Comrades–we are approaching the threshold of forming a very important organization–a YCL. But in order to carry out this task, it is necessary to go into some very important line questions and unite firmly around a correct line and approach. This is the only way to make the founding convention a success–in building for it in this last stage and to also have a convention that will put our YCL on the firmest ground possible. These line questions also have significance in and of themselves and have a bearing on other vital questions facing the Party.
To put it pretty bluntly–there has been some pretty sharp line struggle in some parts of the Party over this YCL, especially with a number of comrades in this area of work. Line struggle which focuses on what this organization should be called, but is based on differences as to what the character and purpose of such an organization should be. There has been more than a little bit of activity that could be termed factional in character (but not necessarily in purpose). This will be gone into later in this report, but mentioned here so that comrades will get the point that the following is the line of our Party on the question and that this document should be studied as the line of our Party on the question–to be deepened through discussion and implementation. This paper is not being distributed to open the question for “free debate” in any Party unit.
In going into the line questions, this paper will quote liberally from a written appeal to leadership over the “name question”–an appeal that argued for the name of the YCL to be Revolutionary Youth Brigade (RYB). An appeal that basically boiled down to saying that the word “Communist” in the name of the YCL would make it impossible for a YCL to fulfill its functions and would reduce it to a Trotskyite sect. The Center is using this appeal as a focus because, from its investigation and discussions, particularly with people doing this work, this appeal does in fact represent a concentration of the arguments of those who are opposed to having “Communist” in the name of the YCL.
After studying and discussing the appeal at length, leadership rejected it and felt that the name of the YCL should be Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB). This is slightly different than the name put forward in National Bulletin, Vol. X, No. X (the name put forward there was Revolutionary Communist Youth). Brigade was thought to be a positive addition because it served to make it seem more like an organization and also it would build off the positive reputation of the Revolutionary Student Brigade (RSB) on many campuses. Not only did leadership feel that the name RCYB would be much better (which we’ll go into in depth later in the paper–see especially the section, “What’s in a Name–and Why Communist in the Name Is Better”), but that the appeal’s arguments for not wanting communism in the name reflected an incorrect view of why we build a separate communist organization among youth, what are the key tasks of a YCL and what type of revolutionary work can and must be done in this period. These are the central points we will focus on in this paper.
In various documents–from the Party’s Programme, the Main Political Report of the Founding Congress (MPR) [internal document only], the Central Committee Report [from the latter part of 1976, excerpts available in Revolution, Vol. 2, Nos. 8 & 9], and National Bulletin, Vol. X, No. X, the general characteristics of youth, the problems they face and the proletariat’s purpose in forming a YCL have been gone into:
One of the Party’s most important areas of work is developing struggle and revolutionary organization among youth, and students. As our Party’s Programme states, ’The problems of youth, however, are growing. Not only is it harder to get into and stay in school, but with or without a high school or college diploma, jobs are hard to find. The unemployment rate for young people is several times the general rate, and is even higher among Black and Latin youth. In addition, young people face legal inequality, police harassment, and the threat of having to be cannon fodder in an imperialist war. But the most basic problem the masses of young people face is the fact that imperialism is unable to offer them a life with a purpose . . . There is only one path that offers youth a genuine opportunity to put to use its enthusiasm, its innovativeness, its daring and determination to change the world–proletarian revolution. Here and only here will they genuinely find a life with a purpose.’ (MPR, emphasis added)
and:
. . . we must take into account the special characteristics of youth–both the positive aspect of daring, determination to make change, to refuse to accept things the way they are, etc. and, secondarily, the negative aspect that they have not yet developed the discipline and experience that the proletariat gains in production and class struggle. To deal with this correctly, we must develop a communist youth organization that is separate from, but under the leadership of the Party and will–as the Party’s arm among youth–enable more and more young people to fight for the working class in a thoroughgoing way and to find a ’life with a purpose’, while enabling the Party to work with them in a systematic way, help even the more advanced to become more steeled in struggle, and recruit the most dedicated and disciplined into the Party. (MPR, emphasis added)
and the later CC Report on the YCL:
It [YCL] must have a life of its own and at the same time take its lead from the Party. The main glue holding it together must be its communist character, not some particular struggles of youth. At the same time the kind of organization it is must be determined by the particular qualities of youth ... [in above quote] . . . This means that the YCL must not be mainly a ’needs of youth’ group, but a revolutionary communist, turn-the-world-upside-down group. (CC Report, Discussions and Decisions)
The above is the heart of our basic line around the YCL. Some comrades might be asking, “What’s new, we’re all starting from that premise, why repeat it here, in another document?” The reason is that while not explicitly saying so, the appeal written reflects some basic disagreements with the line outlined above– and this has also been reflected to some degree in our practice around youth and student work in the past period.
To paraphrase, what the quotations indicate above is that we must build a YCL to tap youth’s potential enthusiasm for socialism and. because we can train many as communists who won’t qualify for membership in the Party till they are more steeled in struggle and understanding. Of course, the first reason is more important, but both aspects are fundamental to why we need a YCL–a YCL that will go broadly out among the masses of youth and students and link up with and build struggle around their immediate concerns, to mobilize them into political and even revolutionary struggle, to propagate Marxism-Leninism among youth broadly and to continually recruit more to its own ranks and eventually as many as possible into the ranks of the Party.
The authors of the appeal disagree with this under the banner that the YCL is an “advanced mass” organization; they say that this and other formulations of theirs represent “deepening” of our Party’s line on youth. Here are some examples how:
Now, why do we form organizations like this [YCLs] among the strata of youth. This is a question that is often asked and while we’ve hammered this out at a number of meetings–it’s never been fully summed up why YCLs are a strategically important weapon for the working class victory in the class war.
It’s not simply because it’s a good ’idea’ to have one and that they’ve been built since the turn of the century. Not simply because large, quick doses of Marxism are needed to consolidate advanced youth . ..
No, for with all the varying degree of merit to these points, they miss the mark as to what’s the basis for forming them. The basis, of course, is the material contradictions that the broad millions of youth face which create the necessity for an organization that is ’advanced mass.’ Contradictions that provide the basis and necessity for an organization that will not only take up and lead the many immediate battles of youth but also offer another road and future for youth to take up as they face a certain crossroad of their life. And contradictions that demand that an organization for youth provide a vehicle and opportunity for youth to serve the proletariat– using their skills and energy for the class war–and not what the schools and society generally do–train them to be the slaves and servants of the bourgeoisie. (appeal, emphasis added)
The Programme also speaks to this point in the section under youth starting, ’But the most basic problem the masses of young people face is the fact that imperialism is unable to offer them a life with a purpose.’ The youth need an organization that will not only lead them in fighting around different issues–but takes up this question which is the sharpest one of all that youth face.
This is the fundamental reason why young communist leagues have been developed throughout the 20th century and why we must be ’advanced mass’ to openly lead and develop the struggles of youth, to help create another pole–another road and future for the broad millions of youth, and give the youth a chance while they’re checking out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives–to take up Marxism-Leninism and give them a vehicle to use their energy and skills and ability to serve the working class. (appeal, emphasis added)
On the surface these might seem like a true “deepening” of our line–but they are not. The “daring, determination to make change, to refuse to accept the way things are” etc. have slipped away somehow. In fact, that’s first alluded to on page 13 of their single spaced paper:
One last point while we’re talking about the nature of the organization. We’ve all been through the various material and social reasons why youth are rebellious, tend to take things up quick and more boisterously than others, capable of making quicker leaps, etc. The task of the YCL as the mass organization to lead the youth is to openly tap that quality . . . (appeal)
While youth’s rebelliousness is put out as almost an afterthought, there are numerous rehashings of the authors’ paragraphs that “deepen our understanding of the strategic importance of a YCL.” Each one tends to reduce “life with a purpose” to a question of “where am I going to find my niche.” In speaking to the YCL’s task of being a center to “learn communism” they define this as “Providing a vehicle for young people–who are looking for a place to use and develop their skills, lead productive lives, contribute to society etc.–to do just that by learning Marxism and fighting for the working class.”
