Published: Workers’ Daily News Release, produced under the leadership of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Vol. 1, No. 6, September 19, 1973.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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What is the stage of the proletarian revolution? What are the tasks of the Marxist-Leninists at this time? Great discussions and debates are taking place all over the U.S. on these and other closely related questions. Is now the time to build up the Marxist-Leninist Party or to build “pre-Party formations, rank-and-file caucuses”, etc.? Is the primary-task to develop the unity of the Marxist-Leninists in one national CENTER or to develop the unity of the “mass movement”? Is the main obstacle facing the Marxist-Leninists modern revisionism or is it “sectarianism and dogmatism”? Should the Marxist-Leninists develop the instruments of working-class propaganda or lead reformist struggles at the “point of production”? In essence this entire debate centers on whether to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and work for building the Marxist-Leninist Party or to work for something else. The First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists took a bold stand on each of these questions and united the comrades to further develop the role of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and the work of building the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party as the LEADER AND COMMANDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT.
The First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists considered the question of the stage of the proletarian revolution and the tasks facing the Marxist-Leninists at the present time as of tremendous significance. The entire orientation of the Conference centered around clarifying these questions and taking practical measures to advance and consolidate the present stage of revolution. Analysis of the history a ltd political experience of the various organizations and comrades participating in the Conference shows that all the Marxist-Leninists Acre united on the basis of 1. struggling to re-enunciate the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought amongst the working masses. 2. struggling against the reformism, liquidation and right-wing sectarianism caused by the modern revisionists and opportunists as the main obstacle in the Marxist-Leninist movement and the revolutionary mass movement of the working class, 3. struggling to build up democratic centralist organization and communist apparatus in their own areas and 4. struggling on the national basis to develop the trend of Marxist-Leninist unity and solidarity and oppose the splittist and anti-Marxist-Leninist counter-current represented by the sham anti-revisionists of the so-called “Communist” League and certain notorious ex-“leaders” of the student movement.
The Conference summed up the concrete conditions inside the Marxist-Leninist movement and the country as a whole and adopted the basic political line of building the national MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER as the LEADER AND PATHFINDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT. The Conference considered tins task as the FIRST AND ONLY RESPONSIBILITY OF THE GENUINE MARXIST-LENINISTS and formed the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists to lead in implementing this line. The COUSML took practical measures to develop the national instruments of working-class propaganda, that is, the daily Marxist-Leninist agitational and propaganda newspaper as the key link in building the Marxist-Leninist Center; to build up the internal organizational apparatus – that is, the centralized leadership of the Marxist-Leninist movement and the local Communist branches; to organize the wide-scale discussion and clarification of Marxist-Leninist ideology and political line amongst the masses and to use thus method as the key in launching further attacks on the modern revisionists and opportunists in the revolutionary mass movement; and to further the trend of unity and solidarity amongst the Marxist-Leninists on the national basis.
The fact that the Conference united comrades from six organizations and from all parts of the country on the basis of building one MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER shows that the proletarian revolution has advanced to a higher and new stage. In the 1960’s and early ’70�s the key task was the dissemination of proletarian ideology, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. It is a historical fact that wherever this line was executed material conditions for proletariat! revolution were advanced and communist organization consolidated. In the course of the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, the Marxist-Leninists fought many battles against bourgeois influences in the revolutionary mass movement and inside their own ranks. The politics of bourgeois moralism and reformism as well as the politics of anarchism and terrorism were struggled against and repudiated. The ideological lines of “end of ideology” and “Mao Tsetung Thought is not applicable to the U.S.” were defeated. The Marxist-Leninists overcame the influences of bourgeois culture and repudiated the line of “youth culture”, “do your own thing”, “proletarian politics – bourgeois culture”, etc. All of these bourgeois ideological and political trends were promoted by the “new left”, with the active collaboration of the old-line revisionists and opportunists. In each case, it was in the course of disseminating Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought that decisive victories were won against the bourgeois line in the revolutionary movement and it was on the basis of resolutely executing this task that the Marxist-Leninists advanced and consolidated their ranks. Today the political work has advanced to the stage of building one united MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER as the LEADER AND PATHFINDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT. The tactical line of the Marxist-Leninists has also further developed as well as the organizational solidity of the Marxist-Leninists and the Marxist-Leninist style and method of work has become more and more concentrated. The First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists and the formation of the Central Organization of U. S. Marxist-Leninists mobilized the Marxist-Leninists to carry out the political line of building the national MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER as the LEADER AND PATHFINDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT and adopted the method of building the national organs of working-class propaganda as the key link in executing this line. It is this political line which truly reflects the stage of proletarian revolution in the U. S. today and indicates the tasks of the Marxist-Leninists. The Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists considers that an individual’s or an organization’s attitude toward this political line as decisive in determining whether or not the individual or organization is revolutionary, or counter-revolutionary. It is the task of the Marxist-Leninists to resolutely implement this line, explain it to the masses and train activists in the style and method of building the MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER. It is only in this way that ADVANCED COMMUNIST CADRES can come out of the revolutionary movement and take up the task of building the Marxist-Leninist Party. The comrades have full faith that this political line will be further clarified through the practical mass work of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists where it will be tested amongst the masses and provide the revolutionary masses with a clear method for distinguishing between the genuine Marxist-Leninists and sham Marxist-Leninists, between revolution and counter-revolution.
It is exactly because the stage of revolution is advancing and the political line becoming more and more concentrated that sharp class struggle has broken out in the Marxist-Leninist circles. This class struggle centers on the question of whether or not to build the MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER and begin leading the revolutionary mass movement id order to step by step build the Party and organize the proletarian revolution or whether to oppose this political line and attempt to drag the Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary movement, backwards.
