From the moment of the CPUSA’s degeneration, genuine Marxist-Leninists in the US attempted to re-establish a party. The Provisional Organizing Committee of the late 1950’s and the Progressive Labor Movement (later Progressive Labor Party) in the very early 1960’s were the first of these attempts. But these formations, while rejecting the naked revisionism of the CPUSA, failed to conduct an all-sided critique of revisionism and failed to develop a correct general line around which to unite genuine Marxist-Leninists and re-establish the party. Rather, the general lines of these formations were marked by shallowness, left opportunist political errors, and a dogmatist approach to analyzing the concrete history of the CPUSA and concrete conditions of the US. Thus, when the mass movements of the 1960’s arose, the US working class and oppressed peoples were without the guidance of a leading vanguard.
It was the inherent contradictions of monopoly capitalism that gave rise to the spontaneous mass movements of the 1960’s. It was the Black people’s struggle against racism, for full equality and democratic rights, beginning in the South as a civil rights movement even in the 1950’s, that put mass struggle back on the map in the US after the dormancy of the McCarthy period. This movement began as a civil rights movement and passed over to a Black power movement, but throughout its history it was a mass political movement, one that directly targetted the state itself. The mass anti-war movement a bit later also was a mass political movement, one which saw millions mobilized against US aggression in Vietnam in what was objectively an anti-imperialist fight, even if not all participants were conscious of this fact.
In addition to these two mass movements, the sixties saw the upsurge of a mass democratic women’s movement whose material base rested on the numbers of women entering full public life. The women’s movement shook the consciousness of the country and resulted in significant material and ideological gains in the struggle against sexism. Further, taking inspiration from the struggle of Black people and oppressed people worldwide, the sixties saw the rise of mass democratic movements of all the minority peoples in the US.
These mass movements spontaneously produced serious political organizations–SNCC, the Black Panther Party, SDS, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and a host of local formations to conduct their struggles. Though the consciousness of many of the movements’ participants varied considerably, the movements themselves in their militancy, scope, and often stated goals, were at least an implicit challenge to the dominant reformist ideology which had gripped the American people and working class in particular for many years. Thus, in the course of the mass movements, many organizations and individuals grasped the need to go beyond reform to search for a revolutionary solution to the problems facing the people of the United States.
Yet those who stepped forward from the spontaneous movement ready to fight for revolutionary change found no guiding line and party to train them in the science of Marxism-Leninism. Thus the bulk of people who stepped forward from the mass movements of the 1960’s were lost–at least temporarily–to the revolutionary movement after the mass movements peaked in 1969-1972. Many activists simply “dropped out of politics”–or to put it more accurately, they abandoned revolutionary politics for various forms of overtly bourgeois politics. These former activists sunk into cynicism about revolution and, at best, a reformist political outlook. Another considerable number of activists struggled to remain in “the left”, but fell victim to various forms of bourgeois ideology under the cover of various “revolutionary theories” – revisionism, Trotskyism, social democracy, narrow nationalism, bourgeois radical feminism, anarchism, terrorism, or counterculture, life-style revolution. Still a third group of activists avoided these pitfalls but also abandoned active political work. While still sympathetic to revolution and looking toward genuine Marxist-Leninists for an analysis of the world, this group of people failed to take up their responsibility as conscious elements to be participants in, not observers of, political struggle.
The lack of a genuine party, (principally due to the degeneration of the CPUSA into revisionism but also caused by the failure of the initial attempts to reconstitute a party), was principally responsible for the loss of so many potential revolutionaries.
However, some number of activists did manage to steer through these forms of bourgeois ideology and embrace Marxism-Leninism. In a tremendously positive step forward for the U.S. revolution, hundreds of activists repudiated social democracy, Trotskyism, and modern revisionism and actively forged an anti-revisionist “new communist movement” in the early 1970’s. Slandered from all quarters by bourgeois ideologists of various stripes from the New York Times to the Daily World, the new communist movement placed Marxism-Leninism on the agenda of thousands for the first time in twenty years.
A number of organizations and individuals made up the new communist movement. The largest organizations were the Revolutionary Union (RU) and the October League (OL). The widest public voice of the movement was the Guardian newspaper. Other organizations included the Black Workers Congress, the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization, I Wor Kuen, etc.
