What is opportunism? Why must it be struggled against? Opportunism is basically bourgeois ideology within the working-class movement. It must be struggled against in order to maintain the march forward toward the most fundamental and world-historic goal of the proletariat – workingclass dictatorship leading to a classless society. What follows is the preface to a book entitled Lenin’s Fight Against Revisionism and Opportunism by Cheng Yen-Shih. The book is out of print, and is quoted only because it is a concise explanation of Lenin’s historic struggles.
Commenting on the history of the development of Marxism, Lenin wrote, “...this doctine has had to fight for every step forward in the course of its life.” [“Marxism and Revisionism”, Collected Works, Vol, 15, p. 31] That was exactly what had happened.
In the first half-century of the existence of Marxism [from the 1840’s to the 1890’s] Marx and Engels fought the feudal, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois brands of socialism, struggled against the Young Hegelians, against Proudhonism, Lassalleanism and Bakuninism, against Duhring and his like, and gained victory over all anti-Marxist ideologies within the working-class movement. They founded the International Working Men’s Association, the First International, which laid the basis of the international proletariat’s struggle for socialism. After the death of Marx, the Second International was formed in 1889 under the leadership of Engels and the workingclass movement expanded tremendously.
The victory of Marxism in the theoretical field, and its achievement of predominance in the workingclass movement, obliged its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists and seek to corrupt the working class from within the movement. Revisionism and opportunism were the chief manifestations of bourgeois ideological influence on the proletariat.
After Engels died in 1895 the revisionists launched an open attack upon Marxism. Beginning in 1896, Bernstein published a series of articles and pamphlets in which he thoroughly “revised” Marxism. Opportunists in various countries followed Bernsteinianism ideologically and theoretically, and also in their activities. Kautsky, the one-time Marxist, adopted a conciliatory attitude towards Bernsteinism and later himself degenerated into a despicable renegade. Entrenched in positions of leadership in the Second International, these infamous revisionists and opportunists precipitated a serious crisis in the International workingclass movement.
After the death of Engels, it was Lenin who shouldered the heavy responsibility of defending Marxism. Since the revisionists had launched a ferocious attack on Marxism, Lenin had no alternative but to make a determined counter-attack and enter into a great debate with them. That was the great debate between the Marxists and the revisionists and opportunists which took place after Marxism had become predominant in the workingclass movement.
Lenin showed that the emergence of revisionism and opportunism is no accident. They are products of the capitalist system and of bourgeois policy. He uncovered the class basis of revisionism and opportunism and their social roots in his “Marxism and Revisionism”, “Differences in the European Labour Movement”, “The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx”, “Imperialism and the Split in the Socialist Movement” and in other writings.
After the failure of the Paris Commune in 1871, world capitalism went through a period of relatively “peaceful” development lasting several decades. By the early 20th century, capitalism had developed to the stage of imperialism. Out of its super-profits the bourgeoisie bribed the upper stratum of the workers and built up an aristocracy of labour. Therein lay the primary social roots of opportunism. Lenin said
. . . the comparatively peaceful and cultured existence of a stratum of privileged workers made them “bourgeois”, gave them crumbs from the profits from their own national capital, and isolated them from the sufferings, miseries and revolutionary sentiments of the ruined and impoverished masses. [“The Collapse of the 2nd International]
At the same time, the proletariat came under the ideological influence of the petty bourgeoisie, as large numbers of peasants, handicraftsmen and other petty-bourgeois were impelled into its ranks as a result of the tremendous growth of capitalism.