While this contradiction–youth growing up and finding no decent place for themselves in society–is a real and important contradiction, it in and of itself does not define “life with a purpose.” As kids grow up, it gets clearer and clearer that things really stink in this society. As the Party’s Programme outlines well:
But the most basic problem the masses of young people face is the fact that imperialism is unable to offer them a life with a purpose. Years in a factory or some other job making some capitalist richer, or devoting their life only to raising a family and keeping house, fighting to stay ahead of debt and with nothing to offer their own children except life in a system based on exploitation and oppression ... It is no wonder that many young people fall prey to the corruption pushed by the bourgeoisie–seeking answers in mystic faiths or escape in drugs and cynicism.”
The authors are treading on very dangerous water with their “deepening.” The question of “finding a place to use their skills” is repeated almost a half dozen times in every similar description of why we need a YCL and its purpose. This smacks of the proletariat supposedly competing with the bourgeoisie as a place where youth can use their skills for a useful purpose. While students and a certain strata of working class youth do have that concern (and the authors do say later that work they’re familiar with has attracted mainly upwardly mobile working class youths and that this has to be summed up–which it must) and it is also true that the working class will utilize various skills people have, this cannot be an integral part of a line on the YCL (especially before the seizure of state power)–a YCL is not a place for youth to find their niche in “the service of the proletariat.” A YCL is what you join to fight and learn about tearing the M-F up to build a new world, standing with the proletariat in this country and the worldwide revolutionary struggle.
This isn’t nit-picking–failure to put youth’s daring and refusal to accept things the way they are in any proper perspective coupled with repeated emphasis of finding a place to use their “skills” takes the real revolutionary heart out of the organization, despite militant struggles it might be involved in. This is so because it fails to make a radical rupture, just as the Panthers did with their “serve the people” programs (despite their tremendous militance and revolutionary stance on other questions).
Just to illustrate where not making a radical rupture could lead is the Young Workers Liberation League (YWLL), the youth organization of the revisionist CP. “Using your skills to serve the people and the working class” is an integral part of their line–and is their come-on to attract working class youth and especially Black youth. Aside from the fact that they’ve channeled almost all the students they’ve worked with into the petty bourgeoisie (and a small number into the skilled trades), during the Cambodia-Kent-Jackson State strikes in 1970 on a number of campuses the YWLL played the role of calling for the end of the strikes so that people could get back to classes so they could learn their skills “to serve the revolution.”
Obviously nobody in the Party doing youth and student work is running this revisionist crap and this “skills” stuff probably has not been an integral part of our line–but it is clearly in the appeal, because, we believe, the authors have “revised” the Party’s line on the YCL more to go along with their arguments later in their paper that there is no qualitative leap for a youth to join the YCL. But any adoption of the authors’ “deepening” would surely lead us down a very dangerous path.
All this redefinition of our purpose and importance of a YCL come under the heading of why a YCL must be an “advanced mass” or “mass communist” organization and not a “junior party.” Despite the fact that in not one major Party document up to and including National Bulletin, Vol. X, No. X is there any mention of this formulation, according to the appeal, this “advanced mass” character is our Party’s line on the YCL and that is what has been implemented, at least in RSB work.
To bolster their argument for how the YCL should be an “advanced mass” organization, the authors of the appeal say that this line was ”developed by the Comintern in the late ’20s and early ’30s” and they recite a number of quotes from the 1920s which “are six quotes out of many hundreds that could be picked out of YCI or individual YCL’s materials that go into this point.” With one main thrust of these quotes we agree. It is that the YCLs must not be “little debating clubs” (as one quote puts it) and must go out broadly among the masses of youth, that they must take “an active part in the daily struggles” of working class youth and “exert a steady influence on the broad mass” of working class youth “who for some reason or other we don’t get into our ranks” (from the same quote). All of this is correct and does certainly apply to the YCL we are now building.
But some of the formulations in these quotes are either ambiguous or just incorrect. For example phrases like “class conscious or partially class conscious” are used to describe those working class youth who should be in the YCL. And in one quote it is stated that working class youth should be in the YCL “class conscious and not.” With this latter statement, especially, we do not at all agree. It is clear that the direction from the Comintern at that time (1928) was to “bend the stick” in YCL work towards breaking them out of isolation, and in this context it was even felt necessary to stress that the YCL must wage “the struggle for the bettering of the economic conditions of the youth.” It is perhaps for this reason that the quote goes so far as to say that working class youth who are not class conscious should be in the YCL. But whatever the reasons (and we won’t attempt here to go more fully into an analysis of the reasons) the statement taken as such does not lead in the correct direction, unless it means only that youth who have not yet been trained in communism should be brought into the YCL and trained there. But that would seem to be stretching the quote a bit, and we will stand with the position that it is simply wrong.
And the fact that the authors of the appeal choose to use quotes like this indicates what kind of YCL they have in mind to build and indicates that, despite their protestations (or even intentions) to the contrary, the “advanced mass” character they promote will lead them to make “mass” the principal aspect and to gear the organization to those youth who are not class conscious. This goes right along with a main argument of theirs– that there is no qualitative leap (in consciousness) for youth in joining the YCL, that such a leap comes only later–which, again, would mean that the authors would end up building an organization whose essence is not determined by its communist character, and this would be especially so the more they recruited many “not” class conscious youth into the YCL (more on this soon).
“Advanced mass” wouldn’t be such a bad description for a YCL if the “mass” in the formulation was meant to indicate that because of the particular qualities of youth, the YCL would have a broader, more mass character than the Party itself and that it had the task of doing its political activity (including building struggle) among the broad masses of youth. But that’s not what the authors mean. They say:
What do we mean by an advanced mass organization or a communist mass organization? We mean that the YCL stands for socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, links this up to many struggles it builds, openly applies M-L to the struggle and takes up the study of Marxism. It stands with and supports the RCP–who politically leads it. These are the characteristics that define its communist character and are the principal aspect of its political and organizational existence, mark its difference with other mass organizations the Party builds and mark similarities to the Party. On the other hand, the YCL is the main form of organization which is to lead the struggles of youth (though it will certainly form fronts and mass organizations from time to time, mainly around particular battles), and it is the organization that we call on advanced people to immediately join–open to all who want to work with it, generally agree with its program pay dues, carry out consistent work, etc. It is an organization where the new advanced come in to ’learn communism’ and most are not even communist when they join. Both these aspects differ from those of the Party–the main form to lead the mass struggle, the main form to bring in new forces into, and the level of their political development upon joining, this defines its mass character. (appeal)
Despite many declarations to the opposite, the authors in essence do make the mass character principal of their YCL. Their “advanced” aspect is its stand, which it links up with many struggles, while its mass character is that it is the main form of organization that will lead the struggle of youth. By definition the pull will be toward being “mass” as the main thing.
But let’s look at this definition (and the authors’ deepening of it throughout their paper). While it is important to play a leading and central role in the struggle of youth–the YCL’s advanced (that is, communist) character cannot be sacrificed in the name of being the main mass form of organization to lead the struggle of youth. And while it’s very important to recruit youth broadly into its ranks, its advanced character cannot be sacrificed so that it will be the main form of organization for the “new advanced” to join (defined by our authors as youths who know “little or nothing about communism”). Because despite how much our authors try to deny it, there is a qualitative leap involved between answering the question of “life with a purpose” and acting on that understanding (building for socialist revolution etc.) and the fight around particular attacks and problems of youth. While going out broadly to mobilize youth around their particular contradictions with the bourgeoisie, the RCYB’s activities among the masses and its outlook have to go beyond that, and the RCYB is not involved in battles because of the particular problems of youth, but to help make proletarian revolution. Yes, a YCL is possible and necessary because of the particular qualities of youth outlined in the earlier quotes from the MPR and CC report, but there is a qualitative leap involved between the problems and outlook of youth “en masse” (in their masses) and of a YCL. The RCYB, while applying the mass line and speaking to the contradictions youth face, must strive not to look at the world through the “eyes of youth”-but from the point of view of proletarian revolution and proletarian ideology. Only in this way can a YCL apply the mass line, exert a steady influence on the broad masses of youth and persevere through the high points and ebbs in mass struggle.
