Published: Palante, Vol. 6, No. 5, May 1-June 1, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Our Party succeeded in achieving internal unity and unexampled cohesion of its ranks, primarily because it was able in good time to purge itself of the opportunist pollution, because it was able to rid its ranks of the Liquidators and Mensheviks. Proletarian parties (our emphasis–ed.) develop and become strong by purging themselves of opportunists and reformists, social-imperialists and social-chauvinists, social-patriots and social-pacifists.
The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements. Foundations of Leninism, J. Stalin
Learning from the great teachers of our class, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Enver Hoxha on this May Day, the day of proletarian internationalism, the U.S. multi-national proletariat, led by Bolsheviks and advanced workers, salutes our international class brothers and sisters by intensifying the struggle against opportunism, as we forge forward to build on solid ground the Party of Lenin, the Party of a New Type.
Internationally, the masses are rising up in struggle to defeat imperialism and all reactionaries, workers and oppressed people of the world uniting, powerfully locking arms tight, scoring victories upon victories.
We learn from your examples, class brothers and sisters of the People’s Republic of China and People’s Republic of Albania most especially; your guidance and untiring defense of the dictatorship of the proletariat, led by the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania, illuminate our path, the world’s people rejoicing – “a better world’s in birth.”
We apply our internationalist stance today by fighting with all our might to build the Party, which will lead us to make history, overthrow the bourgeois, rule, smash the state and on the remains of the bourgeoisie, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and on to greater battles and greater victories, till we reach our final aim, the complete abolition of classes.
On this May Day and for the past 20 years, the proletariat finds itself without its general staff. The treason of the “CP”USA and all revisionists and opportunists who have preceded them, are being tried and will be convicted in the great Hall of Justice of proletarian revolution.
This would be empty talk, however, without a most persistent and perseverant struggle against opportunism, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and always; never letting a shade of difference go by, a “minor” disagreement, never compromising on principle. We hold high the greatest honor, that of being Bolsheviks, this great title behest upon us by international proletarianism, and score victories once again by purging ourselves of opportunist pollution, rotten to the core.
On this May Day and every day, we vow to you, working men and women, never to stop fighting in the interest of the proletariat – the future is bright. The proletariat is coming into being to rule the world and lay exploitation and oppression to rest forever.
Our fight has just begun, but the final victory undeniably rests in the hands of the working class. It is in this spirit of struggle, for unity with what’s genuine, that we present the most recent two-line struggle in our organization on party building.
WORKERS AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE! ON TO GREATER VICTORIES!
After intense struggle, we have purged the unrepentant renegades, Richie Perez, Diana Perez, Tony Copeland, Carmen Copeland, Lydia Flores and Carlos Rovira; they no longer speak in the name of the P.R.R.W.O., and as traitors to the proletariat, who attempted to wreck the party building motion from within, getting rid of these philistines was our duty and a good thing. They, on the other hand, will continue to slander and attack the proletariat, who they hold in contempt and Bolsheviks, who fight unswervingly, head on, towards our Party. But their threats are as empty and dying out as the bourgeoisie that they serve – conniving cheats, they will remain having to lie more and more. Rip off their treacherous masks, brothers and sisters; don’t be fooled by empty phrases – their deeds spell treason!
It has been in this struggle that our iron unity continues to be forged, as we build the party in the heat of the class struggle, the only way to build the party of Lenin, the Party of a New Type, free of Menshevism.
Every time that we expose the hidden scabs and traitors, double dealing snakes, who proclaim their so-called fight for the “masses,” our struggle goes forward, our movement for the party grows stronger.
The Mensheviks, concealing every inch of the way their true convictions of treason to the working class, their diehard belief that capitalism is permanent, that the proletariat is stupid, that class struggle and the struggle between the two lines and two roads is distasteful and annoying to them, that bolshevism is useless and “impossible,” that criticism and self-criticism is “uncomradely” and rather we should engage in covering up of errors and “overcome opportunism within our ranks,” They in turn try to cover-up their treachery by using criticism and self-criticism as a weapon of personal attack, trampling on a Bolshevik principle, a mighty weapon in the ML-MTTT arsenal of class warfare. Menshevism is hostile towards the principle of Democratic Centralism in that it stands against intriguers, conspirators, wreckers and factionalists. In promoting liberalism, the Mensheviks think they will be able to corrode away at our iron unity, voluntarily achieved through struggle based on unity on line resulting in unity of will and action. ’Their hatred of iron discipline and democratic centralism reveals their total lack of antagonisms with the bourgeois state, their social-democracy, social-pacifism, social-fascism; their total cowardess makes the mensheviks objectively bourgeois agents in our midst. They are the first to run their mouths in the case where the state would want to frame us on some fabrication, figments of the bourgeoisie’s imagination or their own doing, in external provocation. Yet there are comrades who call for mercy on the mensheviks. What mercy have the mensheviks shown for the proletariat who they despise, for the ideology of the proletariat which they are busily trying to revise, for bolsheviks whom they slander, attack, try to weaken, and drag back; attempting to divert, deceive the proletariat, serving the bourgeoisie, as they try to convince the class that it should be happy being slave wage earners. All as they champion themselves the true leaders of the masses.