Like all other exploiting classes, the bourgeoisie always uses two tactics, in combination or alternately, in maintaining its rule and dealing with the exploited classes – one is butcher-like suppression and the other priest-like deception. During the few decades of the relatively “peaceful” development of capitalism, the bourgeoisie put its main effort into paralysing the revolutionary will of the proletariat within the country by means of petty reforms and sham concessions. In these circumstances, the fetishism of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bourgeois “legality” developed among many leaders of the working class movement. At the same time, a good many “fellow travellers” wormed their way into the working class movement from among the petty-bourgeois intellectuals. As Lenin pointed out, the growth of the movement at that time “was in breadth, at the cost of a temporary fall in the revolutionary level, a temporary increase in the strength of opportunism”. (“The Third International and its Place in History”)
Catering to the needs of the bourgeoisie, the revisionists and opportunists emasculated the entire revolutionary content of Marx’s teachings. They substituted vulgar evolutionism for revolutionary dialectics and contemptible idealism for militant materialism. They spread the view that capitalist economic crisis had been mitigated and could be entirely eliminated, and denied the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism. They opposed proletarian class struggle and advocated class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. They preached a peaceful, reformist road of transition from capitalism to socialism and opposed proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In short, they were vehicles of bourgeois ideological influence, they were agents of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement, they were renegades from the revolutionary cause of the proletariat. Before World War I their main effort within the working class movement and the proletarian parties was to divert the masses from the path of revolution, to hinder them from preparing for decisive, revolutionary battle. During the war, they became social-chauvinists and helped the capitalists to prosecute their predatory war. After the October Revolution, they viciously attacked the Bolsheviks, tried to sabotage the Soviet regime, betrayed the revolutions in Germany, Hungary and some other countries, and thus became open allies of the bourgeoisie and public enemies of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Obviously, the differences which emerged in the working class movement as a result of the betrayal by the revisionists and opportunists did not turn on minor issues. They involved the major question of whether one wants Marxism, revolution and socialism. In his essay, “Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism”, Lenin wrote:
Nothing is more important than to rally all Marxists who have realised the profundity of the crisis and the necessity of combating it, for defence of the theoretical basis of Marxism and its fundamental propositions, that are being distorted from diametrically opposite sides by the spread of bourgeois influence to the various “fellow-travellers” of Marxism. (CW Vol. 17, p. 43).
Lenin criticized any attempt at reconciliation with opportunism, considering that any such advocacy of “unity” was, “objectively, the advocacy of enslaving the workers to the imperialist bourgeoisie with the aid of the latter’s best agents in the labour movement” (CW Vol. 19, p. 343) He said:
One of the necessary conditions for preparing the proletariat for its victory is a long, stubborn and ruthless struggle against opportunism, reformism, social-chauvinism and similar bourgeois influences and trends ...” (The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat)
In long, arduous and sharp struggle, Lenin smashed the revisionist and opportunist fallacies on all the fundamental issues, such as the question of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat; thus he defended and developed Marxism.
Lenin upheld dialectical and historical materialism and refuted a whole variety of idealist and metaphysical trends. On the foundations of Marxist principles of political economy, he established the theory of imperialism, and, in accordance with the historical conditions in the era of imperialism, he set forth a series of irrefutable truths concerning proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He showed that imperialism is monopolistic decaying and moribund capitalism and that imperialism is the eve of proletarian revolution; that wars for the redivision of the world are inevitable among the imperialist countries in the stage of imperialism, because of the law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism and because of the imperialists’ scramble for sources of raw material, for markets for commodities and for the export of capital – that socialism would break the weakest link in the imperialist chain and achieve victory first in one or more countries; that the fundamental question in the proletarian revolution is to smash the state machine of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat; that in order to insure victory in the revolution, the proletariat must form a worker-peasant alliance with its great ally, the peasant masses, an alliance which has different content at different periods, and at the same time it must form an alliance with the national liberation movement of the colonial and dependent countries in a common struggle against imperialism; that during the entire historical period of the transition from capitalism to communism which follows the victory of the proletarian revolution, it is necessary to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, carry out industrialisation and the collectivisation of agriculture, and wage a long and unremitting struggle against the remnants of capitalism and of bourgeois influence, for only thus is it possible to complete the building of socialism and pass over to communism; and that it is of prime importance for the proletariat to form its own genuinely revolutionary Marxist party, which completely breaks with opportunism, if it is to carry out the proletarian revolution, establish and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, and build socialism and communism. With Lenin, Marxism advanced to a new phase, to Leninism. Leninism is Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution; it is Marxism of the era of the victory of socialism and communism.