As a communist youth organization, the RCYB’s tasks will be to train and recruit communists and to exert a great deal of influence among the broad masses of youth. In terms of the mass work, there are three distinct tasks–to go out and lead the struggles of youth, to mobilize youth in broader struggles at the side of the proletariat, and to do practical work on the ideological front (to propagate proletarian ideology and oppose and expose bourgeois ideology among the masses) not simply among YCL members, but among youth broadly. The second mass task is underplayed in the paper, although spoken to somewhat. But the third mass task–practical work in the ideological sphere–is spoken to mainly in a negative light. Yes, the authors speak time and again about unfolding Marxism in the course of taking up a battle, but doing mass work in the ideological front becomes “being like a Trotskyite sect,” putting out its “pure line.” In fact, it’s hard to see how the authors’ YCL would be much different than a YIA [Youth in Action–the name of a number of mass (not communist) youth groups which existed before the RCYB’s founding–Ed.]. Party members and other advanced persons would be unfolding Marxism-Leninism in the course of a battle if they worked in a YIA. Party members would lead the YIA members in a manner to “bring light” to a struggle through agitation, etc. Doing practical ideological work among the masses is one of the key things a communist form can do that a “mass” form cannot. At this time, any mass form would be limited in doing ideological work in its own right–since you would need unity around proletarian ideology to do so.
The authors of the appeal make a huge cry against potential rightism and the diminishing significance of the YCL if Communist were in the YCL’s name, which would make it a “junior party” (in their paper–“junior parties refusing to go out and lead the struggle of youth, and demanding people be full-blown communists to be in.” That’s a strange definition of a party– “refusing to go out and lead the struggle.” One has to wonder which party these comrades have been in!).
Their cry:
.. . For when comrades have raised how the name RCY will be a fetter on our ability to openly lead struggle, popularize socialism, etc. we suddenly get told of the wonders of second level organizations, mass committees and coalitions. . . and how these forms of organization will be much more ’in’ during the future and the importance of the YCL openly leading struggle is downplayed. Despite this defying any experience on the campuses and neighborhoods over the last couple of years, we ask the center–who is to speak to the major contradiction that youth face–what the hell are they going to do with their life and what the future holds if we don’t strive for the YCL to do this. Who the hell are we supposed to be raising socialism to–the people in the mass committee. Is someone seriously going to suggest we can do this mainly through propaganda while we do our work through second level organizations. How is this turning the broad millions of people’s views around about socialism and communism. Why not strive to make the YCL the main form of organization to lead struggle among the youth? Why leave the major contradiction that the millions of youth face out there only for the bourgeoisie to speak to?” (appeal)
There is so much wrong with this that it’s pretty hard to unravel. Aside from the smackings of dishonesty (all of a sudden we’ve had an open communist organization in the neighborhoods for two years) it is only in the heads of the authors (and others that hold this line) that the utilization of mass forms means all the other crap they run down, including downplaying the importance of the YCL leading struggle. One does have to ask again, what party our comrades have been in. Yes, “two level work” was criticized in the Revolutionary Union (RU) [an organization which played a major role in the formation of the RCP–Ed.] some four or five years ago–it was some formula in the Brigade which meant mass forms with no political content and the RSB [Revolutionary Student Brigade, which became the communist student organization of the RCP shortly after its founding–Ed.] acting pretty closeted on some campuses. But the rightism was not inherent in the existence of mass forms (although the Brigade not being directly involved in struggles, and always looking for a “front” reflected this same rightism).
In fact, the MPR, which did some overall summation of our Brigade work and why a YCL was called for in summing up how students were getting stuck at some “vague revolutionary” level and at “anti-imperialism,” also summed up . . . “At the same time, the RSB, as it has been in the past, has had difficulty in uniting with broad masses of students in struggle, partly due to the errors of the RSB and communist cadre playing the leading role within it, but also partly due to the fact that the RSB represented a very advanced level on the one hand– “revolution,” vaguely defined–but on the other hand tried to keep itself ’open-ended’ and serve as the mass organization for students who became active in struggle.” (MPR, emphasis added) The MPR goes on and talks about the RSB as a communist student organization and states very clearly that:
In order to carry this out [doing painstaking work among the broad masses of students and raising their consciousness] this communist student organization must work to develop other, broader mass organizations among students. The life and form of these mass organizations will depend on the development of both the particular struggles among students and of the student movement, as part of the overall revolutionary movement, as a whole. The Party, and its cadre among students, must guard against mechanical tendencies in developing this–and specifically against the tendency to sum up from the particular experience of the RSB in the recent past that it is impossible to develop mass organization that unites students in fighting around particular questions and, through this organization, linking these fights and directing the spearhead against the enemy. (MPR, emphasis added)
The MPR even goes on further about how these mass forms might not always be just single issues. But enough has been brought out to show that maybe some of these comrades haven’t looked in the MPR since the Party was formed. Yes, comrades, summing up practice is important, but it shouldn’t be distorted, and the major summations that have helped further develop our line should not be ignored. If the authors think the MPR is wrong on this–which the Center does not– they should say so, and why.
It’s totally idealist and also reflects the walling off of youth into the world of youth, that the YCL will only build struggle in its own name–or that other forms might be necessary, but they are basically poison. Many battles, particularly on the political front (such as African Liberation Day) will be in coalitions–even many of those around the questions of jobs and unemployment will be done in conjunction with the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee (where leaflets can be signed by UWOC and RCYB). Of course, there will be battles like Wall Street and also on the local level where the YCL will be not only the leading, but the main force (in terms of organizational forms). And the more battles can be taken up this way, and the larger they are, the better. But it would be totally incorrect to think that even every local battle can be taken up with only the organization form of the YCL– no matter what its name is!
For example, the police murder a youth–family, friends, the whole neighborhood is outraged and a large number of people want to do something about it. The YCL approaches the family and others (just as the Party has done in similar instances) and says let’s make a fight–this is an outrage and–it’s linked with a thousand other abuses and we’ve got to stand up and fight it, etc. etc. (of course while doing broader expos-sure with these forces). Now will these people, even the youth, be ready to join the YCL (regardless of its name) in order to have some organizational form to sustain this struggle? Most likely not. Or is the YCL going to tell these folks–just give us the pertinent information–we’ll write up a leaflet and call a demonstration in our name alone–you should help us leaflet and organize for the demo, but we don’t need any kind of mass organization, because you have the YCL?!
Of course there is no rule that with every police murder, a mass formation must be built. The YCL may do a leaflet exposing such an outrage and calling on people to take up the fight and may also call for some action– but if the battle truly takes on a broad mass character, more likely than not a broad mass form will be called for, or the YCL could limit the participation of broader forces and miss the opportunity to train and school masses–including masses of youth–in struggle. Not building mass forms when necessary would be “left” in form, but right in essence, not only because it would hold back the participation and development of broader masses, but because it would pull the YCL to the right and even in a short-term sense, make it harder to play any kind of advanced role since it would be fulfilling the function of a mass form in a broad mass struggle.
But even in a situation where a mass form is called for (or coalition activity, etc.) the YCL should do as much independent work, mass work as possible. This is extremely important, because the RCYB will not be the only organized political force in these neighborhoods–especially in the minority communities–and these forces will be working overtime to sum up the particular battles beyond the terms of the immediate battle, in a bourgeois direction. Besides doing propaganda work with the most advanced who come forward, and selling the Young Red [name for a communist newspaper for youth-Ed.] at mass rallies, giving speeches, etc., it very likely could be possible to put out a special leaflet-addressed particularly to the youth in the community, that would bring more light into the particular battle, bring out the broader aims of our movement, and call on youth not only to participate in this particular struggle, but to get active in the struggle to turn the whole thing around, etc.
The authors argue strongly that having “Communist” in the name could not only limit the YCL’s participation in mass struggle, but also would severely cut down its membership by “hundreds.” Throughout their paper there are little tidbits like members need to “know little or nothing about communism” and that a good (successful) chapter of the RSB has 30% of its membership that do not consider themselves communists (or, we gather, not aspiring communists). But somehow this is a communist organization, that studies and applies Marxism and stands with proletarian revolution–but about a third of the organization does not want to work under the banner of “red” (or “Communist” to be specific).
