Soon there will be two self-labeled communist parties in the U.S. claiming to work for proletarian revolution. Many other groups and individuals will still be in the communist movement. The New Voice, one of these organizations, believes that greater unity than this is possible. We would like to discuss some problems of unity here.
The New Voice believes that almost all communists are honest people who want to work for revolution. This is true even in the ranks of the October League (OL), despite the sharp differences separating our position and that of their leaders with regard to such basic issues as the analysis of classes in the U.S., the nature of the party and the class analysis of racist and national minority oppression.
We believe that the leaders of most groups honestly want to work for socialism, too. Only a few, like the chiefs of the OL, consciously seek gain for an individual or clique and oppose Marxism-Leninism.
The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and the party that the OL will soon announce are going their separate ways. The RCP has become very isolated from the movement and the working class, something it seems to welcome. The OL is becoming more sectarian, too, encouraging a hardening of lines between people, not because of ideas they hold, but because of gang fights at OL-sponsored forums.
The question that remains is, what are all the groups and individuals in the communist movement going to do now? The New Voice is one of these groups, along with the August Twenty-Ninth Movement, the League for Proletarian Revolution, the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee, the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization, the Revolutionary Workers League, the Workers Viewpoint Organization and other.
The question that faces us is whether we will put revolution first, and all other interests in forming the party second. Where groups and individuals do this, we believe that the party is sure to make progress, and that the disunity in the communist movement will be overcome.
Where there is revisionism, which robs Marxism of its revolutionary content while holding to a sham Marxist label, it should be exposed and repudiated. Unity is always unity on the basis of principle. Those who hold to revisionism are preventing unity between themselves and others; revisionists always isolate themselves and those few they influence.
Where there are differences on particular questions, such as how to do trade union work, there should be criticism, but this is no barrier to unity.
It is especially harmful when ideological differences are manufactured. In such cases, the groups involved do not really want to unite, because they fear giving up some organizational interests that they value more than the great aim of forming a party dedicated to proletarian revolution. Or it may be that a group does not see the path forward clearly and has a natural sense of doubt about whether things will work out so as to preserve the leading position of Marxism-Leninism. After a while, it becomes clear when a supposedly ideological dispute is not really about principles but rather a cover for such fear and reluctance to unite. A particular issue is obviously blown up out of relation to its practical significance, or people keep shifting the grounds of the debate simply to prolong it.
The New Voice has raised three key issues to define the struggle between the Marxist-Leninist position and the revisionist position today. First, to understand the kind of revolution needed, we analyze the classes in the United States and raise the slogan, The Enemy Is Capitalism, the Fight Is For Socialism! This slogan, based on a clear definition of the working class and the other classes, opposes the slippery misconceptions hidden under the “united front against imperialism” in the U.S. pushed by the OL and the RCP.
Second, to express the fact that the party must be the union of Marxism-Leninism with the working class, we advance the slogan, Make the Workers’ Struggles the Party’s Struggles, Make the Party’s Outlook the Workers’ Outlook! The revisionist leaders of the OL and RCP refuse to bring Marxism-Leninism to the working class. The OL does very little Marxist-Leninist education, and its newspaper is full of non-Marxist formulations on the economic crisis, classes, the nature of the state here and in places like Chile and Portugal, etc. The RCP makes a magic word out of “class,” but it says very little about Marxism-Leninism.
Third, to attack a major divide-and-conquer tactic of the capitalists, we say, Fight Racism! We point out that racism is based on the superexploitation of minorities and, by dividing the working class, hurts the struggles of all workers for a decent life. Where there is oppression of a national minority, such as the discrimination, deportations and denial of language equality which make life doubly hard for Chicanos, we recognize and oppose that, too. But we reject attempts to create nations in violation of Stalin’s well-known criteria, because promoting the idea of a nation where it does not exist inevitably leads one to promote nationalism, the outlook that places national factors above class.
If our positions on the three issues of the class analysis of the U.S. and its revolution, the nature of the party and the class analysis of racist and national minority oppression are wrong, they should be criticized. When The New Voice has been wrong on a particular question, it has criticized itself soon. We did this in regard to our positions on the Equal Rights Amendment and the Chicano national minority. So far, no group has criticized the three key issues. Public debates or private discussions are both appropriate, as well as newspaper articles.