It is precisely because the unity of Marxist-Leninists has reached the objective and national level that the so-called “Communist” League has jumped out for a “trial of strength” with the Marxist-Leninists in the hopes of smashing the Marxist-Leninist Center and gaining hegemony over the Marxist-Leninist movement. The First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists totally rejected the “Communist” League method of demanding unity on the basis of some “theoretical grasp of Marxism” or “agreement with such-and-such position paper” while in practice refusing to unite on the political line of building the Marxist-Leninist Center. The comrades resolutely denounced the “Communist” League who despite all their so-called “deep theoretical grasp” oppose every single Marxist-Leninist principle in practice and constantly seek to split, not unite, constantly intrigue and conspire against the Marxist-Leninists and refuse to be open and aboveboard and who employ a revisionist style and method of work. Can we consider the “Communist” League as Marxist-Leninist when their sole motive in sitting with the Preparatory Committee of the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists was to oppose organizing the Conference, split the Marxist-Leninists and fatten their own fiefdoms? Of course not. Can we consider the “Communist” League’s method of informality as a Marxist-Leninist method? No, it is a revisionist method which the “Communist” League employed in order to trample underfoot the discipline of the Preparatory Committee. The “Communist” League consistently agreed to one thing when sitting with the Marxist-Leninists and then turned around and did the exact opposite in practice. They used the method of informality in order to try and cover over their tracks and refused to be held accountable for their erroneous attitude towards the political line of uniting the Marxist-Leninists in one center.
In opposition to the method and style of the “Communist” League, the First Conference of American Marxist-Leninists summed up the method for building unity of the Marxist-Leninists. Starting from deep desire for unity of the Marxist-Leninists it is absolutely necessary for the COUSML to: 1. vigorously persist in implementing the political line of building the national MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER by developing the instruments of working-class propaganda, 2. constantly hold consultations and discussion with other Marxist-Leninist groups and individuals so as to clarify over-all ideological and political questions and 3. develop practical program which unites the Marxist-Leninists on the basis of political line.
Likewise it is precisely because the trend of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and building the Party is flourishing and the political line of the Marxist-Leninists has advanced to the stage of uniting all the Marxist-Leninists into one NATIONAL CENTER, that the “new leftists” who were most notable for their opposition to the Marxist-Leninists in the 1960’s have changed their spots and picked up certain Marxist-Leninist phrases which they are employing as a method for opposing the development of the MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER. These sham Marxist-Leninists have raised the bogey of “sectarianism and dogmatism are the main enemy in the Marxist-Leninist movement, not modern revisionism”. Who do they think they are fooling? Is this a Marxist-Leninist analysis when the concrete conditions cry out for the further repudiation of the revisionist “C’PUSA and other opportunists who are lording it over the revolutionary movement?
In fact, it is these sham Marxist-Leninists who are dogmatically opposed to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. In day-to-day tactics they oppose the wide-scale dissemination and clarification of the Marxist-Leninist ideological and political line amongst the working masses. It is these sham Marxist-Leninists who attack the building of the instruments of working-class propaganda as “handing out lifeless newspapers” and openly say ”revolutionary propaganda is not the important task at this time”. Can such people be genuine Marxist-Leninists when they ignore Comrade Lenin’s basic teaching that: “TO BELITTLE THE SOCIALIST IDEOLOGY IN ANY WAY, TO TURN ASIDE FROM IT IN THE SLIGHTEST DEGREE MEANS TO STRENGTHEN BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGY.” The real right-wing sectarians are these sham Marxist-Leninists who, on the one hand, slander the genuine Marxist-Leninists as “sectarians” and “CIA agents”, while they themselves refuse to sit together with the Marxist-Leninists in order to clarify differences and reach points of unity in an open and above-board manner. The real significance of the slogan “dogmatism and sectarianism are the main obstacle facing the Marxist-Leninist movement” is to divert the struggle against the modern revisionists and try to attack and stifle the movement led by the Marxist-Leninists to further the trend of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought amongst the masses.
These sham Marxist-Leninists love to appeal to the “mass movement” as a means for attacking the Marxist-Leninists as “sectarians and dogmatists”. They propagate the bogus theory that the mass movement is A-CLASS and consider it more important to build unity with the social-democrats, opportunists and revisionists who are in the leadership of the “mass movement” than to develop a core of Marxist-Leninist leadership which as LEADER AND PATHFINDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT develops it step-by-step towards proletarian revolution. They refuse to learn from historical experience that the MASS MOVEMENT WITH CORRECT SENTIMENT is inevitably liquidated by bourgeois reformism without the leadership of the revolutionary Party. Thus they wholeheartedly oppose Comrade Lenin’s teaching that “WITHOUT A REVOLUTIONARY PARTY BASED ON REVOLUTIONARY THEORY THERE CAN BE NO REVOLUTIONAR MOVEMENT.”
Today the Marxist-Leninists all over the country are uniting into one national MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER. The days of small groups of Marxist-Leninists remaining in isolation from one another are coming to a close and the firm foundations of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party are being built and consolidated. It is just at this time that the sham Marxist-Leninists are squeaking: “let’s build pre-Party formations an rank-and-file caucuses, sink deep roots and wait till later to build the Party”. Can such people be genuine Marxist-Leninists when they oppose Chairman Mao’s great directive that “IF THEIR IS TO BE REVOLUTION THERE MUST BE A REVOLUTIONARY PARTY”?
The U. S. Marxist-Leninists must firmly grasp the stage of the proletarian revolution in the United States and the political line of building one NATIONAL MARXIST-LENINIST CENTER in order to build the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party and make a contribution towards proletarian revolution. The Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists calls upon all genuine Marxist-Leninist groups and individuals to work together to execute this essential task.