At long last, the first issue of the Congress Newsletter, decided upon last October, is done. The Newsletter is intended to be a forum for the discussion of different views pertaining to Party building and the upcoming Congress. The hope is that through such discussion more clarity and unity can be achieved between Marxist-Leninists and thus a firm base laid for the Congress. We urge all comrades and friends to send in articles (news, political polemics, etc.) for the newsletter.
At the conclusion of the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists last May, eight organizations made up the National Continuations Committee. Politically the Committee was united around the following points:
1. That the primary task of Marxist Leninist organizations and advanced workers is to build an honest Multi-National, Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in the United States–“a Party of a New Type” –to unite and lead the struggles of the U.S. working class in the seizure of State power and establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The Committee realized that this could be done only by strict adherence to and defense of the science of Marxism-Leninism, and by an all, out assault against the CPUSA and all forms of revisionism and opportunism.
2. That a Party Congress should be called in about a year to organize such a Party within the U.S.
3. That the draft resolutions adopted at the Conference should be the minimum political line holding the committee together and enabling it to carry out the necessary organizational work for the Party Congress. Finally, that any organization or individual which agreed with these points and the draft resolutions should be encouraged to join both Local Continuation Committees and the National Continuations Committee.
The main work of the National Continuations Committee was to be organizational: getting the resolutions from the conference finalized and printed up; putting out a newsletter for political discussion and news in preparation for the Congress; coordinating work between the various organisations on the National Committee and on the Local Continuations Committees; doing the other tasks necessary in organizing the Congress.
Since May, the work of the National Continuations Committee has developed slowly due to a number of problems, the two main problems being manpower and communications. Regarding manpower, the day-to-day work of the National Continuations Committee has been carried out by a couple members of the CL. And even these CL members have not made up a stable committee–coming and going as the needs of their organisations demanded. At one point it appeared that a member from one of the other organizations was coming to Chicago to work on the Committee but that fell through when the collective joined the CL. Two other collectives that were originally on the National Continuations Committee also joined the CL. The other organizations have not been able to send representatives to work on the Committee. So although there has not been a whole lot of work to do on the Committee, what work there has been has not been carried out in an organized, thorough or consistent way. This was manifested in a number of ways: it took until October to get out the draft resolutions from the Conference in Marxist-Leninists Unite, and the first issue of the newsletter, proposed last October, is just now coming out.
Second, on communications, problems came from both those working on the National Continuations Committee and the local Continuations Committees.
From our end, the problem was the failure to keep regular, consistent contact with member organizations of the Committee and local committees, not always answering letters, etc. From the member organizations and local, committees, there has been almost no communication (except from one organization). Examples: when draft resolutions were sent out for comment, corrections and additions, we were not able to get responses. So hearing nothing we assumed there was political unity and printed them as they were. When the September meeting was called, the same thing happened. Although organizations indicated that they could not send people, only one organization sent a letter with points to be discussed. So once again, assuming that others were in agreement, decisions were made based on the necessity to do so.
The present situation on the National Continuations Committee is that there are five member organizations. Members of the CL are still doing the day-to-day work –however, these people now make up a stable working team that will work until the Congress.
In order to advance the work of building for the Congress, the whole National Continuations Committee has to start functioning as a real committee, with each of the member organizations equal in both political decision making and practical work. So we appeal to you to make this happen by writing articles and carrying on political discussion for the newsletter; by calling for a national meeting if you feel it is necessary to discuss the history of the Committee’s work up to date, where we are at now, and how we must move. If you feel such a meeting is necessary, suggest a date, some central location in the country, an agenda, topics to be discussed, etc., by calling regional Congress meetings that those of us in Chicago might attend; by sending in reports on developments in your areas so we can keep the whole committee informed; by each organization and local committee taking initiative in getting out Marxist-Leninists Unite to advanced workers so we can spread the line and build support for the Congress.
