On Monday, January 31, 1977, the May Fourth Coalition, and its parent organization, the Workers Viewpoint Organization, had a small picket outside the registrar’s office; and a handful of people seized the office. Although May Fourth Coalition and Workers Viewpoint (MFC/WVO) claimed to be acting in the name of 800 SEEK students, no more than 20 people participated in the demonstration.
That afternoon, President Kneller ordered large numbers of police on campus. 18 people were arrested, only 7 from Brooklyn College. Most of the people were arrested in the hallway outside the registrar’s office.
How should we view these events?
The actions of the MFC/WVO were acts of desperation. Since they began working on this campus, these forces have been maneuvering and trying to make a name for themselves – trying to “get rich quick.” In order to do this they have seized upon the genuine anger of the masses of students and the genuine desire of the militant students for revolutionary guidance and leadership. They have especially directed their efforts at the Black students on campus, who along with the Latin students are hardest hit by the current attacks and along with the Latin students have historically responded first to these attacks.
But the actions of MFC/WVO, although masked in militant rhetoric, have proved that they do not really believe that it is the masses that are the makers of history and that revolutionaries draw their strength from the masses. The takeover of the registrar’s office by a small band of self-proclaimed “revolutionary leaders” for instance, only reveals MFC/WVO’s isolation from the masses of students and their inability to win the students to support their schemes. Flowing from this fundamental weakness, MFC/WVO has had to replace the revolutionary strength and organized anger of the masses with the frenzied actions of a few individuals who call themselves “the vanguard,” (We recognize also that some honest people have been temporarily taken in by the seeming militant stand that the opportunists have used to disguise themselves. We hope this leaflet will help them reach clarity on the true nature of the MFC/WVO.)
In the following sections of this leaflet, we will analyze MFC/WVO’s “work” at Brooklyn College and the lessons to be learned from it–what not to do.
Once again, the sons and daughters of working-class families find ourselves confronted by a continuous wave of attacks planned by the bourgeoisie and refined and implemented by the bourgeois managerial strata (at BC in the person of President Kneller and his “administrators”. These plans are geared towards the systematic elimination of oppressed-nationality (Black, Latin, Asian) and poor white students from the CUNY campuses and into the already over-flowing army of the unemployed.
In this past year, we have seen the elimination of Open Admissions and the institution of tuition. In this transition, many students were forced out of school. Suffering the heaviest “casualties” were students from the oppressed nationalities whose working class families have the lowest incomes and who are already struggling to overcome the educational weaknesses imposed by the racist public school system.
Among the areas most drastically cut are Physical Education, remedial programs, the English department, Special Education and the Office of Student Affairs and Services totalling some $1.5 million.
The abolition of Open Admissions, tougher enrollment standards and a stricter attitude towards students with extremely low indexes has all contributed to the drop of 11,000 students in enrollment. Over 1,700 open admissions students entered BC last fall compared to only’ 100 this year. Additionally, of the 3,800 high school students who applied to BC this term only 1,700 were admitted. (Kingsman, BC newspaper, Sept. 24, 1976)
Not satisfied with this “state of affairs,” the bourgeoisie has also instituted the “proficiency exams”–exams that they say will help the college “improve the quality, of education” by helping them detect English and math deficiencies. However, in the real world, these exams are part of the over-all plan to force 20% of the CUNY student body out of school. The question we must all ask ourselves is why this is happening?
U.S. monopoly capitalism, imperialism, is caught in its worst economic and political crisis since the Great Depression. In their frenzied attempts to maintain their high rate of profit, they are forcing the working class and their sons and daughters to “sacrifice” and endure: layoffs, speed-ups and increased workloads for remaining workers; the loss of essential services (hospital care, daycare); higher prices for food, clothing, housing medical-care and transportation. In addition, we are expected to give up victories that were won in the past – victories that were born out of the revolutionary struggle of the masses, such as Open Admissions, Bilingual Education, and ethnic studies programs. The bourgeoisie tries to disguise its actions by telling the people that everyone must sacrifice so that “we” can find a way out of the crisis – when in fact, they are laying the crisis on our backs.
But where there is oppression, there is resistance. This resistance has led, on an international level, to the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America – the national liberation movements are surging forward.
Domestically, the economic and political crisis of imperialism has been rousing the masses to struggle on a growing scale. The working class has launched the greatest wave of strikes and rank and file actions since the Depression. The movement against cutbacks in education, daycare and welfare, as well as struggles against police repression, are also growing.
