First, the National Continuations Committee based in Chicago severely criticizes itself for not writing on this glorious holiday in the June newsletters. It is a manifestation of National and White Chauvinist errors and must not be tolerated under any circumstances!
June 19th is a holiday of the working class born out of the mass struggle of the Negro People for their freedom and liberation. On this day in 1862, the Congress of the USNA passed an act which abolished slavery within territories. But 100 years later, the Negro Nation is not free.
This day signifies the past, present and future of the struggle for liberation as expressed by the USNA’s first colony. The past is for the blood and sweat culminating in the loss of lives in the gallant struggles for freedom. The present manifests the continuing rising struggles against the imperialist system. Whereas the future highlights the Negro Nation as one of the colonies that is immediately vulnerable to USNA imperialism; the just cause of liberation is being connected to the struggle for Socialism by the upcoming Congress to form a Party of a new type. It is with this concrete step that the future, however long and arduous, is pregnant with liberation for the Negro Nation as well as all oppressed and exploited colonial nations and people. Our struggle inside the belly of the beast or the heart of the imperialists, the USNA, is to put forth and implement the correct line in doing our part to make the slogan free the Negro Nation a reality among the Anglo-American proletariat.
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As we near the Congress and the building of a Marxist-Leninist Party, it is extremely important to understand the international and national situation and its relevance to us. As the progressive forces struggle for Socialism, the imperialist and their lackeys have increased with great intensity their attempts to crush these struggles.
We understand that the struggle by the imperialist is basically because of two factors; “1. The imperialist, caught in the clutches of an overproduction crises, must have wars of aggression and annexation to “burn up” commodities and allow the expansion of industry. 2. The imperialist also need war to hold on to their colonies which are ablaze with the liberation struggles of the colonial peoples.” In their fascist offensive, the imperialists and their capable assistants, the labor aristocracy and revisionists are consolidating a most brutal alliance against the just struggles of the revolutionary proletariat and oppressed nations and peoples of the world.
How does this manifest itself? The leading factor is the détente between the USSR and the USNA. Both the CPSU’s revisionist clique and the USNA imperialist, via their henchman Nixon, have called for permanent détente in order to achieve and maintain world peace. Marshall Grechko of the USSR’s political bureau and a right-winger who was formerly opposed to détente has come full circle and is one of its most ardent supporters. The Congress of the USNA as well as labor aristocrats and the CPUSA are also staunch supporters of this treacherous act.
While calling for peace the bourgeoisie prepares for war and presents himself as Dimitrov states, “Fascism comes to power as a party of attack on the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, on the masses of the people who are in a state of unrest; yet it stages its accession to power as a revolutionary movement against the bourgeoisie on behalf of the whole nation. In doing this, the bourgeoisie wants to weaken the proletariat in the onslaught of fascism.”
In this light, the bourgeoisie is moving to consolidate all of these revisionist, labor aristocrats and some honest forces who are being duped. As an example, Argentina, Portugal and the Dominican Republic have called for the recognition of communist parties as legitimate facets of government. The communist parties of Europe have called for the support of their governments and also close alliance to the super-powers. Within the USNA, the revisionist CPUSA has been removed from the list of subversives. In addition, the revisionists throughout the world are denying the existence of a socialist camp and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The USNA is consolidating the old liberal bourgeois, labor aristocracy, fascist clique. This is represented particularly in the Negro Nation by a strong support for George Wallace by Negro compradors such as Johnny Ford, Mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama and Charles Evers, Mayor of Fayette, Mississippi. This support is also tied to a Kennedy/Wallace for president which has the open and tacit approval of Meany, Woodcock and the revisionists.
There is the call to bring progressive forces in the state apparatus to assist in oppressing the revolutionary proletariat. Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit, Tom Bradley, Mayor of Los Angeles and Atlanta’s Maynard Jackson have recruited honest elements of the working class with a high degree of social consciousness to unite them with the bourgeois state in order to complete the grouping necessary for the smashing of communists while furthering the exploitation and oppression of the colonial nations and peoples.
It is in this light comrades that we must see that the bourgeoisie is legitimating the revisionists in order to have a clear shot at us. After their moves to legitimatize the good communists then it is necessary to attack and isolate the true Marxist-Leninist.
On the other hand, we know that imperialist peace is a façade bursting with plunder and war on the workers and people of the world. It is amongst the latter that we must base ourselves with factory nuclei and begin to develop the party while never being isolated from the class. It is thru the factory nuclei that we make every factory our fortress while building the united front against Fascism to turn back the bourgeois offensive.
1st quote from People’s Tribune, Vol. 6, No. 6. Watergate Escalates, p.5.
2nd quote from Dimitrov, On the United Front, p. 6.
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The Motor City Labor League (M-L), a collective with deep roots and a history of struggle in the city of Detroit, has joined the National Continuations Committee, and sent a representative to work in Chicago for the period leading to the Congress. The NCC welcomes the representative and the organizational participation and commitment. This is viewed as a reflection of the seriousness and level of work and struggle that is being done and needs to be done on the national and local committees as we build toward the Congress and the Party. We must all struggle for a concrete understanding of the line of Marxism-Leninism and its application to the concrete conditions in the USNA today. We must all prepare ourselves for the immediate task, the formation of a Multi-National Marxist-Leninist Communist Party and thereby for the tasks that follow. Through disciplined study, comradely struggle and principled action, we will unite with the science of Marxism-Leninism and arrive at the correct political line to guide our future action. For this to occur, we must all understand the resolutions, their scientific basis, and their programmatic implications. Organizations and individuals have the responsibility for the development of all people in the Continuations Committee and of the resolutions themselves, to submit to the NCC for distribution written positions in support of or polemics on the resolutions.
