Issued: March 2, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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March 2, 1979
The formal organizational relationship between the Guardian newspaper and the Guardian Clubs has been terminated. This was the result of a meeting between the Coordinating Committee of the Guardian staff and the National Reconciliation Committee of the Guardian Clubs, held January 19 in New York City.
The meeting was initiated to resolve the serious strain in organizational relations which was the result of a major political struggle around party building line within the Guardian network. At this meeting, the Guardian announced its decision to dissolve the club network believing these differences to be irreconcilable. In response to this decision, the leadership of the former Guardian Clubs announced the intention of the clubs to remain together as an independent organization temporarily to be called the Club Network. Despite the differences which led to the separation, the newly formed Club Network and the Guardian staff recognized substantial areas of unity which are shared in overall political orientation. Given these areas of agreement and the close historical relationship between them, the Guardian staff and the Club Network have entered into a special relationship of mutual support and joint work.
The struggle around the Guardian’s party building line which led to this separation, was sparked by the distribution of the Guardian staff’s document “The State of the Party Building Movement” (SPBM) circulated in August, 1978 and printed in the pages of the Guardian in October, 1978. The statement was formulated to explain the decision of the Guardian to remain outside of the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center (OCIC), an organizational initiative directed towards party building.
The Guardian clubs raised strong objections to a number of areas of the “SPBM” document which they felt were objectively sectarian. These objections targetted the exaggeration of differences between the Guardian and the OCIC on a number of questions (nature of the Soviet Union, national and women’s questions, etc.) where there had been little previous struggle between the two groups. Furthermore, the clubs opposed the characterization of these differences as a “right trend represented by the OCIC” and a “left trend represented by the Guardian newspaper.” The Clubs rejected these formulations as a premature demarcation of trends contrary to the Leninist definition of “trends” and rejected the mistaken characterization of the OCIC as not being part of the same genuine Marxist-Leninist trend. The Clubs also held that the postulation of “left and right trends” set the basis for the current leadership of the Guardian staff to introduce new organizational conceptions of the Clubs leading towards the consolidation of the Clubs into a pre-party type communist organization. Although this direction is publicly denied by the Guardian staff, the Clubs believed that this orientation was established in the “SPBM” document and in other statements of the Guardian staff. These criticisms will be elaborated in greater detail in future publications of the Club Network in order to help summarize the lessons of this struggle for the benefit of the communist movement.
The decision to carry on the work of the Clubs took into consideration the valuable progress of the past work of the Clubs since their formation in the fall of 1977. This work included organizing Marxist-Leninist study programs for club members, sponsoring speeches and forums to advance the theoretical struggle of the movement overall, and contributions to the support of the Guardian and other practical work. The greater political and ideological unity which has been established (especially in the course of the recent struggle over party building line), has set an excellent basis for the Club Network to continue its work as an independent organization. The Club formation has considerably deepened its unity around party building line, still remains united around the general political orientation of the Guardian newspaper, is a part of the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist trend, and represents a fairly advanced level of national coordination and ties. The newly formed Club Network will formalize this unity through a National Leadership Conference scheduled for the end of March in New York City. The Clubs are guided at this time by a National Interim Leadership Committee which represents each of the clubs in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, S.F. Bay Area, and Seattle. Organizing committees for new clubs may also be established in other areas.
Following the separation of the Club Network from the Guardian staff at the January 19 meeting, the club leadership and the Guardian Coordinating Committee were able to work out a fraternal method of conducting the separation and discussed the future relations between the two independent organizations. Both groups agreed that there were still substantial areas of unity on a general political level and even in some regards to party building questions. Furthermore the Club Network acknowledged the importance of the Guardian newspaper to the progressive movement overall and to the party building process as well. The Guardian leadership also acknowledged that the Clubs represented the closest organization politically to the newspaper and announced their intention to support the formation of the Club Network. Based on these areas of unity, the Guardian newspaper and the Club Network have entered into a special relationship which will engender mutual support and joint work. This included a commitment of the Club Network to continue to be active and central to the base level of support work for the Guardian newspaper. The Guardian agreed to some areas where the Club Network would maintain special consideration in access to the pages of the newspaper.
Although the Club Network has high expectations of its potential contributions to the work of the party building movement, it takes careful note that it is only one organizational form which is viable and important in this pre-party period. The Club Network recognizes the importance of the Guardian newspaper and other organizational processes as important factors in the developing struggle for a correct general line as the basis for a unified communist party in the United States. Consequently, the Club Network commits itself to establishing close working relations with all genuine Marxist-Leninist forces in all possible areas of joint work and struggle to bring this goal forward as rapidly as possible.
Submitted by:
Melinda Paras
Interim National Coordinator
Club Network