The struggles at Brooklyn College are part of this great upsurge. During the past few years, hundreds, of Black, Latin and white students at Brooklyn College have engaged in revolutionary struggle. There have been many demonstrations, takeovers, confrontations and arrests. Genuine communists have openly trained the students to analyse our victories and defeats, drawing from them many important lessons. In addition, communists have struggled to broaden the outlook of the students. For instance, many students have deepened their understanding of the nature of U.S. imperialism, the treachery of the Soviet social-imperialists (socialist only in words, imperialist in deeds), the significance of the national liberation struggles, and the leading role of the People’s Republics of China and Albania.
With correct revolutionary leadership, students have learned through their own experience, the importance and power of organization and discipline, the nature of the capitalist laws (such as injunctions), how to defend students who are brought up on charges, the most effective means of mass struggle, and so on. Most important, in this process, many students learned about the inevitability and necessity for socialist revolution, and increasing numbers of students have taken up the study of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought. Some committed themselves to the formation of the genuine communist party that Will lead this revolution.
Each successful struggle at BC has been a mass struggle. From the battles in 1969 for Open Admissions, spearheaded by Black and Latin students, to the victories of the Puerto Rican students and their allies of all nationalities in defending Puerto Rican Studies – to the 1975 mass actions coordinated by the Anti-Imperialist Coalition in defense of militant students brought up on charges by the administration. While fighting to defeat the bourgeoisie’s attacks on all students’ right to an education, each successful struggle also took up the special demands of the oppressed nationality students (i.e., no cuts in special programs like SEEK, Africana and Puerto Rican Studies; the right of Spanish-speaking students to bilingual education, etc.) This is part of the struggle for equality of language and equality of all peoples. To take up these battles is to reject, in practice, oppression based on nationality–a key tool of the capitalists in dividing the working class and oppressed masses.
All of these struggles involved many twists and turns. And, throughout, at different points, opportunist groups came forward with various proposals and “plans of action.” They masqueraded as friends of the people, but in fact were members of the fifth column of wreckers that the bourgeoisie employs in every country for the sole purpose of disorienting and defeating the revolutionary struggles of the masses. Invariably their schemes only served the bourgeoisie by temporarily diverting the struggle of the students and sabotaging any real attempts to build revolutionary unity. The MFC/WVO is such a group. Since September, these opportunists have very quickly revealed their true nature.
One of the essential conditions for preparing the proletariat for victory is a prolonged, persistent and ruthless struggle against opportunism, reformism, social-chauvinism and similar bourgeois influences and tendencies, which are inevitable as long as the proletariat acts under capitalist conditions. Unless such a struggle is fought and unless a complete victory over opportunism within the working class movement is preliminarily gained, there can be no hope for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Bolshevism would never have triumphed over the bourgeoisie in 1917-1919 had it not previously learned during the years 1903-17, to defeat and ruthlessly expel the Mensheviks, i.e., the opportunists, reformists and social-chauvinists, from the party of the proletarian revolution. (Lenin, “The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” 1919)
It is within this context that we will deal with May Fourth Coalition/Workers Viewpoint Organization.
To begin with, we found it very appropriate to go back to how MFC/WVO was created back in Sept. 1976. In one of their first leaflets entitled “Cast Away Illusions, Prepare to Struggle”, MFC/WVO put forward:
The history of the student movement is a history of line struggles. It is out of the struggle between the correct and the incorrect that the movement has developed to a higher level, and it is this process that has led the Umoja Society, the Higher Education Committee, and the Black Student Union to merge into the May Fourth Coalition.
First of all, we agree that the history of the student movement is a history of line struggles. It must also be made clear that these struggles were a reflection of the struggles in the communist movement. We also recognize that the victories of Marxism-Leninism have forced the opportunists to disguise themselves as Marxist-Leninists – “raising the red flag to smash the red flag.”
The history of the student movement since 1957 can be characterized by first an intense struggle to establish Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought as the guiding ideology. This struggle was made necessary by the betrayal of the “Communist Party” of the Soviet Union which revised and. abandoned the principles of Marxism-Leninism, In the US, this treachery was carried out by the “CP”USA. In the student movement opportunist lines such as “students are the most revolutionary,” “the proletariat is backward,” “revolution through peaceful means,” “raising politics will confuse the masses,” and a number of other lines had to be attacked and defeated. But the opportunists did not stop there. Overwhelmed by the rising tide of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought, they retreated, regrouped. Now we see them posing as communists, claiming to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought and continuing to push their raggedy lines – continuing to deceive the masses on almost every question of political significance. This has been the practice of MFC/WVO.
