As we mentioned earlier in the essay, the basis of WMS’s errors lies in their agreement with the line of the Revolutionary Union which calls itself a communist organization and whose policy has been to establish “anti-imperialist” organizations similar to WMS throughout the country. In this last section of this essay we want to discuss how the RU through WMS on principle has actually held back the development of revolutionary consciousness in the Asian movement by promoting their “anti-imperialism”.
First, we would like to run down a little of where the “anti-imperialist” type of organizational idea comes from (for we distinguish the RU’s “anti-imperialist organizations” from the many other anti-imperialist organizations that have developed and are playing a progressive role and do not make pretensions of leading the revolutionary movement). The RU has based itself on the establishment of these so-called anti-imperialist organizations for the workers movement as well as for the struggle of the oppressed nationalities in the U.S. They state this intention in their theoretical magazine, Red Papers, as well as in their newspaper, Revolution. We also learned in the National Liaison Committee that they also believed that anti-imperialist organizations were the appropriate form for the oppressed nationalities of Chinese, Black, Puerto Rican, etc. These anti-imperialist organizations’ tasks were to deal with the “day to day problems”, “build the mass movement” and “link them to the system”, etc. as they say. Such organizations however are strictly forbidden to openly raise questions such as socialism, communism, Marxism, the communist party, etc.
From the beginning of our contact with WMS we observed pronounced rightist tendencies and we have been very clear as to the two line struggle that has taken place in the Asian movement and we are clear as to which tendency was correct and which was incorrect.[1] And thus in the National Liaison Committee when the RU proposed that organizations such as ourselves, Black Workers Congress, and Puerto Rican Revolutionary Worker’s Organization, all of which have clearly stood for the necessity of revolution and socialism should liquidate ourselves and be replaced with organizations such as WMS, we then began to understand a little more the profoundly rightist nature of the RU. In reality (and all Marxist-Leninists must evaluate their actions on how they affect reality and not just on how they look on paper) the RU proposal meant a major retreat, a step backward. It meant in essence, that Third World communists should not propagandize the cause of socialism and revolution. It meant that the Third World people in the U.S. didn’t have to learn about Marxism-Leninism and how to make revolution. The RU line objectively said that the revolutionary organizations such as ourselves, BWC and PRRWO had played incorrect roles and were relatively bad but that so-called anti-imperialist organizations such as WMS (which still hadn’t broken with reformism) were relatively better. In practice, it meant that Third World communists should run around doing “day to day” good deeds, “build the mass movement”, etc. but didn’t have to think about broader political questions and revolutionary theory.
The RU also extends this logic to the labor movement where there too they put forward the same backward ideas. Workers don’t need socialist consciousness all they need is to join an anti-imperialist organization which will send them around to support one strike after another. The RU calls this revolution.
Thus in spite of the rhetoric of the RU it advocates a backward, mechanical and rightist approach to the question of revolution; and in fact from the view point of its day to day work it negates completely the independent need for communists.
This is all related back directly to WMS, for anyone who has read WMS’s essay on IWK or is familiar with them cannot but be struck with the incredible ideological backwardness of their organization and their backwardness is directly responsible to the RU’s strategy of limiting anti-imperialist organizations like WMS to such issues as labor support, movie showings, reform issues in the community, etc. Objectively this has held back the Asian movement because it has led the WMS forces to oppose the propagation, study and application of the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism (and any such study of Marxism-Leninism that does take place is done behind closed doors and is used only to try to reinforce the RU’s own backward ideas).
This has all been to the detriment of the Asian movement and to the revolutionary movement in general and while there have been temporary setbacks, history is moving ahead rapidly. During the past year there has been a great deepening of the revolutionary movement. Everywhere people are taking up the tasks of revolution, including the promoting of revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice. Groups such as WMS and the RU are being passed by as they reveal in what they believe to be the glories of their past work. The masses are not too backward to grasp revolutionary ideology, but rather the backwardness belongs to those who would deny such consciousness to the masses.
[1]WMS now says they “didn’t have the practice” five years ago “to gauge which line was correct” between themselves and ourselves. We would just like to point out some of the very concrete and clear political differences we have had in the past. We don’t think it takes too much “practice” to figure out who was making some very serious political errors and who now wants to excuse such errors because there wasn’t enough “practice”.