The recent split in the Milwaukee Alliance is the result of a long struggle against empiricism, This struggle continued in one form or another throughout the history of both the MA, and its predecessor the Wisconsin Alliance, This is a history that spans the last ten years of our movement, and parallels many of the struggles that were also raging nationally in more generalized forms.
We feel that our leaving the MA and forming the Milw. Socialist Union can only he seen in its full context as the culmination of this history; and not as an event limited to the confines of the immediate struggles of the last 6 months.
The WA was formed in Madison in 1968 as an effort to bring the student anti-war movement off campus and into the working class. The organization was seen as the embryonic form of a worker-student-farmer alliance for socialism. Although at the time of its formation the WA did not have a specific unity on socialism.
As an attempt at a united front of all class forces opposed to capitalism, the early WA clearly set itself apart from the dogmatic and sectarian practices that were becoming dominant in the new communist movement of the early 1970’s. However, within this united front vision of the WA were two tragic flaws; 1) the failure to recognize the leading role of M-Lism at all stages in the revolutionary process; and 2) the failure to recognize the leading role of the working class within the multi-class alliance. These flaws gave the WA its basic character as an organization that spawned scores upon scores of organizing projects, but could never move beyond its empiricism and ideological divergency.
Internally the WA was wrought with all the weaknesses associated with the empiricism in our movements informal leadership, racism, poor class base, localism, reformism, little development of cadre, unsystematic and unscientific practice, and liberalism in internal struggle. Our sole redeeming strengths were that we continually struggled to place ourselves in close proximity to the working class and that we refused to give up.
The Milwaukee Chapter of the WA was formed in the fall of 1973 after an earlier unsuccessful attempt. The chapter was based on the coming together of a wide variety of new leftists and carried the same low level of unity, empiricism, and ideological divergence as the state-wide WA.
In the spring of 1974, after a year of extensive but confused and undirected work the Milw. chapter initiated the first serious campaign to deepen the level of unity and systematize the practice of the organization. The chapter commissioned an Organizational Task Force to study the situation and report back with recommendations. The specific work of this particular body is not of importance, however, it sparked a consistent struggle in the WA to achieve greater self-definition and direction. This struggle lasted for the next year and a half. It led to the formation of a state-wide Strategy Commission; and finally culminated in Feb. 1976 when the WA adopted democratic-centralism and consolidated as an organization of 5 chapters and over 100 members.
Through the course of this struggle the WA took most of the key steps of its political development:
It made important political breaks with bourgeois reformism, social democracy, and new leftism which took the form of explicit anti-Leninism, Secondly, it developed and adopted the concept of ’base organizing’. According to this method activists would place themselves in the workplaces, schools, and communities of the working class (no priority was made between the three). From these bases they would work to develop the people that they had daily contact with through organizing around whatever issues were most pressing to that base. This method of work contrasted sharply against the former work of the WA which consisted of strike support, mass campaigns, and political events.
Base organizing was an important step toward more solid ties with the working class and more emphasis on cadre development. However, it also played into some of the more backward tendencies of empiricism, economism, and tailism. In theory, the goal in organizing was still that of winning over people to socialism. But given the lack of political direction this always seemed very far down the road. Instead, the goal of organizing people around the issues that directly effect them, led many cadre to downplay broader political issues, and forever postpone the task of developing, a political class consciousness in their bases.
Thirdly, the Mass Socialist Organization (MSO) concept was popularized. This theory was based on 2 central points: l) due to the low level of the mass movement and the relative inexperience and theoretical underdevelopment of the new communist movement, it was not possible for organizations to unify on M-Lism at this time. Any attempt to forge this level of unity organizationally would of necessity lead to dogmatism and sectarianism. The task of developing M-Lism, and M-Lists, was left as an individual one. 2) the primary task of revolutionaries was the building of a mass movement for socialism in the working class as a precondition to the formation of a new communist party.
The WA never formally adopted the MSO, but the vast majority of its membership subscribed to it, and its leadership directed the organization according to the MSO concepts.
Although it was not openly put forward as a party-building strategy, the MSO was very clearly a party-building strategy. It was the most exaggerated form of the ’practice is primary’ approach to party-building.
As a general organizational form there is nothing particularly incorrect about a mass organization with unity on socialism. What was incorrect about the WA’s particular formulation was that: 1) it was essentially a party-building strategy which, instead of placing party-building as our central task, consciously deferred any organized advance toward party-building until the mass movement for socialism was more fully established; and 2) it did not recognize the need to develop a core of activists united on M-Lism to give leadership to the mass socialist organization.
Along with, and in support of these errors, was the concept of deferred questions. According to this concept questions should only serve as a basis of unity if they are essential to move forward the mass practice of the organization, otherwise they should be deferred. Clearly, in general, there is nothing wrong with this concept – it is, in fact, fundamental to the growth and development of any revolutionary political organization. However, the actual role that this concept played in the WA was to postpone any struggle for unity that did not flow from our daily mass practice in the most direct manner. Therefore, we could never achieve a truly revolutionary political direction in our work.
So, with the postponement of party-building, the lack of unity on M-Lism, and the deferring of all struggle for unity that did not directly arise from our mass work, the WA had consciously adopted an empiricist approach.
The MSO was initially developed as a response to the dogmatism and sectarianism that was dominant in the new communist movement. It placed the major cause for these ’left’-opportunist practices in premature consolidation: premature unity on M-Lism, premature struggle over political line, and premature party formation. Our desire to demarcate ourselves from dogmatism and sectarianism was good – our method for doing this was to postpone all the questions that the dogmatists were raising – this was not good.
Despite our intentions to defeat ultra-leftism, the MSO was a consolidation of empiricism, a roadblock to the development of our organization and its members, and a harrier to the defeating of ultra-leftism.
As the WA attempted to implement its new unity on democratic-centralism it became apparent that the organization did not have the political and ideological unity necessary to direct a state-wide organization in a democratic-centralist manner. The state leadership was unable to give a clear political direction to the organization.
However, during this period two key developments occurred in the Milw. chapter, One was the development of a labor organizing strategy based on workplace concentrations instead of strike support; and the second was in seriously taking up the struggle against racism through work around Milw.’s school desegregation plan.
The struggles to develop these two fronts of work brought significant internal changes among the comrades in the Milw. Chapter:
1) a heightened unity on a general political line for our work, with significant breaks made against the anti-working class line of the Inter-communal Survival Center[1] in the desegregation work and against individualism in our labor work.
2) we consolidated a leadership core and defeated strong anti-leadership tendencies.
3) we placed ourselves in a favorable material position from which to address the class and racial transformation of our organization, and therefore, really understood the depth of its importance for the first time.
With these advances in Milw. it became increasingly clear to the Milw. chapter leadership that the WA, as a whole, lacked both the unity and the leadership to make any class or racial transformation. Some of us began to see the state-wide organization as holding us back, and we began a struggle to dissolve the WA.
