From Workers' Herald
September 1996
Victory Over Opportunism Is a Precondition
for the Victory of the Socialist Revolution in the U.S.A.
By Al Johnson. Reprinted from the April, 1996, issue of Labor's Champion.
What is opportunism and why is it so dangerous to the cause of the working class?
This question comes up time and time again for the revolutionary-minded workers who desire to raise their class consciousness and become true Communists. They know that opportunism and revisionism are poisons, but are not really clear on the exact political complexions of these malignancies.
Marxism has revealed that the conflict going on in this society between the working class and the capitalist class is an inherent, irreconcilable struggle between these classes, brought on by the capitalist mode of exploiting the labor of the proletariat. The two main classes at war with each other--the working class and the capitalist class --inevitably form political parties to organize and lead their struggle. As capitalism develops from decade to decade, the struggle of the classes intensify and at a certain stage, it inevitably leads to the fight for state power on the part of the working class. Political power must and can only pass into the hands of the working class by the forceful overthrow of the capitalist dictatorship. Despite the reverses suffered by the international working class after the death of Stalin and the subsequent restoration of capitalism in the USSR, the struggle for socialism is the main task called forth by social development. We are still in the era of proletarian revolution. The conquest of state power by the working class and the organization of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a necessary stage and the logical outcome of the class struggle of the workers: it is a necessary period in the transition from capitalism to communism. The seizure of power is not the end of class struggle, but the conduct of that struggle continues under new important conditions. Now the working class can use state power to reach its ends. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the lever for bringing about the reorganization of society, for breaking the resistance of the overthrown capitalist class, for bringing about the alliance between the workers and the peasantry and for drawing the masses into state administration. This line represents the ABCs of communism.
However, some who call themselves Marxists actually reject these ABCs.
The once revolutionary, now opportunist, Communist Party USA, in its political program expressly states that the U.S. working class need not seize state power and crush the resistance of the overthrown capitalist class. Chairman Gus Hall claims that the workers can take power legally, without recourse to other means. Hall teaches the workers not to prepare for the inevitable revolutionary storms but to confine their activity to electing so-called "workers and peoples representatives to office," which will lead to so-called "empowerment" of the workers. In order to support the "possibility" of the workers taking power by the so-called ballot, Hall has to completely deny the most profound features of the U.S. state. It is claimed by Hall and his party that the U.S. State is different than other capitalist regimes, that the U.S. state is not a capitalist dictatorship, that it is not an organ of violence in the hands of the rich to force the working class and other oppressed masses into subjugation. Since this is so, claims Hall, the workers need not prepare for crushing and breaking up the capitalist state as the first step of the socialist revolution. And, therefore, there is no need to erect a new proletarian state, one that truly serves the interests of the oppressed masses, that is a dictatorship of the proletariat, to replace the capitalist state.
This is an outline of his crude line of betrayal of the revolution. This is consummate opportunism. The class conscious workers of the U.S.A. have been fed this shameful dilution and renunciation of Marxism for over five decades by the treacherous leaders of the CPUSA and the other opportunist grouplets in this country. No wonder the communist revolutionary movement has been blocked in this country for decades.
The opportunist leaders such as Hall are not fighters for the working class but fighters for the capitalist class. Yet there are those in the communist workers movement who doubt that the damage done by the opportunists is significant. Such people are not only fools but they are working to aid the opportunists in their betrayal of the revolution. When Lenin had to fight these very same elements in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) he pointed out that the political content of opportunism is based on:
"... class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiation of revolutionary action, unconditional acceptance of bourgeois legality, confidence in the bourgeoisie and lack of confidence in the proletariat..." (Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International, Vol. 22, pg. 112)*
The Communist Party USA and the Workers World Party fit this characterization by Lenin perfectly. Despite all their claims about "fighting for socialism," the CPUSA tells the workers not to take power by revolutionary means (the only means), but to defend the bourgeois dictatorship against the coming proletarian dictatorship at all cost, to rely on the liberal capitalists, especially in the form of the Democratic Party. In essence and in practice its line amounts to a renunciation of the socialist revolution.
This opportunist line is the embodiment of counter revolution. There is not a single particle of revolution within it!
Opportunist and revisionist parties like the CPUSA are not workers parties no matter how much they claim to represent the independent interest of the workers. Lenin puts it this way:
"In reality, the opportunists formal membership in workers parties by no means disproves their objectively being a political detachment of the bourgeoisie, conductors of its influence, and its agents in the labor movement."
This is because:
"Opportunism means sacrificing the fundamental interests of the masses to the temporary interests of an insignificant minority of the workers or, in other words, an alliance between a section of the workers and the bourgeoisie, directed against the mass of the proletariat." (Vol. 21, pg. 242).
The opportunism of the CPUSA is not accidental but a result of the bribery of the petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy. Lenin pointed out that the opportunists represent the interests of the exploiters and their allies:
"Opportunism and social chauvinism stand on a common economic basis--the interests of a thin crust of privileged workers and of the petty bourgeoisie, who are defending their privileged positions, their "right" to some modicum of the profits that their "own" national bourgeoisie obtain from robbing other nations, from the advantages of their great power status, etc." (Vol. 21, pg. 310).
Thus there can be no compromise or conciliation with opportunism. Real Marxist-Leninists must work for the exposure, isolation and utter defeat of opportunist parties among the workers.
"The working class of Russia could bring up its party in no other way than by resolutely fighting for 30 years against all varieties of opportunism." (Socialism and the War, Vol. 21, p. 338).
"What the communists fear is the reformist sabotage of the revolution.
"Victory in the proletarian revolution cannot be achieved, and that revolution cannot be safeguarded, while there are reformists and Mensheviks in ones ranks. That is obvious in principle and has been strikingly confirmed by the experience both of Russia and of Hungary. This is a decisive consideration." (Vol. 31, pg. 383-84).
* All references are to: V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, George Hanna ed., Yuri Sdonikov translator (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964).
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