Mercy, for those who try to hold back the development of the mightiest of the proletariat’s weapons for seizure of state power, the vanguard party? Mercy for the most dangerous enemy, the one that hides from within? No Mercy! There can be no mercy for the class enemies, the lackeys of the bourgeoisie.
We have walked through the history of the two line struggles in every major struggle, and we have summed it up in Palante, internal communiques, in our Pamphlets, the Congress Resolutions of 1972, In the U.S. Pregnant With Revisionism – The Struggle For Proletarian Revolution Moves Ahead, etc., in the Party Building In The Heat of The Class Struggle pamphlet and now. We will, like always in our history, trace the general features historically and the main proponents of the line. In this way, we will isolate those empiricist tendencies which rise, in the belief that struggle just popped-up, and even more importantly, we will further expose the menshevik line on party building, by tracing it, walking thru it leaving no stone unturned to thoroughly repudiate it and purge it from our ranks, in an unexhausting defense of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought.
In the first period of party building when the key link was the reaffirmation and defense of the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism, when the fundamental question in party building, the ideological question was the key link in the chain moving the political and organizational questions forward, Menshevism was expressed in the line that the proletariat was not the vanguard of the revolution, that in fact the petti-bourgeosie, the lumpen, the youth, women, anyone but the proletariat could lead the revolution, was the outrageous posture of menshevism, then. We fought this line and defeated that form that it took then and moved forward. Once established, what Marx and Engels so long ago proved scientifically to be a fact that the proletariat is the vanguard of the revolution, the fight for its ideology Dialectical and Historical Materialism – Marxism-Leninism, as opposed to the form that bourgeois ideology took then – eclecticism, escalated on an uphill battle that resulted in the birth of the new anti-revisionist communist movement. Within it, the two line struggle, class struggle, the struggle between the two roads, sharpened, the struggle against the menshevik line, crystallized once again at a time where the economist, pragmatist, reformist, right opportunist ideological trends and forms of bourgeois ideology crystallized themselves in the second stage of the first period. The struggles against the ideological root of all opportunism, the worship of spontaneity, brought out to the light of day the menshavik line opposed to the strictest adherence and study of Marxist-Leninist theory, trying to replace it with new theories, reflected in the first period in the lines of the leading mesheviks within the developing communist movement, the Revolutionary . Union degenerating from economists to revisionists. The steel to steel battle against the mensheviks the RU, their opposition to Marxism-Leninism, to the proletariat, to proletarian revolution and to its vanguard party that will lead it, aided in the exposure of many different essential aspects of the menshevik line which were being uncovered and defeated within the entire communist movement. Entering the second period of party building as we did in 1972 when no doubt about it, political line was and is the key link moving forward the ideological and organizational tasks, meant entering into still more battle against menshevism. The question, the central question where menshevism was insisting to show. its treason to the class, was narrowing in; that being its outright attacks on the developing bolshevik party, where menshevism expressed itself in full as the main danger in the communist movement.
Right opportunism took its naked form in the line – build the mass movement. Two wings in our movement, the sham wing – the mensheviks – calling for the building of the mass movement, accompanied by a cry for no polemics, no two line struggle, no preparation of advanced workers, of winning them to the side of communism, no criticism and self-criticism, pessimism and petty-bourgeois vacillations and outright compromises over principle; philistines showing themselves as the incapable forces going out of being but causing great harm to the proletariat in its fight for proletarian revolution, for the dictatorship of the proletariat, for socialism, for its historic mission, the abolition of classes.
