First Published: The Organizer, Vol. 5, No. 10, October 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The PWOC has argued that it is incorrect to allow “rectification vs. fusion” to become the key questions before the party-building movement.
It is true that these two party-building lines are fundamentally in opposition to one another. And it is also true that the “rectification” line must be defeated if we are to succeed in re-establishing a genuine communist party.
But we have also pointed out that the foundation has not been properly laid for a mature contention between these two points of view. Our tendency has not yet completed its break with ultra-lefitsm on the political level nor summed up its ideological roots. And it has also not yet succeeded in isolating a narrow circle approach to the struggle for correct political line. The struggle between “rectification” and “fusion” must be subordinated to common work designed to complete these two tasks.
In our previous critique of the rectification line (see July and August Organizers), we exposed the basis of the National Network of Marxist-Leninist Clubs’ (NNMLC) opposition to this tactical orientation. The leaders of this group fear the consolidation of our break with ultra-leftism and the isolation of the circle mentality. They do so out of recognition that the survival of both “leftist” thinking and circle wrangling are vital to their continued influence in the anti-“left” tendency.
Even some who adhere to fusion – and thus have no interest in extending the life of either ultra-leftism or the circle spirit – question these tactics. Why not just “take on” the rectification line and “be done with it,” they argue. Surely the NNMLC line will expose itself to be little more than a cleverly wound ball of theoretical flourishes no more relevant as a guide for party-building than a papal encyclical.
Their line will have to be defeated anyway, the argument proceeds. Certainly no critique of ultra-leftism can be developed that does not part company with voluntarism, why not attack it frontally?
Also a frontal attack would prevent the NNMLC from arguing that the PWOC subordinates politics to organization. Instead of focusing on the Network’s organizational opportunism (i.e., the circle mentality), we could unmask them politically. Once their politics are smoked out, the connection between opportunism in politics and opportunism in organization could then be drawn out.
There is much that is attractive to this point of view. Certainly, a “rectification vs. fusion” formula would “simplify” the two-line struggle in the anti-“left” tendency. It would polarize our forces into a rectification bloc and a fusion bloc. The question could then be put to everyone. Which side are you on?
It is also true that ultra-leftism cannot be overcome without a break with voluntarism on party-building line. Any critique of “left” opportunism that allowed for the re-emergence of an NNMLC-type line would be a shallow critique indeed.
Though attractive, this approach is nevertheless wrong. It is not only not in the best interests of our tendency as a whole, but not in the best interests of those struggling for the fusion line as well. In fact, at this stage a “rectification vs. fusion” polarization would be wholly to the advantage of the NNMLC.
In the first place it would allow them to obscure their opportunism on questions of organization. This would not be of minor consequence. For opportunism on questions of organization is presently the principle expression of opportunism in the NNMLC line.
The fight to establish a party (as opposed to a narrow circle) approach to the struggle for revolutionary strategy and program is vital to the future of the fusion line. As we have argued repeatedly, the survivals of circle warfare can only strengthen the hand of that which is dying away (ultra-leftism) and undercut that which is rising (Marxism-Leninism). Taken together, the dying away of ultra-leftism and the rise of Marxism-Leninism create excellent conditions for the victory of the fusion line.
Organizational opportunism is not only principle, but it is also the most easily exposed deviation in the NNMLC’s line. Consideration of a recent explanation for NNMLC separation from the OC will show this to be true.
A leading exponent of the rectification line has, with uncharacteristic candor, admitted that the NNMLC decision to stay outside the OC is purely “tactical.” He feels that the rectification line will not win out in the kind of centralized, movement-wide, ideological struggle that the OC hopes to generate. Consequently, it is necessary to organize outside of and in competition with the OC.
It is not difficult to see that our tendency is doomed if this type of thinking becomes dominant. If each and every little circle that fears that its line will not win out decides to organize independently and in competition with all others, the anti-revisionist, anti-“left” forces will fraction into a thousand pieces.
Moreover, if it succeeds in walling off its following so as to avoid grappling with the fusion line, the NNMLC strengthens its hand. After all, it can always count on petty-bourgeois “left” radicalism for nourishment.
Such radicalism is continually generated by present conditions. Class consciousness and revolutionary currents in the working class are relatively weak. This situation gives empirical justification to a view which denies advanced workers any significant role in the party-building process. And conversely, it can only strengthen tendencies for petty-bourgeois radicals to substitute themselves for the class.
While objective conditions do lend some justification to the “rectification” line, they give no support for splittism. Even the most ill-informed member of our tendency is familiar with the fractioning of the ultra-lefts, their unprincipled approach to ideological struggle, and their attempts to use organizational means to win ideological hegemony. Experiences have seared these errors into our consciousness.
Thus not only a basic grasp of the correct approach to building ideological unity but also experience tend to foster exposure of NNMLC organizational opportunism. It is this more than anything else that accounts for the NNMLC’s great agitation when its commitment to principled struggle is questioned.
Along with covering up organizational opportunism, the “rectification vs. fusion” polarization plays into the NNMLC’s hands in another important way.
