “lines of demarcation” which identify sections of the movement that exist largely for historical reasons.
The question of whom to unite with in party-building should not be answered by automatically accepting the existing divisions among the non-party communist circles and individuals. Nor should those divisions be justified by the one-sided argument that we need the highest level of unity possible, or that we can and must build a center “free of opportunism.” What organizations need agreement on is their aims and methods.
In other words, what is essential is unity on basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and a well-developed line on how a consistently Marxist-Leninist party can be built (and the nature of the major deviations on this question). Beyond this, a very few positions are so clear from well-known facts, to those with the most basic grasp of Marxism-Leninism, regardless of what their practical experience has been and what part of the communist press they read, that these positions can be used to screen out communists or would-be communists who are unquestionably too subjective, confused, or opportunist to contribute to a network’s work. We think that those positions are that the U.S. proletariat should support liberation movements against the U.S. imperialists and should itself struggle to overthrow those imperialists, not support strengthening their military power; that the revisionists in the USSR have created an oppressive and exploitative society internally, and they frequently act in a great-nation chauvinist and counter-revolutionary way internationally; and that it is at least possible that the present leadership of the Communist Party of China is also revisionist.
Unity on answers to the main questions of party-building will be difficult to achieve. It will be a truly significant level of unity, and it will reflect the development of some degree of ideological unity as well. But the disunity within the network we propose will still be very great. The problems caused by such disunity would be outweighed by the organized interchange among more varied points of view. Such an interchange will permit correcting the weaknesses of the best forces, while placing those forces where they can best defeat the influence of opportunist lines among many or most members of the organization.
Many comrades, in each section of the movement, assume that the way forward is to group forces with the highest level of unity, so that they can build the party, unhindered by opportunism. Various political questions have been used to group forces this way in the past; now it is that of the character and relative roles of the two superpowers. Justification for sticking to the existing groupings, which did not coalesce according to any conscious process, is based on these erroneous propositions: (1) that the acceptance of an opportunist line on a litmus-paper-test “line of demarcation” proves that the comrades who fail the test are extreme and all-round opportunists, incapable of change; (2) that such comrades are incapable of making contributions on other questions; (3) that whether a person is an active developer or an unsophisticated and passive follower of an opportunist line, the degree of the person’s opportunism and consolidation is the same; (4) that passing one or two of these litmus-paper tests proves a group’s lack of opportunism (i.e., that it is “among the genuine forces”); (5) that, consequently, unity on party-building is fully achievable within each international-situation-determined section of non-party communists; (6) that an organization can be “free from opportunism”; (7) that comrades can try to build such a group without taking huge risks of “freeing themselves” from those who could correct their own errors, and whose deviations they could help correct; (8) that joining a pre-party effort amounts to a commitment to join with all the same forces in a party; and (9) that an ideological center can be chosen in advance, or can be a whole organization of many circles, if only it stays pure enough, when in fact it is only out of the struggle among disunited but reasonably honest comrades that genuine leadership will emerge.
These misconceptions buttress a subjective conclusion that what is now, in reality, the most controversial question among communists (the international situation) has been well settled. That conclusion permits those who are comfortably grouped today to develop their own party-building formations, formations that guarantee that the various forms of one-sidedness that affect each part of the movement will remain free from effective criticism;[19] guarantee that the best forces will have little influence on many good and average forces; guarantee that our resources will be much more meager than they need to be; and guarantee that–despite workers’ demands for communist unity when we are in common practice–comrades will put a low priority on struggling out differences, because their energy for struggle is devoted to the controversies within their separate party-building organizations.
The line of seeking a shortcut to uniting “the genuine forces” via groupings on the current main controversy in the movement has been tested in practice several times. It has failed every time. Trying it again will only prolong and complicate the struggle to build a true vanguard party.
[1] I.e., opposition to the policies that flow from the Theory of Three Worlds, along with opposition to Soviet social-imperialism.
[2] Failure to have studied this question enough to have a position is not a sign of serious opportunism or inability to grasp Marxism-Leninism. But such opportunism or weakness is clearly manifest in those who have taken the question up and still consider the Teng-Hua group Marxist-Leninist. Such people must know, and in general accept, that the C.P.C. leaders portray a strong U.S. and NATO as “forces for peace,” name the U.S. as a possible opponent of superpower hegemonism, and encourage alliances with the ruling classes of Third World countries who are the tools of the neocolonialism which they are supposedly fighting, and that internally they actually restored capital to the former capitalists, accompanied Teng’s U.S. visit with propaganda about the big strengths and minor weaknesses of the U.S. social system, restricted worker and peasant access to higher education, declared that in socialist China the intellectuals are not a different stratum from the proletariat, and have rapidly moved to place their economy in a position of dependence on the markets and good will of the Western imperialist bloc. (We will provide documentation for all of these statements upon request.)