Let us move forward toward the Congress, struggling for ever greater political clarity and unity among those groups now on the National Continuations Committee, and uniting with all other individuals and Marxist-Leninist organizations who honestly want to build a party in the U.S., defend Marxism-Leninism and fight revisionism.
from the Committee in Chicago
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Marxist-Leninists Unite, the newspaper containing the draft resolutions adopted by the May Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists, is the minimum political line uniting National Continuations Committee and our main weapon in organizing for the Congress. There are about 6,000 papers yet to be distributed. We encourage you to order more papers, use them as widely as possible in discussion with Marxist-Leninist organizations and-advanced workers.
Although the paper is not intended to be used as a mass leaflet on college campuses, on street corners, and at factory gates, it, nevertheless should get wide distribution to the most advanced. For instance, we should try to get it into all the Left book stores, on newsstands, in factory districts and in working class neighborhoods. We should take it with us to meetings and demonstrations that we attend and get it to the most advanced workers, etc. At least one group that we know of has started a study group with some advanced workers around this paper.
Especially now, with the worsening conditions in the country, the possibilities of building for the Congress around Marxist-Leninists Unite are endless. The initiative is up to us.
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A Sacramento Area Committee for a Communist Party Congress has been established. The Committee stated:
The Sacramento Area Congress Committee supports the struggle to create A new and genuine Communist Party in the United States and is working for a properly organized founding congress of Marxists-Leninists.
This step is necessary because the U.S. working class vitally needs a genuine Communist Party The so-called Communist Party USA is in fact a revisionist, anti-revolutionary party attacking socialist countries, China and Albania. This puppet of the Soviet revisionist clique openly opposes Communism, thus taking on the same role the social democrats have played for decades.
More insidious are those groups which take the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought but oppose the Party. Calling themselves communist and occupying the stage, they believe that their refusal to form a Party means that a Party cannot be formed yet. These groups, such as the Revolutionary Union and the October League, suppress socialism, push economism, trail after every reformist movement, and refuse to develop the revolutionary line for the anti-imperialist and anti-racist movements. They are holding back the formation of a new and genuine Communist Party with a package of tail-ending theories(let the Party emerge from the united front, complete the base building task before forming a-party, etc.). The anti-revolutionary, anti-Party line of these, groups must be exposed and defeated.
The Sacramento Congress Committee holds that the class analysis of imperialism is a vital issue in the program of the new Communist Party.
Is U.S. imperialism the greatest exploiter of the U.S. working-class or a benefactor? This is a question of principle and a root issue of class line that underlies the application of Marxism-Leninism to the United States. The anti-Party opportunists of the RU and OL base a whole host of anti-working class ideas on their denial that most of the profits of U.S. imperialism are exploited out of U.S. workers. These ideas say that we must wait for the nearly complete success of the colonial and neo-colonial anti-imperialist struggles before revolution can occur in the United States, that the main form of oppression is national and not class, that U.S. workers are by and large non-revolutionary, etc. These theories are based on the line that U.S. workers have class interests tend in hand with the interests of the monopoly capitalist class; this is a class collaborationist line. The Sacramento Congress Committee urges all comrades and friends to read the New Voice pamphlet on Imperialism and the Working Class and to struggle for the Marxist-Leninist line on this issue.
The Committee is confident that a new and genuine Communist Party will be formed in our country and that, taking care to build a firm foundation for this Party, the path to proletarian revolution and socialism will be sure and historically swift.
(Ed. Note: The pamphlet referred to is a collection of three articles on imperialism and the working class and some additional material on the origin of profit. The pamphlet is called “Imperialism Today: An Economic Analysis.” Committee Correspondence may be addressed to PNV, P.O. Box 16140, Sacramento, California 95316).
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The Communist League enthusiastically welcomes the support statement of the Sacramento Congress Committee for the upcoming Congress. We look forward in the coming Months to continued discussion, work and struggle with the committee in building an honest Multi-National, Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in the U.S.N.A. However, in an attempt to gain the greatest possible clarity and unity on all the points of Scientific Socialism as applied to the conditions within the U.S.N.A. with all the groups that are working toward the upcoming Congress, we must state our differences with what is implied in the Sacramento Congress Committee statement through the question, “Is U.S. imperialism the greatest exploiter of the U.S. working class or a benefactor?”