Build the mass movement is nothing but the call to build the party from below, every striker, every militant trade unionists, the labor lieutenants, cops, and petty-bourgeois radicals – frenzied and in hysteria, frightened by the crisis of imperialism, terrified by the fact that as a class the petty-bourgeoisie going out of being, as its regime is disintegrating – and as its grave digger, its staunchest enemy, the proletariat, the class that’s growing strong day by day is moving in forcefully to break its chains, crush by force the bourgeoisie, seize state power and transform all of society in its own interest. In doing so, the proletariat neutralizes the vacillating petty-bourgeiosie, who fights its inevitable fate every inch of the way. In our country, along with the labor aristocracy, the petty-bourgeoisie is a source of right opportunism, reformism, legalism, social-fascism. Unlike the semi-feudal, semi-colonial and less developed capitalist countries where the peasantry, the rural petty-bourgeoisie, lives in wretched conditions, in the highly developed capitalist countries, the urban petty-bourgeoisie enjoys its class privileges to the hilt. Even though they get squeezed out in times of deep economic crisis, they climb to be the bourgeoisie, looking and hoping for the day of economic boom, to own more to accumulate capital; owing to this, their conservative and reactionary views. Many mainly do mental work in the professional fields, education, law, engineering, architecture, medicine and other bourgeois scientific fields. Their small proprietor views of life, their small plot mentality, crystallizes itself in the “me first” interest, siding with the bourgeoisie, in its drive for profits at any cost. Only the lower levels of the petty-bourgeoisie, teachers, nurses, technicians (lab, hospital, etc.) are allies of the proletariat owing to their unstable professions which forces many when unemployed, to seek work in plants, hospitals, as cab drivers, etc. Many are confronted to side with the proletariat in its struggles even while employed in their professions, such as in the case where teachers have gone on strike over the issue of quality education for working class and oppressed nationality children. This progressive strata of the petty-bourgeoisie, however, also bring its interests to the class, its narrowness and hopes that capitalism will survive; only in and through, protracted struggle does their class interest change, and they begin to side with the proletariat, placing their interest with that of the working class.
We find it necessary to walk through this once again because we must disclose the social basis of menshevism to expose it thoroughly in our present day two-line struggle against it.
The build the mass movement menshevik line, stems from the views of the petty-bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats who want to save capitalism. In a frenzy over the reform struggles, the belief of whipping up many numbers so that the bourgeoisie will listen to what they have to say, and give more reform concessions – the movement, therefore, is everything. The concessions to them are everything, proving out their belief, their fantasy that capitalism is permanent, that there’s no need to smash the state, they have no antagonisms with the bourgeoisie and it starts to boil down to a fight in tactics. Take the October League with their menshevik to the core support of every bourgeois reform
– ERA, forced busing, dump the bum; they whip up the fight back “organization,” publicize it in their CALL, and believe the bourgeoisie will listen, will recognize them as a “leading” force of the “masses” and will negotiate with them over some crumbs – more and more crumbs as all the mensheviks who have sold out the interest of the class for crumbs and will sell their mothers out for more. All mensheviks, all the garbage of the marsh, is terrified to death of offending the bourgeoisie, the thought of overthrowing it, therefore, never entering their minds. Thus the work to build the vanguard party of the proletariat is a most frightening thought. Therefore, as they place their hopes with the bourgeoisie for whom they serve as loyal lackeys their hatred for the prolitariat, their contemptuous views towards the working class is most revealed today in the intense two-line struggle on party building.
Build the mass movement is accompanied by an overestimation of the crisis; the menshevik line views the spontaneous movement only, negating totally the subjective factor. In so doing, they aid the bourgeoisie’s war preparations – in a frenzy to turn the world on its head, claiming that war is the main trend in the world today, that fascism, therefore, is inevitable, and therefore, the fight for democratic rights, for reforms is the main and only struggle. They prepare along the lines of defensive tactics calling for uniting with the labor hacks and all revisionists who have been reaping of the crumbs from the imperialists banquet table and who they believe will bring them into the dinner party at bourgeoisie road. Accordingly they call for winning over the masses in general with no distinction in periods, therefore, agitation, economist, trade union, bourgeois agitation, is their chief form of activity. Worshipping the spontaneous movement as they do, the mensheviks never train their organizational cadres in Marxism-Leninism, to do so would be “dogmatism”, according to the mensheviks. Advanced workers don’t exist, according to the mensheviks, therefore, to build factory nuclei today is isolationist they believe. To the mensheviks, numbers, quantity, immediate results, big organizations, weekly rag sheets like the O.L.’s CALL, recording how many strikes, demonstrations, picket lines happened this week, this month, this year, has become their useless existence. Their treason is such that they try to cover themselves up with the pretence of being Marxist-Leninists, fighting for the party, claims of being leaders of the masses; of being internationalists and in support of the line of the international communist movement, their masks being totally ripped off their ugly faces as the fight for a bolshevik party surges forward.
