Communist Enthusiasm–where does it come from? We in the Motor City Labor League now believe that its material base resides with Marxism-Leninism which once grasped, provides the clarity whereby the inevitability of revolution is not only believed but thoroughly understood. In the last six months, we have made a qualitative leap in our struggle to create that material base. And We are enthusiastic; we are enthusiastic about this documents we are enthusiastic about the growth we have experienced in creating this document; we are enthusiastic about the theoretical debate this document will engender; and we are enthusiastic about the further growth we will achieve in the process of explaining, defending and clarifying this document.
The purpose of this introduction is to encourage people to read this document carefully, understanding that it was written in the heat of battle for the purpose of moving the organization in the certain direction–that is, in the best traditions of all communist literature. It must be read carefully because it was written as an internal document which means that all the readers were fully familiar with the parameters of the debate. But we understand that the questions which it answers are questions which face all revolutionaries and are questions which are being asked throughout the class.
The second purpose of this introduction is to give more meaning to the document; to give a brief sketch of some of the history of the Motor City Labor League; to give an outline of the kinds of questions that were being asked internal to the organization; to explain; why certain questions are answered without any context; and finally to call on all organizations and individuals to begin the necessary questioning and study in order to intelligently conclude which side they fall on in this debate–because these questions are clearly the most important Questions now facing all revolutionaries. How and when are we to build a multi-national anti-revisionist communist party of a new type?
It is important to understand that this document was passed by a clear majority of the Motor City Labor League sitting in convention. It is the basic document of the organization. That vote took place after six months of intense debate and study internal to the organization. After further amendments and the election of the central committee, nine people left the organization. Our understanding is that they also are attending the continuations committee and accept the principle of the immediate responsibility to build a new communist party.
The Motor City Labor League is limited to the City of Detroit, although it is true that we have close contacts throughout the country. We have participated in every fact of the spontaneous class struggle in the city. It was originally organized as the in-plant task force of the Motor City Coalition in the summer of 1970. In its initial stages, it consisted of a coalition of forces organized to support the many spontaneous wildcats that were occurring in the area at the time? in fact, many of the people in the organization came together partially as a result of the Eldon safety strike at the Eldon Gear and Axle Plant. Within a very short time, it became clear to many people within the organization the loose organizational formation was insufficient for the tasks that we faced. We began some ill-formed socialist educationals under the leadership of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. At that time, we incorrectly accepted the idea that whites were to organize whites and blacks were to organize blacks. We began several organizing projects in concentration areas in the city of Detroit. We entered into a coalition with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers to put on mass educationals.
But in June of 1971 we attempted to change our form to one of democratic centralism–even though we had only a bare bones understanding of the concept. Under ill formed principles of democratic centralism, we attempted to again start Marxist-Leninist educationals. However, our main work was mass work. A partial list indicates the scope of our activities: 1) extensive work against the war in Viet Nam, including organizing a huge demonstration against Nixon, leaf-letting, marches to Washington, trips to Paris, Rome and Harrisburg, petition drives, civil disobedience, etc., etc., etc. 2) support of militants to take over local unions, including thousands and thousands of leaflets, legal attacks on several unions and companies for discrimination, etc., etc., etc.; 3) a major mass campaign against STRESS, local police murder squad; 4) mass socialist educations bringing together around 200 people each month; 5) we initiated and won an electoral campaign for one of our cadre, Justin C. Ravitz, who at the time styled himself a Marxist; 5) we supported the Wayne County Jail Suit, the Three for Three Food Cooperative, the Alliance (a family socialist organization), major legal struggles such as the case of James Johnson v. Chrysler Corporation, the Briggs runaway shop case, etc., etc., etc.; 7) we participated in and did extensive work in such organizations as the IndoChina Peace Campaign, the Kinoy formation, Marxist-Christian Dialogue, etc., etc., etc.. It gets tiresome to even list the breadth and scope of our activity. We at the present time have major criticism of the quality of our work, and in particular the political line–some of those criticisms are included in this document. But in the process we bwcame seasoned proletarian fighters; the problem was simply that we had taken that level of struggle absolutely as far as it could go.
A brief word needs to be spoken of the split that occurred in September of 1972. At the time, reams and reams of paper were produced attempting to explain the politics of the split. The parameters of the split however were not clear even to us. The social motion around that split is now clear; now that the smoke has cleared, the right opportunist nature of the splinter group is precisely understood and can be outlined fairly easily and accurately. The primary leadership of those who split came from Sheila Murphy, Ken Cockrel and Justin Ravitz. Their political posture can be described as socialism in words (and then only when it is opportune to spout a few socialist words), and right opportunism in deeds.
Judge Ravitz’s recent actions in the Mack trial are illustrative. When the defense team attempted to raise questions around safety in the plant, Judge Ravitz simply ruled “irrelevant” to the trial, essentially eliminating any political content concerning the justification of the strike. In addition, he ridiculed in his decision the “fly-by-night, infantile, PhD., left-wing phrase-mongerers.” The net effect of his actions was to unite with the CPUSA and the bourgeois press in saying that the cause of the strike was left-adventurism, instead of the objective conditions in the Mack Plant. It is one thing to carry out a political polemic against the Progressive Labor Party and Worker’s Action Movement for opportunistically using the strike to promote their organizational goals, and quite another to pretend that the workers were not justly angry and therefore refused to work when the shutdown started. In effect, Judge Ravitz covered himself with Marxist phrases, and blew the line of a common liberal. Lenin spoke to this kind of insidious opportunism in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky:
By means of patent sophistry, Marxism is stripped of its revolutionary living spirit; everything is recognised in Marxism except the revolutionary methods of struggle, the propaganda and preparation of those methods, and the education of the masses in this direction.