The activists of the new communist movement embraced the historic lines of demarcation with social-democracy, Trotskyism, and modern revisionism which have shaped Marxism-Leninism, and attempted to develop a correct Marxist-Leninist general line and genuine party for the US revolution. However, this movement was dominated by ideological, political and organizational errors which prevented it from being successful in its objectives.
In the ideological field, the new communist movement failed to internalize Marxism-Leninism as a living science and the stand of the proletariat as its guiding outlook.
Thus, in methodology, the new communist movement was dominated mainly by dogmatism and secondarily by empiricism. Dogmatism would have us believe that truth resides in certain formulas or laws standing outside of concrete conditions, time and place. It abandons the concrete analysis of concrete conditions which Lenin noted was the living soul of Marxism and leads to an incorrect grasp of reality and an inability to lead the revolutionary struggle. Empiricism, on the other hand, focuses only on the immediate phenomena, the most direct experience, and “forgets” the underlying, universal laws of Marxism-Leninism. It leaves one functioning without a picture of the whole, a picture of how phenomena fit together, and thus also leads to an incorrect grasp of reality and an inability to lead the revolutionary struggle. While dogmatism in method is associated with an idealist world outlook, empiricism is associated with a mechanical materialist view of the world.
There are many examples of dogmatism in the new communist movement: Copying whole quotations from the CCP or earlier periods of the CPUSA to act as a leading line for the US today; Settling arguments with quotations rather than with analyses of reality; Negating the particularities of making revolution in the US and settling for easy, quick solutions to complex problems.
Yet if dogmatism was the principal methodological errors of the new communist movement, empiricism was also present. The RU’s “Black Nation of a New Type” theory is probably the most noteworthy example of this empiricism. This theory threw out the long-standing principles Marxism-Leninism has established on the national question in order to develop a superficial analysis of immediately encountered phenomena.
Likewise in the ideological field, the new communist movement never broke from the strong tendency toward flunkeyism that had long characterized the US left. This flunkeyism, a form of dogmatism, was merely transferred from the CPSU to the deservedly prestigious Chinese Communist Party, the party which had played the major role in leading the struggle against modern revisionism. The prestige of the Chinese party combined with the low theoretical level of the new communist movement set the conditions of flunkeyism. The attempt to mimic and follow every Chinese formulation on international line, every twist and turn of line in Peking Review, became a dominant characteristic of leading forces in the new communist movement.
Another expression of bourgeois ideology in the new communist movement was the prevalence of voluntarism. This is an idealist deviation from Marxism-Leninism which ignores, underestimates or distorts the significance of objective conditions and tends to substitute the desires of the revolutionary forces for an all-sided appraisal of reality. It manifests itself most frequently and most typically in ultra-“left” and adventurist political formulations and practices.
The slogan of “no united action with revisionists” put forward by the OL is a clear manifestation of such voluntarism. At a time when the revisionists are not yet thoroughly exposed before the masses, this policy will only serve to isolate the revolutionary forces. Rather than expecting the masses to already grasp what the Marxist-Leninists understand, it is the responsibility of the revolutionaries to engage in the work necessary to raise the political consciousness of the masses so that they grasp the bankruptcy of revisionism.
Given the errors of dogmatism, voluntarism, and flunkeyism of the dominant forces of the new communist movement, the class stand of those forces necessarily became corrupted. The tendencies toward opportunism and careerism that are present to some extent in every activist could not be effectively combatted, and they grew to dominant proportions. The search for personal prestige, organizational hegemony, and the “China franchise” became hallmarks of the new communist movement’s leading forces. The recent growth of the CP(M-L) formerly the October League, is due in no small measure to its having won the official stamp of approval from the Chinese leadership as their representative in the US.
In the political field, the dominant forces in the new communist movement were consistently dominated by errors of left opportunism though some rightist errors were also made. On questions of united front, participation in reform struggles, struggles for democratic rights, and most especially international line (examined in more detail below) “left” errors were the rule. The degree of radicalization of the masses was overestimated. The development of concrete tactics to lead the day to day struggles was ignored. The contradiction with reformists or revisionists was made more important than the contradiction between the masses and the imperialist exploiters themselves. Forms of propaganda and agitation were developed that were hopelessly out of touch with the concrete experiences of the US working class. These left opportunist pohtical errors led inevitably to the isolation of leading forces in the new communist movement from the actual living mass movements of the trade unions, oppressed minorities, women, and other spontaneous movements. Though a handful of people were won over to each of the left opportunist sects, all in all, isolation from the actual mass movement was the main phenomena of the left opportunists. This isolation was a direct and inevitable result of their left opportunist political lines and practices on the key questions facing the US working class.