In Oct. 1976 the Milw. chapter, by a very close vote, decided to leave the WA and establish the Milw. Alliance as an independent organization. Two months later there was full unity in Milw. that the move to leave the WA was a correct one. The WA receded back into Madison, dwindled rapidly, and then ceased to exist.
The leadership of the new Milw. Alliance realized that, as an organization, the MA didn’t really have much deeper unity than the old WA. We had no formal unity statement of political principles, we had only the most general definition of the type of organization we were or were striving to build; and aside from initial strategies around labor concentration and the desegregation of the schools, we had no unity on political line.
However, due to the extremely strenuous internal struggles of the last year, We decided to spend the next 6 months (Oct. 76-May 77) deepening our mass work and healing an organization that was still wrought with internal division and personal distrust.
In general, our mass work advanced during the next 6 months due to the slow emergence of a general line on trade union work and the correctness of our line on the integration struggle. The one key struggle that did arise in this period was over the class stand of certain comrades. The organization used this struggle effectively to defeat class-baiting and a subjective assessment of cadre, and reach a significant unity that one’s political line is key in determining a comrade’s class stand.
In May of 1977 the MA decided that sufficient trust had been rebuilt to address the question of our unity. By this point the struggle for unity and clarity in the organization was consciously seen by the leadership as a struggle against empiricism. The MA decided to take up a study of the Organizational Question as this seemed most burning; and was the clearest path to take in attacking empiricism.
The most conscious leadership in the MA (leadership that was forged through the struggles of the last 3 years against what we now understood as empiricism) had 2 main goals in the Organizational Question study. One, was leading the MA to unity on M-Lism with party-building as our central task. Two, was defeating the MSO concept. We saw these points as the cutting edge with empiricism in the MA.
Through a course of extensive study and struggle that lasted through the summer and fall of 1977 these two goals were successfully achieved. In Dec. of 1977 the MA voted adoption of the R&R Paper (Rectify the Communist Movement, Re-establish the Communist Party). This paper put forward M-Lism as the unity of the organization, party-building as our central task, and it contained a thorough critique of the MSO.
However, the MA’s R&R Paper also carried some key flaws that would form the basis of the up-coming split.
I. The development of party-building thinking in the MA:
In order to understand how the MA could have struggled for so long to reach the unity of the R&R Paper in Dec., only to find the organization torn by disunity 2 months later in Feb., it is useful to briefly retrace the recent history of the development of party-building thinking in the MA.
The most fundamental factor in all of the MA’s party-building thinking had been increased national contact.
The first influence came from the Philadelphia Worker’s Organizing Committee (PWOC), the Socialist Union of Baltimore (SUB), some comrades from Worcester, Mass., and the Proletarian Unity League (PUL). The influence of the PWOC was the earliest, and at first it centered solely around our labor work. As we took up what we then called the ’organizational question’ (it is significant that we did not term it the party-building question at that time) some cadre looked closely to the PWOC based on respect for their labor work and their concept of ’fusion’ in party-building. The visit of some comrades from Worcester, and a comrade from the SUB deepened our understanding of, and closeness of some comrades to, the PWOC perspective on party-building (both the Worcester comrades and the SUB’s thinking was on the same lines as the PWOC’s).
At this point, which roughly coincided with the beginning of the MA’s Organizational Question Study, some leading cadre had already been won over to the view that, as M-Lists, party-building was our central task. However, the majority of the MA (and many comrades in leadership) were still wary of agreeing to such a formulation. They had serious doubts about the MSO concept, but were afraid of repeating the sectarian errors of the RCP, CP-ML, and all.
The clincher, the influence that thoroughly won over all leading cadre to seeing party-building as our central task was the PUL’s 2, 3, Many Parties of a New Type?. This extensive treatment of the various errors of previous ’left’ party-building attempts eroded the doubts of any hesitating cadre. It was essentially on this basis that the MA etched out its party-building unity (the R&R Paper).
Due to their extensive treatment of party-building, and the manner in which their proposed party-building strategy could accommodate the empiricism in the MA (by their analysis of the error of premature consolidation on political line which deferred the struggle for unity over political line to organizational unity) the PUL had great influence on the development of the MA strategy for party-building. The MA’s actual strategy (as container, in the R&R Paper) was a strange marriage of the views of the PUL and of the PWOC.
What then happened between early Dec. of 1977 (when the final meeting on party-building was held prior to the drafting of the paper) and the MA’s serious state of disunity 2 months later was the sudden multiplication of national contact. This vastly increased national contact caused some key re-thinking among some comrades; and the contact came about so quickly that is was impossible to disseminate its entire substance through out the organization.
Primarily this increase in contact came about as the MA identified itself with that sector of the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist communist movement that loosely referred to itself as the ’trend’. The MA suddenly began receiving scores of documents on party-building expressing the views of organizations through out the country, we attended conferences on the subject, visits to Milw. by comrades from other organizations increased drastically, and major left publications such as the Guardian and The Organizer began to cover the subject of party-building in greater depth. And all of this occurred within a 6 week period in Milw. Processes that had been maturing for the last year nationally became concentrated into a 6 week period in Milw. Given much greater unity and sounder methods of struggle, to absorb so much so quickly would still have been a great strain on our organization.
The re-thinking that this contact prompted had 2 effects in the MA; First it led some leading cadre to conclude that the unity of the R&R Paper was a major error in formulation on party-building strategy. This caused the emergence of a 2 line struggle within the MA’s leadership. Many of the differences in the struggle over party-building had fallen along the same lines in previous months, but only as the MA entered into the national anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend did those differences take on the character of a 2 line struggle. There was no longer a middle position, the differences had coalesced – there were 2 clear lines before the organization and it had to chose one or the other.
Secondly, it made many questions clearer to the membership of the MA. The whole subject of party-building strategy had been very unfamiliar at the time of the adoption of the R&R Paper, Many comrades were unsure of, or didn’t fully grasp, the political implications of the party-building strategy laid out in the R&R Paper, They were confused by the struggles among leadership and hesitant to take sides. Entering into the national debate brought a more thorough understanding of different party-building concepts, and a broader section of the MA was able to line-up decisively in the internal struggle.
We also think that it is indicative of the effect of the national contact that the lines within the MA roughly broke down along the lines of struggle within the national anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend – The PWOC and the Guardian on one end of the spectrum; with the PUL, and others such as the Boston Party-Building Organization on the other end.
II. The split in the MA was a split over political lines:
However, in pointing out the key role that increased national contact played we do not mean to detract from the fact that the split in the MA was a split over 2 political lines within the organization. The national contact merely served to sharpen and clarify differences that had long existed internally to the MA. This may seem like a very elementary point to some; yet the MA does not agree with this analysis. Rather they see the split as caused directly by the national contact – as a difference over allegiance to the MA as opposed to some other organization or national grouping.