Lenin founded the Bolshevik Party, a party of an entirely new type which broke with opportunism. Led by Lenin, the Bolshevik Party grew and matured in the course of the Russian revolution and of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism both inside and outside Russia; it finally won the great victory of the October Revolution and established the first socialist country in the world. Lenin also founded the Third International, which rallied the Marxists of all countries and furthered the revolutionary movement throughout the world”.
Lenin led the struggle over strategy and tactics (which reflected a two-line struggle in the ideological sphere between the two classes) in all areas of the international working-class movement. The History of the CPSU [B] is one good work that can be used to explore these struggles, as well as the Cheng book. Also of use is the first chapter (in particular) of Thomson’s From Marx to Mao Tse-Tung.
Opportunism takes 1001 forms – it is not fussy. It springs up everywhere from the petit-bourgeois world outlook, which is essentially fear of revolution. It is the complement of imperialism – in both socialist and capitalist countries – within the working class. The various forms of opportunism – e.g. Trotskyism, revisionism, social-democracy, Economism, ultra-“leftism”, etc. – are not currents of Marxism. They are the enemies of Marxism on the ideological front.
Opportunism emerged at every point in the development of the communist movement. The Economists and Mensheviks opposed Lenin and the Bolshevik tendency in the struggle for a truly proletarian party in Russia. The social-chauvinists (= socialists in words, national-chauvinists in deeds) of the Second International betrayed the cause of the workers, and sided with their own bourgeoisies during the imperialist World War I. There was a two-line struggle between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism over the possibility of building socialism in one country. Stalin defended Marxism-Leninism on this question, although he saw Trotskyism and other opportunists not as ideological deviations within the Party, but as simply direct agents of imperialism. His failure to raise the ideological struggle but rather to rely on administrative methods weakened the Party and contributed to the eventual seizure of state power and restoration of capitalism by the revisionists.
The Chinese Party has seen several 2-line struggles – until 1935 Mao was in a minority within the Party and opposed the dominant opportunist lines: the right opportunism of Chen Tu-Hsu, which preached reliance on the Kuomintang and led to the disastrous events of 1927; the “left” opportunism of the succession of Party leaders from 1927 to 1934, which consisted mainly in a blind acceptance of Comintern directives, and the use of city uprisings when the revolution needed to consolidate in the rural base areas. Other struggles between the two lines occurred – against Chang Kuo-tao (a right opportunist who turned Trotskyite, and now lives in Toronto (!), once more against Wang Ming (a former “leftist” taking a right form), and in the fifties against an anti-Party group led by Kao Kang and Jao Shu-shih. The two struggles in the Chinese Party best known to us are those against the right opportunism of Liu Shao-Chi and Lin Piao. Both struggles reinforced the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the masses – they opposed China travelling the inglorious route of the USSR to capitalist restoration. Mao Tse-Tung contributed significantly to the treasury of Marxism-Leninism in developing the idea of two line struggle under socialism. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, there developed an ultra-“leftist” trend which hid behind the criticism of the revisionists in power at local and national levels. They attacked and isolated China internationally through an ultra-“leftist” foreign office which they controlled. (See the book by Jean Daubier, A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution). Lin Piao used this “leftist” phase to develop his power. He was the most fervent chanter of slogans and waver of little red books – but this facade hid a completely rightist essence.
One of the weaknesses of the Canadian Communist Party was the lack of ideological struggle within it. (An article in #3 of Canadian Revolution shows some of the reasons for this.) Fergus McKean tried to take up a struggle against the “Browderite” line of the Party in the late 40’s (a line first developed by Earl Browder, leader of the CPUSA, it did away with the antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and resulted in the liquidation of the American Party) – but the revisionist leadership behind Tim Buck threw him out of the Party and successfully defeated his attempt to return to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. Another attempt to fight the CP revisionism from within resulted in the expulsion of Jack Scott and others in the early 60’s.