If another group and The New Voice hold the same position on the three key issues, we are confident that we can work together and increase the unity of the revolutionary forces. As for other issues, like the specifics of work in the trade unions, the women’s question and areas of concentration, we should all discuss them seriously and learn from practice. This should be done both before and after the party is founded. We cannot expect to arrive at fixed views on all details of these questions before founding the party, so they should be no excuse for avoiding unity.
Organizational unity should not be a problem. Once unity is recognized on the basic positions that distinguish Marxist-Leninists from revisionists in the movement, the groups and individuals involved should actively pursue organizational unity. This is a process of becoming familiar with the other organization and gaining confidence in the reality of its positions, something that several newspaper articles naturally cannot establish by themselves. When another group publishes its own newspaper, as does The New Voice, we can cooperate in a step by step way. Reluctance to share one’s own public platform is understandable. But once we recognize this reluctance, we can gradually remove any foundation for it. We should not demand sudden “unity” which really leaves people uneasy (something for which the OL is famous), but we should not hold back this process or drag it out unnecessarily either.
Another avenue of organizational unity will be the joint preparation of a draft program for the communist party. This mutual experience will give us all confidence in the value of unity. But a party program should be written when it will be the basis for a viable party, not when it ’would lead to sectarian, splitting “parties” like the’ RCP and the OL’s new formation.
The goal of The New Voice is to dissolve into the party. We have always been ready to unite. We attended the organizational meetings for the journal Proletarian Cause five years ago. After attending the Second Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists organized by the Communist League, we were on the Continuations Committee until the CL prompted our expulsion and went off to become the pro-Soviet Communist Labor Party. We have united with a number of groups around the country which have become Friends of The New Voice. They did not have their own newspapers and found that The New Voice could be their newspaper, their organizing tool for revolutionary work among the working class. They contribute to it and they use it.
The New Voice is growing. This is happening in the face of the revisionists’ attempts to deny our existence. These attempts have included such crude tactics as saying that Charles Loren, the author of The Struggle for the Party, was a member of the Communist League, when it was known that he was and is a member solely of The New Voice. Or we have the recent example by the Guardian, which published a photograph of the Oakland, California march protesting the police murder of Jose Barlow Benavidez. In the caption, the Guardian listed participating groups, even the New American Movement, but it omitted the name of the one group that produced a mass newspaper to build the march and did much fund-raising and organizing work. That group was The New Voice. Revisionists do not want to admit the existence of TNV, because then they would have to deal with our line and its practical application.
Our growth will continue, but no group should make its own organizational size the main goal. Our main goal is proletarian revolution. For this the party is needed, and we want it first of all things.
Every group should ask itself: What are the key issues that divide the movement? Are there real differences between ourselves and The New Voice (and with other groups) on those issues? If not, why are we not seeking unity? Anyone who does anything else is testifying in action that they have not yet put the revolutionary interest first, that their desire to retain an official position, edit “their” newspaper or satisfy another narrow interest is keeping them from being proletarian revolutionaries. Frankly, some “revolutionary” groups have gone so far in this direction that their newspapers have become almost unreadable and their antics are wrecking.
Our three key issues open up the discussion between groups. They are not a party program. Groups may forge unity gradually and then form the party, or a number of groups may recognize their need to proceed together to the party at once. We cannot predict which path will be taken. The New Voice will never write a party program when it would be a divisive act. We would like to write it and proceed to found the party with the greatest possible forces in the communist movement. But if people who are not revisionists and confirmed opportunists still let secondary interests prevent unity, then The New Voice and those who reject the sectarian or “mountain top” attitude will form the party as soon as it can assume its historical responsibilities. By this, we do not mean waiting until we acquire some quota of advanced workers, more experience in mass work or polished plans covering every detail of political and economic struggle. We simply mean that the party can act as such in its job of uniting the working class around the need for proletarian revolution. Every day that goes by without the party is a day of struggle without the highest form of working-class organization to lead it.
The working class of the United States is a revolutionary class. This point gives us the greatest confidence. No one should fear that a sham party formed by the OL or anyone else will get an iron grip on the working class. Revisionists do not have deep ties with the working class; the bourgeoisie props them up. Revisionists are interested in funds, publicity and big shows. They collude and contend with professional liberals and nationalist bureaucrats. The Marxist-Leninist position upheld by The New Voice is a tool for the working class to change this society; we aim for its practical application. That is why we persist in defending Marxism-Leninism, taking our programs to the working class, and creating and merging with the working-class vanguard. It will lead the working masses to convert a crisis and revolutionary situation into proletarian revolution itself. Can any Marxist-Leninist aim to serve anything else?