For instance, in the leaflet we are discussing, we ask MFC/WVO, in your analysis of the Umoja Society, why didn’t you mention that Umoja had in fact struggled militantly against cutbacks, racism (they were key in developing the Committee for Justice), repression against politically active students, and the opportunism of the trotskyite Young Socialist Alliance? You make it seem that Umoja and FFM did nothing positive until they united with your line. You go on to say that Umoja ceased to exist, then developed into the BC chapter of the February First Movement, and then “purged itself off campus,” and then merged into MFC. How can an organization that has ceased to exist in the material world merge into, or become a component part of MFC or any other organization? An act of deception. By using the name of an organization that once existed, with a rich history of struggle, the MFC/WVO attempted to come on campus resting on the credibility that Umoja Society had in the past. Philosophically, this is subjective idealism – the fantasies of the MFC and not the reality of the real world. Politically it is blatant, outright opportunism.
The Higher Education Committee never existed at Brooklyn College. The only other place that they did exist, to our knowledge, was at CCNY, Even the MFC/WVO admit that HEC was right opportunist and economist – practiced leaving the struggle on an economic level and not raising political questions. As a matter of fact, the HEC and the WVO attacked the formation of the Anti-Imperialist Coalition at BC as being “ultra-leftist” and opposed the formation of an anti-imperialist coalition at CCNY.
Finally, we come to the Black Student Union. BSU at Brooklyn College had only one member. It did not take up the struggle of the masses and therefore had no ties among the masses.
From the very beginning, MFC/WVO tried to deceive the masses into believing that MFC was an organization with a genuine mass character by lying about the component parts of MFC.
In this leaflet, MFC/WVO also tried to give the impression that the main problem these groups had in the past was not “grasping tightly the correct line of WVO.” The truth is that the problems of BSU and HEC at CCNY were a direct reflection of the line of WVO. It was the WVO that was guiding the HEC, for instance, and how they want to deny any responsibility for HEC’s errors.
They have the nerve to go so far as to say that it was the WVO and their “correct line” that defeated the PRRWO and RWL. In fact, the WVO aided the ultra-leftists of PRRWO and RWL by attacking Marxism-Leninism from the right (i.e., building mass organizations to “fight cutbacks” where revolution will not be allowed to be mentioned, opposing the correct work PRRWO did in the student movement, like the building of the Anti-Imperialist Coalition, refusing to sum up their errors and do public self-criticism).
But now let us see what has been MFC/WVO’s practice in the recent struggles on campus, in particular, the struggle around the Dept. of Puerto Rican Studies and the struggle against the proficiency exams.
Last semester we came back to school to face tuition, an end to Open Admissions, and cuts in financial aid. In addition, the Puerto Rican and other Latin students on campus faced the threatened firing of 3 faculty members, the threatened elimination of the Dept. of Puerto Rican Studies, and their elimination from the campus, along with other students, because of the implementation of proficiency exams. The Puerto Rican and other Latin students responded with a series of demonstrations. Taking the lead was the Puerto Rican Alliance which had, and continues to have, a history of struggling against oppression on campus and struggling for multi-nationa1 unity.
On Nov. 24, 1976, the DPRS on short notice held a demonstration against the proficiency exams and attacks on PRS. That week they held another demonstration in the evening. About 40 students participated in both. MFC/WVO did not participate in either. They observed from the sidelines, a criticism they have often given to the PRRWO. They had also failed to attend a public forum that was called by the DPRS and attended by about 90 students on Nov. 17, 1976.
On Dec. 1, 1976, between 250-300 students demonstrated against the proficiency exams and in support of DPRS. It was a very militant demonstration and was marked by a high level of organization and discipline as the demonstrators entered the buildings where the tests were being given. The demonstration, in its essence, was a response by the oppressed Puerto Rican national minority to national oppression. This struggle objectively demanded the support of all progressive people and called for all genuine communists to come forward and unite with the correct example set by these students.