It is in the struggle for a deeper understanding of Marxism-Leninism and the building of the line up on the foundation of the resolutions that we will lay the basis for the unity of will and action that must come out of the Congress in the formation of a Multi-National, Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.
On Friday, June 28th, the Black Workers Congress was expelled from the National Continuations Committee. This action came after continued struggle with the BWC over adherence to the theory of Marxism-Leninism, the political line of the Conference and the organizational discipline of the continuations committee. As Marxist-Leninists, it is essential that we struggle for the correct political line, provided that it represents the quality of Marxism-Leninism and takes place within the discipline of the organization or the party, upholding the principle that once a contest of opinion is decided, the minority submits to the majority. Part of the discipline of the continuations committee demands that any development or disagreements with the political line of the conference must be written up and submitted to the Newsletter or to the national or local committees for discussion of the whole committee, recognizing that the line of the conference cannot be changed except by the Congress. Further, that no group can go outside the discipline of the collective and organize for their own line; discussion of positions can take place only within the Newsletter or the collective bodies of the committee (and of course, within the various organizations themselves). BWC continually violated this principle.
Moreover, the immediate reason for the expulsion was the refusal of BWC to accept democratic-centralism as the organizational principle for the continuations committee; they manifested their disagreement over line by refusing to participate in a forum on party building which was sponsored by the local Chicago continuations committee on Sunday June 30. BWC had been a member of this local committee, and had participated in the decision and plans for the forum. Their refusal to participate demonstrated an attempt to set up a second center where they determined the political line, rather than submit to the discipline of the national and local continuations committee.
Two days before the purge, BWC and PRRWO (Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization) met with the National Continuations Committee and criticized the NCC for the statement in the first article in Newsletter #5, “Once on the Committee, all organizations and individuals must submit to the democratic-centralist discipline of the committee.” They stated that this represented a change in political line from Newsletter #2 in an article entitled “Basis of Unity.” (We encourage all comrades to read both article and the one following entitled “Self-criticism,” as well as the other issues of the Newsletter which point out how the committee operates.)
At the time of the meeting, the NCC made clear that there has been no change in the political and organizational line of the continuations committee, and that the question of democratic-centralism is not up for debate on the committee. Since the time of Lenin, democratic centralism has been an uncompromising organizational principle for Marxist-Leninist parties, organizations or committees. Any cursory reading of ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK by Lenin, shows clearly that the political line and organizational principle coming out of the conference in 1902 and guiding the work of the organizing committee for the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903, was democratic centralism as advanced and elaborated by Iska. Further, the history of the Bolshevik Party, as well as all other Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations in the history of the communist movement has proved that failure to adhere to the principles of democratic centralism means the development of factions or two centers with two political lines. To allow two lines of different qualities to persist is hostile to Marxism-Leninism and will inevitably lead to a split or the destruction of the Marxist-Leninist organizations or parties.
From the time of the conference on, the continuations committee has adhered to the Marxist-Leninist organizational principle of democratic centralism, whether it was stated in some words or not. As we have pointed out many times, for the continuations committee, there is only one theory – Marxism-Leninism; only one political line – the line of the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists, May 1973 as expressed in Marxist-Leninists Unite! (this line cannot be changed except by the Congress); and only one Center – the National Continuations Committee which was established by the Conference and charged with the responsibility to insure that the line of the conference is maintained and carried out by all organizations and individuals represented on the continuations committee in preparation for the Congress. As in all other Marxist-Leninist organizations, centralism is absolute and democracy relative.
We assumed that organizations and individuals joining the continuations committee understood how the principle of democratic centralism was applied to the continuations committee. Obviously, this was a mistake. We raise a self-criticism of the National Continuations Committee for not making this clear from the outset. And we had encouraged the BWC and PRRWO to write up a criticism for the Newsletter on failure of the NCC to use the term democratic-centralism before the 5th issue of the Newsletter. However, the NCC rejects the criticism of BWC and PRRWO that failure to use the term was an opportunist error, designed to keep committee members vague on the organizational principles of the committee. Comrades, we must remember that in preparation for the Congress to form a revolutionary party of a new type all of us are engaged in carrying out work that none of us has done before, and that some mistakes and errors will be made. Following the teachings of Lenin, we struggle to keep these errors small and to the minimum, not compromising principles or making errors that cannot be corrected.
In addition to the purge of the BWC from the National Continuations Committee, there have also been two small collectives expelled from the local Bay Area Continuations Committee. They were the La Raza Workers Collective and the East Bay Study Group. Neither collective should have been on the continuations committee in the first place because of a long history in carrying out anti-communist activity – exposing communists in factories and getting them fired, fighting against the use of communist ideology in leaflets, and physically attacking comrades of the Communist League.
Finally, comrades, as we pointed out with the purge of the New Voice, we welcome these splits from the continuations committee, because they leave us in a stronger position to move into the Congress with only one quality – the high quality of Marxism-Leninism and to form a Marxist-Leninist Party of the working class with the ability to go to the factories and deep into the class and to win the vanguard of the proletariat to the cause of communism.
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Comrades, in the next issue of the Newsletter, there will be an article on the tasks of the continuations committee in the short period before the Congress, an article on the Congress itself, the rules of operation for the Congress and an article on the immediate tasks of the Party in winning the vanguard of the proletariat to the cause of Communism using the basic form of party organization, the factory nuclei.
Also, a week or two following the July 15th deadline, all the Congress documents that will be proposed to the Presidium of the Congress from the National Continuations Committee and any additional documents received will be sent to the local committees. (all documents should be submitted in reproduction form – single spaced, dark impression – carbon preferred, legal sized paper and Spanish translation.)
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On Sunday, June 30, the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization resigned from the NCC in support of the Black Workers Congress. This report was given to the NCC by the Detroit Local Continuations Committee which received the resignation.