Since its inception, the OC has been struggling against the federationist approach to party-building. OC forces have discussed at length the ultra-left approach to party-building that characterized past party-building efforts in the anti-revisionist movement. The OCIC is committed to building an ideological center based on a non-sectarian, movement-wide process where minority and majority positions are struggled and debated before the entire movement, and where leadership emerges on; the basis of the contributions of each and every participant as individuals and not on the basis of the notoriety of organizations.
The federationist approach to party-building is in opposition to the above conception of uniting the tendency and would doom the OC to fail if it isn’t struggled against. Federationism is a theoretical conception that organizations come together as independent, equal and autonomous groups to form the party. Rather than coming together based on an open, centralized process, federationism advocates that each organization joins the process on an equal basis and puts forward the political line of the organization. In the context of building an ideological center, the IC would be a trading post for political line and a recruiting ground for each organization. Minority positions within the organizations would not be aired before the entire movement even though they may be the correct positions. Genuine leadership would not emerge for our movement. Small circle spirit, which is the ideological expression of federationism predominates and comrades place the interest of their individual organizations above those of the tendency. In this context, small circle warfare can emerge and we end up with a struggle for organizational hegemony. Organizations get together and battle over the political line of each organization and whichever line defeats all others, will represent the line for establishing the party. Comrades would have to unite with an organization’s political line or be excluded from the party-building process.
This sectarian approach to party-building places the ideological struggle in an extremely limited context. By confining the ideological struggle to struggles over the political line of organizations the bulk of the tendency is excluded from the process. More importantly, given that cadre organizations in our movement are majority or all-white and petty-bourgeois in character, national minority and working class comrades are excluded, thereby excluding those who would make the most advanced contributions to developing the program, strategy and tactics for socialist revolution. Federationism is racist and anti-working class. Those who defend federationism either in words or deeds are protecting the white and petty-bourgeois character of the OC and the broader tendency. They are insuring that the leadership of our movement will not reflect the true character of the working class. They are protecting themselves, insuring that they have a place in the leadership of our movement by defending an approach that excludes the bulk of national minority and working class comrades.
The OC from the beginning took up a struggle against federationism and racism. Each struggle has provided OC forces with more clarity on the interconnection between federationism and racism. We are now clear that a struggle against federationism cannot take place without a struggle against racism and anti-working class bias. This section, however, will focus on federationism and racism.
At the Founding Conference of the OCIC in February of 1978, a struggle emerged over the selection of candidates for the Steering Committee. The Committee of Five had proposed that an elected nominations committee “should be charged with presenting a slate of organizations” (emphasis added) for election to the Steering Committee. An alternative proposal was put forward that individuals should be elected to the SC, but this proposal was voted down. Following the vote, a struggle took place around the racism of the Committee of Five’s proposal and the body’s endorsement of it. Comrades began to see that given the fact that the bulk of national minority Marxist-Leninists stand outside of local organizations at this time, endorsement of the Committee of Five’s proposal would exclude the possibility of the participation of most national minority Marxist-Leninists from the leading body of this newly formed organization. Comrades further saw that the reason for national minority Marxist-Leninists standing outside of organizations is because of those circles’ severe weaknesses in understanding the centrality of the struggle against racism.
One of the most graphic examples of overt racism expressed itself when a comrade arguing for the Committee of Five’s proposal said “What’s a communist without an organization?” This comment revealed the true depth of white chauvinism in our tendency. The comrade was saying that there is no principled reason for a real communist to stand outside of an organization. The not-so-veiled implication in this view is that the national minorities who stand outside of local circles are opportunists. It places the responsibility for the situation of all-or-mostly-white circles on national minorities. It totally liquidates the racism of the local circles and absolves them of any responsibility for building multi-national unity.
