Issued as an unpublished document: n.d. [late 1979].
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Tucson Marxist-Leninist Collective was organized in September, 1975 and issued a program which contained non-revisionist political reviews without labeling them as such. Its leader, Paul Costello, spent late 1976 and early 1977 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and organized the Ann Arbor Collective (M-L)out of a group which originally came together at an Irwin Silber lecture. The Ann Arbor Collective issued two pamphlets, Toward a Genuine Communist Party, criticizing revisionism and dogmatism in U.S. communist history; and On Party Building, criticising the PWOC’s fusion line. Costello returned to Tucson in 1977; other Ann Arbor members moved to Boston and the collective disbanded.
TMLC issued a third pamphlet, Party Building Tasks in the Present Period: On Theory and Fusion, developing the primacy of theory over fusion in the present period and commenting on the emerging OCIC process. Publication of their bi-monthly Theoretical Review (TR) commenced in September 1977. TR covers such subject as US communist history, Soviet and Chinese developments, international line, party building, and historical materialism, as well as translations of articles by the French Marxist, Louis Althusser.
The former Ann Arbor members in Boston joined the Guardian Clubs on their inception in October, 1977, as did sympathizers in San Francisco. Departing in August, 1978, the Boston comrades criticized an absence of theoretical seriousness. The San Francisco members moved to Tucson, while the Boston group led study groups, contributed to the TR, and is now constituting itself as a collective; tentatively named the Red Boston Collective, which will ultimately be co-publisher of the TR. The TR forces belong to the OC and constituted the major opposition to the OC Steering Committee at the OC’s September, 1979 convention.
The theoretical perspective of the TR is based on the theoretical contributions of Louis Althusser, a French Marxist philosopher, and of his followers. A communist since 1945, Althusser has been developing as anti-revisionist philosophy since 1962 yet remains a dissenter within the French CP. This philosophy denies that the origins of revisionism emerged in 1956 with Khrushchev. Rather, Althusser dates the qualitative dominance of revisionism in theory to the consolidation of power by Stalin in the CPSU and Comintern (1928). Althusser holds that Stalin’s theory was basically economist, mechanically relying on economic development to resolve class contradictions and produce the transition to socialism. Althusser denies the existence of a “socialist mode of production”, holding that socialism is a contradictory unity of aspects of both the capitalist and communist modes of production, hence characterized by class struggle as its inner dynamic. Stalin, on the other hand, denied the existence of class struggle in the USSR firm 1936, and hence, to Althusser, was revisionist. (This theoretical revisionism is distinguished from, although related to, the political revisionism defined in Developing the Subjective Factor, for example.) Althusser and the TR, by the way, are not Trotskyism believing Trotsky held a “left” mirror image of Stalin’s economist views.
Althusser believes that “the Stalinian deviation can be considered as a form ... of the posthumous reverse of the Second International: as a revival of its main tendency,” i.e., economism.[1] To economism, Althusser counterposes the doctrine of “relative autonomy” of the economic, political, and ideological levels of society, as well as of different sub-categories within those levels.
Althusserians hold that ever since around 1933, creative development of Marxism-Leninism essentially ceased in the world communist movement, giving rise to the mirror deviations, dogmatism and revisionism, both involving econonism and both liquidating the leading role of theory. Althusser and the TR seen to principally emphasize questions of methodology in identifying lines of demarcation, or consolidated deviations, in Marxism-Leninism.
Theory, to Althusser is qualitatively distinct from ideology, a point which must be grasped to understand the TR’s terminology. Theory consists of a philosophy, dialectical materialism, together with a science, historical materialism, “we consider Marxist science as existing, possessing at a given moment of its development, a definite body of theoretical principles, of analyses, of scientific proofs, and conclusions, that is, of knowledges.”[2] Marxism, the only correct science of society, produces scientifically exact knowledge.
Ideology, on the other hand, is the inaccurate, inexact “consciousness, convictions, beliefs, representations of the world” people hold. Proletarian ideology is an inexact, incomplete formulation derived from Marxist scientific knowledge, a popularization of that theory if you will, designed to combat bourgeois ideology. “When we say that the ideology of the working class was transformed by Marxist theory, that is not to say that the working class ... today has definitely been converted to Marxism. Only its vanguard, its most conscious section possesses a Marxist ideology .... And within the vanguard ... only the best militants possess ... a true theoretical formation, and it is from among these that the theoreticians and investigators capable of advancing Marxist scientific theory can be recruited .... A careful distinction between theoretical formation and ideological struggle is therefore essential, so as not to fall into confusions which in the last instance have their origin in treating ideology as a science.”[3]
Some TR comrades have indicated they believe holders of the rectification line do not adequately distinguish between science (theory) and ideology. But while TR tends to focus on class struggle within theory and the contradiction between theory and ideology, they seem to lose sight of the key link, political class struggle. Political line is relegated to a product of the theoretical struggle, instead of the central locus of the class struggle which informs theory in return.
