Issued: March 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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EROL Note: In late 1978 the OCIC Steering Committee sent out a detailed questionnaire to OC member groups and individuals seeking information about them to produce an initial overview of the OC, its strengths and weaknesses. This overview, completed in March 1979, is provided below. It was considered a high security internal document and only a limited number were circulated.
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There are few things I want to explain to comrades about this sum-up of our initial investigation of the OC. First of all, obviously this is a highly secure document. Nobody should share it, or the information in it, with anyone outside the OC. It should be kept in a very secure place.
I want to remind people of the purpose of this whole investigation. It is to help give the OC-IC a realistic, accurate assessment of ourselves, our stage of development, so that we can make sound tactical decisions on how to move forward. It is in this context that comrades should understand and view the many weaknesses as well as some of the clear strengths among OC forces.
It is very important for people to remember that this is a very beginning, in many ways superficial, sum-up of the OC forces. In many places, I put forward hypotheses because I don’t have enough information to put forth sure statements. Only more in-depth investigation will confirm or negate these hypotheses. This sum-up is based on the answers to Pt. I of the survey questionnaire, sent in by 25 OC forces; on reading a number, but far from all of the internal documents OC forces sent me, and on my informal investigation and contact with various OC forces in the last few years as a member of the Committee of 5 and now the SC.
And there were some inherent weaknesses of the survey process itself. For example, there are some weaknesses in the questionnaire that could have influenced people’s answers, e.g., it doesn’t ask what OC forces have studied – it asks what questions forces have studied. So that people didn’t always include what basic MList ideology they have studied. And a number of the answers given to the survey were largely based on groups’ own estimates of themselves – like their strengths and weaknesses – and on what they chose to stress. Only more in-depth investigation will determine how accurate some of those assessments are.
The next important thing to remember is that the sum-up is of the OC, not of the tendency as a whole. In fact, it is not even of the whole OC as it presently exists. For instance, it does not include in it all the OC forces who presently disagree with pt. 18 as a line of demarcation. This is primarily because they didn’t send in the answers to the survey questionnaire. And two – BPO and CUO [Boston Partybuilding Organization and Communist Unity Organization – EROL] – have just withdrawn from the OC, having consolidated their disagreement with the content of pt. 18. It also doesn’t include, for the most part, some of the individuals and one or two of the latest additions to the OC who didn’t answer the questionnaire. The reason it’s important to remember this is because some of the weaknesses that stand out in the OC (not including those who disagree with p. 18) may be different from the weaknesses that would stand out if we were analyzing the tendency as a whole.
Furthermore, it is important to understand that this sum-up is trying to generalize about a variety of OC groupings. So the sum-up focuses on main tendencies among OC forces. That does not mean there aren’t exceptions to these tendencies, especially examples of advanced theory and practice, which are contrary to the general characteristics of OC forces.
Also, comrades should understand that there is no way to do a sum-up like this outside the context of a particular perspective on party-building, the relationship between theory and practice, etc. In a sum-up you want to do more than just list the facts, you want to get at the essence (the total being greater than the some of its parts). So you use a particular framework to put the puzzle together. Naturally, I have drawn on my perspective as an individual M-List. People should understand that my perspective is not necessarily representative of the OC at large, or of the whole SC for that matter.
One final word of caution: this is a sum-up of the forces in the OC, not a sum-up of the OC process itself or of its first year of existence. (The SC is working on a sum-up of the OC process itself and its first year of existence.) With these words of caution in mind, I would like to give an overview of forces in the OC – ideologically and theoretically, politically and organizationally. Then I will conclude with a short overall summation of the OC’s strengths and weaknesses.
This initial investigation has confirmed many of the ideological and theoretical weaknesses within the OC that we have all been somewhat aware of. Overall, OC forces can be characterized by theoretical underdevelopment. However, there are a few organizations and individuals who are somewhat relatively advanced theoretically. I shall analyse OC forces in terms of the following: ideological development; the development of, struggle/unity over, testing out of, and summing up of political line; and organizational line.
Ideologically, forces in the OC are not strong, but have some basic, developing understanding. This is not surprising, given that the average number of years that organizations, groups and individual OC members have been consolidated around M-Lism is not quite 3 years. This indicates that forces have some basic understanding of M-Lism. Beyond that, it’s not clear what it means because the survey answers and documents have indicated definite weaknesses in the understanding of aspects of M-List viewpoint and method. For instance, relatively few OC groups (less than 10) stated that they had, as an organization, studied dialectical and historical materialism or ideological and political errors – dogmatism, revisionism, empiricism, left and right opportunism. (Now, in part, this may have been because of the way the questionnaire was worded, but it is consistent with other knowledge of OC forces. Even fewer (a handful or less) noted that they had studied as an organization, or had a decent grasp of, political economy. It is not clear how much study of the history of the world Communist movement has been done (only a few OC forces mentioned this). Very striking was the fact that only a handful of OC groups pointed out that they had studied or had a good level of understanding of the M-List scientific method of solving problems – developing, testing out and summing up, political line. This also came out in the lists of OC documents. The reason this is so striking is that the M-List method of solving problems is so critical to all our work as M-Lists: that the lack of a good understanding of it is a serious weakness. In all, a number of organizations and individuals pointed out ideological development as a distinct weakness.