The proposal itself shows how the federationist approach to selecting leadership protects the mostly white character of our movement. Choosing leadership based on organizations would have excluded some of the most advanced comrades in our movement – national minority comrades. The federated leadership body would represent an expression of preserving the status quo. However, after an intense struggle the body agreed that “organizations and individuals who are not members of organizations may be elected to the Steering Committee.” The SC made a self-criticism and summed up the struggle in “A Brief Statement on the Struggle Against Racism.” This was the beginning of the OCIC’s struggle against federationism as an obstacle to building an open, centralized, movement-wide process where individuals’ participation and contributions are based on their own strengths and weaknesses, and not inhibited by the democratic centralism of any circle. It also marked the beginning of the OC’s struggle against federationism because of its racist content. And it marked the beginning of the ideological struggle against racism in general. While comrades were talking about federationism as “objectively” racist, they were being forced to look at the reasons why national minorities stood outside of local circles. Inevitably, as we shall see, comrades would have to struggle against their own racist attitudes about national minorities that prevented them from uniting with national minority comrades.
Although still not armed with a fully developed conception of an overall non-sectarian party-building approach, and weakened by an underestimation of the role of federationism, localism, and racism in our ranks, the SC endeavored to wage a struggle against federationism and its racist content in the building of the OCIC. The next expression of the SC’s leadership in breaking down federationism in the OCIC was the development of two rules: “No binding instructions” which meant that comrades’ participation could not be bound by instructions from their organization, and minority position representation which meant that minority positions held within organizations were to be represented at the conference. These rules proved in practice how the participation and contributions of comrades as individuals, not restricted by organizational discipline, helped to advance the ideological struggle. It also showed how, by attempting to make the conferences as broad and movement-wide as possible, the ideological struggle was enhanced by the contributions of independent Marxist-Leninists, including national minorities.
Had the conferences been organized on a federated basis, the Midwest Pt. 18 conference would not have had the benefit of the participation of several national minority Marxist-Leninists from Detroit who stood outside of the two circles there. One working class national minority comrade in particular helped move the process forward during one of the small group discussions. A white comrade was taking the discussion off into an obscure tangent in order to prove his point that Point 18 should not be a line of demarcation from “left” internationalism. The discussion and struggle went on for a few minutes, pursuing the tangential argument. The national minority comrade (Jerry) intervened and not only brought the discussion back to the concrete, but exposed the white comrade’s opportunism (the white comrade was distorting history in order to bolster his point) The process was not moved forward simply because the non-federationist approach to the conferences allowed Jerry to be there. But given Jerry’s concrete understanding of proletarian internationalism through his work and leadership in anti-imperialist struggles, he was able to struggle for the correct position.
This is a positive example of how the breakdown of federationism serves to remove the racist obstacle to the participation of national minority comrades in the ideological struggle. The Midwest also has plenty of negative examples to share around the pt. 18 Conference. Joe is a national minority comrade who was a member of one of the cadre organizations in the Twin Cities. He was part of the minority view in his organization around Pt. 18, which was the majority view of the OC. This comrade played the leading role within his organization in consolidating the minority around the correctness of Point 18. For the Point 18 Conference, the organization sent two members from their majority as delegates, and one member from the minority as an observer, and, no, it wasn’t Joe. This circle was flagrantly violating the party-spirit by attempting to keep its minority position out of the ideological struggle. What’s more, they held the process back by not even sending the most advanced comrade holding the circle’s minority position. The bind between federationism and racism in this example is clear. These comrades made sure that the leadership of the only national minority member of the circle would not be demonstrated to the entire movement. These comrades were protecting themselves. They were protecting their petty-bourgeois stake as “leadership” in the circle.
Several examples of federationism and racism developed around the National Minority Marxist-Leninist Conference in June of 1979. National minorities, the bulk of whom are advanced fighters in the class, attended the Conference fully prepared and willing to discuss party-building, the particular tasks of national minority Marxist-Leninists, the special oppression of national minority women, and the relationship of sexism to national minority Marxist-Leninists. The Conference took up a history of the party-building movement and the majority of comrades who attended united around the party-building perspective of the OCIC. Most of the comrades left the Conference with a commitment to engage themselves in the party-building process and to win others to taking up their all-sided tasks as well.