Rather than criticism and self-criticism, cover up of tracks is their method; the OL for example, after we exposed their menshevik call for a “party,” say this in their latest rag sheet,
Good criticisms have already led to some corrections in the OL’s approach to the organizational formation of the Party. For example, in a recent meeting of the OL Central Committee (see March issue) section 5 of ML Unite, was modified (our emphasis) to call for the Congress and leadership elections in the immediate future. The previous view, calling for a ’temporary leading body’ and a year long pre-congress period, was rejected.
Slimy philistines, never once going to, even mouthing, the ideological and social basis of their menshevik call, the essence to be found in their overall line of party building, a straight up cover-up – this was no simple error; it’s a matter of opportunism in ideological, political and organizational matters, substantiated as such in Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.
WVO also is famous for covering up tracks, blaming its cadres for errors, divorced from line and leadership as metaphysicians, place the root of their errors outside and not inside. For example they claim our so-called “leftism” is the basis for their right errors.
Like in the first period of party building, in the second period where the menshevik line is even further revealed, these general characteristics must be drawn:
– Denial of the vanguard role of the proletariat in the revolution.
– Denial of the Universal truths of Marxism-Leninism, e.g., that the ideological root of all opportunism is the worship of spontaneity, this then resulting in:
– A disdain for Marxist-Leninist theory and
– A belittlement of the role of the conscious element, trying to divert at every turn the central task, party building.
– Attack of the fundamental bolshevik principles of organization – democratic, centralism and criticism, self-criticism, resulting in factionalism, conspiring, intriguing, wrecking, scheming.
– Disdain for the masses – crystallized in an attack on the advanced resulting in liquidation of the factory nuclei.
– Raising the “left” to cover the right – resulting in agitation as the chief form of activity, creating paper organizations, tailing the union bureaucrats and revisionists, bowing to the backward stratas, pretending that we’re in the transition period of winning over the broad masses; attacking the bolsheviks as ultra-leftists and dogmatists, really attacking the quintessence of Marxism-Leninism.
This in the main is the thread that runs throughout the sham wing of our movement, and that binds the hidden traitors within the genuine wing to them. This then brings us back to the internal Mensheviks which we’re in the process of exposing, repudiating the line and purging our ranks, thus ridding ourselves of marsh forces, aiding them to go to their proper place, the garbage can of the sham wing, where they will enjoy the company of their colleagues.
It is the menshevik line which calls for the simultaneity of the tasks. In the first place because it views the party as a legal appendage of the bourgeoisie and, therefore, counterposes party building and military work. As if an intergral part of party building won’t have to deal, of necessity, with the military strategy and tactics, with the question of the illegal apparatus, with factory nuclei as the basic illegal unit, etc. Secondly, liquidating the need to hammer out the party’s basic line and program of action, the menshevik line raising the united front as the strategy, totally belittling the fact that in order to work out the party’s program we must make an analysis of classes, therefore, scientifically dealing with the united front tactic. All tasks, the three magic weapons, therefore, carried out as integral components of the central and only task of communist and advanced workers in this period, party building.
The danger of the “simultaneity of the three strategic tasks,” was that it left room open to relegate party building to secondary importance, one had to be the central task upon which its correct handling would resolve the others. But build the mass movement line was the essence of the build the mass movement line, was the essence of the line, build the party through the united front was the essential thrust of the “simultaneity of the tasks line” and being plagued with it, we analyzed that to hold to party building as the central and only task in this period was ultra-leftism, isolationist, etc. Obviously showing that we had not firmly grasped political line as the key link. This, fact, was in the period where the Menshevik line factory nuclei is the key link was strong in the genuine wing. Why is “factory nuclei the key link” a menshevik line? Here’s how we put it:
The factory nuclei by grouping the communists in a given plant, dividing and coordinating the work among the masses must fulfill the task of giving conscious leadership to the spontaneous struggle of the workers. It cannot be built in isolation of the class struggle, just as the party cannot be build in isolation from>the UF and the armed struggle.