In the organizational realm, narrow organizational allegiances and sectarianism was the hallmark of leading forces in the new communist movement. The lack of unity-struggle-unity approach in polemics, the organizational manipulations and intrigues, reflected a deep rooted sectarianism which pervaded organizational life in the early 1970’s. The phenomena of back-biting intrigues between different organizations was a caricature of true ideological struggle among Marxist-Leninists. It discredited communism among many activists and elements from the masses who came in contact with the dominant organizations of the new communist movement.
Beyond this general picture of the ideological, political, and organizational deviations of the new communist movement, we must examine more specifically two key questions: party building line and international line. First, party building line because this remains our central task and the genuine Marxist-Leninists are not yet united on a correct line on party building. Second, international line, because it was here that the definitive exposure of the errors of the new communist movement was made and a firm line of demarcation was drawn with left opportunism.
On party building line, there were two major general errors of the dominant forces of the new communist movement. First was the negation of the particularity of the actual period of the US communist movement. Second, was the flunkeyism toward China which eventually became the actual motive force behind the party building efforts of the left opportunists. These errors led to a massive oversimplification of the complex task of party building.
We can examine how these general errors manifested themselves by looking at a number of aspects of party building line.
First, the complexity of the task of developing a general line for the US communist movement was underestimated. A simple restatement of the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism was sufficient for a “party program” and a concrete analysis of the concrete conditions in the US was neglected. Key formulations were borrowed from other countries parties, most especially from the experience of the CCP. Other formulations were restated from the period when the CPUSA was a genuine party without analysis of their strengths and weaknesses or their continued historic validity.
Second, the present communist movement was not rooted firmly within the overall history of the US communist movement.
Rather than taking responsibility for the victories and defeats of the US working class and its party, the left opportunists took the orientation of beginning a new, “pure” communist movement. Thus, the emphasis was placed on building a “new party” rather than on continuing a genuine tradition, building on the positive achievements of the CPUSA and criticizing what was negative.
Third, the particularity of communists’ relationship to the masses in a period without a party was not grasped. The universal truth that communists are the advanced detachment whose task is to fuse Marxism-Leninism with the spontaneous movement was applied without particularization to this specific period. The dominant organizations of the new communist movement saw party building as doing only on a smaller scale what a party would do after it was formed.
They did not grasp that the distinction between the pre-party period and the party period is a qualitative, not a quantitative one. Thus the RU, for example, could write, “.. .to lay the basis for forming the party, the various Marxist-Leninist forces that have developed in opposition to the CPUSA had to link themselves with the mass movement...to begin the process of merging communism with this movement, to sum up this experience and on that basis to conduct ideological struggle to determine the correct line...”
The RU, the OL, and other dominant organizations of this period did indeed attempt to practice this line. They principally emphasized taking their rudimentary initial positions and trying to make them a material force among the masses as the road to building a party. They objectively neglected the complex task of formulating a correct general line for the US revolution. In the name of “party building in the heat of class struggle”, the theoretical work necessary to develop a concrete analysis of concrete conditions in the US was neglected.
Finally, based on the strategy of “merging communism with the workers movement as the road to party building,” the organizational form of an all-sided “pre-party formation” was developed in this period. If merging communism with the masses is the key to party building, then it is clear that a nationwide, democratic centralist, all-sided form of communist organization is the best vehicle to party building, as it can most effectively guide work in the mass movement. Once again, this practice in the organizational field negated the particularity of organizational form in a period without a party and negated the qualitative distinction between the party and pre-party periods. Without a party, all organizations suffer from qualitative limitations in their ability to take up the task of guiding the seizure of state power. Though Marxist-Leninists must always strive to build the most advanced forms of organization possible at a given stage of the movement’s development, only the general line of a party provides the basis for the all-sided guidance of cadre that is characteristic of a party. The particularity of organization in the pre-party period (ignored by the leading organizations of the new communist movement) means that all organizations must be conscious of their limitations. If all-sided guidance of the cadre is attempted without a grasp of an organization’s limitations, the ideological struggle in the movement as a whole will be fettered rather than pushed forward.