Yet it was striking that despite these comrades’ unity with the task of party-building and the correctness of building an open, centralized and movement-wide process for developing the program, strategy and tactics for socialist revolution, many of the comrades had never seen the 18 Principles of Unity or even heard of the OC prior to receiving the Conference preparation packet. These comrades had years of consistent and close contact with organizations that were members of the OC. The white cadre organization members had seen these national minority comrades as “our organization’s national minority contacts” and not as comrades to unite with in the context of the broader tendency. If any unity was to be developed with the national minority comrades, it would be unity around the organization’s mass work and political line, not party-building and uniting the tendency. Many white comrades who didn’t have any “national minority contacts” saw the Conference as a means for recruiting national minorities into their organizations. These comrades totally liquidated their own responsibilities for overcoming their weaknesses around racism in order to build their organization’s multi-nationality. Rather than viewing the conference as a means to build and strengthen the tendency by gaining the advanced leadership of national minority Marxist-Leninists, they placed their narrow circle concerns of having a good head count above the needs of our movement.
Other comrades protested the fact that “their” single national minority member was not invited to be on the Planning Committee for the Conference. In these cases, the organizations desired to use “their” national minority member on the PC in order to advance the organization’s position in the movement by sporting its “multi-nationality.” One comrade’s interest in bolstering her circle was spelled out clearly when she asked, “Why wasn’t DSC invited to be on the PC?” She clearly was not arguing for the national minority comrade to be on the PC because of his strengths and what he could bring to the PC, or she would have asked why wasn’t he, not DSC, invited to be on it. Her white chauvinism was further exposed when after the national minority comrade had made it clear to her that he felt the PC was adequately constituted, she chose to speak “for him” since she had no respect for his political evaluation of the situation.
In the instance of another organization, the comrades not only wanted to use “their” national minority member to promote the organization by sporting its “multi-nationality,” but their white chauvinism was further exposed when it became clear that they were primarily concerned with wanting the PC members to struggle with him over his weaknesses. They were afraid of losing the only national minority member of their organization. They had no confidence in his abilities to overcome his weaknesses as a Marxist-Leninist through the process of criticism and self-criticism. They thought what would help him was unity based on skin color rather than political struggle based on genuine respect for him as a comrade.
In all of these examples, the white comrades viewed the Conference and the PC from the standpoint of what it could do for their organizations and not what it could do for the tendency. They maintained racist paternalistic relationships with national minority comrades and had no conception of their real strengths and what they could contribute to the party-building movement. And since they themselves had not taken the struggle against racism in their mass work and within their organizations seriously, their racist paternalism led them to ghettoize the tasks of the PC and have national minorities recruit and struggle with other national minorities.
Another example of how federationism works to maintain the “whites only” policy is in regard to a Black comrade from Detroit, Madie. Madie had been a member of DMLO and was DMLO’s representative on the Committee of Five. She was a member of the Committee of Five and part of the party-building movement until she resigned from DMLO due to its failure to take up the struggle against racism. In other words, she was a part of the leading body that developed the 18 Principles of Unity, engaged in early struggles with the Guardian and El-Comite/MINP, and otherwise worked to unite the tendency. But once she resigned from DMLO, her ties with the tendency were almost completely cut. DMLO comrades no longer viewed her as a part of the party-building movement. She was informed at the last minute of the Founding Conference of the OCIC held in Detroit but was not officially invited. By virtue of her independence, the organizational members did not see it as important to unite with her politically on the tasks of building the tendency. In fact, once she resigned from the organization, the white comrades not only attempted to close the doors to her participation in the party-building movement, but also tried to use her as an anti-racist credential in their small circle warfare. By that time DMLO had split and there were now two tendency organizations in the city – DMLO and DSC. Members from each organization would constantly run to tell her how opportunist the other was.
They had no respect for her political skills and abilities in the party-building movement and sought to have her “take sides” with one of the circles.
It’s important to understand that the interrelationship between federationism and racism is not just a matter of how it keeps national minorities out of the movement. The example of the comrade from the Twin Cities and the two comrades whose organizations wanted them on the PC shows how federationism and racism effect national minority comrades who are members of cadre organizations. There is another example.