A new communist movement is now developing. It is our view that if it is to grow in strength and numbers, and achieve its historic tasks, we must expose and oppose opportunism wherever it exists. From the foregoing, we hope it is clear that our desire to struggle against opportunism in all its forms does not come from dogmatic fascination with words or forms, but with a desire to achieve our revolutionary tasks.
How has the Western Voice dealt in its pages with revision of scientific socialism? In exposing revisionism, has the paper attacked its essence and drawn positive lessons from a struggle against it? We believe that the paper has largely ignored the struggle against revisionism in all its forms. Our attacks on revisionist organizations and lines have consistently remained on the plane of attacking betrayals of the immediate interests of the working class. But the essence of revisionism is its betrayal of the long-term interests of the proletariat, which are socialism and communism, and a liquidation of the tools needed to achieve those ends – a proletarian party based on Marxism-Leninism, violent revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In failing to attack the betrayal of the revolutionary principles we have ourselves failed to take a revolutionary stance. In “flushing out” revisionists over short-term questions we have really not flushed them out at all. Some examples from the pages of the paper will show what we mean.
The NDP government has received a lot of attention from the Western Voice – its coming to office in BC corresponds with the birth and development of the paper. There are basically 2 ways for a working class newspaper to deal with social democracy: 1) as not doing enough for the workers it represents; 2) as a tool of the bourgeoisie and imperialism to sidetrack the working class into harmless reformist channels. Essentially the Western Voice has followed the first alternative.
Three articles on the NDP and education are models of reformism. The first is an article in Vol. 2, #20 about the school board by-election. The main line of the article was that the NDP and COPE should have run a common campaign with one candidate. (Angie Dennis ran for COPE and Henry Arthur for NDP). The two reformist groups were not attacked in the slightest aside from their refusal to join together in what could only be a united front of bourgeois parties. They were portrayed as parties of “progressive, working class and poor people in the city” which represent those interests against the interests of the “business and professional classes”. The common approach of ”community participation in educational decision making” was approved of.
Unity of the “left” is called for and election of a “left” candidate to the School Board seen as one of the major ways the working class conducts its fight in the area of education.
We assume people now see this sort of article as hopelessly mired in reformism and a desire for non-principled unity. Certainly we have advanced from this period, but many of the same themes persist.
Tom Conroy’s report on the BCTF Annual General Meeting in 1974 exhibits a totally reformist view of classes and the NDP. “To date the government has not fulfilled the educational expectations it created.”
The Federation (BCTF) and the labour union movement share common grounds on matters of income distribution.” Conroy gives complete support to the BCTF position, which is to support the NDP and its vision of social change. By giving teachers “workers’ control”, by teaching anti-sexism and by (supposedly) reducing class distinctions through classroom equality (i.e. between east and west end kids) we are somehow moving toward socialism. Actually, if we didn’t know Conroy was a socialist and that the Western Voice is considered socialist, his report on the meeting wouldn’t even betray this implied conclusion. But because the BCTF is considered to be part of the “struggle” (for what? which class? etc.) the reformist line of the BCTF is applauded. Is the NDP a capitalist party or not? Does it or does it not take the ideology of the capitalist class to the working class in a more palatable form? Do we oppose the NDP because it is used by the bourgeoisie to perpetuate their rule, or because it hasn’t come through on its election promises for a reduction of the pupil-teacher ratio?
An editorial in the issue of March 12-25, 1975 on the firing of members of the Research and Development section of the Education Department displays once again a reformist view of the NDP and their education policy. Here are some quotes and comments:
...expectations of basic reforms in the education system were raised. ...fundamental reforms were promised by the NDP...