Although thee ideological weaknesses are true for OC organizations and groups at large, it is important to remember that there are whole organizations leadership of organizations and individuals in or out of organizations who are more advanced ideologically. About a handful of OC groups and organizations have a sound ideological foundation as a whole organization. Understandably there are a number of instances where leadership have a firmer grasp of M-List ideology. And even in organization as a whole hasn’t taken up the study of M-List ideology, individuals have some good grounding in M-List ideology from previous political development. And there are some individuals in the OC who aren’t a part of any organization who are relatively ideologically developed. This leads to the conclusion that one weakness among OC forces may be that cadres as a whole in organizations have not been grounded enough in M-L-ist ideology, even though leadership and some individuals are, i.e., there has not been enough internal education around basic M-List ideology, but only more in-depth investigation will confirm or deny this.
A weakness of this initial survey is that it did not get at how much consolidation there is among OC forces around the 18 principles, many of which are basic ideological points. Some new OC groups noted that they had studied the 18 points and it was the basis for comrades coming together. But I hypothesize that the unity here is still shallow among many OC forces. It will take the study of the 18 pts. to really consolidate OC forces around the 18 pts.
In summary, the ideological development of OC forces as a whole seems weak. Most striking is the lack of a deep grasp of the following: M-List scientific method, ideological, political and (as we’ll see) organizational errors, and certain aspects of M-List viewpoint – like political economy. But there are some advanced forces ideologically.
Moving on to the development of political line among OC forces, in order to develop revolutionary theory for the U.S., you need not only a good understanding of M-List theory, but also a good, thorough understanding of the concrete conditions in the U.S. My hypothesis from the initial investigation is that this is a definite weakness in the OC. Less than a handful of forces mentioned as a strength their historical understanding of the U.S. working class or the U.S. communist movement. Equally few mentioned that they had done anything along the lines of a class analysis of the U.S. or something comparable.
Given the above weaknesses of ideological underdevelopment and insufficient understanding of the historical and current concrete conditions in the U.S., it’s not surprising that there has been limited independent elaboration of Marxism for the U.S. among OC forces. Less than a handful of OC forces have developed as thorough or comprehensive a political line as PWOC’s line on the trade union (tu) question. And even that is not a complete line on a question facing the working class. One of the serious weaknesses in the OC is the lack of such a comprehensive line around party-building (especially not written) since party building guides all our work. Even fewer initial political lines provide a real guide to action in solving the problems of the working class. But a number of OC forces have developed, or are in the process of developing, revolutionary theory or political lines of a less in-depth character. And others have taken the basic line of a force in the OC, like PWOC’s tu or p-b line, and built on it, sometimes changing it in aspects. On one or another of these levels, there are 2-3 OC forces that have begun to develop revolutionary theory or political lines around most of the major questions facing us: party building, tu question, national question and the struggle against racism, women question, and international question. But the latter two are the weakest areas of initial development of revolutionary theory. (Most of these beginning lines can be found in the list of OC documents.)
But we have to remember that although these are good beginnings, they only scratch the surface of the kind of comprehensive independent elaboration of Marxism to the US that we need. And there are questions that are less major, but still important that have hardly been touched, e.g., the whole question of independent political action and a third party – how communists should participate in the electoral arena.
We have to remember that a real limitation to even creating – initially developing – revolutionary theory is that there is no IC, or national organization within the IC at this time. So the above beginnings are definitely limited to coming from local formations or individuals. For one thing, it is difficult for any local organization to have sufficient resources and theoretically developed individuals to engage in a great deal of creative development of revolutionary theory. Furthermore, to develop political line you apply M-Lism to the concrete conditions of the US. But few local formations have an in-depth understanding of the concrete conditions of the US from study (indirect experience), and what they have learned about these concrete conditions through their direct local experience usually has local peculiarities. As everyone knows, we are just beginning to develop revolutionary theory on a national scale. This is one of the key purposes of the IC.
Understandably, there has been even less testing out of these initial political lines to see if they are correct and to further develop them. There are two essential ways political lines are tested and further developed. One is through testing lines in the practice of the class struggle, revising the lines according to what proves to be successful or not in practice. This is critical because as M-Lists we know that the ultimate criteria of truth is social practice. But it is also essential to develop and “test” some political lines through ideological struggle whereby the incorrect and opportunist aspects of lines or whole lines are eliminated. This is because some lines we cannot test in practice. For instance, social practice can deny or confirm a line on the international question, but we cannot actively test it in practice. Thus, in such areas, ideological struggle is critical to determining if a line is consistent with basic principles of M-Lism and the actual reality of the situation. The correct M-List line is developed in the struggle against opportunist lines. In addition, even with those lines, we can begin to test, like the tu line, we have to remember that we are testing on a local basis, in a fragmented manner, and at a time the class struggle is relatively low. This means ideological struggle is particularly necessary at this time in summarizing and drawing the correct lessons from our practice.