Dave is the Black comrade who was a member of DSC. His leadership in our movement did not emerge until the National Minority Marxist-Leninist Conference because of DSC’s federationist approach to dealing with the OC. Prior to that, his leadership and skills were hidden by the confinements of his organization. DSC had representatives interacting with the OC rather than the entire membership, and reports were given back to the cadre by the representatives. Dave, like his organization, had a position that the theoretical struggle is not primary in this period in the party-building movement. He was beginning to change his position through his work in the national auto fraction. His participation as an individual at the National Minority Marxist-Leninist Conference and the planning committee to build a local center exposed him to a much broader context for taking up the struggle around the all-sided tasks of Marxist-Leninists and the primacy of the theoretical struggle in our movement. In this context he easily consolidated around the primacy of the theoretical struggle and began to play a leading role in the OC. It is clear that the federationist approach of his organization to the OC and its position on the role of the theoretical struggle, held this comrade back until he came to a broad and open process as an individual. And the tendency missed out for quite some time on his advanced leadership.
The circle in Cincinnati has shown us the impact of its federationist approach to the OC on its only Black member – Brenda. A white comrade from the circle was on the leadership body for the Midwest Region. When elections were coming up for the new RSC, the chair of the Local Center Task Force put Brenda forward as a candidate. The white comrades’ response was, “Oh, no. Brenda’s too busy leading us in our anti-racist struggles.” This comrade was more interested in what Brenda was doing for his circle, than what she could contribute to the OC. His racist paternalism toward her led him to believe that she was incapable of “handling” her tasks in the mass movement as well as in the party-building movement. More significantly, he liquidated the responsibility of white communists to lead in the struggle against racism. Leading the struggle against racism, as he saw it, was Brenda’s task. After all, Brenda’s Black, and racism is Black people’s problem. Even if Brenda’s organizational assignments were too burdensome to take on the task of leading the region, this comrade’s narrow circle concerns and white chauvinism kept him from approaching the question from the standpoint, “How can we free up Brenda’s time so that she can participate on the RSC?” Freeing up Brenda’s time would mean that the white comrades would have to step forward in the struggle against racism locally. It would also mean their not reducing Brenda to the role of simply leading the anti-racist fight. They would have to see her in an all-sided way and respect her as a Marxist-Leninist.
Comrades in Philadelphia have also failed to grasp the role of federationism and small circle mentality in preserving the white and petty-bourgeois nature of our movement. Comrades from the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC) played the leading role in uniting the tendency and working for the formation of the Committee of Five. The PWOC is a cadre organization that is broadly recognized as the most advanced in the tendency. It has a well-developed political line, engages in advanced communist work in the mass movement, and publishes a nationally distributed newspaper. Some of its cadre have contributed significantly to the development of the OCIC and other tendency forms. Given this exemplary history, one would expect that comrades from the PWOC would have valuable lessons for us all to learn from in its work in building a local center, and valuable lessons from struggles within the local center over the past several months in Philadelphia. But despite this exemplary history these comrades have no such contribution to make, for there is no local center in Philadelphia.
What are the implications, of these comrades not taking up the development of a local center after all this time? It implies several things, First, that the PWOC thinks that it alone represents the tendency in Philadelphia. If it thought otherwise, there would be a local center there today. The PWOC’s view of itself as representing the tendency in Philadelphia is a profound statement given its mostly white and petty-bourgeois composition. In a self-criticism to the chair of the Local Center Task Force, these comrades state: “A more serious error has been the view that in Philadelphia the OCIC is the PWOC. Although this was never a formulation which was put forward here, in practice this is how the work has been taken up.” This statement misses the mark. The view was not that in Philadelphia the OCIC is the PWOC. The view was that in Philadelphia the anti-revisionist anti-“left” opportunist tendency is the PWOC. The OC was developed to unite the broader tendency forces around the 18 Points and the need to forge a single leading ideological center free from the sectarian party-building efforts of the past. The OCIC centers are conceived of as the strategic form for implementing the process of forging open and movement-wide struggle and debate based on that unity. If the PWOC saw itself as the OCIC in Philadelphia it would be about organizing a context for such struggle and debate based on that unity. The organization as a whole is not even fully consolidated around the 18 Points and the OC process. The self-criticism states that no systematic and centralized process has taken place for all of its cadre to discuss the 18 Points and OC documents. In other words, all of the PWOC do not even have the benefit of organization-wide discussions and debate around OC matters.