Althusser has influenced a generation of European Marxist theoreticians, including Balibar, Poulantzas, Bettelheim, and Hindess and Hirst, who have carried his ideas in varied theoretical and political directions. Although difficult to approach, Althusser’s work provides an important attempt to rectify a number of dogmatist/revisionist concepts. It correctly calls attention to the necessity and difficulty of producing Marxist theory appropriate to the present time and place and it must be dealt with.
If Althusser’s thought is the heart of TR’s theoretical position, their analysis of US communist history is the center of their party-building perspective. This analysis holds that US communists never developed an independent analysis of American society together with appropriate tactics. The closest they came was in 1928, when the Lovestoneites, in the party majority, “directed a strong political-ideological campaign in defense of the specific application of the theory to American reality.”[4] But just as this happened, Stalin consolidated power in the CPSU and Comintern, accused Lovestone of “American-exceptionalism”, expelled him, and “imposed a common line on each and every section of the world communist movement, regardless of national particularities.”[5]
From then on, any more or less correct policies followed by the CPUSA developed essentially by accident, as the Comintern’s economism and the needs of Soviet foreign policy caused fluctuation between ultra-left (1923-35) and rightist (1935-45) tendencies in the Comintern, which in any case were dogmatically transplanted onto the US. Costello seems to feel that the 1935-39 period’s tactics were the closest to being correct, but were deeply flawed because “the Party’s grasp on Marxism-Leninism was superficial ... the party often failed to struggle to win the masses to communism, preferring instead to present communists as the most advanced trade unionists….”[6]
Once this crucial accommodation to bourgeois ideology had been made, the development of explicitly revisionist formulations was only a matter of time. When attacked by McCarthyism, the communists’ failure to spread socialist ideas among the masses resulted in their being easily red-baited and divided from them. “Peaceful transition to socialism” became party policy in 1949 and was consolidated in 1956-58 with the expulsion of the Left wing which denied this line.
“The Party also failed in its theoretical tasks,” Costello concludes. “Strategy and tactics were imported from abroad but they were never really developed here in the United States. Fearful of being charged with ’American exceptionalism’, American communists never really came to grips with the complexities of class struggle in the United States of America.”[7]
Thus, TR forces prefer to state their goal as that of “establishing”, rather than “re-establishing”, the genuine communist party in the US. They reject the rectification line’s contention that the party’s general line was principally proletarian prior to 1956. They believe we need “to start the production of a general political line for our movement from the present conjuncture,”[8] based on a critically and theoretically sound foundation, rather than on a rectification process.
The TR view of fusion is that it requires, first, the existence of a communist party or at least “a communist organization developing toward a party .... mastering the science of Marxism-Leninism in an advanced and creative manner ... producing ... a solid analysis and revolutionary program with which to lead and guide its practice.”[9] The second requirement is “advanced workers of the socialist type”, or workers who have made a decisive ideological break with capitalism as a whole. Fusion can then begin, although subject to deviations of rightist (tailism) and leftism (voluntarism).
If the proper theory is absent, however, economist fusion will result and “will not produce a communist workers’ movement; on the “contrary, it produces a trade unionist communist movement,”[10] and will not lead to the building of a genuine communist party. TR charges the rectification line with a shallow critique of the fusion line due to our differences over CP and world Communist history.
As formulated in Theoretical Review #7, the “primacy of theory” line attempts to apply these concepts to the present conjuncture of the US communist movement. International communism is believed to be in a relatively stable period, and working-class struggles at a low ebb; the communist forces are not united in a party and are isolated from the class. To unify the movement, we need a political line to direct communist intervention in society. This political line “can only come from a theoretical analysis .... The backward and divided state of our movement is a political fact, a demonstration of the political necessity of producing advanced communist theory suitable for guiding and directing genuine communist political practice.”[11]
Theoretical practice, in turn, has two aspects: “creation and refinement of the tools of theoretical analysis, the conceptual system and methodology,” and “the creative application of these tools for the production of theoretical analyses.”[12] TR holds the first aspect is primary, since we cannot produce genuine theoretical analyses until we first grasp the tools with which to do so, and this is a difficult task.
Communist political practice also has two aspects: internal and external. Internally, political tasks include developing theory and lines, organising and cadre development, and party building line struggle. Externally, political practice includes how the lines are implemented, how intervention in mass struggles is carried out, how the proletariat and others are organized, and how they are won to follow the communists’ leadership. Presently, internal political practice (party building) is the primary aspect, as opposed to external political practice (winning the working class and other oppressed to communism).
According to TR, the primary aspects of theoretical and political practices reinforce each other. “Theory serves internal political practice by giving it scientific guidance in the area needed most – the production of communist cadre capable of serving a national party; second, internal political practice organizes itself around the production of what our movement is lacking, the theoretical tools with which to grasp the world.”[13]
To the rectification line, the primacy of internal political practice is not controversial, but the analysis of theoretical practice is. We do not agree that “the tools of theoretical analysis, the conceptual system and methodology” can be grasped separately from the process of “applying these tools for the production of theoretical analyses.” Instead, the process of producing analyses and political lines and struggling over them leads the process of deepening the conceptual system and methodology, and provides the best conditions for grasping basic theoretical tools.