There we have it, build the party from below, rather than grasping that it is the party who gives conscious leadership to the struggle, and that FN as the basic unit of the party implements the line of the party, not that the factory nuclei gives conscious leadership to the spontaneous struggles and therefore, develops the line of the party, from below.
In struggling against factory nuclei as a “left” line, we covered up its menshevik essence. It didn’t boil down to a matter of outstripping stages; the danger was more serious because, in fact, the line factory nuclei key link was build the party from below. In analyzing just one aspect of factory nuclei, an organization question, we totally belittled the line which it represented. In fact, in the Revolutionary Bloc, the Menshevik Mike Hamlin resigned on the basis that his menshevik line factory nuclei key link was receiving death blows, and as such, was revealing the build the party from below line. Thus, the remaining mensheviks in the Bloc put it forward crudely that the line was developed by the nuclei. In fact, internally as well as externally, the tasks of uniting Marxist-Leninists was seen as something, a by-product of development of factory nuclei, and not as a matter of unity on line, which included the position on factory nuclei as the basic unit.
The further consolidation of political line key link and the struggle over the Marxist-Leninist line on party building, and for the line of the party itself on all the burning class questions, therefore, unmasked menshevism that much more. The defeat of the merger line and that ideology was the key link was leaving very little, room open, for the mensheviks to hide. Application of ML, application of our line, continued to draw the line, and the mensheviks finally had to come out of their hidden corners attacking the line of the organization and genuine wing as ultra-leftist–fixating themselves on the fantasy that an ultra-left bloc existed in the organization.
The menshevik faction moved to try to demoralize advanced elements in the factory nuclei, study groups, claiming at different times that it was hard to become a communist, raising their so-called “resignation” thoughts to comrades in a hope to spread pessimism and doubt in the line of the organization. When the advanced criticized the mensheviks for not implementing the line of the organization, the mensheviks attacked them for being backward. In fact, they analyzed the line of the organization on the advanced as incorrect, attacking the Leninist line and promoting their own line that the advanced were only open to socialism and would be won over in the struggle for reforms. The Bolshevik tactic and principle of party building, ML unite was attacked as they trampled on the Leninist method of criticism and self criticism to learn from our mistakes, to hammer out the line and draw the demarcation with the opportunists of every shade. Their line of overcoming opportunism from within was consistent in their attempts to blunt the two line struggle calling for peaceful debates; the mensheviks of today have carried on the traditions of the mensheviks of yesterday. With contemptous gall they had the nerve to openly admit their views that the working class is stupid. One Menshevik thought of herself as a boss, finding the advanced workers she was entrusted with developing as stupid for “working all the time and not seeing themselves as bosses.”
Allow us to illustrate this further by quoting from the memoirs of a Menshevik, Lydia Flores:
I have for the past year and a half intrigued, sabotaged and lied in order to hold back the party building motion. I have held the working class in contempt and have not been in unity with the dictatorship of the proletariat.... I have consciously stifled the development of the advanced, and while I was busy being a philistine, putting out practical policies and dealing with the narrow issues of the day exclusively, true Bolsheviks were working to arm the advanced with scientific socialism while I undermined the Bolshevization of the organization. – Lydia Flores
This was the lunacy of the mensheviks who hid in our ranks, in essence and form no different than the mensheviks in the first period where the leading role of the proletariat was totally negated. Today all the mensheviks have now finally admitted that they saw the petty-bourgeoisie as the leading force of the revolution. The form more, crude, more hidden, the essence the same – right opportunism, the betrayal of the proletariat, an attack on its vanguard party, objectively agents of the(bourgeoisiewho have been the partners of the paid agents of the bourgeoisie within our midsts.
As we purge our ranks, as we lock arms tight enriching the developing line of our future party, we draw the many valuable lessons in the struggle against menshevism historically. Maintaining the truths, holding to them and applying the universal principle of Marxism-Leninism, we say to all that’s genuine and honest, the genuine wing must purge its ranks, we must defeat the menshevik line, constituting the main obstacle in moving forward to the actual formation of the party. Hesitency in removing this obstacle from our path may set us back and history will never forgive us.
Opportunism, opportunist lines will rise again and again, and our struggle against it is ongoing; we have no illusions. The glorious examples of the Peoples Republic of China under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao is certainly testimony of this, as the capitalist-roaders are purged and dealt with in the mighty court of justice of the proletariat.