We shall deal first with the question of not only “testing” out through ideological struggle in the OC, but also how much unity has developed around political line. For the purpose of this ideological struggle is not only to week out the opportunist perspective in developing the correct line, but also to unite M-Lists around that correct M-List line. Then we will deal with the testing out of political lines in practice in the OC.
We are all painfully aware of how little ideological struggle there has been among OC forces up until recently. We are just beginning here. That is a key purpose of the IC – to develop a means to centralize and carry out this ideological struggle. Obviously, so far there has been the sharpest struggle over the international question. While forces in the OC are now consolidated around a broad international perspective of the US as the main enemy (given the struggle around pt. 18), there are still sharp differences around the question of the USSR and whether it’s socialist or capitalist. One of the reasons for this is that this aspect of the international question is one of the least studied questions in the OC, with less than a handful of OC organizations or individuals have studied or adopted positions on the international question. In my estimation, a range or left, right and correct initial thinking on the question of the nature of the USSR is to be found within the OC.
Party-building is the other area where there has been a good bit of initial ideological struggle in the last couple of years – it goes back to the days of the Committee of Five. Within the OC there are different political lines on party-building. This is one of the political questions that has been studied most by OC forces. About 14 OC forces have studied the party-building question, according to the survey, and most of these forces have adopted a position on it. Many forces have essentially adopted PWOC’s line, some the Guardian/TMLC line. A few OC organizations mentioned that they’re in the midst of struggling around different perspectives on party-building. The ideological struggle around party-building has been less clear and sharp as compared to the struggle around international line. There has been misunderstanding and confusion about the different perspectives. In my estimation, here again, there is a range of right – localist and economist – understanding; left voluntarist understanding ; and correct understanding on the party-building question. Clearly, it is a real weakness that on the line that is most central in guiding all our other aspects of our work – party-building – there is a lack of clarity and unity. And half the OC forces haven’t even studied the question! OC forces who are not consolidated around a clear party-building strategy, locally and/or nationally, are bound to make many errors. In the future, this question will probably be one of the main and most important areas of ideological struggle and consolidation with the OC.
The political line around which there has been by far the most study, the most unity, and little ideological struggle, is the trade union question. Over half of those who answered the questionnaire – 15 OC forces – said they studied the trade union question. (This is not surprising when we’ll see in the next section the strong focus within the OC on tu work: practice raised the necessity of taking up this question in order to guide that practice.) Most of these forces have adopted a position on the trade union question, usually a position the same or similar to PWOC’s line around class struggle unionism. PWOC’s tu line has been adopted by more OC forces than any other line. (This is probably not coincidental with the fact that it has been one of the most clearly formulated and comprehensive political lines developed within the OC as of yet.) At the conference held by PWOC on the trade union question 2 and a half years ago, there was surprisingly little struggle over the line.
The question of the struggle against racism and the national question is not a strong area of study, ideological struggle, and consolidation, but it is definitely an area where there are some encouraging developments. Between one-third and one-half of the OC forces who answered the questionnaire – 10-11 forces – said they had studied, in either a limited or fuller way – the question of the struggle against racism or the national question. But very few have a consolidated position around it. However, a number of organizations are either in the process of or moving toward taking up this question, which is an encouraging sign.
Ideological struggle around the national question has hardly begun. A couple of years ago there was some very beginning ideological struggle, primarily between DMLO and PWOC, around the national question and the struggle against racism at a conference on racism held by the Committee of Five in Detroit. (Since then there has been some growing unity as DMLO has united with a line more similar to PWOC’s.)
There have been a number of indications in the OC that the level of consolidation around the centrality of racism is still pretty weak. However, there does seem to be a fair amount of unity around the materialist approach to winning white workers over to the struggle against racism by showing them that racism is not in their class self-interest. (Note that this OC principle around racism is one of the most detailed of all the OC principles.
The political question around which overall there has been by far the least study, the least ideological struggle and the least consolidation is the woman question. Less than a handful of individuals or groups have studied and adopted political lines around this question. This is the only major question around which there has never been a national conference to facilitate struggle around the question (It was intended by the Committee of 5 that El Comite hold this conference. They have said they are still committed to doing it, but have not been able to pull it off. There were conferences or forums during the period of the Com. of 5 on the party-building, trade union, national and international questions.) This probably relates to the lack of well developed revolutionary theory for the US on sexism. Pt. 13 puts forth a basic approach to the struggle against sexism around which there is some unity, but it is very rudimentary.