In the letter which the MA recently sent out to give their view of the split, they charge the minority with attempting “to get the MA’s political line totally in accord with the political unity of the Committee of 5, particularly PWOC’s” (pg. 3 of the MA’s May 10 Letter). And instead of seeing the attempt to change the MA’s line as a political difference where the minority had greater unity with the PWOC, they feel that “the minority’s desire to change our formulation to PWOC’s represents a flunkyist, rather than a political, attitude to the trend” (pg. 4 of MA’s May 10 Letter). The MA claims that this “flunkyist” attitude “undermines our (the MA’s) internal political integrity” (pg. 4 of Letter). In summarizing the reasons for the minority’s leaving, the MA states “We think that their arguing for the paper (R&R) to be re-opened represents (1) a lack of understanding of democratic-centralism and (2) an idealization of PWOC”(pg. 4 of Letter).
The MA sees the split as caused by an incorrect methodology on the part of the minority. We are charged with violating the internal integrity of the MA by holding a ’false allegiance’ to the PWOC based on subjective desire rather than on a political unity.[2]
As we will adequately demonstrate when we take up the political lines of the split – the different assessments of the PWOC and the ’trend’ are the direct result of a high degree of unity with the PWOC vs. sharp disunity, This is a difference in political line, not in methodology of assessing the PWOC or the ’trend’. For example, consider the leadership of the majority faction’s view of the ’trend’:
In spite of the strengths in general orientation and base-organizing displayed by trend members, the party-building steps taken by the trend so far have serious weaknesses that raise the dangerous possibility that this group will fall into the deviations it was created to combat: sectarianism, dogmatism, and premature consolidation. (Unity-Struggle-Unity in the MA, pg. 10 – this paper was written to represent the views of the majority faction in the internal struggle in the MA.)
How we see the ’trend’ versus the way in which the MA views it is a difference in political line (most particularly party-building line), it is not a difference in methodology. The MA’s views of the ’trend’ or the PWOC are different from ours because they have political differences with us, not because the MA has a non-flunkyist attitude to these groups.
The charge that the minority’s leaving is sectarian and shows a low understanding of democratic-centralism is equally a difference over political line, The MA continues to see the unity of local M-L organizations as primary over the struggle for unity nationally among M-Lists, In their letter they charge us with “placing more importance on unity with other M-Ls nationally than keeping local organizations together to proceed on the theoretical and practical tasks of fusion.” (pg. 9 of Letter)
To this charge we plead guilty! We feel that the local unity of M-Ls should begin to be subordinated to national unity. Concretely, we see the struggle to create a leading, national ideological center as the most immediate party-building task before the M-L movement at this time. The MA feels that local unity is still primary, and that moves to subordinate it to national unity are premature. They feel this way because they see the immediate focus of M-Lists being primarily on their local, mass practice.
These views of the MA are merely a continuation of their (and until recently also our) historic empiricism and localism. The real core of empiricism and localism; and the real issue behind the national vs. local debate is the downplaying of the importance of political line. It is our view that only by putting national unity primary can a correct political line be developed. And only as we do this will we be able to defeat both dogmatism and empiricism, and move forward our local mass practice. In particular, we think that the position that the present theoretical tasks Of the communist can be achieved primarily by local organizations is a great impediment to theoretical work and party-building.
But once again, these differences are differences of political line (particularly party-building line), and not differences in understanding of democratic-centralism in a local organization.
III. The political lines of the split:
The split in the MA resulted from severe differences over party-building line. These differences revolved around 3 questions: 1) the relation of the concept of ’fusion’ to the struggle for unity among M-Lists on political line; 2) the root of “left”-opportunism in recent party-building attempts; and 3) whether or not the question of who is the main enemy to the world’s people today should be a line of demarcation in the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist party-building trend.
1) the relation of ’fusion’ to the struggle for unity on political line:
We feel that the basic formulation on this relationship that is contained in the MA’s R&R Paper is incorrect. Put briefly, the R&R unity states that: the two processes (one of reaching unity among M-Lists, the other of fusing M-Lism with the working class) share a relationship of equality. The question of which is primary and which is secondary shifts during the process of party-building. The main outlines of this shift are that now fusion is primary, for a stage closely prior to party formation M-L unity becomes primary, and then again after the party is formed fusion becomes the primary task.
The correct aspect of this formulation is that it puts the struggle for M-L unity within the context of a certain level of fusion. However, the formulation is basically in error in that it contains incorrect and confused Views of both M-L unity and fusion. These views flow from a historic misunderstanding of the relation between theory and practice in the WA/MA that takes the form of empirical practice and abstract theory. It is not that we did not recognize the importance of theory in an abstract sense. In fact we held a very high abstract sense of theory. Where we erred was in always subordinating theory and our theoretical tasks too far below our practice.
By the MA’s placing of the struggle for M-L unity on a plane with fusion, and postponing the crux of the struggle to a later stage, they are in effect, seeing our progress on fusion occurring without ’too’ much more struggle for unity among M-Lists in the present period. This essentially reduces fusion to a level of practice, and it separates our present theoretical tasks from the struggle for unity. The result – empirical practice and abstract theoretical work.
The degree to which the MA’s “2 stage theory” is rooted in empiricism is evidenced in the following quote from Unity-Struggle-Unity (the paper written to represent the views of the majority faction):
In accordance with the organization’s unity on party-building we should see ourselves in a ’fusion is primary/M-L unity is secondary period’ for the next year. In other words we would be in an external period, seeing mass work (i.e., fusion as defined by the four points in R&R) as being our principle work, and internal struggle, study and debate and relation to the national communist movement as secondary. (pg. 6)
Here we have fusion used as a definition of mass work; and then this mass work is placed ahead of any struggle or study in the communist movement. We feel that to persist in these views of M-L unity and fusion will only be perpetuating the MA’s past empiricism on into their party-building work. And this will eventually block their progress and contribution to the re-establishment of a new communist party.
Instead, our formulation is that fusion is the essence of party-building – that is, that the real core of party-building is the relationship between M-Lism and the class struggle of the proletariat; just as the party itself is the organizational embodiment of this relationship. In summarizing the main principle by which Lenin formed the foundation of the Bolshevik Party, comrade Stalin states: “The Party is an embodiment of the connection of the vanguard of the working class with the working class millions”. (History of the CPSU, pg.48)
We feel that this is an important formulation in distinguishing our view of party-building from that of the “left”-opportunists. The “left”-opportunists essentially viewed the creation of the party as something that occurs largely outside of the working class, and then is brought to the working class. Therefore, what was seen as necessary to unite M-Lists was taken for what was necessary to form the party.