Their federationism and racism is further exposed in their own self-criticism: “This led to not building the OCIC and political unity with our most advanced contacts, but rather to a process of recruiting them to our circle. In effect this has led to undercutting and competing with the OCIC rather than complimenting and building the process.” Recruiting advanced contacts to the organization rather than uniting on the political basis of the OC did not mean undercutting and competing with the OCIC. It meant liquidating the OCIC and the tendency as a whole. There’s nothing wrong with recruiting to a cadre organization. But recruiting to a cadre organization is based on the political line and unity of that circle, which can of course include the 18 Points, but is a much higher level of unity than the 18 Points. So what happens to those comrades who do not agree with the PWOC’s party-building line or position on the trade union question? The PWOC’s practice says that disunity with the political line of the PWOC means you are outside of the tendency in Philadelphia. And this is a majority white and petty-bourgeois organization! Their work in auto, health, anti-Rizzo, independent political action, the women’s movement, etc., says to the national minority and white advanced workers and other national minority forces they work with that if you want to take up party-building but can’t unite with the PWOC, you are in essence an opportunist, because you’re outside of the genuine Marxist-Leninist tendency in the party-building movement. This federationist, racist, anti-working, class view means that our movement cannot benefit from the contributions of all the advanced workers and national minorities in Philadelphia who are not members of the PWOC. It also deprives the tendency of the leadership of national minority comrades within the PWOC. This view serves to keep those contributions out of our movement and protect the status quo. (Note: Since the time this paper was drafted, a local center was formed in Philadelphia.)
We have seen how federationism and racism operate in general in the OC. Now let’s look specifically at their impact on local centers. There are about three forms that the federationist approach to building local centers has taken across the country:
(1) The first and most dominant form is that organizations and/or organizational representatives get together to form a planning committee for a local center. The underlying white chauvinist assumption is that these mostly white circles have more clarity on how to forge unity in the tendency locally, than the independent Marxist-Leninists in the locale who are usually national minorities. The guiding principle for determining who should be on the planning committee is who has the most advanced grasp of the OC’s party-building perspective. Choosing organizational representatives as a guiding principle is federationist.
(2) The second form is that the planning committee, be it formed on a federationist basis or not, becomes for all practical purposes a circle in and of itself. The federated planning committee proceeds to struggle over political line differences between the organizations rather than establishing a local center and uniting the broader tendency based on the 18 Principles of Unity. The non-federated planning committee may struggle over one or several of the 18 Points, the OC’s First Year, the Draft Plan, etc., and sometimes the federated planning committee takes up similar struggles. Either way, they take up ideological and theoretical struggle without having united the broader tendency in a form to also participate in these struggles.
(3) The third form is that once a local center is established, comrades make decisions and operate from a federationist standpoint. They go into the local center placing the interests of their circle above the interest of the tendency as a whole rather than as individual Marxist-Leninists coming together based on unity with the 18 Points and the need for a common plan to forge an ideological center. These comrades can view the OC only from the valley of their small circle and not from the mountain of a movement-wide perspective.
We will look at the development of local centers in Detroit and the Twin Cities in order to draw out how these errors are made.
In Detroit, DSC and DMLO chose two representatives each to form a committee to plan a local center taking on the first form of the federationist approach. (DMLO was all-white, DSC had one Black member. The representatives from DSC were white.)
They saw themselves as the people who would plan the forging of the local center despite the fact that there were a number of independent national minority Marxist-Leninists in the city who were a part of the tendency and had a firmer grasp of the correctness of the OC’s party-building perspective than any of the white comrades on the planning committee. But these comrades’ view of themselves was that they were the real Marxist-Leninists with the genuine unity with the OC because they were members of cadre organizations. They thought that their status as organization members meant that they alone had the clarity to forge a local center. This view of themselves necessarily meant a racist view of the national minority comrades in the city.