I’d like to note one word of caution before summarizing this section. Though a number of OC forces have said they’ve studied some of these different questions like party-building, tu, racism, it’s not clear how thoroughly and deeply they’ve studied the lines, struggled internally over them, and consolidated around them. Only more in-depth investigation will reveal how much internal study, education and consolidation around these lines have taken place. My hypothesis, that can only be confirmed with more investigation, is that some OC forces still have a superficial, sometimes mechanical understanding of some of these political lines they’ve adopted. For instance, I notice in reading some internal documents that a few organizations talked about PWOC’s tu line on the 3 thrusts of class struggle unionism, not grasping more of the essence and depth of the line. Also a number of organizations mentioned the low level of political consolidation in their organization around political lines. In part, this is probably because most have been able to study only 1-2 political lines at the most. But I also got the impression from the questionnaires that often these political lines had not been well internalized by cadres so that the lines in reality were not guiding their practice. As we will see in the political section, this leads to obvious weaknesses in the mass practice within the OC.
To summarize this sub-section, what really stands out in a positive way is the trade union line. It is the line around which there has been the most study and unity. In contrast, one of the real weaknesses is the party building line – because it is the most central question, and although there has been a good bit of study of this question, almost as much as the trade union question, and a good bit of ideological struggle, neither the struggle nor unity has been clear. And finally, the woman question is overall the area that has been least studied and struggled over. All of these weaknesses point out the need for the IC.
That brings us to the question of systematically testing out these initial lines in practice to see if they’re correct, summoning up that practice and revising the political lines accordingly. Obviously the most serious weakness in systematically testing out the few political lines that have been developed is the lack of national organizations with the OC. For, if you just test out a line locally, you can’t really tell if it was the peculiarity of the local concrete conditions or the line itself that was the determining factor in its success or failure in practice. But it’s still very important to test out lines and sum-up on a local level – and even that is quite weak among OC forces. (In part, of course, this is because of having few political lines to test out, and little internalization and consolidation among all cadres to do the testing.) Few forces in the OC consistently sum-up their work in a scientific way. For instance, note in the list of OC documents, how only a handful or so OC forces have written sum-ups to share with others. The ideological root of this failure to consistently sum-up work is the lack of sufficient ideological understanding and internalization of the M-L scientific method. At this point, the political line of class struggle unionism has the most potential for being tested voluntarily by OC forces on a national scale, because it is the line that has been most adopted and consolidated around by different OC forces.
The development and testing out of organizational line within the OC is much weaker than that of political line. This goes back to the fact that the understanding of the basic M-List viewpoint on organizational questions – like democratic centralism, cadre development, leadership and criticism-self-criticism – is very weak among OC forces. Since you have to understand M-List theory around organization before applying it to the concrete conditions of the US to develop organizational line, it’s not surprising that without the first, not much organizational line has been developed. It was quite noticeable that only a handful of OC forces said that they had studied any aspects of organizational line. (Criticism-self-criticism (c-s-c) and democratic centralism were the main organizational questions studied.) Although in part this may be due to the way the questionnaire was worded, I think it’s accurate to state that few OC forces have a sound theoretical understanding around organizational questions. This would necessarily lead to amateurism and empiricism in our organizational work – meaning comrades’ not using theory to guide their organizational practice, instead going by what seems best from their direct experience. We will see in the organizational section of this sum-up how this contributes to numerous organizational weaknesses in the OC.
But why is there such theoretical underdevelopment among OC forces? Above all, is the fact that we are part of an anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist tendency that is in its infancy. Given the objective conditions of being so young, we can’t expect a high level of theoretical development. It is important to understand where we are in the context of this historical process. It is also important to remember that although we have just begun to develop and test out revolutionary theory, there are theoretically advanced forces within the OC who are giving theoretical leadership and, as a whole, we are moving forward.
Another factor that contributes to this theoretical underdevelopment is certain empiricist tendencies within the OC as a whole, that come mainly from our underdevelopment describe above, but also in part from an overreaction to dogmatism in the party-building movement. In other words, there is not a deep enough understanding among OC forces as a whole of the primacy of our theoretical tasks, so that many end up relying too much on their direct experience instead of drawing enough from M-List theory and political line to guide their practice. Ad additional reason why OC forces may be particularly empiricist in relation to organizational work, I hypothesize, is that few OC organizations have understood the importance of the study of organizational development as a theoretical question.
The last factor that contributes to this theoretical underdevelopment, that once again relates to our underdevelopment, is the lack of good numbers of revolutionary intellectuals who, as individuals or organizationally, are grounded in class struggle. Though there were a handful or so of organizations that noted in the survey a strength of having some individuals with high theoretical skills, only 2-3 of these organizations were also rooted in the class struggle. This is because there is an unfortunate division in the OC among the majority of forces who are fairly well integrated in the class but usually weak theoretically, and a minority of forces (about a handful) who are groups or individuals with more developed theoretical skills who are not well integrated into the class struggle. Only a couple organizations combine these 2 strengths into one, so that there is a solid unity of theory and practice in developing and testing our theory and practice in developing and testing out theory in the context of the class struggle. All of these factors contribute to the low level of ideological and theoretical development of OC forces.