Regardless of the centrality of the struggle among M-Lists for unity, this unity cannot take on a life of its own. This is a great danger given our present relative isolation from the proletariat and the petty-bourgeois background of many present M-lists. We must always be on guard that our struggles for unity serve the forging of a vanguard relation between M-Lism and the working class struggle. A unity among M-Lists that does not advance this relation would be of no use to us. Or, in other words, M-L unity must :be based on a correct political line. Just mere agreement on line, regardless of the degree to which that line is a correct application of M-Lism (and therefore is successful in leading the class struggle) is obviously dangerous. This is why we say that fusion is the essence of party-building.
We feel that it is crucial to have this relationship straight in our thinking if our party-building is not to fall into a new brand of the same old errors - either our particular errors of empiricism, or the errors of dogmatism that are more dominant in our movement as a whole. It is true that the R&R Paper put M-L unity in the context of a certain level of fusion., But it did this only creating another stage where M-L unity would be raised above fusion, Thus we were left with an empirical, view of our present tasks, followed by a period characterized by a dogmatic view of M-L unity.
We will not guard against dogmatism by saying that the struggle for M-L unity is secondary now and primary later. To defeat dogmatism, and “left”-opportunism in general, we must start with a general view of party-building that sees the relation between M-Lism and the working class movement (or fusion) as the essence of party-building.
However, once this relationship is understood we must go further to see the struggle for unity among M-Lists on political line as the motive force of fusion. For the formulation that ’fusion is the essence’ by itself is ’too true’. It is really very basic – it is like saying that M-Lism is a revolutionary ideology. The formulation alone therefore gives us little real direction beyond the initial framework from which to view party-building. So we are saying that fusion is the essence of party-building, but that the main task in fusion, and its motive force, is the theoretical struggle among M-Lists for unity on political line.
What do we mean then by ’the theoretical struggle for unity on political line’? And why do we see this struggle among M-List as the ’main task and motive force of fusion’?
First, by theoretical struggle over line we mean that the struggle is of a theoretical nature, it involves the ideological aspect of our party-building line, yet it is centered in the debate over political line. Or, in other words, the struggle is really over the application of ideology because in strictly ideological terms there is unity among M-Lists, Who, for example, would oppose the concept that the vanguard party is the party of the proletariat? Yet, when we talk about how this concept is applied to the building of such a party, we find that there are many so-called M-Lists who do not in fact hold that ideological concept. The same is true when we speak of dogmatism. We are sure that there is total unity among M-Lists that dogmatism is a bad thing and must be opposed. Yet, when we, talk about questions of political line we find that many M-Lists do not, in fact, oppose dogmatism, but instead practice it. Theoretical struggle that is divorced from the struggle for unity over political line is a struggle for scholars, not for revolutionaries.
Secondly, we see the struggle for unity on line as the motive force of fusion because our relationship as M-Lists to the working class is built upon our political line, It is by our political line that we win over the advanced worker to M~lism, not by the basic principles of M-Lism. It is by our political line that we can give leadership to the daily twists and turns of the class struggle. It is by political line that we assess cadre and develop them. It is by struggle and testing of political line that we unite with other M-Lists, It is around a political line that a party congress will be called.
Prior to our leaving the MA we felt that the majority’s factions views of both M-L, unity and fusion that are contained in the ’2 stage theory’ had already given birth to the following errors:
1) an empirical view of fusion that virtually equates it with practice. For example, we had a leading comrade talking about the ’non-fusion related theoretical tasks’. And in written documents we repeatedly saw the term “mass/fusion tasks”.
2) a postponement of the struggle for M-L unity that led to an inability to establish where we stood in relation to other M-L organizations and individuals, especially those within the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend, the majority’s views were that differences among M-Lists nationally were not as important as those within own organization around our specific local practice, because those ’national’ questions do not directly effect our local practice. Objectively, such a view puts our local situation and practice above that of M-Lists nationally. And by attempting to defer those ’allegedly national’ questions we never lay the basis to move out of exclusively local practice.
This view has, since our departure, solidified in the MA’s thinking:
“None of the political disagreements the minority left because of had come up in the actual practice of the MA, Furthermore, there was not even immediate ramifications in our participation in the OC [Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center] although surely that could develop. The question really was limited to questions of directions in the communist movement, that is whether we’d have an all-unity or unity-struggle-unity approach to the “trend.” There had been no objective crossroads in our work where clearly two different political lines would cause us to proceed differently.” (pg. 8 of MA’s Letter) They see our differences only as differences over directions in the communist movement. We disagree that these differences would not have had immediate ramifications for our participation in the OC, But, even more fundamentally, such a view of the relation between the communist movement and the mass movement is sheer tailism.
3) an unclarity as to what is the cutting edge of the struggle for M-L unity, Some comrades desired to divide the ideological and political by claiming that the struggle for unity now is on the ideological and not the political level. For example, arguments were put forward that dogmatism would be defeated best by the ’trend’ studying dialectical and historical materialism; and not by excluding those who say the USSR is the main enemy to the world’s people.
We agree that the struggle is of an ideological nature, however, we feel that the cutting edge is in the application of ideology through political line. Otherwise, the struggle remains too abstract, degenerates into a battle of quotations from the classics. It is of little help in enabling us to get our bearings in the class struggle. It is for this reason that we see the ’trend’s’ debate over political line as a deepening of ideology and not a downplaying of it.
4) a lack of any fundamental unity around international line, and therefore no basis for us to proceed on anti-imperialist work from a solid perspective of proletarian internationalism.
In summary then, the formulation of the Milw. Socialist Union is that fusion is the essence of party-building. That fusion has two aspects:
1) the theoretical/ideological struggle for unity among M-Lists over questions of political line; and 2) the integration of M-Lism into the class struggle of the proletariat. And that of these two aspects the first is not only primary, but it is what determines our success or failure in the second.
2) the root of “left”-opportunism in recent party-building attempts:
Here we are asking ourselves the question: How do you sum-up all of these mistaken party-building attempts that have gone down in the last ten years? And therefore, how do you intend to avoid falling into the same mistakes of these previous attempts?
Obviously these are crucial questions to any party-building attempt. It is around answers to these questions that a party-building strategy is developed. Our party-building work therefore, cannot really begin until we have a correct and thorough position on these questions.
We do not pretend to have such a thorough position. We hold an initial hypothesis that dogmatism is the main error ” however, we would need far more study in order to understand thoroughly the role that dogmatism has played and therefore be able to put it forward as ’our position’ on the question.
We do feel though, that there is an even more basic task before us in regard to this question – and that is the defeating of the ’premature consolidation position’. Many are putting forward that they see the main error as one of premature consolidation around political line. We feel that this is the most immediate perspective to be defeated because this perspective liquidates the struggle over political line. Whether the error is mainly one of dogmatism, or semi-anarchism as others would argue, we hold that the error will be rectified by opposing the dogmatist or anarchist lines with correct proletarian lines. Unity is reached through struggle over political line, and a line is proven incorrect in its struggle against a correct line.