Despite some common characteristics of youth from various class backgrounds and especially with different potential in class aspirations–i.e., youth from the petty bourgeoisie can “make it” a bit “higher”– there are some pretty sharp class differences (that’s one of the reasons the “skills” line is dangerous) and basically there is no basis to unite them in an advanced organization (that does not mean there will not be common struggle they might be involved in–particularly around political issues) unless the basis is communism–proletarian revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, the eventual elimination of classes, etc. Of course a YCL will have its more advanced members and less advanced. Of course there will be members who are mainly learning–are in training, etc. (in fact, the “in training” aspect is a key part of the YCL overall). But how many working class youth are going to join a “communist” organization–no matter what its name is–unless they are communists or aspiring to be. The authors of the appeal continue to state that there is no leap in consciousness to join the YCL–that members are in a “quantitative move toward Marxism,” the leap should come after six weeks to two months of membership. We suppose that with all the anti-communism around (which is the authors’ key argument and will be gone into later) somebody is going to join a communist organization when they are not even aspiring to be one to some degree–“know nothing about communism.”
Frankly, this line of thinking could guarantee the social base to continue to be mainly students–or at least allow considerable more erosion in a petty bourgeois direction. Our authors think differently–in fact they think the opposite, because they continually state that communism in the name will drive away the working class youth, but keep in more students–this is very, very short-term thinking.
The university “atmosphere” as a “clearing house of ideas” does not have the same kind of open anti-communism as society as a whole (the anti-communism there is usually much more insidious). To this day large numbers of profs consider themselves to be socialist or whatever. Frankly, the RYB line on membership leaves an opening for petty bourgeois intellectuals to join, who dig some of the work the RYB does but who aren’t particularly sure about the dictatorship of the proletariat (although they might support workers struggles) or maybe they have a “revolutionary” line that “maybe us enlightened and benevolent intellectuals could take the reins of society” or new working class stuff, or maybe revolution means mainly national liberation (that could happen off campus as well). Any of these are possibilities–and while communists must work with these types of people, it would be absurd to combine them with proletarian revolutionary youth. Yes, some student members may have some lingerings of some of these lines, because of a lack of a deep grasp of Marxism, but having petty bourgeois intellectuals coming into an organization off of a major struggle or two (as our authors continually emphasize) who do not consider themselves to be reds or aspiring reds in the fullest sense of the word (dictatorship of the proletariat, elimination of classes, etc.) has the potential to pollute the YCL–and guarantee an incorrect balance toward students–that could eventually destroy its character.
Why do the appeal authors come up with the opposite conclusion? Because at this time more RSBers are ready to be called communists and work under that banner–and they won’t get attacked quite in the same forms as in the neighborhoods for doing so. But we have been doing open red work for years on many of these campuses–that does make a difference–and on many campuses today the RSB is the only militant, visible force–and we’ve barely begun any of that type of work in the neighborhoods. But does this add up to students embracing the dictatorship of the proletariat more than working class youths–in anything but the shortest term sense, of course not!
In the main, once they start to grasp that society needs radical changes, working class youth will more readily and quickly grasp that proletarian revolution is what’s needed (although of course, this does not happen spontaneously!) while a youth from the petty bourgeoisie will entertain Utopian socialist views (some kind of revolution necessary, not sure about dictatorship of the proletariat, etc.) for a while–sometimes, quite a while! This also goes on among working class youth to some degree but it is much more pronounced among p.b. youth exactly because of their class basis.
Lenin wrote an entire polemic on why there had to be a clear communist pole among the students. On the Tasks of Revolutionary Youth, Collected Works, Vol. 7. And if a YCL is going to have a “life of its own,” and not be pulled by the nose instead of being led politically by Party members, then people have to know and yes, be (at least in training) what the organization states it is! (We’ll get into the communist character in terms of membership a little more in the next section.) The communist “level” of the YCL is communists in training, i.e.; the level of ideological training and understanding is not as great as Party members in general. But they are training to be communists–which entails at least a minimum grasp of what communism and proletarian ideology is about and a dedication to being a part of and propagating the cause of proletarian revolution.
The authors of the appeal, and maybe some of the others who’ve held similar lines, might say that they agree with some of the points above, and the appeal might have been off a bit on some point–that really “we meant what we said about advanced being principle-only RYB should still be the name of the YCL because of the main argument of our paper–the working class has been without socialism in this country for 20-30 years, and while the youth can play somewhat of a vanguard role, you can’t separate them that much from society as a whole; the word communist means negative things–causes a lot of controversy (which is good even according to our authors) but the contradictions among the people on this question are too great and having ’C in the name will cause an antagonistic contradiction with building struggle and gaining new membership. Yes, we want to raise socialism and communism among the youth, but having ’Communist’ in the name will not allow us to get to first base, and then we never will be able to unfold socialism and communism in the course of struggle”–so the argument might go.
As the authors said:
How does it gone [sic] when communism becomes the immediate terms of the battle? Has this been the best way that we’ve started to popularize socialism. Certainly the Party Center must sum this up in developing its overall line and please while taking into account the qualities of youth, let’s not isolate them from society as a whole. We say this makes all the difference in the world as to whether the YCL will be able to carry out its tasks–and develop into the youth arm of the party, or become a small, isolated, almost trotskyite sect. Putting out its pure line, unable to unite or lead struggle, only hoping for the day when objective conditions are ’right’ and people will see that we’ve been correct. Not at all the way to build the YCL. (appeal)
This quote reflects the cornerstone of the authors’ line. And they base their suppositions totally on the fact that the working class has been without a Party for 20-30 years. There can be no doubt about it. They allude to the fact that the proletariat in the U.S. has been without a Party or “socialism and communism” for 20-30 years more than 13 times in their paper–along with raising numerous quotes from the CC report about current conditions and insisting that they be taken into account. For example, they write: “The point is to grasp the overall period. Bourgeoisification beginning to break down. A period of growing but scattered struggle–and confusion. And most importantly–particularly in terms of developing a young communist organization–the working class is entering this period having been without socialism for 20 or 30 years.” (authors’ emphasis)
and:
For the past 20 to 30 years the bourgeoisie, off its material base as top capitalist power, has been beating the shit out of socialism and communism. It has been aided in this process by the degeneration and fascist activity of the Soviet Union and the lack of a proletarian party and class conscious section of workers. There has been no need for our bourgeoisie to rule or lead the people through any other parties other than the 2 clear cut bourgeois parties. This of course is a marked difference from most capitalist countries–where the working class is more class conscious and has a long history of independent political movements, and various sorts of socialists and communists leading them. (appeal)
The main argument here boils down to not a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, but a theory of stages when it comes to the question of raising communism among youth and recruiting youth to communism. According to the authors, because it is the beginning of a new spiral, we are in a period where raising communism directly, as in the name of a YCL, and requiring that youth have a decent grasp of what communism is about when they join the YCL will only defeat the red flag. Introducing this section of their paper they give an example from China about how the YCL there had its name changed in 1935 to the New Democratic Youth Corps–the authors say this was probably as a product of the struggle against three left lines in the Party’s previous history–and was changed back to Communist Youth League when they seized state power in 1949. There is definitely some dishonesty here on the part of the authors–since they seem to try and plead ignorance as to the reason the Chinese did this and make 1949 appear to be only the question of the seizure of state power–when these comrades must know that the distinct stage of revolution changed from a new democratic character to socialist in character with the seizure of state power in 1949!
A bad choice of example or linked with the line tendencies throughout their paper? We believe the second. Because in carefully outlining the conditions and quoting from the CC report, our comrades leave out what the heart of the CC report was about.
First, their preoccupation with the 20-30 years without a Party stuff is basically a crock of shit. Yes, we have to recognize the bourgeoisification of the working class, but not to tail behind it and definitely not to exaggerate “how bad it is out there.” From reading their paper, except for the actual year span they keep mentioning, you’d think it was 1959 and that the bourgeoisie had just reached its pinnacle of worldwide domination and had successfully crushed the communist forces in the U.S. (through McCarthyism and the degeneration of the CPUSA). You’d have no idea that there had been a whole period of upheaval–Black liberation, student movement, the bourgeoisie’s crushing defeat in Vietnam (yes, some people do remember, and some youth might even know that fighting communism was the excuse for the imperialists’ aggression). And most significantly, you would get no idea that there had been somewhat conscious forces out there in the working class for almost ten years and that a formation of a proletarian vanguard had taken place two years ago. These omissions are not incidentals that have no relationship to things, including this new spiral.