We have mentioned above the TR’s views of Stalinism, theory/ideology, CPUSA history, fusion, and theoretical practice. Their remaining differences with the rectification line center around questions of leadership, organization, cadre development, and sectarianism. Throughout their critique of our views and practice in these areas, one senses they haven’t grasped the essence of our perspective, or, in fact, thoroughly developed their own views on these questions. While the TR has identified certain general priorities for their theoretical agenda, they have not advanced a perspective on how the party building movement should be organized or on the relationship between the necessary theoretical work and the reestablishment process. Instead of their usual well-thought out arguments, they seem to be repeating, well-worn dogmatist tenets of communist organization and leadership. This results from an ideological blind spot of seeing the subjective factor of the communists as occurring only in the development of theory, not of leadership, organization and politics.
TR is suspicious of our line on multiplicity of organizations and limited democratic centralism in the pre-party period, seeing it as “an original conception” with dangerous weaknesses “in a time in which Euro-Communism and social democracy are waging an ideological offensive against democratic centralism ...”[14] They speak of the need to rectify the practice of democratic centralism to rid it of “bureaucratic distortions”, but have no other position on the particularity of democratic centralism in the pre-party period.
TR goes on to criticize our view that a leading center composed of proven leaders will take responsibility for synthesizing the general line. They state, instead, that “we believe that it is possible to raise the theoretical-political level of our movement to the point that the overwhelming majority of cadre will be able to participate, not just in specific areas of work, but in an all-round way in the struggle for and the production of a general political line for our movement.”[15]
TR is critical of the NNMLC for not joining the OCIC although in its criticism, it does not deal with our analysis of the OCIC which led us to remain outside. Instead, it merely asserts its own view that the OC’s development may he “fluid rather than static, developing rather than pre-determined”[16] and holds that “the general line will not come from the pens of a handful of leaders, but from the input of many forces. And the Organising Committee offers a national form in which to organize such a struggle.”[17] Even after their September letter to the OCIC steering committee questioning their own previous assessment of the OC as “fluid ... developing”, they are still lambasting us as “elevating organizational maneuvers and sectarian infighting over comradely and principled ideological-struggle.”[18] The TR is also critical of the OCIC for sectarianism in relation to the NNMLC and this criticism has intensified qualitatively since the September conference.
It is quite possible the TR does not really think the OC process will lead to an ideological center for the communist movement but is simply playing along at present to establishing contacts and gain experience.
[1] Quoted in Grahame Lock’s Introduction to Althusser’s Essays in Self-Criticism, p.7.
[2] TR #2, p.
[3] TR #2, p. 9, 11-12.
[4] Paul Costello, “A Short History of the Communist Party, USA”, typescript, p.3.
[5] ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 4-5.
[7] Ibid., p. 7.
[8] TR #11, p. 4.
[9] TMLC, Party Building Tasks, p.17.
[10] Ibid., p. 19.
[11] TR #7, p. 5.
[12] TR #7, p. 6.
[13] TR #7, p. 8-9.
[14] TR #11, p. 6.
[15] TR #11, p. 7
[16] TR #11, p. 9.
[17] Ibid.
[18] TR #12, p. 3.
The purpose of this education is, minimally, to acquaint cadre with the major features of the TR line, its strengths and weaknesses, and the points of contention between their line and ours; and maximally, to develop Club members’ capacity to critique the line and its underpinnings, engage in struggle with TR-influenced forces and engage in struggle with other forces about how to characterize the line. Further, it should equip cadre to criticize Tim Patterson’s forthcoming response to the TR and to discuss that response in the movement when it is printed (hopefully in January).
The following questions address the key issues.
1. What are the definitions of theory and ideology used by the TR and rectification forces, respectively?
2. How does the TR assess the history of the CPUSA? What criteria do they use in making this assessment? How does this differ from the views developed so far by the rectification line?
3. Did the theory of the world communist movement stagnate and rigidify after 1930? What qualitative changes in the world situation have occurred since then and were they correctly analysed by the world movement?
4. According to the primacy of theory line, what is the principal task of communists in developing their (a) theory, (b) political practice? What does the rectification line say?
5. What are the TR’s views on communist leadership, organization, and the role of the OCIC? What is their source?
6. Is there a basis for charging the TR line with theoreticism? Why, and in which aspects?
7. The “primacy of theory” and rectification lines share many substantial areas of unity, and would appear to be political “allies” in the struggle against the fusion line. How do we assess the relative significance of our unities and differences with the TR? Can we say that the TR line is a principally correct (if confused and underdeveloped) party-building line? Why or why not?