The all-sided form in a period without a material basis fostered the tendency toward organizational competition, the drive for organizational hegemonism, and the sectarian characteristics of the period.
In brief, the overall party building view of the dominant organizations of the new communist movement was to take their rudimentary political lines, attempt to make them a material force among the masses through an all-sided pre-party formation, and through summing up experiences develop a more refined line. Once breakthroughs have been achieved in building the influence of the group, then the party may be forged.
Of course, even this oversimplified and incorrect view was never carried through, as the opportunism and flunkeyism of the dominant organizations ultimately carried the day in party building.
Some groups, such as the Communist League (CL), simply went through an empty ritual of seeming to strive for unity among Marxist-Leninists but never opened up or called for genuine ideological struggle or a common party building effort within the communist movement. When the rest of the movement rejected these self-serving efforts, the CL forces simply formed a party, the Communist Labor Party (CLP), out of their existing cadre. The two principal organizations of the new communist movement, OL and RU, engaged in a mad scramble to be officially recognized by the CCP as the “legitimate” Marxist-Leninist party in the U.S. The notion that a particular degree of influence among the masses had to be developed before the party could be formed was abandoned (or, opportunistically, this influence was invented in order to justify party-formation). While both formations created parties and both, for a period, were considered “legitimate” by the CCP, the OL (now the CP-ML) finally won the franchise because it proved to be the most orthodox and faithful in following the Chinese line. Since then, this dolorous pattern has been emulated by the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee (MLOC) which, on the basis of upholding the line of the Albanian Party of Labor, has transformed itself into the CPUSA (ML). Other grouplets of the new communist movement are now preparing to join one of these formations or to form yet another party. None of these parties has succeeded in rectifying the general line of the U.S. communist movement and placing that line back on a firm revolutionary foundation. None of these parties have solved the principal task before our movement.
Yet it was not around party building line that the actual break took place with the leading forces of the new communist movement. It was around international line. In one sense, the break with their anti-Marxist-Leninist outlook and opportunism could have come over any particular political line, as their errors were manifest in all spheres. But more concretely, it is not at all surprising that the break would come over international line, as this is where the flunkeyism toward China was strongest and where the opportunists were least likely to budge from tailing the position of the Chinese. Thus, as the international line of the Chinese Communist Party increasingly became dominated by left opportunist class collaboration with US imperialism and the organizations of the new communist movement tailed behind, the contradiction between the proletarian internationalist outlook of Marxism-Leninism and the left opportunist outlook of the CCP and their US flunkies sharpened greatly.
The struggle over international line came to the fore over the question of Angola in 1975. History presented the US communist movement with a crucial particular question that tested its ideology and politics, and US communists had to respond to this question even though a genuine US party did not yet exist. Thus international line, as manifested in the particular political question of solidarity with the Angolan liberation struggle, became the arena in which a line of demarcation was drawn between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism.
The correct revolutionary line on Angola recognized the MPLA as a genuine vanguard. It correctly saw the principal contradiction in Angola as between US imperialism, South African fascism/racism, and puppet movements vs. the Angolan masses led by the MPLA.
The incorrect line appeared in the form of a left opportunist error. It exaggerated the importance of the contradiction between the Angolan people and the USSR. It attacked the MPLA, which had accepted Soviet and Cuban aid, as not being anti-revisionist or anti-Soviet enough.
In the particular political stands taken, slogans advanced, demands put forward before the U.S. working class, the left opportunist forces objectively allied themselves with U.S. imperialism and the racist regime of South Africa. They thus actively supported counter-revolution in the name of revolution.
While Angola was the crucial watershed in the struggle against the left opportunist line, the line had previously manifested itself in the stand taken around the independence struggle in Puerto Rico and in relation to the revolutionary struggle in Iran. The leading left opportunist force, OL, raised the false slogan of “Superpowers Out of Puerto Rico” which objectively aided the anti-communist rationale of the US government in its attacks on Cuba for supporting the independence movement. They portrayed leading independence forces as agents of the Soviet Union and attempted to sabotage the international conference in solidarity with Puerto Rico held in Havana in 1975. The OL also sowed dissension in the ranks of the Iranian movement in the US, attempting to portray the Shah as an “anti-imperialist” and to defuse the struggle against him.
