Thoughts on this?

In the previous three sections, we (1) evaluated the practice of U.S. MLism (2) argued that its organizational forms are based on a dogmatic reading of the Bolshevik Party and (3) argued that “correct line” without mass organizing is illusory. Having explored what the ML trend is, we have to ask “why” – why did the trend come to be this way? We will begin by tracing the lineage of the three main ML groups in the U.S.

The PSL formed1 through a split from WWP in 2004, though today they espouse a nearly identical political ideology: Marcyism. In the 1950s, Sam Marcy led a faction in the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) around the idea of “Global Class War”2. In this formulation, the world is increasingly polarized into two “class camps”: one of the imperialist bourgeoisie and the other of the global working class, the socialist countries, and the national liberation movements. Marcy’s faction eventually left the SWP in 1959 to form the Workers World Party. While WWP is much more sympathetic to the socialist countries and national liberation movements than the SWP or most Trotskyist groups, it originally maintained adherence to aspects of the basic Trotskyist framework such as transitional demands and anti-Stalinism. Although WWP does not have an official position on the Trotsky/Stalin question, most of the leadership are more partial towards Trotsky. However, both WWP and PSL self-identify as Marxist-Leninist.

FRSO comes from a completely different lineage: the New Communist Movement (NCM). The New Communist Movement was a Marxist-Leninist trend which dominated the revolutionary Left in the United States in the late-60s and the 70s3. It was composed largely of younger radicals (often former students) who were inspired by the Chinese, Cuban, and Vietnamese revolutions and who looked suspiciously upon the Soviet Union and its U.S. affiliate the CPUSA. The NCM formulated itself as being anti-revisionist along the lines of Mao Zedong Thought (MZT)4, and broadly viewed the Soviet Union as social-imperialist or as having restored capitalism. FRSO was formed in 1985 by the merger of the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, two organizations of the late NCM that generally adhered to Mao Zedong Thought. While FRSO today recognizes the USSR as a socialist country up until its collapse in 1991, the original party line upheld the restorationist thesis. Thus, FRSO’s lineage can be planted firmly within U.S. Maoism as practiced in the NCM. That being said, FRSO is critical of the sectarianism, dogmatism, and ultra-leftism that characterized much of the practice of the NCM.

MLism in the U.S. is seen as the continuation of a revolutionary tradition from Marx to Mao. In reality, instead of a coherent “Marxist-Leninist” trend, there is some amalgam of Marcyist Trotskyism and Mao Zedong Thought. What should be immediately apparent is that U.S. MLism is hardly the product of an unbroken torch-passing of Marxist thought; rather, it is a trend formed out of multiple lineages of U.S. communist organization, forged from the practice of the New Left up through the collapse of the socialist bloc. However, this history is often concealed by its adherents. Such was the case during the NCM:

[NCM Marxist-Leninists] accepted the notion that there was one and only one revolutionary tradition—and that there existed a single, genuine Marxism-Leninism that embodied its accumulated wisdom. They all believed that upholding their favored version of genuine Marxism-Leninism was the key to building a revolutionary movement. This established a never-ending quest for orthodoxy and a constant suspicion of heresy at the very center of the movement’s outlook.

But this entire framework (shared—though with different post-1917 icons—by pro-Soviet communism and Trotskyism) is fatally flawed. The conditions of economic, political and social life are so marked by constant change – and the history of popular and revolutionary movements is simply too complex—for there to be one pure tradition embodying all essential truths. A great deal can be learned from previous left experience, and identification with the history of the revolutionary movement can be a great source of strength. The contributions of Marx and Lenin still shed light on the workings of capitalism and the process of social change. They stand out for their breadth of vision and insistence on linking theory, practical work, and organization-building in an internationalist project. But it is an unwarranted leap from there to belief in a single and true Marxist-Leninist doctrine with an unbroken revolutionary pedigree from 1848 to the present.5

What is today understood as MLism contains many analyses from its component parts (Marcyism, MZT) which are in tension with MLs’ self-image as representative of the global communist tradition. For instance, while the ML trend today rejects the thesis that capitalism was restored by the Soviet Union itself, most of the anti-revisionist framework which grew out of exactly this thesis still stands, including the categorization of the CPSU and its client parties as “revisionist” after Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” in 1956 (or earlier). All of these positions, as well as the entire “five heads” tradition and the construction of a direct line from Marx to Mao, served originally as ideological justification for the Sino-Soviet Split. But considering the disastrous policies6 of the Chinese Communist Party due to the split, as well as the fact that the Vietnamese and Cuban parties, among others, refused to adopt the Chinese orientation against the Soviet Union, it does not seem to be a given that we should accept the basic anti-revisionist framework, which is exactly what the contemporary ML trend does without even realizing.

It is mistaken for the ML trend in the U.S. to view itself as cut from the exact same cloth as current or historical self-described Marxist-Leninist parties across the world for purely ideological reasons. Despite the fact that U.S. MLs “uphold” the Cuban Communist Party, or Mao Zedong’s contributions, or the FARC, or the PFLP, it does not follow that U.S. MLs are a part of a united tradition with all of these groups7. As materialists, we must recognize that an organization or trend must be appraised by its practice, not by its own words or ideology. One cannot simply “identify with” a swath of historical Parties and inherit their success and credentials. We believe this trend of appealing to the authority of other movements and parties is an important way that U.S. MLism seeks to legitimize itself while concealing its actual history and practice.

We have argued that U.S. MLism is not some continuation of an unbroken, eternal, global tradition of Marxism-Leninism. Rather, it is a specific, historically contingent trend that encompasses a variety of lineages from U.S. Trotskyism to the Maoist NCM. In other words, “Marxism-Leninism” as used today is an abstraction that conceals its real content. And this real content allows us to explain its flawed practice. U.S. Trotskyists, as well as those who upheld the Mao Zedong Thought of the NCM, were always organized in sects. Hal Draper, who had direct experience with this phenomenon, defines a sect as follows:

A sect presents itself as the embodiment of the socialist movement, though it is a membership organization whose boundary is set more or less rigidly by the points in its political program rather than by its relation to the social struggle. In contrast, a working-class party is not simply an electoral organization but rather, whether electorally engaged or not, an organization which really is the political arm of decisive sectors of the working class, which politically reflects (or refracts) the working class in motion as it is…

What characterizes the classic sect was best defined by Marx himself: it counterposes its sect criterion of programmatic points against the real movement of the workers in the class struggle, which may not measure up to its high demands. The touchstone of support (the “point d’honneur,” in Marx’s words) is conformity with the sect’s current shibboleths – whatever they may be, including programmatic points good in themselves. The approach pointed by Marx was different: without giving up or concealing one’s own programmatic politics in the slightest degree, the real Marxist looks to the lines of struggle calculated to move decisive sectors of the class into action – into movement against the established powers of the system (state and bourgeoisie and their agents, including their labor lieutenants inside the workers’ movement). And for Marx, it is this reality of social (class) collision which will work to elevate the class’s consciousness to the level of the socialist movement’s program.8

We believe our arguments suggest that U.S. Marxism-Leninism fits this definition. ML groups in the U.S. are defined primarily by and praised for their political program rather than their practice in organizing with the class. Programmatic standards are imposed onto the class instead of forged through struggle, as we saw when analyzing the protest strategy of WWP or PSL’s use of PCoR. ML organizations cohere their membership around specific positions on historical and international events and actors, rather than on shared strategy of mobilizing and organizing various layers of the working class. Additionally, their dogmatic adherence to “democratic centralism” as well as their focus on protests and sloganeering in practice cements them on an ideological basis rather than a strategic one.

*CONTINUED IN COMMENTS