Today, the menshevik line, build the party from below, and its proponents – the OL, the WVO, and all the marsh forces, the menshevik faction recently purged from our ranks, have and continue to cause great harm to the cause of our class. Let’s deal with the line, by moving forward to hammer out the basic line and program of the party, uniting Marxist-Leninists and the advanced workers under one roof, in a solid fist of iron that will continue to grip tight hold of the hammer and sickle of Proletarian Internationalism.
As an example of how the mensheviks try to sabotage the development of bolshevik propaganda and agitation as part of their overall plan to sabotage the overall development of our party building motion, we would like to draw on some lessons learned in our fierce, uncompromising struggle to purge menshevism from our ranks.
One of the essential features of menshevik sabotage is the promotion of technique over politics and failure to promote lively two-line struggle as a means to insure that the political line is clearly in command in our propaganda work. Mensheviks will talk for days on end about the spontaneous movement, hide behind the analysis of the international communist movement in regards to the international situation, and generally be willing to talk about anything except discussion and struggle around party building No, this they find boring, so they will try to promote a philistine attitude towards two-line struggle, They will promote cadre based on technical skills and a love for the worship of spontaneity rather than based on their grasp of the class struggle and the struggle between two lines so that they can safeguard the line of the organization. In fact, they try to isolate and slander those comrades who are perservering and persistent in struggle, part of the overall menshevik strategy of isolation of the bolsheviks. This is the mensheviks contempt for the cadre, an example of their contempt for the masses. They play on comrades weaknesses to sap their strengths so they can utilize them as pawns.
Even in terms of writing propaganda, the mensheviks’ treachery shows itself, as they will love to write about anything but party building. They will try their hardest to separate everything from party building when bolsheviks struggle to do the opposite – to interrelate all our propaganda to the central question involved in making revolution. The menshevik style of propaganda can be characterized by formalism and a general failure to get to the essence of things. By flooding us with phenonmena and analyzing everything in a lifeless, mechanical way, they hope to deviate us from our responsibility to get to the to the essence of every question.
In our struggle for the party, we have gone from lower to higher levels in our grasp of why propaganda is the chief form of activity. In the old period and its two stages the dominance of the right opportunist line manifesting itself in eclectism and economism. There was a fierce battle against all forms of opportunism, mainly right opportunism, which in belittling the role of theory and the conscious element, belittled the role of communist propaganda in verbal and written forms as a means to fuse scientific socialism with the working class movement. The marsh forces, external as well as internal, constantly tried to get the developing bolsheviks to water down or liquidate our propaganda work (i.e., turn Palante over to the masses, “people should study Felix Greene on imperialism instead of Lenin”). Because they opposed party’ building as the central task, they wished us to limit our work to agitation and economist agitation at that, “Throw the Bum Out”, “Jobs or Income Now”, spearheads of struggle instead of Marxism-Leninism applied to concrete conditions to develop a scientific program.
In the struggle against these traitors to the proletariat, we developed our understanding even further as to the importance of propaganda. We have fought for and continue to fight for cadre training especially in grasping the struggle between the two lines as it concretely applies to the period we’re in.
We have fought for open principled polemics within the communist movement in all forms, in the course of day to day work, through Palante, in forums, another important aspect of propaganda work. Through our organ and other written propaganda as well as the equally important task of verbal propaganda in study groups and other forms, we have struggled to bring scientific socialism to the working class, struggling to apply the key link political line, and this is manifested by our (all genuine communists) development in hammering out the line on the development of the party building motion, a theoretical presentation of our central task. We have also developed and brought to the working class a Marxist-Leninist analysis of other related questions, the Trade Union question, the International situation, the State, etc, always making our main emphasis the revolutionary struggle.
To a revolutionary, on the contrary, the main thing is revolutionary work and not reforms; to him reforms are a by-product of revolution. The Foundations of Leninism, pg.98
Therefore, we can see that in the main, we have retained many truths in the struggle against falsehood when it comes to the propaganda tasks facing the bolsheviks in this period of party building, particularly in relationship to the two tactical principles – Marxist-Leninists Unite and Win the Advanced to Communism on the basis of a correct political line.
It is our firm belief that propaganda, as the chief form of activity in the party building period, has particular significance in the present period when political line is the key link to party building. This means that all of our propaganda must flow from the tasks of hammering out the line and program of the party. That it is even more important than ever to place politics firmly in command, and that we must strictly adhere to M-L-MTTT so that we insure that our political line does represent a concentrated expression of the correct relationship between the objective and subjective factors of the revolution. It means firmly grasping the need to intensify the two line struggle in the interests of accomplishing our central task.