The left opportunist position was a flunkeyist position, copying its line from the CCP. It refused to take truth from facts. Instead this position viewed everything from the incorrect point of view that the principal contradiction in the world was between “Soviet social-imperialism” and the peoples of the world, a view headquartered in the Chinese Communist Party.
A concrete analysis of concrete conditions shows that the correct way to describe the principal contradiction in the world today is as follows: On the one side is US imperialism, its imperialist allies and their lackeys. On the other are the oppressed peoples and nations principally in Asia, Africa and Latin America. (In an overall historical sense, the fundamental contradiction of this epoch is between declining capitalism and rising socialism. And within the US the principal contradiction is between the working class as a whole and the monopoly capitalist class.)
Incorrect views, not based on concrete analysis, hold that the principal contradiction is either the U.S. vs. the USSR, the USSR vs. the peoples of the world, or the U.S. and USSR equally vs. the peoples of the world. One’s line on the principal contradiction in the world determines one’s position on numerous concrete questions such as Angola. Without a correct line on the principal contradiction, forces inevitably fall into class collaboration. One’s political position on this question, which comes to the fore in a specific historical situation like Angola, reveals a demarcation between a proletarian and bourgeois stand.
Thus, based on this particular political struggle over international line as it came up concretely over Angola, and combined with an initial though incomplete analysis of the left opportunist errors of the major forces of the new communist movement on questions of united front, struggle for democratic rights, etc., we can assess that bourgeois ideology has become the principal aspect of the line of the bulk of forces from the new communist movement. Thus a line of demarcation between Marxism-Leninism and left opportunism was drawn.
Because this demarcation took place firmly in the realm of political line, it is best characterized as a break with left opportunism. Though dogmatism in method and sectarianism were also major deviations that were found among the left opportunists, they were not the immediate issues over which the demarcation took place and thus are inadequate or misleading as to the nature of this demarcation. At the same time, we must recognize that identifying this demarcation in the political field and identifying the deviating forces as left opportunist is as yet an incomplete characterization or summation. At some point, an all-sided summation must be developed, one which will develop a particular designation that will unite this entire deviation in its ideological, political and organizational spheres. Developing such a summation and designation will be a major theoretical task, one which will have to take up such questions as the relationship between the left opportunist deviation in the US and the errors of the CCP, the shortcomings in the repudiation of modern revisionism that contributed to the rise of left opportunism, and the thesis of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union, the theoretical proposition that binds together the logic of much of the left opportunist political line.
Still, even before this all-sided summation is developed, it must be recognized that a demarcation has objectively taken place. In the real world, all demarcations occur concretely in the political realm before they are fully summed up theoretically. This must be highlighted and driven home, because there are some forces who argue that because an all-sided summation of left opportunism does not yet exist there has been no line of demarcation drawn and the left opportunists remain within the ranks of genuine communists. These forces, most notably the Proletarian Unity League (PUL) are hesitant to break with the international line of the CCP and use the lack of a full summation of left opportunism as a rationalization for a position that at best conciliates and at worst embraces opportunism. While we cannot be complacent that drawing a line of demarcation over political line solves our theoretical questions, neither can we avoid drawing a line of demarcation based on the real political struggles in the real political world.
Thus by 1976 the period of the new communist movement came to an end. No longer was there a single anti-revisionist movement in which left opportunism and dogmatism were dominant but not yet consolidated. After 1976, two distinct movements or trends emerged. The left opportunist trend, like that of modern revisionism, stands outside Marxism-Leninism, and bourgeois ideology, most particularly in the form of class collaboration, is the dominant aspect of its line and stand. The forces who broke with left opportunism emerged as an anti-revisionist, anti-left opportunist trend, a Marxist-Leninist trend, where proletarian ideology is dominant. The inability of some forces, to recognize that a definite line of demarcation has been drawn and that there is no longer a single anti-revisionist movement is a reflection of a tendency to underestimate the decisive role of political line in the work of communists. While there are many individuals in the various left opportunist organizations who can still be won back to Marxism-Leninism–and there are even some in the leading revisionist organization, the CPUSA–the lines of these organizations stand in contradiction to Marxism-Leninism and the leading forces in each have placed themselves outside the ranks of the genuine communist movement. Tragically, the bulk of forces from the 1960’s who had repudiated revisionism, including many of the most experienced and committed cadre, fell prey to the backward line and are being increasingly corrupted by bourgeois ideology.