With the interesting revelation that the authors of the Peoples Tribune do not understand Marxist Dialectics, that in fact they only barely understand idealist dialectics, let us go on to study their treatment of the question of the National Liberation Struggles of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Their treatment of this burning issue begins with a completely bungled attempt to repudiate the Third World Coalition’s letter to CL in vol. 4, no.8 of the People’s Tribune.
To begin with the CL answers none of the particular charges leveled against them. Instead, it directs its attack against the so-called theoretical position of the T.W. Coalition – a theoretical position no where clearly stated in their letter. In order to attack the conception of the Third World as third choice in the struggle between the capitalist roaders and the socialist roaders, the Peoples Tribune enters into an absolutely erroneous discussion of dialectics, in particular, of materialist dialectics.
Materialist dialectics does understand the existence of third, fourth, fifth and so on, factors or forces in the world. Just as there is a principle and secondary contradiction, there are great numbers of contradictions in any particular developed and complex thing or society. There is not just the contradiction between oppressed nations, there are all the contradictions between the various national bourgeoisie and in fact between all the classes and all the nations in the world. These contradictions are third, fourth, and fifth, etc. forces operating within the material historical context of real history and life.
What materialist dialectics does not accept is that there is any third or fourth or fifth side in the worldwide revolutionary struggle of the oppressed masses. There are only the capitalist and socialist roads. One is either part and parcel of the worldwide revolutionary movement, even without recognizing it, or one is part and parcel of the worldwide counter-revolutionary movement.
Having built their arguments against the concept and language of the Third World on their erroneous conception of dialectics, how then does the Peoples Tribune go on to repudiate the errors it claims exist in the Third World Coalition?
Rather than attacking the erroneous use of the Third World concept and putting forward a clear statement on the correct position as regards National Liberation Struggles, they immediately attack the concept and language itself.
With some of the most bizarre historical analysis probably ever put forward under the name of Marxism-Leninism, the Peoples Tribune attempts to describe how the concept of the Third World arose. A phrase which has meant much to the masses of Asia, Africa and Latin America and has gained common usage amongst the proletariat and its allies in the USA is attacked not as a result of the absence of a clear Marxist delineation of its meaning but because it arose in a conference of the nations of Asia and Africa, where, it is claimed, the imperialist were attempting to confuse and mislead those nations.
With such idiotic phrases as “In the history of capitalism, ’free enterprise’ developed a gigantic accumulation of financial capital”, the Peoples Tribune attempts to move from its idealist conception of dialectics and, in their own words, without “getting lost in historical analysis”, to move on to a discussion of the problems of unequal development, the reformism of the bourgeoisie and revisionists and the relation of Marxism-Leninism in the USA to the national liberation struggles of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Having put forward their non-Marxist and pseudo-dialectical view of historical development of imperialism, they intrepidly move on to the substance of their “reply”.
Leaving historical “analysis”, we now move on with the theoreticians of the CL into the arena of a discussion of “politics”:
It would be bad enough to...have to look at the hows and whys of this third world nonsense.
This statement shows the fundamental misconception of how to approach either the concept or the language of the “Third World”.
The term Third World has become an accepted part of the international revolutionary movement. This term refers to the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin-America and these countries’ colonial, semi-colonial or neo-colonial economic situation. This term reflects the material conditions of this historical era of imperialism in its decline. That is the objective reality the terms reflects.