[3] There are still some forces taking a position that the Theory of Three Worlds, correctly understood, identifies the role of the contradictions that do exist between oppressed nations and imperialism and between the lesser imperialists and the superpowers, but that forces like the CP(M-L), which draws counter-revolutionary implications from the theory, are distorting it (e.g., League for Proletarian Revolution, Workers Congress). This position is becoming less and less tenable. In fact, the R.C.P. gave it up late last year, finally opposing the Three Worlds Theory itself. However, we think that this viewpoint is neither so inherently implausible nor so well demolished in open debate that those who hold it can be presumed to be more consolidated opportunists than those with objectively anti-Marxist lines on other important questions, questions which everyone is willing to leave open for now.
[4] We add quotation marks where, like many others, we use the term imprecisely. Here we mean not lines that distinguish revolutionary communists from all other socialist trends and tendencies, but lines to identify communists who should at this point work together on party-building.
[5] And, to be honest, we have read little literature arguing that the USSR is something other than capitalist.
[6] “Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra”, LCW 4: 354.
[7] Lenin described the typical form of this deviation as follows: . . .Economism (in the broad sense of the word), the principal feature of which is its incomprehension, even defense, of lagging, . . .the lagging of the conscious leaders behind the spontaneous awakening of the masses. The characteristic features of this trend express themselves in the following: with respect to principles, in a vulgarisation of Marxism and in helplessness in the face of modern “criticism”, that up-to-date species of opportunism; with respect to politics, in the striving to restrict political [as opposed to economic] agitation and political struggle or to reduce them to petty activities, in the failure to understand that unless Social-Democrats take the leadership of the general democratic movement in their own hands, they will never be able to overthrow the autocracy; with respect to tactics, in utter instability. . .; and with respect to organization, in the failure to understand that the mass character of the movement does not diminish, but increases, our obligation to establish a strong and centralised organisation of revolutionaries capable of leading the preparatory struggle, every unexpected outbreak, and, finally, the decisive assault. “A Talk With the Defenders of Economism,” LCW 5: 317-18.
[8] One Step Forward. Two Steps Back, LCW 7: 334.
[9] “The National Programme of the RSDLP,” LCW 19: 541.
[10] “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” LCW 20: 459.
[11] “Notes of a Publicist,” LCW 33: 210.
[12] “The Bourgeois Intelligentsia’s Methods of Struggle Against the Workers,” LCW 20: 458.
[13] “The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up,” LCW 22: 324.
[14] And many do not. For example, Lenin referred to sincere and conscientious members of opportunist trends in ’ ’The Basic Thesis Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries,’’ LCW 6: 271-75, and “Adventurism,” LCW 20: 357. And in What is to be Done?, LCW 5: 418, he wrote,
Political activity has its logic quite apart from the consciousness of those who, with the best intentions, call either for terror or for lending the economic struggle itself a political character. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and, in this case, good intentions cannot save one from being spontaneously drawn “along the line of least resistance”, along the line of the purely bourgeois Credo programme.
This point has tactical implications for the struggle against others’ opportunism. It is equally important, however, that comrades who are confident that they themselves are always free of any opportunism to recognize that honest intentions alone prove no such thing.
[15] We put this forward tentatively, since such lack of unity might reflect confusion on the nature of ultra-leftism, i.e., on how to describe errors that we all agree are errors. The question, concretely, is whether the struggle to show that, e.g., belittling theory and a certain kind of infatuation with militant struggle for its own sake can come from the “left,” should take place prior to formation of a party-building organization or within it. We lean towards the former solution.
[16] Industrialization of the Country and the Right Deviation in the CPSU(B), SW 11: 289.
[17] Organizer, 1/79, p. 18.
[18] E.g., One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, LCW 7: 394.
[19] We are convinced, for example, that some anti-“lefts” can teach the “pro-P.L A ” groups something about the struggle for democratic rights, that the latter can help the former correct some dangerous imprecision in the “class-struggle unionism” line, that valuable lessons about practical work can be passed among all the forces, etc.