From Workers' Herald
No. 1, 1992
The collapse of the revisionist governments in Eastern Europe, the move to open capitalism in the former USSR and the replacement of the socialist government in Albania with a revisionist regime are striking developments of the past few years. They are the culmination of decades of betrayal and defeats for the international communist movement. The opportunist forces heading the so-called "communist" and "Marxist-Leninist" parties which brought about these developments deserted to the capitalist camp long ago.
This forces those who are genuinely fighting for socialism, but who have been under the influence of revisionism to deal openly with the fact that revisionism is the source this liquidationism. The series of articles selected for this issue are designed to bring this out.
The liquidation of socialism in its birthplace, the USSR, after the death of Stalin, set the stage for this turn of events, which has now introduced wholesale renegacy, vacillation and ideological chaos into what remains of the international communist and workers' movements.
Khrushchev's revisionist policy gave rise to the betrayal by Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. They threw overboard the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and substituted crass liberalism for the proletarian revolutionary ideology embodied in the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Furthermore, many of those who came forward to supposedly combat this Soviet revisionism (i.e., Mao Tsetung, etc.), only spread another variety of petty bourgeois socialism that liquidated Marxism.
But even before Khrushchev, the communist movement in the USA had been wrecked by the teachings of Earl Browder. He had already upstaged Khrushchev by walking away from Marx's concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, by preaching a peaceful road to socialism, by extolling capitalist democracy and by dissolving the CPUSA.
Subsequent attempts by William Z. Foster and others to rebuild the CPUSA, by expelling Browder, but keeping the essential elements of Browderism, were doomed to fail. Because they were already corrupted, the leaders of the CPUSA were eager to embrace the treacherous line put forward by Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU in 1956.
Today the CPUSA, headed by Gus Hall, is a merger of all the retrograde lines and theories of Browder, Khrushchev, and their kin, which attack the very idea of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The CPUSA is communist only in name. Its line is thoroughly reformist and opportunist to the maximum. It is a petty capitalist, liberal party that is only able and prepared to walk at the posterior of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The demise of the CPUSA over five decades ago, of course opened the door wide for the spread of all sorts of phony "left trends" such as Trotskyism and anarchism. These petty bourgeois intellectual currents are more or less open agents of the capitalist class used to attack Marxism. Also, internationally, these so-called "left" currents have served Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Company well in carrying out their dirty work. This is why the opportunist teachings of Leon Trotsky have been widely published and promoted in the USSR (now called the Commonwealth of Independent States). After all, Trotsky's slander of Stalin, his attacks on Lenin's line for building socialism in the USSR, his teaching of the alleged "impossibility of socialism in one country," provide an excellent "left" justification for their actions to set up an open capitalist state and remove even the pretense of socialism.
Because of these monumental acts of betrayal, the working class, in almost all countries around the world, is without a revolutionary proletarian leadership. The working class is being drowned in a sea of opportunist and revisionist theories. This is especially true here in the USA. Yet the arch betrayal comes at a time when capitalism is suffering from a crisis that appears to be the worst since the "Great Depression." The working class is left leaderless while being attacked savagely by the capitalists through cuts in their standard of living and their formal rights.
Thus, the central task for all true Marxist-Leninists in the USA is to unite and build a new, genuine, proletarian party. Such a party, if it is to carry out its duty to the working class, must be rooted in the fundamental principles and practice of revolutionary communism. Given the tremendous confusion and falsifications of Marxism spread by the revisionists, it is paramount that theoretical work be intensified in connection with the forging of the party.
The Marxist-Leninist groups and individuals cannot shirk their duty to defend and develop the theory of Marxism. The proletarian class struggle must be conducted on all three fronts -- political, economic and theoretical -- if we are to succeed in breaking the ideological grip of revisionism. We must sum up, develop, explain, and apply the lessons learned in the experience of socialist construction in the USSR. We must understand the reasons for the victory of revisionism and discover, in this experience, the new methods and approaches to prevent this in the future.
To facilitate this theoretical work for the U.S. Marxist movement, the RPO(ML) will once again publish its theoretical journal Workers' Herald. We will confront the burning questions of the day in the light of Marxist-Leninist theory.
The RPO(ML) is a branch of the international communist movement and will, therefore, draw on the work of other groups and parties abroad and, as well, make its own contribution to the common efforts.
Our organization has always been guided by the revolutionary maxim elaborated by V.I. Lenin that "without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."
Workers' Herald accepts articles from those who stand on the principles of revolutionary communism; who are earnest in their fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism. We welcome all forces in the USA who are, in deed, fighting the opportunists and the centrist conciliators who shield the opportunists in the workers' movement.
We encourage the submission of articles. Manuscripts should be typewritten, double-spaced on 8 1/2" by 11" paper with headings underscored and pages numbered. Please send two copies. If you wish one of the copies returned, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
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