These comrades’ desire to form the local center along federationist lines led them deeper into the racist and federationist error comrades make in building local centers. They took on the second form of the federationist approach to building local centers. The planning committee became another circle. They spent a year fighting over the differences between the political line of each organization rather than uniting the tendency in the city based on the 18 Principles of Unity and the OC’s party–building perspective. They pointed the finger at each other and said, “Your organization is responsible for holding up this process,” but the truth is that they were both responsible, and what was really holding up the process was their federationism and racism. To show the absurdity of their squabbling, one of the debates was around whether advanced workers should be invited to participate in the local center and each organization’s definition of an advanced worker and a Marxist-Leninist. But the bottom line was that the list of people each circle had compiled was mutually agreeable.
The depth of their racism is further drawn out by the fact that a Black comrade on the NSC warned them of the dangers of their federationist errors and urged them to break with it and get on with the task at hand. But their white chauvinism prevented them from taking his leadership and respecting his political evaluation of the situation. Finally, after a year of squabbling and fighting over political line differences between the organizations and after the prodding and pushing of comrades in the NSC, Madie got involved in the planning committee and broke the circle games. Madie immediately began to share the 18 Principles of Unity and OC documents with other independent national minority comrades in the city. It was through her intervention that a number of independent national minority comrades united around the 18 Principles of Unity and the OC’s party-building perspective and participated in the Point 18 Conference and the National Minority Marxist-Leninist Conference. Following those conferences, a core group was formed composed primarily of independent national minority Marxist-Leninists, two white independents and two white circle members, to plan for the establishment of a local center.
The core group went through a series of three discussions, one on the history of the party-building movement, one on the 18 Principles of Unity and what forms of opportunism they demarcate from, and one on the Draft Plan. Once that process was completed there was general agreement that a temporary steering committee should be elected by the core group to formally establish the local center and provide leadership for about a nine-month period – through the first 18-Point study process. Following that series of discussions the core group came close to falling into the second form of the error of federationism and racism in building local centers that is, the core group almost became another circle. A proposal was made that three more sessions be held before a steering committee was elected in order to gain more clarity as to who should be on the steering committee. The three sessions that were proposed all had to do with ideological struggle and debate on various aspects of the 18 Points. This proposal was generally accepted until a comrade form Seattle pointed out that to delay the founding of the local center any longer would be an error, and that although the core group was not a federated formation it was in danger of becoming another circle. He further pointed out that the danger of the core group becoming another circle would be particularly destructive since it was majority Black, and the rest of the OC membership, i.e., the two circles, was majority white. Most comrades immediately united with the criticism and were prepared to move on to elect a temporary steering committee.
However, two white comrades, Inessa and Janice, were in favor of adopting the proposal despite the political assessment everyone else was united around as to what it would mean. These comrades were in favor of it because of their white chauvinist view of the national minority comrades in the core group. Inessa put forward that she felt that everyone in the group could potentially be in a position to provide leadership to the local center and that the group needed to delve deeper into ideological struggle in order to determine who in the core group was the most consolidated ideologically. While Inessa had a sophisticated veil for her white chauvinism, Janice summed it up very succinctly for both of them. Janice said she didn’t see the leadership in any of the comrades there and needed more time to figure it out. Both of the comrades had extensive knowledge of and/or the benefit of joint work with all the comrades throughout their years of experience with them. What’s even more revealing about their opportunism is that the questions they wanted to go into with one exception were those raised by someone who wasn’t even in the core group. He lived at the house where the core group meetings were being held, and happened to be around one time and raised the questions. But Inessa and Janice wanted to see how consolidated everyone else was on these questions even though none of the core group members had raised the questions and in fact demonstrated the ability to struggle with the comrade who did raise them.
Inessa and Janice wanted to engage in ideological struggle that should only take place in the broader context of the local center and the 18 Point study group. And despite the arguments that this process would result in a mostly national minority circle engaging in ideological struggle cut-off from the rest of the OC members in the city, their white chauvinism and failure to grasp the relationship between federationism and racism led them to insist that the process would not be an error – after all, it’s only three more sessions. Even if it would only be three more sessions, it would have been incorrect to proceed that way, but it was also clear that given the nature of the topics, three more sessions would be insufficient to demonstrate what they were asking for. Inessa’s racist paternalism – “I think everyone here could do a good job.” – and Janice’s overt racism – “I haven’t seen anybody demonstrate their leadership.” –were both based on the same white chauvinist ideology. The national minority comrades were all indistinguishable to them and they saw leadership in none of them. They were demanding that the national minority comrades demonstrate a level of ideological and political consolidation much higher than most of the white comrades in the two circles. It’s the same as when an affirmative action program is instituted at a previously all-white company. Everyone else in a certain job category has a high school diploma and two years of experience. A national minority person applies for the job who has 15 years of experience and three masters degrees, and the personnel director says, “Yes, but is he/she qualified?” And Inessa and Janice were willing to sacrifice the process of uniting the broader tendency by setting up a third, mostly black, tendency circle so that the national minority comrades could “prove” themselves to the white comrades.