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The working class cannot play its world-revolutionary role unless it wages a ruthless struggle against this backsliding, spinelessness, subservience to opportunism, and unparalleled vulgarisation of the theories of Marxism. Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 230 (October 1918) Progress Publishers
Judge Ravitz does not even know or understand the first thing about Marxism-Leninism so it is little wonder that he blows a liberal line and considers it revolutionary. But then to pompously call himself a Marxist makes him no better than a scoundrel and careerist.
Attorney Cockrel manifests the same right opportunism. The best example of his social motion is the recent trial of David Mundy. Mundy is a union bureaucrat who shot a worker who was protesting the sell-out nature of the 1973 UAW contract. Cockrel called Leonard Woodcock and other UAW misleaders as “character” witnesses. Cockrel whose past victories depended precisely on the support that juries in the city gave to the political questions presented in the trial found Mundy guilty. In any case, it is clear that the best that can be said of Cockrel is that he is an excellent attorney whose future career is limited to being just that–any political content that he may have had is gone.
Sheila Murphy, on the other hand, continues to support these right opportunist trends, being used in classical male supremecist ways to support the careers of these men.
That split, however confused it may have been at the time, was good for the Motor City Labor League. We then moved to ground ourselves more thoroughly among the working people of the city. We deepened our theoretical understanding and instilled a more proletarian character to all of our programs.
The major turning point for the Motor City Labor League was the three wildcat strikes in Chrysler plants this summers the Jefferson plant, the Forge plant, and the Mack plant. We participated extensively in these strikes. In the process cadre from the Communist League began to ask pointed and precise political questions of us–particularly in relation to joint work and the building of a multinational communist party of a new type. We were invited to the continuations committee which we attended for a brief time; we were no longer allowed the luxury of saying we were in favor of building a party without taking one concrete step towards its realization. It is fair to say that the process of persuading cadre of the necessity to move towards party building was that of pulling teeth. Every single possible question had to be answered and in detail. We of course owe a debt to the Communist League for the principled way in which it carried out this ideological struggle, giving us the time to answer questions and providing us the necessary material to study the questions that we faced.
The questions we asked and answered in the process of the struggle were in many ways overwhelming. The list below is provided to help explain some of the unevenness of the paper. For instance, in one part of the paper we suddenly talk about the question of proletarian culture; that is because at one point several people were contending that we had to create a “cultural army” before we created the party. The partial list is as follows:
1) Can we build a party now or must we build a larger base in the class? In the process of this debate we came to understand that we have an enormous base new, it’s merely necessary to learn to provide the necessary political leadership.
2) Must we have a longer timetable for the building of
a party? This of course is merely another way of saying that we must wait to do what we should have done yesterday.
3) Is the Soviet Union really guilty of social imperialism?
4) Should we simultaneously build a united front against imperialism?
5) Should we continue to be involved in mass work at the expense of building a party?
6) Should we concentrate our forces on the superstructure instead of in the plants?
7) Why has our work in effect bowed to spontaneity when it contributed in some small way to bring people closer to socialism?
8) What is trade-union consciousness and how does it differ from class consciousness?
9) Is Vietnam the focal point of the struggle against imperialism? If so, should we avoid dividing the “socialist camp” since the Soviet Union provides material support for Vietnam?
10) What is the Negro Nation? Is there only two criteria for determining whether a nation exists (excluding territory and common culture) ? Did Lenin agree with Stalin’s criteria for the existence of a nation?
11) Is there an ideological or organizational ”center” for the world revolutionary movement? Should we wait until after the building of a new International to build a party in the USNA?
12) Should we carry out ideological struggle with other left groups?
13) Why is the struggle against revisionism so important in building a party? Why is not the struggle against opportunism more important? What is the relationship between the two?
Our class communicates primarily in oral ways; we find it difficult to write our ideas down. This document without question is the most comprehensive paper we have ever produced. Consequently, the most detailed explanation of the positions occurred in the oral debate at the convention. On one occasion, one of our comrades provided a very concise but thorough history of the rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union; on another, we achieved a breakthrough in terms of understanding democratic centralism, unity of will, and iron discipline. In fact, through the debate all cadre came to grasp the concept that Marxism-Leninism is a science of revolution and therefore must be thoroughly studied.
This paper, of course, will act as a guide to action for us but will require much improvement and study. Cadre have already offered criticism of some of the scientific concepts as they further clarify the principles used. But we are confident that the basis parameters of the principles which are outlined are correct and that many other organizations can learn rr.uch from the debate and struggle that we have participated in over the last six months.
Traditionally, theoretical debate has been avoided by communists in the USNA. That luxury is over with. Members of our class have fought and died for one spontaneous struggle after another; repeatedly communists have failed to provide the scientific analysis which could take the struggle to a higher level. As proletarian fighters and newly formed scientific socialists, we demand that that luxury be ripped from the “left” – from now on intense ideological struggle must be waged, lines drawn so that we can precisely chart the path to revolution. With that struggle we can then achieve the necessary unity of will so that the party can impose iron discipline in order to lead the proletariat to deal the necessary death blows to decadent capitalism.