Overall, OC forces have clear weaknesses ideologically and theoretically. Our ideological development is relatively weak. In our local OC organizations, we are just beginning to develop, study, struggle over, and consolidate around 1-2 political lines. But we have hardly begun to struggle and unify around political line nationally. And we are further behind on organizational line. These weaknesses stem from underdevelopment, from some empiricist tendencies, and from the situation of having few revolutionary intellectuals grounded in class struggle. All of these weaknesses point to the dire need for an IC.
However, there are a few strengths ideologically and theoretically. One is that there are a handful of OC forces that are ideologically and theoretically advanced. And the single most positive thing that stands out here is the political line on the trade union question of class struggle unionism – from its clarity and comprehensiveness as a line to the degree of study and unity around it among OC forces.
Though the above theoretical underdevelopment leads to a great deal of political underdevelopment in the OC, there are some definite strengths here. A clear strength that came out in the survey is that the vast majority of OC forces are integrated into working class struggle, have some strong ties to and roots in the industrial proletariat and socialized service sector, and are situated in some important trade unions. Over half of the OC forces have had at least half of their cadres in working class jobs almost an average of four years. (I realize that relative to the lifetime of integration in working class jobs, or relative to many CPUSA members, this is a bare beginning. But it is a good one.) It is clear that many OC forces have emphasized getting working class jobs, especially within the industrial proletariat, and doing trade union work. Many OC forces listed this as a strength. It is important to remember, however, as I noted above, that there is a significant minority of OC forces – over a handful – who have a low level of integration in the class, particularly the industrial proletariat.
To illustrate that the trade union focus is strong, OC cadres are about 40 odd different unions, though some are very small unions. The unions with the most OC members active in them – 5 or more OC organizations with cadres in them – are UAW, USWA, CWA (phone workers), AFSCME, AFT, Teamsters, and IAM. We can see from this that OC forces have some concentration in some of the important trade unions. This is a real strength to build on. A number of caucuses, newsletters, etc. have been developed in trade unions where OC forces are, which is another strength. Another area of workplace concentration, though often not unionized, is health.
In addition, OC forces, for the most part, are involved in a great deal of political struggle – mass practice outside the trade unions. This is true historically as well as presently. In other words, OC forces have a good deal of practical experience in political movements, such as the civil rights and anti-war movements, present day struggles, etc. Today, the two main areas of mass work outside the point of production (mwopp) that OC forces are involved in are anti-imperialist work (15 out of 25 forces who answered the questionnaire) – Southern Africa, Puerto Rico, Chile, etc. – and anti-racist work (11) – mainly work around affirmative action, some anti-repression and a little desegregation work. And there are a lot of forces in the tendency as a whole in these areas (which are included in the lists comrades received.) The next two biggest areas of mwopp are health – with the greatest concentration in health and safety – (about 7-8), and National Lawyers Guild work (7). Both of these areas involve mainly professionals. Other areas of any significant numbers, a handful or less, are: housing, multi-issue mass organizations, and strike support work. These areas indicate some good consciousness about the importance of building proletarian internationalism and the struggle for democratic rights. This is a definite strength. The areas of mwopp with some of the least OC involvement are spontaneous, mass economic struggles outside the point of production. No one is working around unemployment, and hardly anyone around taxes or inflation, e.g., utilities.
It is largely through this practice in the trade unions and mwopp that well over the majority of OC forces have won a lot of respect for their leadership as militant fighters and hard workers in mass struggles, and for their non-sectarian methods among both the working class masses and leftists in their locality. For instance, a number of OC members in this survey pointed this valuable overall strength out. In essence, many OC forces have some sound roots and base of support in the cities they’re in.
Though OC forces are involved in a good deal of economic and political struggle there are noticeable weaknesses in our mass practice. First, there is one glaring weakness among areas of mwopp that OC forces are involved in which is worthy of mention. The survey revealed how pitifully few OC forces are involved in issues around the oppression of women. There is a fair bit of work with women as workers, particularly in health. (Only a couple mentioned work with women in clerical – other than phone workers – for instance within the mass organizations of clerical workers that exist in some cities.) But what I’m really addressing here is women’s oppression outside the workplace. Obviously the anti-Bakke, anti-Weber work is in part a struggle for the democratic rights of women, but this is not the main focus of the affirmative action work.
Only 2-3 OC forces mentioned work focusing most directly with the oppression of women – a couple working in CARASA (anti-sterilization/pro-abortion). No one mentioned working around day care issues or battered women, fighting for the extension of the ERA deadline, etc. This probably stems from a low level of understanding around the women question and its importance.