As the CC report states (“Some Points ...”):
This is a difficult period–for the masses, and for the Party. It is not a period like the ’60s and early ’70s, a period of high tide of struggle, mainly based among non-proletarian forces . .. This is not to negate the real advances made in that period. Without that development, things would not be where they are now–for example our Party has its roots in that period, though it represents a qualitative leap beyond it. And where things are now is an advance, because it is the spiral that will lead to a major change in the relation of forces and will lead to the real prospect of proletarian revolution in this country as well as others.
But it is the beginning of this new spiral–and so the fact that it is an advance is not always immediately so evident. (emphasis added)
This is a point our authors don’t seem to grasp at all. The CC report’s main emphasis was that we have to take conditions into account, but we have to have a dialectical materialist grasp of those conditions–where things are going–and, what as communists are we preparing ourselves and the masses for in the coming period, why it is of the utmost importance that we do revolutionary work in this non-revolutionary period, while sinking roots in the masses’ struggles and leading these struggles.
Yes, many of the contradictions the authors speak about are real–it is no breeze to do open communist work–it causes great controversy at times (which even the authors don’t say is a bad thing). But it isn’t 1959– and while the mood of the masses is not yet embracing Marxism because it’s finally come home to roost again, things are very different from 1959, because of objective conditions (crisis intensifying, the upheaval of the ’60s and ’70s) and because of the activities of the conscious forces. What about May Day? After the triumph of the bourgeoisie over “socialism and communism” in this country was there anything more communistic and “anti-American” than May Day–or is it insignificant that it has been reborn again in dozens of cities around the country, even though participation is modest in most cities? Do the comrades know that in most plants, it’s a small number of workers who throw back the May Day leaflets we pass out to them and say, “Get out of here you dirty reds.” Maybe they didn’t know that the mass leafletting around Mao’s death in the Party’s name went well in most of the places where it was done. And what about July 4th? While it was correct to have UWOC and Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) initiate it, it was also just as correct for the Party’s name to appear on the literature about the event–and that the Chair of the Party’s speech was probably the best received speech there. And how about the Worker? Is the point of the “Who We Are” statement to hope that people don’t read it when we take it to them in struggle? Is it key to grab a hold of the few workers who didn’t notice its open communist affiliation or is it more to sum up and discuss the red question with those who did notice it-some who will say get lost and some who will work and talk and struggle with us–probably with a lot of initial trepidations. The authors, who keep pleading not to separate youth too much from the rest of society, should do the same themselves. Much more ideological work can and must be done in the working class overall than what the authors indicate–and not just by “bringing light into particular battles”–but as a task in and of itself. And our approach among youth, while not out to lunch, can be less conservative than among their elders–who are much more set in their ways ideologically.
The authors pose the question: “Do we make it [communism] the immediate terms of the battle by having the word communism in the name? So that a great deal of popularizing of socialism and communism is in struggling out the contradictions among the people–why do you guys support dictatorship, what about God, which holds you back from taking it up as part of the fight against the bourgeoisie etc. Or do we take up popularizing socialism and communism and of course take on anti-communism as we fight against the bourgeoisie?” (appeal)
While of course we take up these things in the course of struggle, this in and of itself does not add up to the struggle on the ideological front. Ideological work is not some garnish that’s sprinkled on to dress up and give some flavor to the battle–it must be an integral part of waging struggle or the proletariat will not succeed in its tasks. And yes these ideological questions do take form as contradictions among the people-but that does not mean that we are not directing our spearhead in this work at the enemy or that such ideological struggle is not part of the class struggle too. These questions must be taken on straight up at times-many times. Otherwise the tendencies would be to deal with ideological questions in a programmatic manner and that won’t cut it. For example, the question of “God” or the dictatorship of the proletariat for that matter don’t flow too easily from “bringing light” into particular battles.
Do we expose this preacher here who’s playing a rotten role in a struggle and that churchgoer there (and what if in some cases, some of them play a positive role and should be united with programmatically?) or do we make the mistake a comrade once made when workers were having a philosophical discussion about religion on the job and he piped up and said, “I don’t pray to God to keep cranes from falling on my head (neither did any of the workers!–sometimes such an answer may be alright to achieve programmatic unity but it doesn’t cut it in regard to our tasks on the ideological front) –I fight the company around health and safety!” Meanwhile the bourgeoisie’s theological tools are working double time to promote metaphysics– but communists are afraid to promote dialectical and historical materialism! Do we wait till the Soviets attack to get out there broadly and explain the difference between proletarian dictatorship and bourgeois dictatorship?
Besides, the authors either don’t mean what they say or don’t say what they mean–and we think the second is more where they’re coming from. Their paper:
Well we get asked, do you really want a communist organization if you want the name to be RYB? Yes, we answer–we wanted the RSB to be communist and especially in the last year we’ve developed it that way ’revolutionary’ and all. Suppose one is leafletting for the RYB, we get asked, and they are asked if their group is communist, do they answer yes or no? Yes, we answer, we think that the members should clearly stand for socialism and communism, though we should cast away illusions that this is really raising the Red Flag. Discussions about ’what you are about’ usually go on with maybe 5 per 100 when leafletting. Should the leaflets explain the RYB is a communist organization and won’t this make the immediate terms of the battle communism? Yes, the leaflets should say it’s a communist organization and with a small amount of people it will create great controversy, which is fine. (appeal, emphasis added)
You can’t have it both ways. Somehow, signing a leaflet RCYB when the YCL goes out to build struggle will cause such contradictions among the people that the red question will become antagonistic, but signing a leaflet RYB–“a young communist organization”– won’t. This is pretty ridiculous and we think related to the fact that the appeal failed to sum up substantially the use of the Young Red, our main open communist work among youth. In an introduction to the appeal, it says sales of the Young Red are going well, with sales up to 7000, but with all the pages and pages of pleas of “please don’t make us have communist in our name because then we won’t be able to raise the red flag” no mention is made at all that people have been selling a paper pretty broadly with a masthead that says, “Young Red–a National Communist Youth Newsletter.” The only way that really makes sense is that the whole paper leans toward presenting a YIA with a strong communist core leading it, and that this paragraph was thrown in so nobody could say that about their line, because it flies in direct opposition to almost every argument they’ve made in the rest of the paper.
But there is one more aspect of the authors’ argument as to why Communist should not be in the YCL’s name and that is that it would reduce its size by “hundreds.” They also talk on about how all the working class youth, who are now communists who developed through the YIA, do not think it would be good to have Communist in the name and most new recruits to the youth cores won’t call themselves communist, so communist can’t be in the name. First off, there’s a slight exaggeration as to the fact that none of the working class youth want to have Communist in the name. Some– though a minority now, it is true–do.
But it’s not surprising that many, if not most, of these youth at this time do not think that communism should be in the name, because many of the comrades leading the work do not have a grasp as to why it would be good to have communism in the name and they’ve been telling the youth that almost any youth who gets involved in struggle should join this YCL and that this organization’s main mass function is to be the main mass form to lead the struggles of youth. It’s probably the case that these youth don’t have much of a grasp of the importance of practical work on the ideological front in and of itself, and probably lean toward ”the movement is everything” because the comrades holding this line present the world that way in their paper and it’s pretty hard to win people to a correct understanding you totally disagree with or don’t understand much yourself.
In fact a number of the more advanced workers we’ve worked with come up with ideas like–maybe if you guys just called your ideas something else than “communism” people wouldn’t get so uptight–people are so uptight and are so ignorant about communism that they’ll just shut you off ... . Should we tail behind these workers too–or, if they were youth, should we have them in the YCL while they’re still at that level?
There is a qualitative leap involved from being a young activist to being a young red. Becoming a communist–and not just a fully developed communist, but an aspiring communist–means a radical rupture with the past–even for a youth from the working class. It means moving from an unconscious state to a conscious state in a way. It means recognizing a whole slew of things, an approach to society and the world that are not immediately apparent from one struggle–or even a series of struggles (although parts of what make up this revolutionary view are apparent and made clearer through these struggles–but only parts.) Marxism is an integral world outlook. Youth that do not grasp that Marxism means a whole world outlook and that communism is the final aim of our struggle and is the purpose of having a YCL frankly do not belong in the YCL. Marxism-Leninism is not just or mainly a tool (though it is) to develop the strategy and tactics for particular struggles and Marxism-Leninism is not a way to “use your skills to serve society.” As the “Forward to Proletarian Revolution” section of the Party Programme states:
The proletariat in the United States and throughout the world faces a protracted and complicated task, for the objective of its struggle is nothing less than the complete transformation of all society and involves the complete break with all previous forms of society and all past traditions .. . .