We must first observe the fact that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. It is not a phase or policy of capitalism that can be removed and the working class in the imperialist nation will be no more exploited and oppressed. Imperialism has at its roots the basic economic law of securing maximum profits. Stalin states, “the securing of maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of a given country, through the enslavement and systematic robbery of the people’s of other countries, ... especially backward countries, and lastly through wars and milltarization of the national economy which are utilized for obtaining the highest profits.”[1] And as Lenin stated, imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism, characterized by five principal features. Of these features, the export of capital is the typical one. “Under modern capitalism, when monopoly prevails, the export of capital is the typical feature.”[2]
To further understand oppression and exploitation of the colonies and dependent nations, we must understand the meaning of capital. ”Capital is: not a thing but a definite social relation,”[3] says Karl Marx.
Lenin adds, “Capital is a special, historically definite social production relation.”[4] It is in this light that we must view the entire political, economic and social character of exploitation and oppression; to understand the much more brutal subjugation of the colonies and dependent nations to the imperialist nations.
In Foundations of Leninism, the third contradiction best explains the character of the export of capital. Stalin states, “Imperialism is the most barefaced exploitation and the most inhuman oppression of hundreds of millions of people inhabiting most colonies and dependent nations. The purpose of this exploitation is to squeeze out superprofits. But in exploiting these countries, imperialism is compelled to build there railways, factories and mills, to create there industrial and commercial centers.” It is here that the export of capital manifests itself, in creating the base for that inhuman exploitation and oppression. Lenin speaking on Capital stated “the export of capital, one of the essential economic basis of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers[*] from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by the exploitation of the labor of several overseas countries, and colonies.”[5]
In addition, the brutal subjugation of colonies and dependent nations to a handful of ruling nations are in the form of direct colonies where the imperialist state runs the country, semi-colonial status in which the colonies have an independent state form but economically controlled by the imperialist and the neo-colonial form in which compradores manage the colonies for the imperialist.
Because of this relationship, it offers a bribe to certain strata of the working class in particular and the lower classes in general of the imperial nation and allows for opportunism within the class. Lenin in support of the liberal non-Marxian Hobson’s position quotes him stating “there is first the habit of economic parasitism by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies and dependencies, in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence.”[6]
It is due to the colonial nature of the relationship that the imperialist tries to bribe his own working class with better education, health, higher wages etc. as a direct result of the exploits in the colonies.
In light of these situations, it becomes most important at this stage in the USNA to build a multi-national Communist Party of a new type to lead the USNA working class on the correct path towards the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the liberation of the colonies and dependent nations.
[1] Stalin, Selected Works, Volume 1,Basic Economic Laws of Modern. Capitalism.
[2] Lenin, Volume 5, Selected Works, Imperialism The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Section on Export of Capital.
[3] A. Leontiev, Political Economy, section on Capital.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Lenin, Imperialism The Highest Stage of Capitalism, section on Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism.
[6] Ibid.
[*]Lenin defines rentiers in Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism.
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Recently the struggle of the miners in Kentucky and particularly Harlan County has grown intense. This struggle focuses around the attempt to form a union. Details are covered in recent issues of the People’s Tribune. One of the most active and conscious groups among the miners and their families is the Brookside Women’s Club. This group is providing some of the leadership in the strike and is helping man the picket lines.
Because of the importance of this struggle in the working class movement in the U.S., we urge member organizations of the National Continuations Committee and all local committees to send letters of support and money to aid the strike, to:
Brookside Women’s Club
c/o Bessie Lou Cornette
Box 262
Evarts, Kentucky 40828
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1. WHAT IS TO BE DONE, Lenin.
2. ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK, Lenin.
3. “Report of the Tenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party”
4. Report of the Second Congress of the Russian Social Labor Democratic Party – In Lenin on the Trade Union or Selected Works of Lenin.
5. Lenin and Stalin, On Revisionism – pamphlet by International Publishers.
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In Addition to news items and polemics for the next issue of the newsletter, we welcome suggestions for a name for the newsletter. Also, your criticisms are welcome. Please send all correspondence to:
National Continuations Committee
1870 North Sheffield
Chicago, Illinois 60614