We do not see the error in the ultra-lefts struggle over political line as an error of moving too quickly, but rather one of the political lines which they moved to. It is not that they sought to consolidate forces too soon, but that they developed the political lines around which the forces were consolidated in an unrigorous and unscientific manner.
The MA’s R&R Paper is very careful to take no position on this question. Formally, the MA doesn’t have a position on the root of “left”- opportunism. But the MA does have a very clear informal position; and that position is that premature consolidation is the root error. This is an integral part of their ’2 stage’ party-building line which downplays the centrality of the struggle for unity on political line.
This perspective on premature consolidation comes out clearly in the Unity-Struggle-Unity paper:
Assuming that the main danger to the M-L movement has been thoroughly analyzed and isolated, a period in which the main danger is from the left and the M-L forces are fragmented calls for a carefully anti-sectarian approach and the careful guarding against premature consolidation. When splitting, factional activity, and divisiveness have paralyzed the M-L forces, consolidating around questions that should be deferred [here specifically, the MA is talking about questions like: who is the main enemy to the world’s people today?] repeats the errors of the “left”-opportunists. Instead, honest forces should be unified around a democratic and wide-ranging discussion of these questions. We have not established the means to centralize and organize a coherent national debate on major questions, let alone carry out that debate long and well enough for groups to understand the essence of different positions. (pg. 13, Unity-Struggle-Unity)
Here they are calling for a unity, not on political line, but “around a democratic and wide ranging discussion of these questions”. Yet on what basis is one to decide what forces should be drawn into this discussion. If our lines of demarcation are solely around the basic principles of M-Lism if we think that premature consolidation on political line has been the main error in the party-building movement; should we then strive to include the RCP, the new Revolutionary Worker’s Hq’s., the CP-ML, and all into this one wide ranging discussion? And if not, on what basis do we exclude certain groups? What else is this but calling for organizational unity on discussion without prior political unity on content?
Then later, also in Unity-Struggle-Unity, we read: “If we successfully guard against premature consolidation, fusion merges into and becomes the bridge by which we can advance to the period when the struggle for consolidated M-L unity is primary.” (pg. 15) The MA majority’s line, in a nutshell, was that ’fusion’ (defined generally to mean integration with the working class) advances must and can be made by present localized M-L organizations, that this will lay the basis for unity on political line, and that premature consolidation is the main thing that is retarding this integration.
And when it comes down to concrete questions, such as relations to a grouping such as the ’trend’, the line of premature consolidation was consistently upheld. The majority faction felt that the internal struggle in the MA resulted from weaknesses in the minority’s perspective that also dominated the ’trend’:
In our view, the consistent failure to internalize and uphold our unity as expressed in the R&R Paper, the wish to immediately re-open the MS R & T paper, and the wish to immediately take up Pt. 18 [the question of the main enemy in the world], in order to rapidly unify around it, reflects a perspective that combines dogmatic and sectarian errors in political line that now dominate the trend, with sectarian violations of democratic centralism. (pg. 22) Unity-Struggle-Unity)
We view this position as a position that essentially hamstrings our progress towards the creation of a vanguard party, and our integration into the class struggle. Given our previous arguments on the importance of struggle over political line, it is evident that such a view would only serve to downplay and postpone the struggle for unity on line. Instead of seeing our task as the struggle for unity on political line by defeating the “left”-opportunist lines, such a view sees our main task as avoiding ’too’ much struggle over line, especially that struggle which is aimed at consolidating forces or unifying them. It therefore reduces the struggle for unity among M-lists to almost an academic debate.
And of course, without consolidation over political line, there can be no consolidation on organizational form that will really mean anything, that will have lasting significance. So our movement is virtually restrained to local practice and struggle until some local group can make the necessary breakthrough to conclusively prove that consolidation around a particular line is not premature. Comrades, we fear that we would be waiting for a very long time.
3) whether or not the question of who is the main enemy of the world’s people today should be a line of demarcation in the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist party-building trend:
18) The working class must practice the principles of proletarian internationalism. Thus it must take up every struggle against imperialism anywhere in the world and champion it as its own struggle. In the present context, the practice of proletarian internationalism is impossible without correctly identifying the main enemy of the world’s people. By main enemy, Marxist-Leninists understand the main obstacle to the consolidation of national liberation, democracy, peace and socialism. Today that main enemy is US imperialism.
The above is Pt. 18 of the 18 Points of Unity put forth by the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center. The points were amended and formally adopted in Feb. 1978 at the founding conference of the OC. The understanding was that groups and individuals could participate on an interim basis even if they did not have full agreement with the 18 points. However, they could not have consolidated disunity with any of the points. The main reason for this qualification was the high degree of contention over whether or not Pt. 18 should be a line of demarcation for the OC. The 1st political task of the OC was to reach a firm unity on Pt. 18, or drop it as a point of unity.
In many ways the MA was a microcosm of the national debate within the ’trend’ on this question. The question was definitely the most burning in the internal struggle of the MA. As the differences over party-building line and the root of “left”-opportunism were differences over the centrality of the struggle for unity on political line at all periods in party-building, the question of the main enemy to the world’s people was the concrete question of political line around which the struggle evolved. It was around the specifics of this question that the majority faction’s, and now the MA’s empiricism showed most starkly. And it was also around this question that the dogmatism of some of the leading comrades in the majority faction came to full view for the first time.
We feel that Pt. 18 has 3 main parts: 1) the importance of the main enemy concept; 2) why it is the US; and 3) why it is a proper line of demarcation.
Briefly, our position as the minority faction was this:
1) the importance of the main enemy concept
We say that our struggle for revolution in the US is to overthrow US imperialism and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is a very significant reason why we say US imperialism, and not US capitalism. The reason is a recognition that there is no longer (and hasn’t been since before WW I) a US capitalism that is separate from the entire network of US imperialism. This network includes Western European imperialism, Japanese imperialism, and that of the lesser countries of Iran, Egypt, Israel, Brazil, South Africa, etc.
Of course there are contradictions between these countries, just as there are contradictions within any ruling class. Yet, the development of capitalism into its highest stage of imperialism, and the continued development of imperialism since WW I, have welded all of these capitalist economic and ruling classes into one imperialist network. We feel that the development of the socialist countries, and the rise of the third world, have, in the main, served to further bring together the common interests in the network of US imperialism.
Conversely, then the class struggle of any people cannot just be seen as the struggle of a particular proletariat and oppressed masses apart from the world-wide struggle for socialism and national liberation. The class struggle of the US proletariat is not confined to a struggle of just that specific proletariat against the specific US ruling class; it is part of the world-wide struggle against a world-wide imperialist network.
This is a fundamental point, it is the essence of proletarian internationalism. This is the viewpoint from which Lenin saw the struggle of the Russian working class, that Mao saw the struggle of the Chinese masses, and that Fidel saw the class struggle within Cuba.