MFC/WVO did not see it this way. Prior to the Dec. 1 demonstration they had put out no leaflets uniting with the demands and struggle of the Puerto Rican and other Latin students. After the Dec. l rally, in their leaflet, “Proficiency Exams Must Go–Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win” they refused to recognize that the demonstration and upsurge among Latin students represented a genuine response to national oppression. Instead they leveled a broad attack on the demonstration, the DPRS, and the students who supported it. (In their leaflet they supposedly directed their criticism to PSP – but in their speeches afterwards they made it very clear that it was directed at the entire struggle.) They claimed that Black student organizations were not contacted, “For example, organizations of mostly Black students such as MFC...” MFC/WVO’s attempts to create division between Black and Latin students were futile. Students, recognizing what they were doing, took up the struggle to expose them.
The reaction of the Puerto Rican, and other Latin students, and Black students to the MFC/WVO leaflet was uniformly negative. They saw it as an attack on the whole struggle. MFC correctly criticized the narrow nationalism of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, who has historically tried to isolate the Puerto Rican students’ struggles. At the same time, they attacked all the lines put forward and all the groups involved. In addition, many students knew that Black student organizations had been contacted and that many Black students not affiliated to MFC/WVO did participate in the demonstration, although it was predominantly Latin.
PSP, for their part, seized this opportunity to build on the narrow-nationalism of some of the more backward (least conscious) students, saying, in essence, “See Blacks attack our struggle – we should go it alone.” Thus, once again, we saw how the opportunists aided each other.
(It should be noted that MFC/WVO in their recent newspaper changed their position and recognized the Dec. 1 demonstration as “the militant response of Puerto Rican students to national oppression.” But all is not forgotten, May Fourth. You cannot just switch position and act like nothing happened. You have done no self-criticism on this serious error although you are fond of phrasemongering about the importance of criticism/self-criticism.)
On Dec. 8. 1976, 40-60 students picketed President Kneller’s speech at a Sociology conference in the Student Union building (SUBO). On Dec. 13, 1976, over 50 students disrupted Kneller’s annual “State of the College”, speech in front of 400 faculty members. These actions were taken in protest against the proficiency exams and in support of the demands of the Dept. of Puerto Rican Studies. The demonstrators in their leaflets also raised other demands: the restoration of Open Admissions and free tuition, as well as all financial aid cuts, an end to the firings and speed-ups of campus workers, faculty and counselors; the rehiring of all fired workers and other staff. MFC/WVO did not participate in either of these demonstrations.
MFC/WVO’s opportunist maneuvering did not end here. In response to the administration rescheduling the proficiency exams for Dec. 20, MFC/WVO called a meeting to build an ad-hoc coalition to oppose the exam. Uniting with the correct thrust of the building of a coalition that would unite different students, we, along with other, honest organizations and individuals, attended the meeting.
After much discussion, everyone, except PSP, united with the building of a demonstration. The ad-hoc coalition was to be run on the basis of one organization, one vote, making the genuine mass organizations on campus dominant in the coalition. We met again on Dec. 17, at which point, MFC tried to take over the tactical leadership (t.l.–people responsible for giving on-the-spot leadership to the demonstration). After struggle, they retreated, and “agreed” to their having only one member on t.l., with another member coming from the Revolutionary Collective.
By Mon., Dec. 20, all the agreements reached on the previous Friday were secretly thrown out. In particular, MFC seized t.l. and had maneuvered at least 5 of their members, under the names of different organizations, on to the speakers list. Careerism – pure and simple. Not only had they come on campus promoting themselves as representatives of the masses, resting on the credibility of Umoja that once existed on campus; they then proceeded to sabotage the unities of the ad-hoc committee and in essence disrupted the building of a strong united front against the cutbacks and proficiency exams. MFC/WVO is guilty of participating in disruptive, get-rich-quick schemes that have aided the bourgeoisie.
(Although we were in sharp contradiction with these actions of MFC/WVO, we did not pull out of the Dec. 20th demonstration. We participated because we believed that stopping the proficiency exams was important, and we raised our criticisms publically at the rally following the demonstration.)
MFC/WVO’s assistance to the bourgeoisie did not stop with these actions. Their practice during the Dec. 20th demonstration reveals yet more examples of their ’treacherous line.