Well, first, what is a “fundamental” or “basic” reform? Reforms are used to try to make the system work – to pacify people and cloud over contradictions between classes. We are not against the winning of short term gains (far from it – for every victory gives the people new confidence and strength) but we are against calling fundamental what is merely window-dressing. What is fundamental is the use of the school system to pass on bourgeois ideology and to train all classes for their social roles – as exploiters and exploited, “(the R&D group) fail to expose the government’s opposition to real change in the school system.”
Once again, the reformist illusion of “real change” coming through the bourgeois state is clearly upheld. In other words, if Dailly and the NDP hadn’t fired the “progressives”, “real change” might have occurred in education. The “progressives” could have “used their positions in government to develop programs in local communities that would raise the political consciousness of people...to begin to demand basic changes in the educational system.’’ This is absolutely false and is quite misleading. What starts out sounding like a sharp criticism of social democracy and reformism turns out to be an espousal of a new form of social democracy.
The end of the editorial tacks on an anti-bureaucratic line which while not incorrect in itself is not really the point.
Fundamental social change comes through people organizing around their needs.
The NDP, like all social democratic governments in the past, is not interested in change from the bottom and is quite threatened when demands for reforms are raised by organized groups in the community.
Here, the previous support for the strategy of the R&D group (which claimed to promote mass struggle) turns to opposition with the obvious fact that this group wasn’t building grass roots organizations at the base. The editorial, like the other articles mentioned, suffers fundamentally from failing to oppose the NDP for its opportunism, but only for its failure to be successful social-democrats. There is nothing in this article which opposes the idea of “groups in the community” (sic!) winning ”fundamental reforms” from the NDP to meet ”their needs”. In fact this is basically what the article advocates. To sum up – can we have an “educational system which meets (our) needs” under capitalism? Absolutely not!
An article on the NDP convention in September of 1974 (Vol, 3, #18) by David Mole points out some of the contradictions within the NDP (lack of accountability of government to party, etc.) but again lacks any sort of ideological struggle against social democracy. Again, there is a championing of democracy in the party and an opposition to reactionary policies (Essential Services Act, failure to meet women’s demands) but no class analysis of the NDP (a convention is surely a good time to deal with this) and a resultant exposure of its opportunism and sabotage of the working class’ fundamental as well as short-term interests.
The most united and democratically-run social-democratic party is still a party that serves the class enemy, that promotes illusions of “democracy” within the capitalist dictatorship, that is a consistent diehard tool in the struggle against revolution, against communism. This article is another example of where “being practical, concrete and down to earth” ends up objectively supporting reformism and reaction.
Often the NDP is attacked for its sellout of resources or its pro-business policies on the same level as the anti-imperialist movement has attacked Liberal, Conservative and Socred governments. Here are two examples:
In Vol. 3, #18, Jack Wamock wrote an article about the takeover of Canadian distilling and tobacco companies by Americans. Aside from the bourgeois nationalism of defending Canadian capitalism against American capitalism (this is not the time of a united front) the article criticises the NDP government in Saskatchewan for not living up to its policies. Certainly the NDP government (like Bennett’s Socred regime, the Conservatives in Ontario, and Bourassa in Quebec, etc. etc.) deserve contempt for their pro-American imperialist actions, but we shouldn’t pretend that they could do otherwise. Wamock’s main answer to the sellout of the distilleries is to nationalise them. He seems surprised that the NDP caucus in Ottawa (not in government) can say the contrary of the actions of the NDP in Saskatchewan (in government).
Nationalization is in fact part of NDP strategy – it creates the illusion of socialism and where necessary the bourgeoisie will use it. In Saskatchewan it has not yet become necessary. Once again an attack on the NDP becomes a defense of the NDP’s ideology – the ideology of opportunism.
An article by Steve Garrod on Gary Lauk’s appointments of a “blue-ribbon” board to the B.C. Development Corporation (date unknown – sorry) rightly attacks the government for spending the people’s money to help the bourgeoisie make profits. But once again the prospect is held out that since they are NDP, things could be different. The article asks the question why “no one...from the labour movement or working people in the underdeveloped parts of the province, or native people” were on the board. (Why not throw in women for good measure!) Steve Garrod and everyone else on the Western Voice know the answer to this question – but unfortunately we’re not telling. Garrod, it seems, hopes to show our readers that the NDP is anti-working class because it doesn’t appoint workers to its boards. The clear implication is that if workers (and other “groups in the community”) were on these boards then they and the NDP could serve the working class and oppressed people.