Whether or not one holds that the US is the main enemy, that both the US and USSR are the main enemy, or that the USSR is the main enemy; to liquidate the main enemy concept is to liquidate proletarian internationalism. The position put forward by the majority that it is sufficient for us to have unity that the “US working class should strike it’s main blow at the US ruling class” does liquidate the necessity of the main enemy concept, and therefore, liquidates the basis of proletarian internationalism. For proletarian internationalism is not a moral code as it appears some view it, it is not based on a “good neighbor policy”. Instead it is a result of the fact that all the world’s people are struggling against a common imperialist network. It is based on a material necessity to unite in struggle against a common oppressor.
Now, to recognize a main enemy of the world’s people does not mean that that is the primary enemy of every specific people at every specific time. For example, the main enemy of the Chinese people may be the USSR. The main enemy concept, though, then requires that the Chinese people do not carry out their struggle against the USSR in such a way that it strengthens the hand of the US if the US is indeed the main enemy of all the world’s people.
Similarly, in Angola, one could hold that the main enemy of the people of Angola was US imperialism; yet if on a world-wide basis the main enemy was the USSR, then according to the principles of proletarian internationalism the Angolan people must not carry out their struggle against the US in such a way that it strengthens the influence of the USSR. The US and China both understand the main enemy concept. This is why we see them most recently talking about the mutual and long term nature of their strategic interests in the worldwide struggle.
Therefore, to put forward that a correct formulation and a sufficient basis of unity for the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend is that ’the US ruling class is the main enemy of the US working class and therefore the US working class should strike its main blow at the US ruling class’; with no mention of the main enemy on a world-wide basis cannot be adequate. To advance such a point of unity to replace point 18 (as does the majority in the MA, and some organizations in the OC) comes either from a desire to side-step, or avoid the question, or an inadequate understanding of the scientific basis of proletarian internationalism. If the USSR is the main enemy of the world’s people, or if both superpowers are, then it would be part of the duty of US revolutionaries to alert the US proletariat to the danger of the main enemy, or the other superpower. We cannot simply carry on the struggle against our own ruling class as if the US was a separate and wholly isolated part of the world.
The empiricism and tailism of the MA comes out clearly here as they argue:
The international question as defined as “Who’s the main danger in the world?” has not come up in our mass work... Our perspective is that “target US imperialism – oppose class collaboration” is an adequate level of unity for the MA in our fusion work. (pg. 3 & 4 of Unity-Struggle-Unity)
Such an argument not only shows a tailist view of communist tasks in the mass movement by liquidating the leading role that communists must play around this concept; but it also shows an ignorance of the questions that are posed to use by activists in the mass movement. The bourgeois press has quite sufficiently raised the question of the role of the USSR and Cuba in Africa. And this is a question that communists must answer if we are to support the African liberation struggle as it is concretely unfolding.
2) why it is the US
We do not have now, nor did we hold as the minority faction, a thorough position on this question. Nor do we think that an answer to the question is an adequate international line for our present tasks. Most importantly, we must develop a correct analysis of the role of the USSR in the world today in order to give our internationalist responsibilities in the mass movement any concrete content.
However, we do feel that the question of who is the main enemy is the necessary starting point from which we can develop a thorough international line. We also feel that it is possible for M-Lists to hold a tentative hypothesis that the US is the main enemy as the basis from which to begin work on international line, and importantly to decide the parameters which we should place on the forces involved in common work on this question. This is important because we are certain that no local group has the resources to develop what we could term a thorough and correct position; this must be a common national task among forces that share a common hypothesis.
Our position as the Milw. Socialist Union, and the position that we put forward as the minority faction of the MA, is that it is possible and necessary to at this time hold a hypothesis that the US is the main enemy Of the world’s people.
However, the content of Pt. 18 was not what was formally at issue. The majority faction did not have a position on the content of Pt. 18, nor does the present MA. It is their position that it is premature to have a position on this question. But it is crucial to understand that the leadership of the majority faction, and the present MA, does have a very firm position. It is that both superpowers are the main enemy, and that of the two, the USSR is the most dangerous.
So despite the fact that the MA had severe and sharp internal different on who the main enemy is, the actual debate revolved around whether or not the MA should take an initial position on the question. This is the question of whether or not Pt. 18 is a correct line of demarcation.
3) why pt. 18 is a proper line of demarcation
Given what we have said earlier in this paper on the importance of the struggle for unity on political line, we feel that there are 3 basic reason why point 18 is an indispensible line of demarcation.
First, and most importantly, it is the single most significant application of the principles of proletarian internationalism in our time. And, as a political line that embodies the essence of that principle it is an important political line to win over the working class in the US to solidly supporting.
It is becoming clear that if US military intervention in Africa does occur it will be justified by the US press because of the role and presence of the USSR and Cuba. How can we educate the US working class to its responsibilities of proletarian internationalism if we do not know who the main enemy is in the world? As stated earlier, we reject the position that says that an opposition to the US ruling class by its own working class is adequate without addressing the question of who the main enemy is world-wide.
Secondly, we feel that it is an important line of demarcation within the present party-building movement. Given our initial hypothesis that the US is the main enemy, we feel that those who have a consolidated position that it is the USSR, or both the US and USSR, are doing so out of a dogmatic relation to the international line of the Chinese Communist Party. We are not saying that they are dogmatists because they disagree with us, but that given that as far as we can discern, the overwhelming weight of evidence points to the US as the main enemy; to hold that the USSR is the main enemy as a firm position can only result from a fear of breaking with the line of the CCP.
We feel that those who hold that the main enemy question should not now be a line of demarcation are acting either out of a fear of breaking with the CCP, or out of an empiricist and tailist view of the present tasks of communists in the US.
But either a consolidated position that the USSR is the main enemy, or that both the USSR and US are equal enemies, or a position that this should not be a line of demarcation only serve to strengthen dogmatism in our movement.
Thirdly, we feel that the best method of struggling for unity on this question, and, then a more thorough international line, is to develop a common national work on the question. We feel that it is crucial for particular local groups and individuals to take an initial hypothesis on this question to serve as the initial basis of unity for this common national work. As the minority in the MA we argued that the MA should immediately take up the question of the main enemy to the degree necessary to- arrive at unity on en initial hypothesis either for or against Pt,l8; rather than pleading ignorance on the question, or trying to avoid it, in an effort to prevent allegedly premature divisions.