About 150-200 students attended the demonstration. Many of those who had participated in past struggles immediately fell into contradiction with the MFC/WVO. These groups cannot deny that they promoted anarchy, a “do your own thing” mentality, not proletarian discipline. We, and the masses of students, saw the MFC cadre enter into a petty-bourgeois frenzy, reminiscent of the undisciplined petty-bourgeois elements that were part of the SDS. He carried on, going beside himself, was the first to throw blank exam papers into the air, screamed into the bullhorn, and did no education of the students taking the exam–all in an effort to appear militant and revolutionary.
Or maybe the MFC/WVO would like to explain why they refused to rely on the masses, who gain strength with a correct line and the weapon of organization. 150-200 people could have easily ended this exam and moved any obstacles out of our way had we been united and disciplined. However, promoting individualistic tactics and excitative terror (the belief that a few individuals can spark a major struggle by doing something to excite the masses) is not relying on the masses, but in essence reflects a disdain for the masses, a belief that the masses are dumb and ineffective without an elite “exciting” them into action. During the demonstration, we twice raised to the MFC/WVO that they should tighten up security and see to it that the ripping of papers out of students’ hands was stopped. They agreed to do this – but did nothing. It later became clear that they did nothing because they were not opposed to these actions.
It is the responsibility of Marxist-Leninists to lead the masses in the day-to-day struggles. In the process of leading these struggles provide timely propaganda and agitation and imbue the masses with the revolutionary clarity, needed to fight in their own immediate interests. But most importantly to broaden the struggle and link it up with the struggle to build a genuine communist party, the struggle to build a genuine communist party, the struggle for proletarian revolution. But here we are speaking of the responsibility of genuine Marxist-Leninists. MFC/WVO members were grandstanding, obviously trying to make a name for themselves in the most bourgeois sense. We uphold the use of revolutionary violence when the conditions are such that revolutionary violence will further the struggle. However, it was absolutely unnecessary and counter-productive to tear exams out of students’ hands and try to intimidate them. This not only reflected a breakdown in discipline, that thanks to MFC/WVO was already at an all-time low, but it also reflected the replacing of the Marxist-Leninist method of education through persuasion with the lumpen-macho trip of a few individuals.
At the rally following the demonstration, we united with the demonstration and the need to smash the proficiency exams. We also criticized those students who had mistakenly taken their anger and frustration out on other students. We called on all organizations who had participated in the demonstration to repudiate these actions – which unless they were rooted out would only hurt our struggle. At the same time we reaffirmed that revolutionary violence would be the only way in which the masses’ demands would be met and the only way in which capitalism would be destroyed – through the armed overthrow of the state and the establishment of socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Puerto Rican Alliance and Dominican Student Union (MFDO) united with the criticism.
We also criticized MFC/WVO for their maneuvering and dishonesty in taking over the t.l. and padding the speakers list. We said that all students wanted real unity in the struggle, but that MFC/WVO’s dishonesty and “get rich quick” opportunism were obstacles to unity.
MFC/WVO denied ail our criticisms and never raised any criticism of errors during the demonstration.
We hold that the responsibility of Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary students is to, in words and deeds, educate, organize and train the masses so as to wage revolutionary struggle for immediate and long-range demands. The actions of MFC/WVO represented a few individuals who want to become martyrs at the expense of the well-being and correctness of the struggle of the masses. If you (MFC/WVO) are obsessed with becoming martyrs, please retire to the nearest closet, along with your friends of a different shade, the ultra-leftists of the PRRWO and RWL, where you can only harm yourselves.
In a recent article in the WVO newspaper (vol. 2, #1) the MFC/WVO had the “courage” to give their lies and distortions nationwide publicity. In summing-up the demonstration on Dec. 20, they say “The demonstration was initiated and led by the May Fourth Coalition, a revolutionary student organization under the leadership of WVO.” They didn’t even mention that the demonstration was called by a coalition of forces. They called it an “all-round victory” and did not criticize any negative aspects of the demonstration. Clearly, this is because MFC/WVO did not see them as negative. And once again they lied to the students in order to build themselves up. They lied that students taking the test had opened the doors for us and that “even security guards joined in the chanting” – to make it seem as if we had won overwhelming support.
They stated that the “demonstration of Dec. 20th was by far the most militant, most highly political, most revolutionary and most effective of the demonstrations on campus this year.” Again we have MFC/WVO telling us that the most revolutionary demonstration this year was the one they “initiated and led,” the highest level of political activity was the Dec. 20th demonstration because they were there. Before they came along, there was nothing. This is their message: the same message they put across in their sum-up of Umoja Society and FFM. We should make it very clear to MFC/WVO that the Dec. 20th demonstration was a continuation of the struggle taken up by the masses prior to the formation of their organization.