Despite Inessa’s and Janice’s protests, a steering committee was elected from the core group and a local center was established. The white comrades from the two circles came in and immediately proceeded to take the third form of the error of federationism and racism in building local centers. They came in operating from the point of view of their membership in the circles and the political differences between the two circles, rather than the standpoint of the party spirit. The steering committee planned an organizational meeting for local center comrades to develop a division of labor. At the meeting the SC proposed that people volunteer for various committees – interview 18 Points study, child care, etc. A few comrades at the meeting criticized the SC for not appointing people to work on the committees based on their knowledge of people’s strengths and weaknesses. One of the black members of the SC pointed out that the history of federationism and racism in the city prevented him from having the fullest perspective on the individual comrades. He had never been a member of either circle. This was only the second local center meeting and he had not had the opportunity to get to know them as individual Marxist-Leninists. He only had knowledge of a very few of them through joint mass work in the past. These comrades were demanding that the mostly black SC appoint people to the committees even though the circles’ federationism and racism had historically prevented the black comrades from knowing the ideological strengths and weaknesses of the individual members. They came into the local center and placed demands on the SC from a federationist standpoint.
In addition, for the first few meetings the white comrades generally had not spoken up, and not struggled around the presentations made by the SC. This was the first time all members from each circle had sat together in the same room since the split. Rather than expressing their views on the SC’s presentation on the OC’s party-building perspective, the purpose of local centers, etc., and struggling in an open, tendency-wide form, they kept quiet and protected their individual circles. They were again taking on the third form of the federationist approach to local centers. They came into the local center operating from the standpoint of their own circles and liquidating the party spirit.
The SC knew that some of the comrades had differences with the presentations and posed them as sharply as possible in order to spark lively discussion. But the white comrades saw it as more important to protect their circles rather than struggle as individuals and struggle for the correct perspective on the tasks before them. As one Black comrade pointed out, their silence in the meetings represented the same old federationist and racist errors they’d made in the past. He had no way of knowing which of the white comrades he had unity with and could struggle for unity with others because they were shutting him out of ideological struggle by remaining silent. Their federationism and racism held back the ideological struggle and their refusal to struggle with the mostly Black SC around the presentations held back the process of building multi-national unity.
The Twin Cities Local Center also developed along federationist lines. They went through the 3 forms of the error in fairly rapid succession, and at points took on more than one form simultaneously. They formed the local center planning committee along federationist lines. The planning committee (and subsequently the local center) became a circle struggling and fighting over political line differences between the circles therein rather than opening up the process to the broader tendency. Initially there was a group of representatives from the circles meeting to plan the forging of a local center. After three meetings, the entire OC membership (i.e., all circle members) met as a whole, then a group of circle representatives started meeting as a planning group, with the entire membership meeting intermittently. Regardless of the form, the essence was the same. Four organizations got together – one with a single national minority member and another with two national minority members. Eventually one of the organizations split in two, and made it a group of five circles. Rather than working toward the formation of the local center on the basis of the 18 Points and the OC process, these circles got right down to the business of struggling over political, line differences between each of them. All this, of course, under the guise of consolidating around the OC process. The fact of the matter was that these comrades came together to engage in the ideological, political and theoretical struggle based on differences between the circles and outside of the context of the broader tendency and its level of unity. They formed the Planning Committee based on organizational representation rather than those most capable of assuming the tasks. Then the Planning Committee and the local center became a sixth circle, an arena for conducting struggle cut off from the rest of the tendency.