The position of the MA ties the whole question of international line solely to the internal dynamics of the party-building movement. They argue that Pt. 18 should be a line of demarcation only if dogmatism is, in fact, the root of “left”-opportunism:
The position we put forth at our March conference was that the unity that we would reach at the end of our study of Pt. 15 [the majority was calling for an immediate study on Pt. 15 which addressed the question of what was the root of “left”-opportunism (the final draft of the 18 Pts, had left the question of the root as open and merely identified “left” opportunism as the main error in party-building]” would indicate to us the role of international line in party-building; and specifically whether who is the main enemy in the world should be a line of demarcation now, then we would study whether we had unity with the specifics of Pt. 18. (pg. 6 of the MA’s letter)
And lying behind this position is the position of the MA leadership that the premature consolidation on political line is the root of “left”-opportunism, and Pt. 18 is therefore not a line of demarcation. And then the struggle over their dogmatic personal positions on the main enemy is effectively deferred.
IV. Why the split?
Given the preceding political differences, why did the minority faction feel that a split with the MA was necessary?
First, we felt that the nature of the 2 line struggle on party-building, and the differences over Pt. 18, definitely formed the political basis for 2 organizations. If one side did not drastically change their line a split was inevitable – it was only a matter of time. The leadership of the majority faction agreed with this assessment.
The Question then becomes one of whether or not there was sufficient basis for us to stay and struggle within the MA. There are a number of considerations that we had to carefully make here:
Most importantly, was our assessment of the strength of empiricism in the MA. As we have shown, we hold that empiricism was the primary error of the WA and MA. Our history in both of these organizations was increasingly a struggle against empiricism – this was consciously the main goal of internal struggle for some of us since 1976.
Our assessment of the empiricism of the majority was that it was severe and would serve to liquidate party-building work. In summary it consists of a downplaying of the struggle for unity on political line, it puts the unity of local organizations ahead of the unity of the movement as a whole, and it had a tailist view of the communist movement’s relationship to the mass movement in regard to international line.
Through the course of the final struggle in the MA we put forward our positions as clearly and openly as possible. We did this in an effort to make the struggle sharp and clear so that there at least would not be disagreement or confusion as to the nature and degree of the differences. However, at the March conference that the MA held to achieve some degree of resolution, we did not ask the majority to agree with our positions. We only struggled that the MA should leave them open for debate (i.e., re-open the R&R Paper); because the R&R unity was now only agreed to by about 60% of the organization. Our goal was to provide a basis for on-going struggle in the MA, not to split the organization right then and there.
We lost this vote. The position of the MA was to remain that of the R&R Paper. The ’2 stage theory’ of party-building would remain to be tested out in practice. We felt that a party-building line could not be tested out in practice in a short period of time, and that it could not really be tested in practice on the local level. This vote left us little basis to continue the struggle against empiricism in the MA.
The March conference also voted to postpone the taking up of Pt. 18 pending the outcome of the study of the root of “left”-opportunism, We felt Pt. 18 was the most burning question in the MA – it was the most concrete confrontation with both empiricism and dogmatism; it was crucial in orienting ourselves in the M-L movement, and it was crucial in developing a mass practice based upon proletarian internationalism. As we have previously pointed out, the majority argued that Pt. 18 was not presently relevant to our mass work and should be taken up only if we concluded that dogmatism was the root of “left”-opportunism.
Given the underlying position of the leading cadre in the majority faction that premature consolidation was the main error; we felt that, although some may have genuinely seen the main error question as necessary to decide first, that the real push was merely part of the effort to postpone debate on Pt. 18.
Once again, we felt that we were left with little basis to struggle within the MA.
At the March conference we were further impressed with the depth of empiricism by the majority’s efforts to create a central leading body that represented both lines. Therefore, we would have had a leading body that was severely split on the nature of our central task. And their position was that our primary task would be testing out the R&R party-building line in practice – there was to be no more internal debate on the subject. How could such a body lead under these circumstances? Such a view clearly puts organizational unity before political unity, and would not allow us to accomplish our tasks in the mass movement – let alone the kind of roadblocks it would present to party-building and general sound organizational functioning.
The majority voted that 1 leading member of the minority should be given a place to the 3 person leading body. They disagreed with our political perspective all the way down the line, yet wanted us to serve in leadership. Such a position comes from a representative or congressional view of leadership, rather than a Leninist view.
And we were the ones who were accused of not understanding democratic-centralism. To us, the basis of democratic-centralism is unity on the general political line of the organization. Of course, rarely is unity unanimous, but to create a leading body that is so severely split on the general line is a far cry from realizing there will rarely be a unanimous unity.
V. Empiricism in the MA was acting as a cover for dogmatism:
Furthermore in understanding why we felt it was necessary to leave the MA, it is important for us to point out the manner in which the empiricism of the MA acted both as a cover for, and was supported by, dogmatism. One of the leading members of the majority faction was openly holding a dogmatist position on international, line.[3] And the other leading cadre of the majority where open to this dogmatist formulation as a possibly correct one.
Even after we had realized the seriousness of the empiricism in the MA we had always given ourselves a re-assuring pat – at least we were not dogmatic. In seeing empiricism and dogmatism as opposites we felt that our empiricist errors, despite their shortcomings, were a shield against dogmatism and ultra-leftism. She movement was going to make errors, and our’s were fortunately the lesser of the two.
Our final struggle in the MA showed us the unity of empiricism and dogmatism. We found them to be errors of the same nature – divorcing theory from practice. And both could exist side-by-side quite nicely. In fact, they are mutually supportitive – the sterile and mechanical misuse of theory in our movement drove hundreds of cadre away from theoretical work and a correct scientific perspective on the tasks of making revolution; and the undirected, and unscientific practice of others led only to confusion and demoralization, and impotence in the face of ideological struggle. The lack of sound theoretical work to counter the dogmatists theories allowed dogmatism to spread.
In summing up the struggle to rectify 3 consecutive “left” lines which held dominance in the Chinese Communist Party from 1927-1935, the words of the Central Committee of the CCP have a striking relevance for our movement today:
Thus the empiricists and the doctrinaires, though starting from different directions, agree with each other essentially in their way of thinking. Both separate the actual practice of the Chinese revolution from the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism; both run counter to dialectical materialism and historical materialism and exaggerate relative and partial truth as universal and absolute truth; and none of their ideas corresponds to the objective, actual situation taken as a whole. Hence they have held in common many erroneous ideas on Chinese society and the Chinese revolution... These created an ideological common ground for the collaboration between comrades belonging to these two categories. With only limited and fragmentary experience, most empiricists often lacked independent, clear and comprehensive views on questions concerning a situation taken as a whole, and thus generally played second fiddle in their association with doctrinaires; but as the history of our Party proves, without the collaboration of empiricism there would have been little chance for doctrinarism “to spread the poison throughout the Party” and, after the defeat of doctrinarism, empiricism became more emphatically the main obstacle to the development of Marxism-Leninism in the Party, Hence we must overcome not only subjectivist doctrinairism but subjectivist empiricism as well. Only by thoroughly eliminating the ideology of empiricism and doctrinairism can the Marxist-Leninist ideology, line, and style in work spread far and wide and strike root deep in the Party. (“Resolution on Some Questions in the History of our Party”, adopted by the enlarged plenary session of the central committee of the CCP, on April 20, 1945; from Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung Vol. 4, International Publishers, 1956)
This was the situation in the MA. Our long-standing empiricism never allowed us to develop a correct Marxist-Leninist perspective. And now the long absence of such a perspective had given rise to dogmatic formulation among some of our most theoretically developed comrades. However, in the MA our dogmatists also held to the major aspects of the organization’s empiricist line. And thereby gave that line legitimacy among the more inexperienced and underdeveloped who were the most solid base of empiricism.