Another weakness is that, while many OC forces are involved in mwopp with a working class base, more forces are involved in mwopp that does not have a working class base, i.e., is predominantly leftist. (Most of the anti-imperialist work, National Lawyers Guild work, and COSH-health and safety work is of this nature, and there are some of the main areas of mwopp.)
I hypothesize that tendency still exists among a number of forces to create a false dichotomy between trade union work and mwopp, i.e., the tendency to restrict the tu struggle to economic issues of the working class, and to see political struggle as taking place outside the point of production, largely divorced from the trade union movement. There is not enough understanding of the importance of integrating the economic and political struggle – bring the political struggle into the shops to heighten class consciousness, and bringing the advanced into these political struggles outside the shops to help, along with communists, give class conscious leadership. There are a number of OC forces however who are making serious positive efforts to integrate the economic and political struggle.
Furthermore, I hypothesize that there is not a deep enough understanding of the importance of raising the economic struggle to a political level, meaning the working class as whole fighting against the capitalist class and the government as a whole. Obviously one of the biggest political weaknesses in the OC is the limited amount of class struggle (class-wide political struggle) given that, as local forces, we are very limited in our ability to help advanced representatives of the class fight as a class against the capitalist class. We clearly have a long way to go in fusing M-Lism with the class struggle. This brings us to the overall weakness in the OC of fusing communism with the class struggle and advanced workers in particular.
First, very few advanced workers have been won over to M-Lism within the OC. A number of OC forces indicated that they have close ties with a number of advanced workers and have been open with a number of advanced workers. Some are doing good work with these contacts; in fact, a handful have had one or more study groups with advanced workers. But few advanced workers have made the qualitative leap to adopt M-Lism as their own. (This is shown by the pitifully few advanced workers from the class who have been recruited into OC organizations – about 10-12, or 3% of all OC members. But we will deal with this more under the organizational section.)
Why have there been so few advanced workers won over to M-Lism? From my perspective, there are two main reasons. One is the lack of political line or strategy and program for the US revolution, as mentioned earlier in this sum-up. Advanced workers are won to communism when they see in practice how M-Lism, through political lines such as class struggle unionism, can move the class struggle forward. Obviously, if we have developed few political lines, we’re not leading the class struggle and not showing the effectiveness of M-Lism. (When I say “leading the class struggle” I mean this in the limited sense of M-Lists giving leadership in the context of particular shop and local struggles. Obviously, we cannot really lead the class struggle without a Party. We don’t even have national organizations at this time.) And as I stated earlier, my hypothesis is that even where we have beginning political lines, we don’t use them enough to guide our practice, in part because they’re not understood well enough. The survey, plus some internal documents, gave the impression that much of the mass struggle in the OC is not guided by clear strategy. Without a strategy, a majority of OC forces are still spontaneous in their political work. We don’t win advanced workers to M-Lism by being just good fighters, militant trade unionists, hard workers…spontaneity doesn’t more the struggle forward. I hypothesize that in the OC (not in the tendency as a whole) this has led to right errors in failing to bring proletarian ideology to the advanced and middle workers, i.e., tailism.
This brings us to the other reason for our failure in the OC to win more advanced workers over to M-Lism and that is our low level of development in doing communist agitation and propaganda (agit/prop) with the advanced and middle forces. Communist propaganda is the other essential ingredient in winning the advanced to communism because it explains the class contradictions in the experience of advanced workers. There is a great deal of economic agitation which OC forces engage in as evidenced by all the leaflets from tu work and mwopp that OC forces are a part of. But there is not much communist agit/prop, like around racism and sexism ofr instance. There are only 3 newspapers among OC forces (PWOC, FTP, and NU) and one newsletter (BWM [Buffalo Workers Movement – EROL]) – only one of which is openly communist. And only a few other OC forces, in addition to the above forces, have developed much theory and/or practice around doing communist agit/prop (LAWG, BOC, DSC, PWOC, FTP, Mayday). And most all this agitation and propaganda is developed for the locality so has limited usefulness by other OC forces. Very few OC forces in the survey noted their communist propaganda as a strength. Much of the agitation and propaganda these forces have developed is good, a positive beginning , but we still have a long way to go before we are aggressive, strong communist agitators and propagandists in our mass practice.
Given all the above weaknesses, it is not surprising that the respect OC member have won is still not because they’re communists, more probably in spite of it. There is hardly any open communist presence, especially in the trade unions, in the OC. In fact, the survey revealed that there are 1 or 2 individuals at the most in the whole OC who are open communists in their trade unions – meaning publicly open beyond being open to individuals – though there are a number of OC forces who are open with a number of individual advanced workers in their shops. And there are some OC forces whose cadre are open communists in their mwopp, but this is because that mwopp is mainly with leftists. We have a long way to go before a significant number of workers follow our leadership as communists.
