The articles in this Journal contain our present view of party building in the U.S. today. In these articles we put forth our views on why a party is necessary, what we view as party building, the necessary tasks to build such a party, a summation of the development of I Wor Kuen’s party building position and an evaluation of various other groups’ lines on party building.
Our view as presented here is incomplete, in the sense that it is not an actual program or plan for constituting a new communist party. To develop such a plan or program requires an analysis of the revolutionary movement in this country including an evaluation of the CPUSA’s turn to revisionism, an assessment of the revolutionary upsurge of the national movements of the 1960’s and their role in the anti-revisionist movement, a class analysis of U.S. society today and so forth. These are only a few of the many questions the communist movement must proceed to address and which we hope to deal with in future Journals and in our forthcoming political newspaper.
To answer these questions correctly, however, requires constant improvement of the correct understanding of fundamental aspects of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought (MLMTT). This Journal attempts to deal with some of these aspects, which have been overlooked or misunderstood by the communist movement. These include such questions as the nature of revolutionary theory and practice and their interrelationship, the objective and subjective factors in revolution and the central role of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in party building.
The positions in this Journal were developed only through struggle. They were not plucked out of a blueprint for party building–rather, they required struggle over how correctly to study, interpret and apply the lessons in the works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao; struggle to examine and learn from the experiences of other modern anti-revisionist party building movements such as those in Australia and the Philippines; struggle to assess our past positions on party building and other lines put forth on party building; and struggle generally to summarize our own and others’ practice.
The first article, ̶Make the Struggle for Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought Central in Party Building,” lays out our general view of party building. Included in this article is an evaluation of our past thoughts on this question.
The second article, “Some Erroneous Lines on Party Building” is a concrete application of our party building view to examining a tend which supposedly has already formed a new communist party. Because the ideas of this trend, the trend of the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party (RU/RCP), have been influential in the past and continue to persist in our movement it is necessary to further criticize them.
The third article “On the Recent Declaration by the October League (OL) on Party Building” is a statement regarding the OL. We plan to address other aspects of the OL line in the future.
We devoted one entire article to the party building line of Workers’ Viewpoint Organization (WVO) which, while not as prevalent as the two above opportunist tendencies, nevertheless has caused some confusion in the movement for it is a particularly vulgar distortion of MLMTT. We felt it especially important to deal with the deviation of WVO since there have been no previous criticisms in the movement of WVO on party building.
Lastly, the reprint included at the end of this Journal is devoted to bringing out lessons we believe are important for the party building movement in the U.S. today.
We hope that these articles can contribute to the development of a genuine Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tsetung Thought communist party in the U.S. today and we look forward to receiving comments and criticisms from comrades.