The menshevik line, being in harmony with the bourgeoisie, is opposed to this. The mensheviks, flowing from the fact that they don’t want to see a strong bolshevik party built, liquidate communist propaganda generally, and as a whole in particular liquidate the importance of the key link.
The menshevik’s central task of course is not party building, but “build the mass movement” by worshipping it and, therefore, actively stand against the party building motion by going against the period we are in, our chief form of activity – propaganda, political line as the key link and the role of the advanced, and ML unite.
In relationship to the advanced, the mensheviks of our movement, those of the OL, WVO, etc., go against the Leninist line on the advanced. They hold that:
1. The advanced are relative to the movement and that in our specific conditions of the USA, have not arisen out of past movements and that therefore,
2. They do not exist as described by Lenin in Retrograde Trend in Russian Social Democracy, as those that dedicate themselves to the education and organization of the proletariat and who study, study, study hard to turn themselves into social-democrats (communists), those capable of winning the confidence of the laboring masses and who can even elaborate independent socialist theories. The mensheviks say that it is mechanical and ultra-leftist to apply this definition, They hold that the advanced are “open to socialism” and that perhaps five years from now the advanced will fit Lenin’s definition.
3. As a result, they hold that fusion has just begun and that this fusion is gauged by how many reforms we win, by how well we whip up the mass movement and by how well we worship it.
4. They hold that it is our “ultra-leftism” that imposes our level of consciousness onto the masses– that the level of the masses, specifically advanced elements is at a lower level than what we’ve analyzed, That “the masses learn through their own experience”, meaning confining the masses to just the direct experience of fighting for economic issues , the fight for their immediate demands, while distorting what M-L-MTTT teaches us about the masses learning through their own experience which is decades of the historical experience of the proletariat to overthrow the exploiting classes, the world over, summed-up in the theory of M-L-MTTT.
5. They hold that propaganda is not the chief form of activity but that, in fact, what we must do is broad agitation, distorting the period we are in, that of winning over the vanguard to communism and the organizing of the advanced detachment of the proletariat.
6. They hold that what we must build is intermediate forms of organization: ad-hoc committees, budget-cut committees, fight-back organizations and on and on and on, give these an “anti-imperialist” character, making it appear as though they are operating from the second period, that of moving to transitional forms of organization, that period when the party must be connected to the broad masses and win, them over to the side of the party, the side of the revolution. However, anyway they put it, it is opportunist to even give the impression that we are in the second period, when we cannot go to that period without winning the vanguard and organizing the advanced detachment, the party. Secondly, when Lenin said these periods overlap, he did not mean you go to the first period briefly or that there is equilibrium between both but that in fact, as you are winning the advanced, building the party, you are creating the basis to enter the second period, for you are winning the link between the party and the broad masses, the advanced those capable of winning the confidence of the labouring masses.
The mensheviks attack every single principle of bolshevization of communist organization today and the future party. So, therefore, they attack the directive laid out by the Comintern that especially in advanced capitalist countries, communists parties must organize themselves along factory nuclei. As a result, they do not even pay lip service to factory nuclei as the basic unit.
Instead of fractional style of work inside the trade unions, their trade union policy is to unite from above with trade union leaders, submerging the communists to the trade union leaders, thereby, making no distinction, no line of demarcation between communists and traitors, friends from enemies – instead attack us for being anarchists as the mensheviks of the WVO did for – us not applying the united front from above indiscriminately at all times, places, and conditions as they do.
They apply the united front from above with labor leaders and revisionists saying that “it facilitates the work from below;” that they – the labor leaders, bring to the “communists” their base, all this while they negate the work from below. Although we purged ourselves, some of the main proponents of these lines such as Juan Gonzalez, Pablo Yoruba Guzman, David Perez and disclosed the essence of some of their lines, the ones that stayed, hid for a while longer within our ranks paying lip service to party building, key link political line and used the credibility of our organization to go into the mass movement and build themselves as the “heroes of the masses” subvert the line, while all along thinking the masses stupid and incapable of grasping the theory of Marxism-Leninism, came out even cruder more disgusting as the mask was being torn from their ugly faces – being uncovered by their lack of being unable to apply not one single principle that our organization has ever stood for and has fought for throughout our history. Being revealed more and more as we entered the period of political line as the key link to party building. Being uncovered more and more as we fiercely practiced the fundamental principle of “practice Marxism and criticize revisionism.”