We, in the minority faction, felt ourselves to be in a Catch-22; we could not defeat the empiricism while it was being supported by dogmatism, yet we could not attack the dogmatism as long as it had its empiricist cover. Only by leaving the MA, by removing ourselves from the organizational discipline of the empiricist line, would we be able to adequately address ourselves to the struggle against dogmatism. And only by the defeat of dogmatism through the development of Marxism-Leninism could empiricism finally be overcome.
This was the main reason for leaving the MA. There were many other factors, most notably was the potential danger of factionalism developing in an organization with such sharp disunity, and factionalism’s effects on the advanced activists who were beginning to grow close to the organization; but this was the reason why we felt that we had not a sufficient basis to remain and struggle. This is the reason why we left when we did.
On March 24, 1978 the minority faction of the MA met and unanimously decided to leave the organization. We named ourselves the Milw. Socialist Union. For the last two months we have been formulating plans by which to coalesce ourselves into a core to serve as the basis of a future organization.
We see our main task in the next year as the hammering out of general perspectives around the main questions facing the M-L movement. Presently we have delineated 5 such questions: Black liberation, the international situation, the trade unions, the woman question, and party-building.
We feel that the establishment of an initial political line on each of these questions is crucial for both our work in the mass movement and our party-building work. One of the clearest lessons we have learned from the WA/MA is that we moved forward when we had unity on a general line, we stagnated when we did not.
In approaching these tasks we have a few concerns that we would like to share with our comrades in the national movement:
As a very small group we are, of course, overwhelmed by the extent of the tasks before us. We are a solid group. Most of us have struggled together for the better part of 5 years now. We have made great changes in our ideological perspective, and have achieved significant advances in developing a proletarian class stand. We have developed considerable skills as organizers, and have established roots in a few small sectors of the class struggle in Milw. Most of us have on-going leadership responsibilities in our unions and mass organizations. And we have grown close to a number of working class activists, and are anxious to bring them into a M-L organization.
On the other hand, none of us are what you would call theoretical heavies. We have paid a price of underdevelopment for our past empiricism. And the isolated, local nature of the M-L movement today makes our theoretical tasks seem even more overwhelming. How is a small group in Milw. to develop a general political line on anything?
In short, the temptation to once again focus primarily on practice is strong. We see such potentiality before us. There is always the urge to skip steps and try to move too fast; to seek immediate results. In particular, it is easy to downplay the centrality of political line when you are a small group.
We feel, therefore, that our movement will, in the main, only meet failure and frustration as long as we remain as relatively, isolated, local organizations. No local grouping, no matter how developed, has the capabilities of formulating a general political line for the communist movement. This is, by nature, a national task. Only nationally can we apply the resources and have the scope to engage in the theoretical work demanded of us.
It is for this reason that we see the struggle to create a leading ideological center for the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend as the most immediate task before US Marxist-Leninists, Views that downplay the need for such a center, that feel that it will evolve by itself, or that it is secondary to local work are sheer empiricism.
Perhaps, it may be said that we are projecting too much of our local situation upon the national movement on the basis of very limited actual investigation, But we do not feel that this is the case:
We see the empiricism that crippled the WA/MA as not at all a local phenomenon, but a prime characteristic of a sector of our movement nationally. It is the flip side of dogmatism, and a support to dogmatism. At this point we feel that empiricism in the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend has not been adequately attacked. In particular, we feel that the ’fusion’ line in party-building has been adopted in an empiricist manner by many. They too take fusion to mean practice and therefore downplay the importance of the struggle for unity on political line. And one of the most direct manifestations of downplaying political line in this period is localism, or a federationist view of national work. Such viewpoints always put national work as a secondary task, and therefore, objectively place political line in a secondary position.
On the other hand, there are others who put great emphasis on theoretical work and the struggle for unity on political line; however, many of these comrades appear to us to be “too content” to do this work on the local level or to see the creation of numerous national centers rather than one leading center. Objectively, these also are forms of empiricism.
In conclusion we see our long struggle in the WA/MA against empiricism as indicative of the struggle in a certain sector of the national M-list movement. We feel this empiricism, although rooted in our class base and theoretical underdevelopment, has grown in response to the more dominant errors of dogmatism and “left”-opportunism. But empiricism does not confront dogmatism, rather it supports it objectively.
We feel that the central task of our movement is the developing of a correct Marxist-Leninist general line for the US revolution to defeat the dominant ultra-“left” lines and unify the core of a vanguard party of the proletariat. This line will be developed both through theoretical work; and the integration of M-Lism into the working class by increasing our leadership of the daily struggle of the working class, and our skills as propagandists. The essence of these tasks is the fusion of the M-L movement and the working class movement. But the political line is what is central – it is the lynchpin of the whole process. In developing this general political line we see the formation of one, leading ideological center as our most immediate task in this direction.
We hope that we have not been too lengthy in our comments, and that comrades may find them useful; both in understanding our struggles in Milwaukee, and as reflections on the general state and tasks of our movement as a whole. We are, of course, most anxious to hear your comments.
In solidarity,
The Milw. Socialist Union
PO Box 12184
Milw., Wisc. 53212
[1] The Milw. chapter members who had developed essential unity with the ISC argued that the WA should not strive to develop multi-racially; instead we should only organize whites, concentrating on the poorest and most oppressed sectors. These members soon left the chapter.
[2] The MA even goes so far in their Letter as to charge some of us with attempting to consciously mis-represent the unity of the MA when, as leadership of the MA, we drafted an initial letter in response to the Committee of 5’s 18 Pts. of Unity. It turned out that this draft letter did not accurately reflect the political unity of the MA. The actual case is that the only one of the 18 Pts. with which there was fundamental disunity was #18, which cites the US as the main enemy of the world’s people. It was a surprise to us that some comrades could not agree to this, and our surprise was shared by the majority of the organization - one of the leading cadre in the majority faction,(a comrade who is presently in leadership of the MA) who was also in leadership, also approved the initial draft that indicated unity on Pt. #18. The remainder of the differences revolved around whether or not we stress unity or disunity with the Comm. of 5. Once again, the leading comrade cited above agreed with the emphasis. Furthermore, the letter was presented to the organization for full criticism from the entire membership, there was no effort to push anything through* as this was admittedly new ground for the MA.
[3] That both the USSR and US are the main enemies, but of the 2, the USSR is the most dangerous.