The Group of Five Circles, also known as the Twin Cities Local Center, contained cadre who all had contact with a number of advanced national minority forces and national minority Marxist-Leninists in the area. They had been working with them at the workplace, through solidarity work, and/or had known them for years when they worked together in the Civil Rights and other movements. But the view of the comrades at the time was that the circles had to settle their differences before doing any kind of out-reach because independents would be too confused by the quibblings between the circles taking place in the local center. And further, that if they were going to do any outreach to national minorities, they would have to be especially careful to first resolve their differences because national minorities have a low tolerance for confusion and would become demoralized and leave the OC. In other words, national minorities are incapable of providing political leadership and cutting through the bullshit in order to move the process forward. They are too ignorant to come in and understand exactly what’s going on and in fact set the correct process in motion. After all, mass work is their only real concern. They have no genuine commitment to party-building. These comrades’ white chauvinism led them to think that the national minority comrades would be lost in the “high level” of political struggle in the local center and get frustrated and leave – that’s why most of them drop out of school, too.
All this struggle was taking place, too, in the virtual absence of the few national minority comrades who were members of some of the circles. In the case of one circle, they told comrades they had two black women members. (None of the comrades from the other circles had ever seen or heard of these comrades.) The comrades from this organization told everyone that all their women cadre – two black and two white – were not interested in the OC and were only interested in mass work. The two white women did attend one meeting. But the Black comrades never attended a meeting. The circle comrades told everyone that the Black comrades may be interested in meeting with some of them around areas of mass work, but certainly not OC matters. Even if these comrades’ view was that the all-sided tasks of party-building are unimportant, they were excluded from a process where struggle could take place around that perspective. If the Black comrades prevented them from struggling with them against an erroneous view, and they did not think the Black comrades had anything to contribute to the ideological struggle, anyway. If they viewed these comrades as their equals, they would have either united with their perspective and only engaged in mass work, too, or they would have struggled for their participation in the local center.
In summary, the three forms of the federationist approach to building local centers that have been manifested thus far in the OC are: (1) the planning committee is formed by organizations sending representatives to that body rather than forming it based on those comrades with the most clarity on the task – be they members of cadre organization or not; (2) the planning committee becomes a circle in itself debating political lines of organizations or questions before the OC, rather than moving ahead to establish a local center; (3) members of cadre organizations come into the local center placing the interests of their small circles above those of the broader tendency. The examples from the Detroit and Twin Cities Local Centers show the inherent racism in the federationist approach. Confining the ideological struggle to small circles saps the life out of any genuine attempt to build multi-national unity in the party-building movement.
While the comrades from the Twin Cities and Detroit made errors bearing out the interrelationship between federationism and racism, racist errors have been made in the process of building local centers that are not directly bound up with federationism. The comrades from the Twin Cities made such an error. When the local center finally did develop a plan for outreach, the comrades drew a list of people to join the 18 Point study. This was a list of about 80-100 people who ranged from progressive forces to Marxist-Leninists. Of that list of 80-100 people, three or four were national minorities. The bulk of the more politically advanced comrades with whom the white comrades work in the mass movement were excluded from the list. Why were they excluded? Because mildly progressive white people are more easy to unite with around the 18 Points than any national minority Marxist-Leninist or advanced worker, right? National minority Marxist-Leninists and advanced workers who are leading proletarian and revolutionary struggles have too many “problems” to unite with the 18 Principles of Unity right now. Besides this is for whites only. National minorities have no place here. This is the view that their practice reflected.
Another example of racist errors in building local centers was manifested in the Baltimore/D.C. Local Center and in Atlanta. In both cases the errors were rooted in comrades’ racist parternalism. Comrades in both locales allowed Black comrades who had fundamental disunity with the OC to disrupt the process. Their racist paternalism led them to violate the unity of the OC in order to allow these comrades to participate in the process. They were more concerned with a good head count than the political unity of the OC, and allowed comrades who held opportunist positions to hold things back. The view was any Black comrade rather than only those who united with the 18 Principles of Unity. The underlying assumption behind it was that there are no genuine Marxist-Leninists who are national minorities. This assumption led the white comrades to expect less from national minorities, lower the level of unity, in order to have a good head count in the OC process. The effect was that their white chauvinism served to obstruct the building of multinational unity.