To summarize the political work in the OC, the main strength of most OC forces is our integration and respect among the masses, particularly in the trade unions – some key ones at that. Another strength is the variety of political struggles forces are involved in with a correct emphasis on anti-imperialist and democratic struggles. Overall, we have much practical experience to build on. But we have yet to offer a great deal of communist leadership and propaganda in these struggles and thus have hardly won over any advanced workers and national minorities to M-Lism.
The survey questionnaire and some internal documents also revealed the low level of organizational development and consolidation among OC forces. First of all, the level of democratic centralism is low in most OC organizations. In fact, only half (about 15) of the OC forces are actually democratic-centralist. (Of the other OC forces, half – 8 – are groups or collectives – some engaging in both study and practice, others just study – and half – 7 are individuals.) Among these, only a handful are practicing democratic-centralism at a fairly sophisticated level. The aspect of centralism is particularly weak among OC forces. This obviously relates to the low level of political unity among many OC organizations – because the more political unity, the more centralism is possible. (But it might also relate to ultra-democratic tendencies; only more investigation will tell.) We will see more with the in-depth investigation questionnaire, but I hypothesize that there are only a few organizations with a program for developing leadership, particularly of national minorities and women. (Since, as you will see, the level of multi-nationality is so low, the extent of national minority leadership is even weaker – a serious problem. In terms of women in leadership, 3-4 organizations noted that as a strength, 1 organization as a weakness. Overall it is still a problem that women have not been developed as leadership among OC forces as much as men, but it is not as serious as the problem among national minority leadership.)
In addition, many OC organizations and groups lack a well developed structure, with division of labor and a mechanism for integrating areas of work. Cadre development is weak. In general, the survey indicated that, overall, organizations in the OC have a poor ability to give political guidance to their cadres including overseeing cadres’ internalization and implementation of political lines, checking up on cadres, etc. Once again, this is related to organizations’ not having political unity on many political lines. There needs to be political unity to do everything from developing cadres to divide up the labor. The in-depth investigation should show whether I’m correct in thinking that only a handful of organizations take a strategic political overview to the whole work of their organization, e.g., set out yearly work plans for the organization. All of these things indicate amateurism in organizational methods.
Overall, only a handful of organizations are strong in organizational development – given the inevitable limitations of local organizations. Others need to learn from this advanced organizational practice of a few around cadre development, democratic-centralism, division of labor. One organizational strength that many OC forces mentioned in the survey was disciplined, hard working cadres. Hopefully, we can use this organizational strength to help overcome other organizational weaknesses.
There is also organizational weaknesses of a different nature. One is the fragmentation. Obviously having so many local organizations and groups not united in national forms is a serious weakness. And in a number of cities we have OC forces who are in separate organizations. This is often because there have been many organizational splits over the years. Other organizations have dissolved. A number of these splits and dissolutions have resulted from ideological contradictions – which shows that, historically, common ideology has not necessarily been key in the formation of OC local organizations. Personal friendships, the accident of who lived in the city, common practice, etc. have been some factors in the formation of OC groups. This substantiates the fact that ideological contradictions within the tendency do not and will not break down along organizational lines. That is why it is so important to guard against federationism, and to see that do have clear ideological struggle between contending lines, not between contending organizations. The amount of fragmentation in the OC contributes to small-circle mentality, because given such small local groupings, often with strong personal ties, it’s easy to get bound up in your local group and put your primary emphasis there rather than in the national party-building process. We have to fight this small circle mentality.
Last, but not least, is the weakness in composition of OC forces. Other than the one strength – that of equal percentage of men and women – the weaknesses are serious. As everyone knows, the degree of multi-nationality is very poor. There are about 25 national minority members out of about 350 OC members (7%). Though 10 OC organizations or groups have national minority members, only 1 is really multi-national; most of the rest have 1 or 2, or less than 10% national minority members.
Even weaker, as I noted earlier, is the percent of advanced workers in the OC. Only 10-12 individuals in the OC have been recruited to M-L from the class struggle. Only 3 or 4 organizations have recruited any advanced workers from the class and only 2 have recruited more than a couple. There is only one organization which has had a good bit of success in recruiting a number of working class people from community colleges.
Though a good percentage of OC members are from working class backgrounds, most have gone through some higher education or have had a lot of “movement” experience. So, despite the percentage of members both from working class backgrounds and presently integrated into working class jobs, overall, we are clearly still at the stage of being a circle of revolutionary intellectuals.
The weakness of having so few national minorities and advanced workers within the OC is more essentially a qualitative weakness than a quantitative weakness, although it is the latter also. What I mean by this is that with this poor composition we are prone to certain weaknesses. First, those individuals with petit-bourgeois roots are prone to certain forms of opportunism which advanced workers and national minorities are key to helping us avoid. Secondarily, without the advanced and national minorities, we are without the link to the multi-national working class masses, i.e., the advanced and national minorities will be instrumental in bringing communism to the masses. And finally, the advanced and national minorities are key to raising the theoretical questions our movement must answer and also to testing out the theory developed in the context of the class struggle.