Most of those won to the rectification line have not been won on the basis of a strictly scientific appraisal of its content. Some have just transposed allegiance from a leader with organizing or propaganda skills to that leader’s formulation of party-building line. Others are attracted to what seems to be a “new” line and a “new” organization.
But whatever the point of attraction, those won to the rectification line all share an important point in common – they are still strongly swayed by ultra-leftism. Voluntarism, dogmatism and a. “leftwing” approach to the struggle against revisionism are central to their thinking.
These comrades are unlikely to put aside the rectification line unless the ultra-left cataracts are removed from their eyes. They must be forced to break with the anti-Marxist prejudices on which the NNMLC line is based.
Given that Marxism-Leninism has the upper hand in our tendency, common work to further our critique of ultra-leftism will tend to force a break. It will drive a wedge between the miss-led but honest followers of rectification and those leaders of the NNMLC with a more long-term investment in “left” opportunism.
For example, consider the impact of a common study of the history of the ultra-left approach to party-building. Such an effort would clearly demonstrate that the basic errors of anti-revisionists on party-building line have been “left” and not right opportunist – as the NNMLC would like to have us believe.
It would show that the approaches of the Communist League (CL), the Revolutionary Union (RU) and the October League (OL) were all characterized by a downgrading of the potential contribution of advanced elements from the class and national minorities to the party-building process. And it would also demonstrate repeated tendencies to exaggerate the role of intellectual strata.
In addition, such a study would clearly demonstrate the abject failure of the Workers’ Viewpoint Organization’s (WVO) party-building perspective. The exposure of WVO would be particularly useful in that they (like the NNMLC) summed up the RU’s and the OL’s errors on party-building as being rightist in character. And in accordance with this perspective, they attempted to formulate a party-building line will to the “left” of their predecessors. Given the obvious failure of WVO, NNMLC comrades will be hard-pressed to defend their own views.
Common work towards an all-sided critique of ultra-leftism will not just call into question the NNMLC’s party-building line. It will also tend to show - as could be expected – that the “leftism” in their party-building line finds expression in their approach to other questions as well.
The NNMLC approach to the relationship between reform and revolution is a case in point. Recently supporters of the NNMLC have been circulating a call for a national anti-racist organization. Nominally advanced by the National Committee to Overturn the Bakkc Decision, the proposal was drafted by two leading exponents of the rectification line.
In this proposal we are treated to such silly dogmas as “national organization is the only serious (emphasis added CN) instrument of political struggle a formulation which apart from its “leftism” is a racist slap in the face to the United League of Mississippi among others. We are asked to believe that in the present period a national organization forged around an “advanced political line” can seriously “contend with the NAACP, the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucrats” for leadership of the anti-racist struggle. And we are told that such an organization could be readily built if only the anti-revisionist, anti-“left” tendency would take “bold” initiatives to consolidate the gains of the anti-Bakke and anti-Weber campaigns which the proposal conveniently neglects to sum up. (In discussion the advocates of the proposal have qualified their written formulations and sought to take some of the sharp edge off them, but we have yet to see any written modification of their original proposal. A more developed critique of this proposal is available upon request. – Ed.)
History has already expressed its opinion of the Fightback organization. That organization is today little more than the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), the OL’s successor, and its immediate periphery. And it is nor more effectual than the “vanguard” that leads it.
Similar errors to those in this proposal would be brought out in a critique of ultra-leftism. Surely such a critique would unearth our movement’s use of dogma to hide its inabilities to lead the mass struggles through the difficult stages of development from reform to revolution. And surely it would expose the tendency to substitute methods of leading small groups for methods of rallying the masses.
It would also lay bare the one-side stress on the will of revolutionaries as if will alone could change objective reality. It would clearly demonstrate that revolutionary activity must begin with a strictly scientific appraisal of objective conditions. And it would show that success in advancing the revolution is reserved for those who can develop initiatives that move masses into changing those conditions.
Once again the actual history of the anti-revisionist movement would serve to underscore these truths. A study of the OL’s initiative in creating the Fightback organization could be made.
The OL also called for the formation of a national organization on the basis of “advanced political line” and not a united front program. Bold initiatives irrespective of objective conditions were held to be the key to success.
The significance of this verdict is only underlined by the fact that the OL’s conception was broader than the NNMLC proposals and they also had considerably more resources to throw into building their organization.
In both cases of party-building line and line on the relationship of reform to revolution, our critique could proceed without explicit consideration of the NNMLC’s line. The focus of the effort would be on reaching agreement on the correct criticisms of errors that both the NNMLC and ourselves are attempting to put behind us.
Both the NNMLC followers and those of fusion could judge who better plumbs the history of our movement on the basis of their own independent study and experience. And because defense of our own lines would not be primary, such joint work would tend to create the maximum openness to the opposing point of view greatly enhancing the potential for unity.
As we have shown, this joint work would profoundly aid the struggle for the fusion line. It should not be forgotten that fusion historically grew out of an initial critique of “left” opportunism. And it will continue to advance only in so far as that critique is deepened.
Thus, both from the standpoint of defeating the principle expression of NNMLC opportunism and undermining the ultra-left conceptions around which they are grouped, the best interests of those holding the fusion line are served by fighting a “rectification vs. fusion” polarization at this time.
October 9, 1979