While it is true that people who refuse to participate in the class struggle cannot call themselves communists (part of our bone with various dogmatists) it is just as true that leaps in consciousness are just as critical to people’s participation and more critical when it comes to the quality of their participation, (sustaining in struggle, carrying out the mass line, propagating socialism). If the YCL grasps its ideological tasks, and not just in linking up with mass struggles and “unfolding class consciousness,” but daring to present itself as what it is and propagating it, then it will be able to recruit to its ranks fighters who have at least an elementary grasp of what’s got to be done in society. And while it is painful in a way, learning that most of all you’ve been taught is upside down and casting away illusions that there’s some simpler answer, it is also a very liberating thing–especially for working class youth–when they take that leap and realize that the working class can turn this whole thing around. That is why the proletariat needs a YCL– to tap youths’ ”daring, determination to make change, to refuse to accept the way things are,” etc.
Yes, many of the youth we’ve worked with who are becoming communists are hesitant about openly going into their own neighborhoods and saying they are reds– they see it as a contradiction between them and the masses (which it is in a certain sense) and they are afraid of being labeled as a “weirdo” (or whatever the current popular phrase is for that). But because of the period especially–a period of relative lull in the struggle–anyone who consistently works to build struggle–and starts hanging around a certain group of people who do the same–is going to be considered “weird” to a certain degree. (Already for example, some Black youth were very hesitant in taking out African Liberation Day in their own neighborhoods.) They might as well say who they are and be armed to answer “why” (and not just that “we youth are getting messed over”).
There is only one real answer for a youth who becomes a “tribune of the people” that’s going to make any real sense–and it will make him seem less weird-especially as time goes on and people see more what the RCYB is about–because they’ll see that his group really does have something it’s fighting for and are pretty dedicated at that and that they are not just some people who have a fanatical obsession with how McDonalds is messing over youth or with Africa, etc. He’s fighting and organizing and educating to overthrow the order that exists and transform society and because of that he’s part of the only group around that at every turn unites the masses of youth against the abuses coming down and informs people about what’s happening in the world and what’s it got to do with them and what they should do about it.
The appeal does make a point that “Revolutionary Youth Brigade” (RYB) could be a YCL and not everything hangs on a name. This is true, one could have a communist organization without “Communist” in the name, but it couldn’t be the kind of organization the authors outlined. (The authors do go out to lunch a little and point out SDS as an example–sure various communist trends developed in SDS, but Students for a Democratic Society was almost explicitly anti-communist when it was formed in 1964–and that’s when its name was chosen; and to this day, large sections of the American people probably don’t grasp that at a time large sections of SDS considered themselves to be red, not just Weathermen–though it did acquire that reputation among some.) In fact, if RYB was a better name, the Center would go along with it, despite what right lines have been brought up to defend it, and we would concentrate only on combating the right errors. (It is not at all irrelevant, however, that the dispute over the name arose not because the Center insisted that only by having “Communist” in the name could the YCL truly be communist and therefore the name should be RCY. It arose, in short, not because the Center insisted that the YCL must, at all costs, under any circumstances, have “Communist in the name” but because some comrades insisted that at all costs, at least under present circumstances, it must not have “Communist” in the name–which has been a consistent position of some comrades for some time though the arguments for it have changed somewhat–see, for example, Bulletin, Vol. X, No. X on this.) But more basically, the fact is that RCYB–having Communist in the name–is a much better alternative. The appeal states:
We feel that if the name of the YCL is Revolutionary Youth Brigade there will be a much better basis to do just that. First of all the name clearly takes a stand on what should be done in this society–calling for it getting turned upside down and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. It’s not a bad word to popularize, as a matter of fact, at the start of Red Papers 6 we attributed a number of damn good qualities to that word. It offers another road to youth (as much as one word can) and defines the organization as one not pissed about just one abuse or another–but wants to fight all manifestations of imperialism and get rid of it altogether. (appeal)
But our authors are very wrong. For all the positive qualities of the word “Revolutionary” (remember, that word was adopted as part of the Party’s name at its founding Congress), it is still very vague by itself–and does not connote all the things our authors say it does, nor does it offer another road to youth as much as one word can. In fact, the authors know this since their arguments boil down to needing something more vague to get over with the masses and recruit youth. In fact, revolution is used popularly not only to define revolution–but has been coined to describe any kind of “radical new thing in society” (and the bourgeoisie of course coins it to promote their “radical” new products). There’s the “Sexual Revolution,” the Youth Cultural Revolution (not to be confused with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!). And even if people get the point that we’re talking about a revolution against what exists today–of itself the word “Revolution” is pretty vague about that. RCYB clearly states what kind of revolution we’re talking about–Proletarian Revolution–whose aim is communism and is guided by communist politics and ideology. Frankly the whole paper smacks too much of the old Brigade (before the Party formed) except that it emphasizes training its members in Marxism more than the old Brigade did! It’s probably more accurate to describe the line as a “Revolutionary” YIA line–which by the way is what the YIAs are called in the “Who We Are’s” of the Young Red.
Of course people are speaking to a real thing when they say communism would turn off some people-even many people. In a longer term sense (we’re not talking about a fly-by-night organization) with the crisis intensifying and with people, and in particular youth, getting more desperate, it is much more desirable to be well-known as reds when people approach the RCYB, because as was stated earlier, they’ll know exactly who they are approaching.
In the short term sense the RCYB will in certain situations suffer some difficulties and even losses because it is a communist organization, and this is why the proponents of the RYB line say a YCL needs some breathing space, i.e., having communism in the name would keep the YCL from getting to first base. First of all, many masses who are not communists in any sense of the word will find their own level to relate to the RCYB. Already we have some experience where in some neighborhoods over a particularly sharp attack, youths who are not even in the “revolutionary YIA” have broadly distributed leaflets about this attack–leaflets with the word “communist” in its signature.
Even more broadly, youths will read the RCYB’s agitation and discuss it and even come to a demonstration or whatever it may call, or will work in a mass organization or coalition that the RCYB is a leading force in (maybe take the posture “I don’t like their commie stuff, but everybody’s got a right to their views and what they’re doing about this is right”). But even where some youth get totally turned off by the communist character, that must be divided into two. While we shouldn’t be overjoyed that they refuse initially to work with the RCYB, it would be narrow to think that’s all that happened. For one, that person may have met a red (and one who was open about being red!) for the first time in his life–and right there maybe some of the bourgeois myths will begin to crack (he didn’t look like a Soviet agent–what they were saying didn’t sound like what I’ve heard about communists). And the situation is getting worse– and worse for youth, too, who, because of all the characteristics of youth, are less likely to just take this abuse in stride, etc. This individual might himself come around, when he sees that the RCYB is the only consistent tribune of the people (among youth) or at least he will see that other people are checking them out, etc.
Let’s take a very current example. The Brigade is the leading force in the coalition around Kent State. The Brigade, we assume, is known as a communist organization by many on campus. A lot has been said about it in the bourgeois press. It would even be more significant though, if an organization with the name Communist right up there were leading this battle–showing clearly what reds do and very importantly–playing an important part in making socialism and communism a social force in the U.S. again. The way things are, when the bourgeoisie redbaits in the press many workers and youth who haven’t been directly involved in the struggle, but who support it, might think the press is just trying to badmouth it again. It is far better for these people, and for those people who are involved in the battle but are concerned that communists may screw it up– and even those people who at this time don’t agree with the aims of the struggle–to know that communists are openly involved and do nothing to conceal or softpeddle that fact.
Don’t the authors grasp that conditions are sharpening–and while there’s much confusion as the CC report states, our task is to bring clarity to that confusion? And as these more backward (at least in a certain sense) elements come around because they are more up against the wall and their bourgeois illusions are cracking, isn’t it better as they come to some understanding that the working class cannot be passive on any front–just concern themselves with speedup or their contract or whatever–that they remember, not just the fact that the students stood up against this outrage at Kent State, but that communists played a leading role in that struggle?