So what are the roots of these organizational weaknesses in our functioning, structure and composition? Let’s first take up the question of the weaknesses in functioning and structure. One of the most obvious things comrades pointed to in the survey was the small size and lack of resources of groups and organizations. Now this is definitely a problem, but it’s important to be clear that it’s not the root of these weaknesses. OC organizations and groups are not big: only 4 organizations have over 20 members; the rest of the OC groups are about evenly divided between those who have 11-20 members (about8) and those who have 1-10 members (about 7 groups). Some of the organization splits have contributed to this small size of organizations. Obviously with limited resources, it’s hard to have enough leadership, to divide the labor, and to devote enough cadres to important theoretical and political tasks, etc.
But the more critical roots of these organizational weaknesses are (1) lack of organizational experience and (2) lack of organizational theory. Given the organizations and groups with the OC are so young, we have little organizational experience. All OC organizations are less than 10 years old; only a handful are over 4 years, and of those, half have been democratic-centralist a much shorter period of time. A number of OC groups have just formed. There are some OC forces that would have gone back 6-7 years if it hadn’t been for splits, dissolutions, etc. We spoke earlier of the lack of theory around organizational line to guide organizational practice, so it’s not necessary to go into this again.
The organizational weaknesses in composition stem from the theoretical and political weaknesses among OC forces. Our failure to have many national minorities and advanced workers among our ranks comes from our lack of much development, understanding and implementation of political line around racism and other key issues facing the working class. (Remember only about 10 OC forces have studied much around the question of racism and/or black liberation.) Though a number of OC forces are involved in anti-racist work, it is just a beginning, and I doubt that the anti-racist work has been carried out in such a way so that many white workers have been won over to the struggle against racism. There is still a lack of consolidation around the centrality of racism among white communists within the OC. Not until we make much more progress in internalizing the centrality of racism, dealing with our own racism, and talking up the struggle against racism in our mass work and winning white workers over to it, will we make much progress in becoming more multi-national. And not until we develop much more political line and practice in applying it so that advanced workers are able to see its effectiveness will advanced workers join our ranks. (It is not surprising that the OC organization that is the only one to have developed a number of political lines is one of the 2 OC organizations that have recruited more than 1-2 advanced workers.) We have a long way to go, but the OC and IC will definitely help us get there by furthering the development of and ideological struggle over independent elaboration of Marxism-Leninism.
We can see that, overall, the forces in the OC can be characterized as underdeveloped in most respects – ideologically, theoretically, politically and organizationally. But there are some clear strengths. The main strength that stands out within this picture is the integration in the class struggle and the focus on trade union work in the industrial proletariat and socialized service sector. Through this, most OC forces have developed some beginning solid roots among the masses and have won some basic respect. In addition, OC forces are situated in some of the most important trade unions. And theoretically there is a good bit of development, clarity and unity around a trade union line that has the potential to guide practice in these trade unions. Furthermore, the involvement of OC forces in a number of political struggles is very positive.
Most positive is the emphasis on anti-imperialist and democratic rights struggles. Overall, in the OC there is valuable and varied practical experience to draw upon. The OC can build on all of these strengths. And though we have hardly discussed numbers of individuals in the OC, and numbers of cities OC forces are in, the fact that we’re about 350 strong, in 20 cities, and steadily growing clearly shows we are of enough size and breadth to confidently say we are a developing tendency with much potential. (The west coast has been an area of noticeable OC development) The weak geographical areas are still the Southeast, Southwest and Central West.)
The overall weakness is that although we have made some strides in participating in class struggle, we have hardly begun to fuse communism with the class struggle. We have hardly begun to develop an independent elaboration of M-Lism for the U.S., let alone test it out and sum it up, struggle over it, and unite M-Lists around it. We have hardly begin to give communist leadership to the mass struggles, and do communist agit/prop. We have hardly begun to recruit advanced workers and national minorities to M-Lism. And we have hardly begun to develop the kind of communist organizations we need to carry out our tasks. We don’t have well developed local organizations, let alone any national organizations.
In conclusion, I see this initial survey helping in 3 ways. One, by obviously confirming many of the weaknesses among OC forces, it helps us be realistic about what level of development OC forces are at so that we understand the tasks before us and how to proceed. Two, it points out that, although there are in general many weaknesses among OC forces, there are also some real practical strengths to build on and some advanced theoretical forces to help lead us in achieving our tasks and overcoming our weaknesses. And we are growing in size and breadth in the US. This helps us to be optimistic about our potential. And, three, more clearly and importantly than anything, it shows how so many of our political and organizational weaknesses come from our theoretical weaknesses, particularly our lack of independent elaboration of M-Lism for the US revolution. So, above all, it should confirm for all of us the utmost necessity of moving steadily forward to establish an IC to help develop the program, strategy and tactics for the US revolution that will move us closer to forming a Communist Party. In total, it helps us to be realist, but hopeful, and firm in our determination to build an IC.