What does the Peoples Tribune not forward as an explanation of the material base of the term? It puts forward that the terms material base is the ideological needs of the imperialists and the revisionist allies. The term was originally meant to serve the interests of the counter-revolutionaries. But, through no fault of their own, it spread throughout the world and became a common element of the languages of the peoples of the world. Let us quote Stalin in order to come to a clear understanding of the Peoples Tribune’s errors:
In this respect language radically differs from the superstructure. ’Language is not a product of one or another base, bid or new, within the given society, but of the whole course of the history of the society and of the history of the bases for many centuries. It was created no by some one class, but by the entire society, by all the classes of the society, by the efforts of hundreds of generations. It was created for the satisfaction of the needs not of one particular class, but of the entire society, of all the classes of the society. Precisely, for this reason it was created as a single language for the society, common to all members of that society, as the common language of the whole people. Hence the functional role of language, as a means of intercourse between people, consists not in serving one class to the detriment of other classes, but in equally serving the entire society, all the classes of society. THIS IN FACT EXPLAINS WHY A LANGUAGE MAY FORMALLY SERVE BOTH THE OLD, MORIBUND SYSTEM AND THE NEW, RISING SYSTEM: BOTH THE OLD BASE AND THE NEW BASE, BOTH THE EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED. (emphasis ours) from Marxism and Problems of Linguistics by J.V. Stalin pg. 5 FLP Peking 1972
The fundamental error of the Peoples Tribune is that in the name of attacking the revisionist definition of the ’Third World’, it attacks the M-L language and concept, and the national liberation struggles of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Rather than a clear position on the role and nature of the national liberation struggles in the present era of imperialism’s decline and the rise of fascism in the USA, the Peoples Tribune prefers to put forward a pedantic, dogmatic, confused and theological re-iteration of the dangers of bourgeois reformism and revisionism. Instead of clearly showing the proletariat and its allies the correct meaning, role, and difficulties of the national liberation struggles in the era of imperialism’s demise, the Peoples Tribune chooses to enter into a mechanical re-iteration of the Marxist-Leninist position on these struggles, a re-iteration done in the absence of any clear analysis of the present objective historical conditions.
To end their parody of a serious Marxist-Leninist formulation of the history and material conditions out of which the term ’Third World’ arises, the Peoples Tribune puts forward the necessity of building a “party of the class”. The building of the “party of the class” apparently requires waging a relentless attack on the revisionist conception of the Third world and an attack on “developing flunky socialism”, to the exclusion of any clear and positive formulation op the revolutionary and proletarian internationalist significance of the national liberation struggles of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, that is to say of the ’Third World’. Here again the Peoples Tribune is posing as a pro-revolutionary force in order to oppose the worldwide revolutionary movement.
In concluding their article in Vol 5, no 1, CL Reply to Attack, they compound each previous error by pulling a quote out of the writings of Karl Marx on the necessity of guarding against reformism and on the role and tactics of using reforms to the advantage of the proletariat in its struggle to destroy bourgeois democracy. How can such a quote, written in the era of bourgeois democratic revolutions be considered as a serious attempt, “in the interests of clarity”, to present a correct understanding of the national liberation struggles of Asia, Africa and Latin America in the era of worldwide proletarian-socialist revolution?
The method in this “Reply” is one of confusing issues in order to avoid a clear and forthright analysis of existing historical conditions and the present stage of development of the bourgeoisie. It can only be concluded that the Peoples Tribune does not wish to and is in fact incapable of putting forward such an analysis. Why? Because they do not put the working class and the worldwide revolutionary movement in leadership in everything; instead they put the needs of a handful of dogmatists and idealists intellectuals in leadership.
In the interests of brevity and clarity at this time we will leave the clarification of the reply to the October Leagues position on the “third world” for a later date. Needless to say we are of the opinion that there has been no correction of the fundamental errors that are to be found in the Reply to the Third World Coalition letter. In fact we find that the Peoples Tribune is finally pushed to carry out their logic to its end, and openly insult and deride the national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle of Chile. Their attack upon Chile has only two positive elements, one, the declaration of “unqualified” support for the national liberation struggles and two, the proclamation that it will be necessary to use violence in order to finally suppress the bourgeoisie and the imperialists in Chile. Their slanders against the national liberation struggles throughout the world stem from their inability to distinguish between the revolutionary struggle of the masses and the bourgeois states that arise in the midst of those struggles. They should not deride the Egyptian government, they should side with it in its struggle against Israel, and side with the revolutionary aspirations of the Egyptian people. Then they might be able to “get away” with pointing out the dangers of bourgeois reformism, without hurting the reputation of the Egyptian struggle here in the USA. Those are the duties in their correct order, of any and all proletarian internationalists.