Often those of us who oppose Economism actively on the Western Voice are asked for “positive alternatives”. We could well ask the writer of this article (and others as well): “What is your alternative to Lauk’s actions?” The only possible alternative which comes across is that workers be put on boards to help manage capitalism.
An article in Vol. 4, #3 from Edmonton on the Syncrude fiasco takes a straightforward NDP position – supporting Grant Notley’s (Alberta NDP leader) glorious exposure of the giveaway. What is to be the position of the Voice on the call of social-democrats like Jim Laxer for nationalization of the oil industry? Will this be seen as a “fundamental reform”?
A “Labour Note” by Ken Hansen (Vol. 3, #7) exhibits the error of “flushing out the opportunists” by exposing their betrayal of the short-term interests of the working class. The article relates that Roger Crowther quit the NDP because the government trampled on the democratic rights of the Trail workers to change unions. The implication is that the NDP is thus not a workers’ party, but could be if it supported the democratic rights of the Trail workers.
The article by Bill Harper and Rick Gordon on IBEW Local 213 history (Vol. 4, #10) is one of the clearest examples of the false strategy of “flushing out the opportunists.”
It is shown that in the 50’s the Communist Party in the union movement stood for “local control and rank and file activism.” Under the leadership of CPer George Gee in Local 213 “decisions about walkouts were up to the membership.” A split in the “left” (which is used interchangeably with “militants”) is seen from the 1966 Lenkurt strike – the CP is now allied with the NDP, and the Internationals against local “militants”.
What is wrong with this analysis? Well, on the positive side, it shows the split in the trade union movement on the conduct of the economic struggle. But is the revisionism of the CP an outcome of their abandonment of the militant pursuit of the economic struggle, or is that abandonment in fact a result of the victory of a revisionist political line (i.e. the liquidation of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the espousal of the “peaceful transition to socialism”, etc.)? The line of the article is that a tendency is “left” or “right” because it has a good or bad position on the economic struggle. Questions of the political struggle are never even mentioned - democracy, rank and file control and militancy in the trade unions are the only questions dealt with. Was the CP of the 50’s and early 60’s any less revisionist than now, even though they took a militant stance on the economic struggle?
The article by Harper and Gordon doesn’t touch in the slightest on opportunism, on revisionism – it “flushes out” only militants who have ceased to be militant. It doesn’t expose revisionism – but more significantly it makes the same error which led the CP to revisionism – the lending of a “political” character to the economic struggle.
Where there has been a successful attack on opportunism, it has been where the essential element of denial of revolution and subverting the working class’ long-term interests has been the foundation for an exposure of its short-term betrayals, (e.g. Martin & Cleveland on the Italian CP [Dec. 4-18, 1974], Coward and Briemberg on women in USSR vs. China [Vol. 4, #14] These articles arm workers infinitely more than 100 articles showing how the NDP or CP subvert a strike struggle. When advanced workers recognize opportunism, the subversion of their fundamental interests, as an ideological trend, they can oppose it in whatever form it assumes.
A multitude of other examples of where “flushing out” has flushed out nothing could be given - day care, tenants, native land claims, health care, etc. We hope the examples given have illustrated the point. A reading of articles in these other areas will demonstrate the same erroneous strategy which leaves us open to opportunism when we fail to attack it.
It is our contention then that a communist movement, and a communist party, are built on the basis of an ideological struggle against opportunism.
Lenin showed us the criterion which we must always keep uppermost in this struggle: “Those who recognize the class struggle are not yet Marxists... Only he is a Marxist who extends recognition of the class struggle to recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, this is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested.” (Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 411).