First Published: The Organizer, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Cuba broke with China in 1965. Since that time its attitude towards the People’s Republic has become progressively more hostile – until today in Cuba they show anti-China propaganda films. In one of these films there is a scene showing Mao Zedong before the masses. All of a sudden his face begins to fade and the image of Hitler appears on the screen. That is the direction in which you comrades are headed.
While this is not an exact quotation, a statement very close to this was made by a representative of the Communist Unity Organization, a group firmly aligned with the Proletarian Unity League (PUL), at a recent conference of Marxist-Leninists. It was quickly followed by similarly emotional remarks by a PUL spokesperson, asking if all the “anti-China” delegates were absolutely sure that they knew everything that the Soviet Union was doing all over the world.
The conference was one of several organized by the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center (OC-IC). These meetings were called in order to discuss and resolve the question of the place of international line in demarcating with ultra-leftism. The particular question that was posed is this: “Should the formulation that US imperialism is the main enemy of the world’s peoples be a line of demarcation for building a genuine anti-“left” trend in the anti-revisionist movement?”
By a 15 to 1 margin, the voting OC delegates decided that it should. And while some 60% of those attending the conferences were not OC members but observers, based on their role in discussions, the overwhelming majority agreed.
What was really significant about the conference was that it revealed the nature of the two lines in contention and what they represented by way of a departure from past party-building efforts.
The two contending views are as follows: The minority perspective was that it is incorrect to demarcate on the question of the main enemy of the world’s peoples for three reasons. First, there has been insufficient struggle on the issue and there is inadequate proof of the majority’s view that the US was the centerpiece of worldwide counterrevolution. Second, that it was incorrect to identify the main enemy of the world’s peoples without first determining the class character of the Soviet Union. And third, to demarcate on international line would narrow the forces drawn into the struggle against ultra-leftism, since many of those who have recently broken with “left” opportunism hold that the US is no longer the main enemy.
The majority position is that there has been a great deal of debate on the question of the main enemy of the peoples of the world - both internationally and in the US – and that the evidence in support of the view that the US remained the backbone of reaction is overwhelming. Second, it maintains that while the question of the class character of the Soviet Union is a very important one, an analysis of the main impediment to social progress in the world did not depend on whether the USSR is capitalist or socialist; if the Soviet Union were proven to be capitalist, it would be no more inherently a co-equal of US imperialism than Japan. And finally, it disputes the minority’s contention that any force could maintain a consistent struggle against ultra-leftism if it fails to break with the “left” line on the international situation.
Underlying these arguments were a number of more fundamental differences which were brought to the surface by the sharp struggle developed at the conferences. First is the difference between minority and majority on the “theory of the three worlds” as advanced by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The minority held this theory to be generally correct, if occasionally misapplied by its adherents. The majority was of the opinion that the “three worlds” analysis provided the basis for the CPC’s present policy of collaborationism with US imperialism.
A second important divergence concerned differing views on the CPC itself. While the comrades in the minority tended to view the CPC as the epitome of Marxist-Leninist wisdom in the modern world, the majority was somewhat less sanguine. In fact, most identified the CPC as the international center of ultra-leftism.
Third was the different attitudes towards the doctrine called “Mao Zedong Thought.” While both sides of the question agreed that Mao, himself, was a great Marxist-Leninist, they did not share the same approach to what has been identified as his major contributions to revolutionary theory. The minority generally held that “Mao’s Thought” was the starting point for the elaboration of revolutionary theory in the world today. In contrast, the majority tended towards the view that the “left” collaborationism exhibited in Mao’s “three worlds” theory called for, at the very least, a review of many of his other views – particularly those concerning the construction of socialism.
A fourth divergence concerned the thesis of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. While the minority put great stock in the perspective that the USSR was characterized by capitalist production relations, the majority had grave reservations about this view. Although only a section of the majority would argue that the Soviet Union is socialist (such as ourselves), even those among the majority who had previously supported the restoration thesis were open to reexamining their suppositions.