They went on to say that a high-level of fusion between communists and the students was exhibited by “a) the masses’ acceptance of the leadership of the May 4th Coalition b) the positive response to communist speeches at the rally which culminated the demonstration.” Straight-up lies! The masses repudiated the MFC and their bourgeois tactics. We would like to see where and how the “masses” accepted the leadership of MFC when two of the major sponsors of the demonstration, PRA and MEDO, fell into contradiction with them throughout the whole demonstration because of their promotion of petty-bourgeois style of struggle and their breaking of the unities reached in the ad-hoc committee.
In relationship to “the positive response to communist speeches” – the level of abstraction in their speeches and in their line itself was clear to everyone. They talked about many things in the abstract, socialism, opportunism, the party, but were unable to link these important questions to the actual struggle. It was just phrasemongering.
In keeping with their systematic attempts to turn the world on its head, they say that the demonstrators “in a militant, disciplined and unstoppable fashion dared to face the campus guards, administrative threats, and go beyond the bounds of bourgeois legality...” The MFC/WVO is again stretching the truth. Yes, that the masses dared to struggle is something that has been taking place historically. But let’s be clear again on what MFC/WVO promoted. As opposed to unleashing the militancy of the masses, the MFC/WVO promoted belligerence; as opposed to promoting proletarian discipline that would in fact be an unstoppable force, they promoted the practice of relying on a few, the practice of “roving rebel bands.
The development of all things goes from a lower to a higher level. With this guiding us, we can see how MFC went from a lower to a higher level of opportunism. From initially misrepresenting themselves, to an elaborate get-rich-quick scheme that culminated during intersession and led them to taking an adventurist action that resulted in their members being arrested, educated no one, and accomplished nothing. The seeds of this adventurism were being sown when they went from first calling for an ad-hoc coalition to then going it alone after the Dec. 20th demonstration. Even when their January 5th demonstration fizzled, they refused to sum-up–consistently – refusing to rely on the masses.
We have gone into great detail in this leaflet because we felt this was necessary in order to smash through the smokescreen of distortions and lies spread by the MFC/WVO. Around the country, these opportunists are claiming that their work at BC is an example for all communists and revolutionary students to follow. They are using their web of lies and fantasies to “prove” that the WVO is the most developed communist organization in the country, in essence that WVO is the genuine communist party. We hope this leaflet will contribute to unmasking these opportunists as well as bringing clarity and direction to the truly revolutionary students at BC.
To struggle against these opportunists has also made us more clear on our own errors and weaknesses. During the semester, we failed in our communist responsibility to do timely agitation and propaganda and to systematically sum-up and analyze what was happening on campus. We put out only one piece of written propaganda this semester – “A Message of Solidarity with the Struggle at BC.” We definitely weren’t upholding our responsibilities to provide consistent communist leadership and education for the advanced brothers and sisters who were seeking this. In addition, we failed to develop a long-range plan of action, which left us more often than not, tailing events, responding to the opportunists and new developments instead of taking the initiative. Cur failure to do these things has allowed the MFC/WVO to hide out longer.
We also think it’s important to take notice of how the bourgeoisie has been using this situation. They knew MFC/WVO was isolated and had little mass support; yet they conducted a mass show of strength when they arrested them, why was this? We believe that this show of force was not directed at the MFC/WVO which represents no real threat to the bourgeoisie, but that it was aimed at the truly revolutionary students of BC who in the past, under communist leadership, have built militant mass revolutionary struggles. The bourgeoisie was trying to intimidate the masses of students into not struggling.
We are confident that the revolutionary students will see through this and continue to dare to struggle–dare to win. We call on all communist, revolutionary-minded, and progressive students – don’t be fooled by a revolutionary disguise. Lenin and all the great revolutionary teachers said that groups must be judged on what they do, not by what they say. Bring the struggle against the opportunists out into the open: they represent only the interests of the bourgeoisie within the student movement. While fighting for true multi–national unity, militantly take up the special demands of the oppressed nationalities. This is the only basis upon which we can build real multinational unity. Let us use the lessons learned and the strength gained from the battles to expose and defeat opportunists like the May Fourth Coalition/Workers Viewpoint Organization to intensify our class struggle against the bourgeoisie.