Are the authors saying that Communist should not be in the name to make some strategic significance out of the fact that people hear that the RYB is reds from various sources but dismiss this as vile rumors because they’ve liked some of the things these kids have done?
Don’t the authors grasp–that for all the conditions they’ve mentioned (the aspects that were correct)–the spontaneous tendency when approaching someone, or being approached, will be to the right–to be conservative . .. “just in case they haven’t heard yet that we’re reds.” Are we going to feed these people, these youth, pablum–even militant pablum–until they know for sure that we’re good guys so we can spring it to them that we are reds? Hiding or holding back on what we are so we can lead the mass struggle and be the main form of organization to lead all types of battles is a fine line away from “I hope these masses haven’t heard what we are so we can get down on the real issues.” This is emphatically not a question of intention, it is a question of where political line will lead, regardless of intention.
The authors even distort the facts a little in arguing their point. They talk about a YIA chapter that got red-baited real heavy for being involved in an important local struggle and that the chapter had trouble dealing with the baiting according to the example given in the last national bulletin (“if the authorities and the people who run this mess don’t like it, then there’s got to be something to it”). They admit that it wasn’t a very developed chapter–“not because they hadn’t studied Marxism” (which our authors claimed they had) but because they weren’t steeled in struggle. This last part is far from the truth. This particular chapter and most of its members had been in the YIA since July 4, 1976– and had been involved in all the political battles the YIA took up (African Liberation Day, etc.) and a number of local battles–granted, probably none of these things were very big in impact, but we’re not talking about the high tide of struggle of the ’60s nor are we talking about West Virginia coal miners when we’re talking about steeled in struggle! And this chapter did almost no study of Marxism! They had two somewhat disorganized introductory study sessions; someone from the Party came to do a presentation on unemployment and some of their members attended a city-wide educational on the national question. Also being a YIA chapter, they had little experience of taking any Marxism out to the broad masses of youth, which would have given them some valuable experience when red-baited in the course of struggle. Obviously “communists” who don’t know any communism aren’t going to be able to handle or understand redbaiting very much–and they aren’t going to have much of a grasp of why it’s important to take communism out to the youth.
Following the line in the appeal and the logic of the arguments for this breathing space stuff will lead to holding your breath till you are blue in the face. And as has been pointed out, at first contact with people who meet you as an open red even when they react negatively, two things happen not just one–they don’t just react against the fact that you are a communist, they also have contact with a “real live” communist, and to some degree at least this begins to raise some questions about the bourgeoisie’s portrayal of communists (unless we act like the enemy portrays us!).
The authors’ statement that having Communist in the name is going to reduce the YCL to some Trotsky-ite sect is pretty outrageous. (First of all the whole paper smacks of right idealism–if we just link up with these day-to-day struggles correctly, then we can go forward, just by unfolding some Marxism through our program on these battles, or on the other right hand, if we just had “revolutionary”–and not communism– in the name we could really do the dog!) Of course the YCL’s work and agitation and actions have to reflect the real world and apply the mass line–speak to the actual situation and the real issues and develop tactics and demands to advance the particular battle they are involved in.
The essence of Trotskyite sects has never been that they’ve called themselves communists but in their petty bourgeois dogmatism and idealism–all their horseshit–their whole ideological and political line. It’s really an ass kicker–when because of right tendencies in the Party–holding back on politics because the time isn’t “ripe yet” or advanced work will really screw up building the struggle–that opportunists gain some ground. It’s been in more than one struggle that because of this error, the OL comes in, openly as the CP-ML and sweeps up some of the most advanced who we had been painstakingly doing political work with only by “bringing light” into the particular battle. And it’s been in more than one major industrial battle that the Party members have paid so much attention to the IWO (intermediate workers organizations) leg of the work (which we must) but to the exclusion of more advanced work like getting the Worker out, that the Trots sell hundreds of their rags (or the CP-ML) and this Trot or revisionist crap gets to be what communism means to the workers–Marxism in a petty bourgeois alien form!
And precisely because it is the beginning of a new spiral, a spiral that’s going to make some heavy demands on the proletariat as it goes on, there is a certain importance to the “shock value” of being communist in big bright red letters. The proletariat’s answer to this crisis is not to fight to turn things back to a better period– the “Happy Days” when things weren’t deteriorating as much, when life in the U.S. was not quite as decadent as it is now–to where more youths could get skills or at least find a job. No, our answer is not to fight to get things “back where they should be.” Our answer is that history must be moved violently forward–there is no other real alternative. There are radical ideas amongst workers now–even in a working class that “hasn’t had socialism for 20-30 years,” but a working class that has struggled and has seen some pretty big mass movements of mainly non-proletarian strata in their time. And a lot of the working class–and even the working class youth-know or are learning “that you have to fight to get anything in this world.” But in the main this is so permeated with bourgeois crap (especially among youths’ elders) about the “democratic process,” “legalism,” political-religious nonsense about “non-violence,” “tax reform,” etc. and a tremendous amount of confusion as to who is really to blame (corrupt politicians, or worse–welfare frauders, the Blacks, the Chicanos, the greedy whites, etc.) that there are going to have to be some pretty heavy lightning bolts to cut through all this crap.
Obviously the intensification of the crisis will have the greatest shock value–but the bourgeoisie will continue to find new ways to work and act on the political and ideological fronts to try to contain the general level of consciousness and keep things on a bourgeois road–for example more militant city councilmen and congressmen are going to be promoted on the one hand and right-wing demagogues and demagogic movements on the other–finding the ways to intensify the divisions among the people, play on great nation chauvinism, etc. etc., all as their answers for dealing with the problems their system is facing, but all stemming from and promoting this notion of a “free enterprise system” (although some may promote a mild form of “socialism”) and that things must always be in the confines of this system–there is no other alternative.
These are heavy things to break down–these bourgeois illusions. A struggle here and a knocking down a point there, while important, in and of themselves don’t cut it. Taking on this horseshit that’s so much of our “bourgeoisified working class” straight on is a very important task. To get out there and boldly state that everything our rulers have said is a crock–everything they promote (harmony among the classes, bourgeois democracy, religion or whatever) is wrong–and we need to destroy their society and build a totally new one, has got to be done. Engels spoke to the role of this shock value on the ideological front in summing up the value of heresy in his book, The Peasant War in Germany. While this book is speaking of the bourgeois revolution, feudal ideology and the dogma of the Church in particular had probably a much greater hold on the peasantry than even bourgeois ideology has on the working class at this time in the U.S. Engels stressed that:
It is clear, under the circumstances, all the generally voiced attacks against feudalism–above all the attacks against the Church–and all revolutionary social and political doctrines had mostly and simultaneously to be theological heresies. The existing social conditions had to be stripped of their halo of sanctity before they could be attacked. (emphasis added)
The authors said that this shock value thing was the most appealing argument for having Communism in the name, but their unanimous experience was that this was of no real value at this time in the U.S.
But let’s talk about an earlier period–and while there are differences with today a lot can be drawn from it. Let’s talk about the beginning of the anti-war movement –the mid sixties. While larger mobilizations were important, there were smaller groups even then ’66-’67) who openly allied with the Vietnamese and started to carry Vietcong flags. This was very, very controversial at the time. People in “peace marches” were often pelted with rocks and called reds–but to carry the flag of the enemy! This angered many–but while it angered, it even spurred on some of those people who were angered by it and those who weren’t (especially youth)–why in the world would somebody carry that flag and more, why would somebody risk the heckling, maybe even to get beat up, for carrying the communist flag! Of course it would be wrong to reduce the “left wing” of the antiwar movement’s positive aspect to only the fact that they dared to carry these flags, but the shock of their activity had a very positive affect overall on that struggle, the forces within it and on the broader American public.
In the same way, 10 people wearing Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade T-shirts in a mass demonstration means more than having 50 people wearing YIA T-shirts or even 25 wearing RYB T-shirts (1/3 of them not being reds and many of the other 2/3 not wanting to say they are!). While the YCL must link up with and find the ways to work with youth who aren’t reds, that doesn’t negate the vital importance of an open red pole among youth that isn’t afraid to say what it is.