Despite the fact that each of the four more fundamental disagreements were discussed unevenly, and at that somewhat shallowly, that they were raised at all represents a major step forward in the anti-revisionist movement. Each of the minority’s basic conceptions – the “three worlds” theory, the idea that the CPC is the center of Marxism-Leninism, the view that “Mao’s Thought” is the starting point for anti-revisionism, and the thesis of capitalist restoration in the USSR – are dogmas that have weighed heavily on the shoulders of revolutionaries in recent years. Without throwing off this baggage, there can be no question of advancing the development of Marxism-Leninism in the modern period.
In fact, the identification of each of these questions through struggle, particularly the last three, as areas for further theoretical exploration is an even larger contribution of the conferences than the actual resolution of the correct line of demarcation for building an anti-“left” trend. Few going into the conferences had any doubt that the majority’s view would win out and international line would become a demarcating point. But even fewer expected that the deeper questions would be revealed so sharply. The fact that they were brought out into the open attests primarily to the positive role of ideological struggle in deepening and clarifying the essence of two contending lines.
Along with raising these four questions, the conferences also exposed the shallow theoretical foundation of the “left” line on the international situation. The minority was unable to defend its views either theoretically or empirically in a fashion consistent with scientific socialism and soon retreated to argument based on abstraction, historical analogy and quotations. But even these gave way to the kind of attempts to manipulate fear and unthought prejujudice presented in the opening paragraph of this article.
Bound up with this was the important side-benefit of deepening the conference participants’ understanding of the nature of the ultra-left line. In addition to showing that “left-wing” notions of the struggle against revisionism underlay the failure to recognize the US’s role as the main enemy, the discussions also demonstrated that dogmatism was indeed key to the minority’s positions. In every case, the main basis for the minority’s views rested on defense of “Mao’s Thought.” In effect, their whole position came down to the following proposition: “A deviation from the CPC or from Mao Zedong Thought is by definition revisionism.” Is such a view not the very essence of dogmatism?
The conference debates thus clearly showed that a great deal of further theoretical work needs to be done. We need a thorough and Marxist (which Enver Hoxha’s is not) critique of the “three worlds” theory, a further exploration of the role of the CPC in the world, a reexamination of what has been called “Mao Zedong Thought”, and a further investigation – free from the blinders imposed by the restoration thesis – of the nature of the Soviet Union and its role in the world today. And finally, the conferences also layed a foundation for consolidating a perspective on the nature of the ultra-left line and its key elements.
But the political significance of these conferences lies not just in the weighty theoretical questions they put on the agenda. Perhaps even more importantly, they represented a radical break with the past approach to ideological struggle in the anti-revisionist movement. To our knowledge, these conferences represented the first attempt in the 22 year history of the party-building movement to place the interests of principled ideological struggle among Marxist-Leninists as a whole above the narrower interests of competing circles.
There was extensive and uniform preparation for the conferences, based on two lengthy papers, one representing each point of view. All the participating groups (with only two exceptions) agreed that their delegations would not only represent any minority perspective (within their own circle) but that none of their delegates would be bound to uphold their organization’s views in either the discussions or the voting. In one region where the minority was not represented, financial aid was provided so that a speaker from their viewpoint could attend. And significant numbers of observers- from both sides of the question were invited to attend and advance their own views.
Moreover, the organization of the process and the resulting discussions were designed to insure that as broad as possible a section of the supporters of the OC were well consolidated on how to draw lines of demarcation in a principled manner, and on the need to demarcate at this time around the main enemy of the peoples of the world. Each individual OC member was forced to grapple directly with each side of the argument and to stand on his/her own two feet ideologically. This represents a departure from the past party-building experience, where lines of demarcation are drawn by leadership and all those who disagree excluded from discussion and debate.
The importance of the generation of this kind of process cannot be overestimated, particularly given that even some anti-“left” forces are doing their utmost to prevent the genuine common interests of Marxist-Leninists from asserting themselves. Instead they are fighting for the right to subordinate these common interests to their own circle’s pursuit of organizational hegemony.
Unless these past methods of struggle are put firmly behind us and an approach adopted along the lines of that generated by the OC, we can be certain that the anti-“left” tendency will yield as many sects as the ultra-lefts have.
In summation, the first OC conferences represented an auspicious first step in a process that is likely to make a major contribution to re-establishing a genuine revolutionary party in the US.