These internal corroding mensheviks, loving the attacks on us by WVO, OL, etc., waited a while, for what they felt would be the right time to then begin to raise once again their historical cry of the “boogy-man of ultra-leftism,” “isolation from the masses and the mass movement” which to them is just students and the most backward strata of the petty-bourgeoisie (for here was where they would get their base), hated even the mention of the proletariat, crystalized and concretized by their hatred for advanced workers.
In fact, they said that the “proletariat is stupid because they do not want to be bosses,” that the advanced workers “cannot grasp the theory of M-L-MTTT, that only the petty-bourgeoisie could grasp such an advanced theory.” That, in fact, revolution is in the interest of the petty-bourgeoisie, showing once again the rotten bourgeois ideology, idealism and metaphysics, placing the revolution in the hands of a class who is going out of being, who is incapable of leading the revolution, who is progressive and revolutionary in as much as they take the stands with the proletariat, with what’s coming into being and abandon their desire and aspiration of the bourgeoisie.
Our mensheviks hated and feared being sent into plants for many reasons: they feared hard labor, fearful that their fragile bodies would as much as get a scratch and fear that in the eyes of the basic industrial proletariat, advanced workers, those who they called stupid because they like working, they would be exposed.
In fact, among advanced elements in particular and the masses in general, themselves would even display themselves cruder. Instead of training the advanced, many would not even raise that they were communists, in a communist organization, even though they were open spokesmen. They would not consolidate the advanced around the line of the organization and, in fact, would not even as much as bring them Palante, the pamphlets or explain the two line struggle over party building. To them you win the advanced through ̶the struggle for “revolutionary” reforms.” By winning reforms then slowly through the theory of stages introduce the third ideology of “anti-imperialism”, than raise later on in the future and in some vague way Marxism-Leninism. For they hold that to “raise ML from jump will turn the working class off” for they are incapable of grasping the Struggle for ML, for the party. That ML is just for communist organizations and not for the working class, sounding just like the same mensheviks and economists that Lenin struggled against who said politics is for the liberal bourgeoisie and intellectuals; for the working class is just the struggle for better sale of their labor power, keeping the class as slave wage earners. In fact, they hold that political line is key for the communist movement but not for the working class, negating and violating two very important lessons drawn from the history of the Bolshevik Party: where Lenin lays out that it is a fundamental thesis of Marxism that “a Marxist party is a union of the working class movement with socialism and that the working class of its own it could only raise to trade union consciousness.” That union, comrades, is forged by injecting scientific socialism into the spontaneous movement through the application of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions and our fight for the Marxist-Leninist line.
The essence of menshevism is the worshipping of spontaineity, the ideological root of all opportunism; thus the party is built from the mass movement, “from below”, the theory of stages, i.e., worship the spontaneous movement, “pre-condition the advanced through revolutionary reform,” and then they will arise to “political trade union consciousness.” These are the deeds of our mensheviks who constituted themselves as a faction within our organization. Busy conniving, sabotaging, building the mass movement around “open admission at Brooklyn college, etc., while neglecting the work with the advanced, and recruiting backward elements into our organization. who would “vocalize the need to overthrow the leftist bloc in leadership and bring them to power”. Build the mass movement to prove our line correct was their famous catchphrase – tagging “revolutionary” in front of reform to cover their line of peaceful transition to socialism; comrades, reformism is reformism and no amount of tagging it with pretty words is going to make it revolution.
Comrades, the treachery and treason of these mensheviks has been documented throughout this article which is a summation of their deeds and so, WE REST OUR CASE, fully confident that the proletariat and its vanguard will bring these traitors before the mighty court of revolution. However, in order to do so, ours is the task to continue to fight for the political line with all our energies and not lower our vigilance against any deviation or any shades of difference no matter how small or insignificant it may look, for menshevism takes many fo.ms and unless we beat it back time and time again, wherever it appears, it will raise its ugly head again, maybe wearing a different mask or dress.
Comrades! Let’s close our ranks, strengthen democratic centralism even more, making it impossible for these slimes to maneuver in, grasping tightly and fighting for the key link in this period of party building, the political line.
Let’s move resolutely to unite with all genuine ML, win the advanced to communism as, in the process, we “fight and vanquish the enemies internal and foreign,” as Lenin taught us.
MARXIST-LENINISTS UNITE
WIN THE ADVANCED TO COMMUNISM
ON AND FORWARD TO THE PARTY OF LENIN...