First Published: Workers Viewpoint newspaper, Vol. 1, No. 6, September-October 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work. (Mao Tse-tung, “To Be Attacked by the Enemy is Not a Bad Thing But a Good Thing.” May 26, 1939)
Recently comrades in Workers Viewpoint Organization have been tailed and harassed, and most_ recently one member of the organization was physically harassed, kidnapped, cut up, raped and interrogated by the state. It is common knowledge, which even the bourgeoisie admits, that the FBI harasses and taps phones and offices. But kidnap and rape represent an escalation in attacks by this desperate and dying criminal rule of the monopoly capitalists.
Why did the state resort to these goon tactics? Clearly, the main purpose is not to get information but to try and stop our work and intimidate us, and hopefully provoke us into a rash action. This attack comes at a time when class struggle is intensifying. As during the Palmer Raids in 1920, this attack comes when there is an upsurge in the working class and during this current economic crisis and workers are wide open to socialism and the trade union misleaders are more and more exposed. The communist movement in general and WVO in particular are deepening their fusion with the proletariat. No matter what the bourgeoisie resorts to, they will be unable to halt this deepening fusion. This means we must step up our agitation and propaganda and win the advanced to communism.
We are a rising force and as we fuse more and more deeply and as the founding of the genuine Communist Party of this country gets nearer and nearer, these attacks will become relentless as the bourgeoisie desperately tries to stamp us out. But as Chairman Mao says, to be attacked by the enemy is a good thing. It means we are achieving a great deal in our work. This is how we view these attacks as represented by this advanced provocation. We will not lose our orientation, hesitate in our work, or be forced underground. We will use this to advance forward and step up our work!
But in struggling against the enemy, we must bear in mind at all times “strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously.” (”Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communists and Workers’ Parties,” Nov. 18, 1957) Strategically, we know the monopoly capitalist class is on the verge of death and they have no future and that the working class is invincible and indestructible because we are a new and rising force and have a bright future. Though we may face difficulties and setbacks, we can overcome all difficulties with an indomitable will. “It is man’s social being that determines his thinking. Once the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class are grasped by the masses, these ideas turn into a material force which changes society and changes the world.” (“Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?”) However, at the same time, we must remember to always tactically take the enemy seriously, on each and every concrete question. Although bourgeois democracy is the best shell for monopoly capitalism, we must never forget that that’s all it is – a shell!! We must cast aside all illusions, because everyday, day in and out, the bourgeoisie carries on violent repression against the working class, especially communists. As the great revolutionary teacher, Comrade Lenin, pointed out, bourgeois democracy is hypocritical and false.
In all countries, even in those that are freest, most ’legal,’ and most ’peaceful’ in the sense that the class struggle is least acute there, it is now absolutely indispensable for every Communist Party to systematically combine legal and illegal work, legal and illegal organizations. Notwithstanding their false and hypocritical declarations, the governments of even, the most enlightened and freest of countries, where the bourgeois-democratic system is most ’stable,’ are already drawing up blacklists of Communists and constantly violating their own constitutions so- as to give secret or semi-secret encouragement to the white guards and to the murder of Communists in all countries, making secret preparations for the arrest of Communists, planting agents provocateurs among the Communists, etc. etc. Only a most reactionary Philistine, no matter what cloak of fine ’democratic’ and pacifist phrases he may don, will deny this fact or the conclusion that of necessity follows from it, viz., that all legal Communist parties most immediately form illegal organizations for the systematic conduct of illegal work and for complete preparations for the moment the bourgeoisie resorts to persecution... (Lenin, “Theses on Comintern’s Fundamental Tasks,” Vol. 31, p. 195)
Certainly these attacks will redouble our efforts to skillfully combine legal and illegal work and master all forms of struggle, peaceful and armed, open and secret, legal and illegal, parliamentary and other legal forms. The bourgeoisie is doing us a favor by showing their hands. We intend to propagate this experience to the entire communist movement and our correct response and tactic to the entire working class and communist movement.
Historical experience of communists and revolutionaries in this country should be a daily reminder to us today that the bourgeoisie has and is carrying out repression against us. But to do this openly and to try to prevent the advanced from turning it around, the^ bourgeoisie is forced to create public opinion against the communist movement. Prior to the Palmer Raids, on 1/2/20, which rounded up 10,000 communists and revolutionaries across the country in more than 70 cities, the bourgeoisie drummed up the “Red Peril” hysteria, a ’plot’ by Russia, aliens and “Bolshevists” in America to overthrow the U.S. government by force and violence. In the late ’60’s, to launch the massive attacks and raids on the Black Panther Party and the murder of Fred Hampton, the FBI built up the Black Panther Party as the No. 1 enemy of the American people.
Today, the bourgeoisie and its press is again escalating its attacks on the communist movement. Several months ago, the New York Times printed that the Woodrow Wilson Think Tank school said the real fear in the U.S. is Bolshevism, not the SLA.
The National Caucus of Labor Committee is announced as formally meeting with the trade union mis-leaders to rid the union of “Maoists”. Red-baiting is clearly escalating in the unions. In the latest Miners’ Convention in Cincinnati, an anti-communist fever was induced by the reactionary trade union mis-leaders, led by vice president Mike Trbovich removing the “card-carrying Communist” reporters from the convention hall.
From their historical experience, the bourgeoisie has learned that if they come down openly in wave upon wave of attacks prematurely without first creating public opinion for it, it can easily be turned against them by the communists and working class. This is why now, the bourgeoisie is resorting ’to goon tactics on communists rather than breaking in with uniforms and badges. But we will again turn this around against the bourgeoisie!
As the monopoly capitalists learned to their dismay in Vietnam, the masses are the decisive factor though they advanced sophisticated warfare on the Vietnamese people. Genuine communists can never be uprooted from the masses for “we communists are like seeds and the people are like the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them. (Mao, “On the Chungking Negotiations”, 1945. SW, Vol. 4, p. 58)
We use this opportunity to follow the teachings of Lenin to really become professional revolutionaries, mastering all forms of struggle, legal and illegal. To strengthen our ability to win over the advanced to communism and bolshevize the organization, we wil1 prepare and build WVO ideologically and organizationally. Casting aside all illusions in bourgeois democracy, we must uphold the right of self defense for all communists and working and oppressed people against vicious attacks by the state. We must however oppose adventurism of the SLA and Weather Underground type. We also have to combat pacifism, laying limp and singing hymns of “We Shall Overcome”.
Inevitably, especially with the further fusion of the Working class and the communist movement, and the founding of the genuine Communist Party ever so near, the bourgeoisie will not let up but win step up its attacks and harassments. That is because we are achieving a great deal in our work! We must consolidate ideologically, politically and organizationally.
We know the victory of the proletariat is also inevitable! Our attitude is to fearlessly move forward, step up our agitation/propaganda, further expose their agents in the working class, kick out their reformist misleaders, go forward to found the Bolshevik Communist Party and bolshevize sphere after sphere, end this criminal rule of the monopoly capitalist class, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and fight for socialism! History is on our side! We learn from historical tradition that a revolution is not a dinner party. In the course of struggle, countless people will lay down their lives for the revolution, be tortured and killed! But when we have the interests of the people and the sufferings of the majority at heart, and when we die for the people, we die a worthy death. All the same, we do our best to avoid unnecessary sacrifices. Through difficulties and setbacks, victory is inevitable!
Comrades, the cowardly bourgeoisie is trembling in front of the might of the working class and is morbidly afraid of the growing fusion between the working class and communists, especially the WVO.
But communism is on the rise. It is independent of the will of the bourgeoisie. There is nothing they can do to prevent it.