It is an important part of building for revolution to boldly declare our aims–“disdaining to conceal our views.” In fact, the bourgeoisie often makes some ground when it tells the masses they’ve been duped by reds–especially when reds have been ”duping” them– hiding from the masses their views and aims as reds. This of course, does not mean dropping everything else and just go on street corners and talk about socialism with a red T-shirt on–but our whole Party has got to pull out of this rightist bent and grasp the importance of work on the ideological front. And in terms of our youth–they are at a crossroads and are seeking answers, there is “an unwillingness to accept the way things are” and that’s why the Programme states that it’s no wonder that many turn to mysticism or drugs or cynicism.
And while youth cannot be “separated from society as a whole,” they are not as “permeated” with as many of the bourgeois prejudices as their elders and they don’t yet have the immediate concerns of having the main responsibility for supporting a family, keeping their home, paying their car notes–all responsibilities that do have a conservative pull on adult workers. Shall we leave it to Jesus freaks, punk rock, some opportunists–or groups like the Nazis–etc. to openly and boldly propagate a “life with a purpose” to the broad masses of youth!
The character of the RCYB will not be “advanced mass”–at least not in the sense the authors have used it and how it’s been popularized throughout the youth and student work. Its main purposes will be to train and recruit communists and exert a steady influence on the broad masses of youth–in building their struggles, bringing them into broad political struggles, and doing work on the ideological front among them. And in doing both of these things, we can maximize the potentially powerful positive influence on the broader sections of the people, especially the working class. In this way and in this way only can we answer the question of “life with a purpose.” Youth have big questions and we must actively work to answer them through struggle and ideological work among them and in that way channel the daring and unwillingness to accept things the way they are etc. of youth for the revolutionary struggle. The YCL must be a separate organization from the Party–with a life of its own–but must be openly allied with the Party and given leadership by the Party.
These are the reasons we build a YCL–not because youth are the “most oppressed” (although we must base our work on the strata of the working class who are most oppressed in the sense of having the least options under capitalism–though not those who are completely demoralized and into “lumpen” stuff as a way of life) not because we have to find them a good place to use their skills for society, but because the proletariat has the task to turn this world upside down (or right side up!) and we need the vitality of our young proletarians to accomplish this.
While breaking through this “red” blind spot among the masses is not an easy task, as the XXX [internal Party document] states, “the only way to guarantee against red-baiting is not to do anything significant.” And only a fairly tight group of young people ideologically (though, of course, in relation to the Party, much less ideologically developed) is going to be able to find the ways to break through the bourgeois lies about communism, the stubborn ignorance of the masses and to be able to persevere in the class struggle. But as we’ve pointed out, there is a basis to get to “first base” as an open communist youth organization–both in the sphere of building struggle and in the sphere of propagating communism itself. And regardless of what has been theorized in this “advanced-mass” formulation, the YCL will have to work in mass organizational forms with youth who are not yet ready to call themselves communists. Not to do so would be both “left” and rightist–to do exactly what the MPR summed up about the old Brigade (quoted on page 5 of this paper).
Right now the prospects for a great upheaval might seem to be in the very, very distant future, but as the CC report continually emphasizes, things can change very rapidly and as it quotes from Lenin:
The task is to keep the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat tense and train its best elements, not only in a general way, but concretely so that when the popular ferment reaches the highest pitch, they will put themselves at the head of the revolutionary army.
Especially in this lull before the storm we need a fairly tight RCYB-to weather the ebbs and flows of the mass struggle, to be able to apply the mass line among youth, to keep on the “high road” while it isn’t immediately apparent that the bourgeoisie is bound to topple. Are we going to shun away from our tasks in the fullest sense because of these difficulties–which by the way may be very small in comparison to what we’ll face in the future, as for example opposing imperialist war when the bourgeoisie is actually waging it! Socialism is once again beginning in an embryonic way to be embraced openly by the working class in this country–that is by its advanced section in particular. The rightist tendencies in our Party (hit at in the “mass line” articles and more fully identified and spoken to in the CC report and in other subsequent bulletins and Revolution articles) will harm greatly that process.
Let our revolutionary working class youth and students work under the open banner of communism not failing to develop policies and tactics around specific battles, not failing to unite with those who are not ready to embrace the Red Flag–but neither failing to boldly and broadly propagate communism, so that they can make an important contribution to preparing ourselves and the broader masses for what is yet to come.
As a secondary aspect to the line questions, it is also important to bring out that the paper had a somewhat factional tone which was also reflected in the amount of “buzz-buzz” that has gone on pretty widely around this question in parts of the Party. While there was a certain amount of “opening up” this debate in order to get the line questions clearer, that was no call for factional activity.
Comrades who for some reason had contact with this line struggle (whether correctly or incorrectly) tended to gossip about it and even used it as capital in branch meetings to bolster arguments against the Party’s line (“many people doing the work around the country are opposed to having Communist in the name” etc.). Meanwhile, many of the plans for the building of the YCL were not followed through on–not following up on some of the “summer projects,” not following through with the steering committee that was supposed to be the organizing core in building the YCL, in some instances running away from the task of building the convention (which was supposed to be the principal task over the summer) because of disagreeing with the Party’s line on the name.
This is not to say that there hasn’t been any good work done among youth and students in the last period. On the contrary many advances have been made. But there has been some breakdown in democratic centralism which can only hurt our mass activity and Party life.
Especially since work among youth and students is and has been, despite some erroneous tendencies, more “red” than most other areas of work in its organizational form (this is especially true in the RSB) the spontaneous pull will be away from grasping the importance of the Party as a whole and the Party’s overall line and to fall into a certain amount of departmentalism. It is in more than one area where leading comrades in youth and student work miss their leadership meetings for 1, 2, maybe 3 months. In some cases this has been because of very sharp struggle, mass struggle, the comrades are leading. But specifically because of the intensity of particular battles, and this area of work overall, it is absolutely necessary that comrades participate fully in Party life. On this point, comrades should study the most recent Party Branches article in Revolution (September 1977).
The appeal took on an anti-Party tone with a number of quips like calling on leadership to leave their offices to check out the real world and more than a little blackmail around the name–people will be so demoralized if RCYB is made the name that they won’t (be able to) do the work, etc. Here, once again, while criticizing the tone and spirit, the fundamental thing is the line– which is blatantly empiricist. The overall line of the Party–reflecting the historical and international experience of class struggle and recent experiences in the struggle in this country–is negated and particular experiences in youth and student work (not by any means correctly summed up on the whole) are raised against the Party’s line.
While particular practice with youth is important to sum up correctly, the overall experience of the Party on these same questions and the lessons of the world proletariat do have a bearing–a pretty central bearing on the question at hand. The Party also has a pretty developed trunk [system of central leading bodies on a local to national level] where youth work does get summed up (although not enough) and so summation of practice does not only go on the department level (and frankly a number of examples cited in the paper around practice were misrepresented and did not reflect the Party’s summation in the areas where the work went on). We don’t feel we should go into the question of democratic centralism much more in this paper, but again suggest that comrades study the Party Branches article.
One final point-while it is true that the RCYB needs a “life of its own” (that the Party does not force policy on the RCYB, but members of the RCYB must be won over to line and internal to the RCYB various plans and policies should be developed which the Party should encourage or criticize, etc. etc.), Party members in the RCYB are Party members and subject to the discipline of the Party and do not have a “life of their own” (which by the way is what direction the line behind RYB would push things).
The most obvious task right now is to win the youth and students coming to the convention to the line outlined in this paper–not just that the name should be RCYB, but the character of the RCYB as outlined in this paper, its tasks, the importance of struggle in the ideological sphere, etc. Where it hasn’t been implemented already, the line of National Bulletin, Vol. X, No. X should be implemented immediately, i.e., building for the convention is the main task in this period, while building mass struggles will have to be secondary to this. The principal task at this time is consolidating youth and students to come to the convention and preparing them for what has to be accomplished there.
At the convention itself, a key task will be to strive for unity as to the character, outlook, purpose and tasks of the YCL. This should go on mainly in a broad sweeping way (why revolution, the importance of a YCL) but also around particular questions (the name question, what should the RCYB’s stand be on war, unemployment, etc. and around particular campaigns it should take up in the immediate future). Its overall political and ideological outlook and purpose is pivotal in accomplishing any of the other tasks and is what will make or break the RCYB. Particular guidance on the agenda, workshops, etc. is outlined in “Seize the Time” and assignments at the convention will be handled through the department.