Problems of Vanguardism
In Defense of Leninism
by Peter Camejo [October 1, 1984]
 

Introduction

During the youth radicalization of the late 1960s an entire generation in the United States was transformed politically. Mass currents of opinion critical of imperialism, racism, sexism and other aspects of capitalism were generated, often expressed in powerful single-issue movements. Among the most committed, tens of thousands became interested in the world socialist movement.

The youth of the 1960s and early 1970s sought models and found the Soviet Union wanting. They were far more attracted to the ultraleft rhetoric of Maoism or the "purity" of "Trotskyist" formations. This attraction was in part due to the natural ultraleft romanticism of a generational radicalization based largely on campuses. The ultraleftism of the 1960s was not born of defeat and despair, which have characterized most ultraleft currents in the past. The energy of the 1960s and 1970s is, in fact, far from exhausted. The impact of this is reflected in every progressive mass struggle in the United States today.

But the road forward proved to be far more difficult than the simplistic imitation of other revolutionary experiences seemed to promise. The generation of the sixties failed to consolidate a new revolutionary vanguard or movement in the United States. This is the only honest conclusion that can be drawn. Maoism quickly proved to be quite different from its followers' expectations. The Mao-Nixon accord in 1971 and China's subsequent rightist policies broke the infatuation with Maoism. Maoist and other efforts to proselytize North American industrial workers took on an infantile ultra-leftism whose practice and rhetoric lacked connection to the America of the 1970s. These attempts led to failure in spite of some temporary and partial exceptions.

Gradually a dichotomy has developed between the sectarianism of formations claiming to be Leninist vanguards and mass struggles. The remnants of these vanguard-type formations have been caught in a methodology that guarantees their self-isolation. Others, repelled, have ended up questioning the very need for a revolutionary vanguard, Leninism, or even a socialist future for the United States.

Many chose to remain active solely in issue-oriented formations, surrounded by the pressures of living in a country with a powerful and solidly institutionalized imperialist ruling class. Many of those seeking refuge in single-issue work inevitably became subject to rightward pressures. The growth of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is one organizational expression of this shift.

The dichotomy between choosing dogmatic/sectarian formations or rightist/opportunist politics has widened. Undercutting this process has been the influence stemming from revolutionary victories in Central Americaand the consistent revolutionary policies and idealism of the Cubans and others like them.

A great deal of rethinking has been going on in the left in the United States in recent years. One of the most promising developments has been the growth of solidarity with Central America as well as the massive impact of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition electoral campaign. The rejection of sectarianism by new forces is often associated with prejudices and often combined with the feeling that while revolutions are possible in the Third World, there is no hope for revolutionary changes within the advanced industrial countries, at least not in the United States. Such a view can lead activists to look away from the broad masses of working people for political solutions. Instead, a logic of despair can influence one to give up one's own people. This invariably leads one to look for allies within the ruling class and function under the illusion that maybe some wing of the ruling class remains historically progressive.

The sectarianism and ultraleftism of many of the formations that comprise our left only help reinforce the rightist danger. In this document we wish to argue that what is wrong with the method of the sectarians has nothing to do with Leninism. We do so with the goal of winning the newer generation to the need to build a revolutionary movement in our own country, but with methods diametrically opposite to those promoted by the sectarians. In furthering this task a better understanding of the errors of the sectarians can only help create interest in a genuine revolutionary movement.
 

Vanguardism

Organizations considering themselves "the vanguard" in the United States, as a whole, have an ultra-left and dogmatic interpretation of Leninism. In their view, Lenin's concept of a proletarian vanguard party has been reduced to the idea that all that is needed is a "correct program" and a democratic-centralist organization. After all, isn't that what Lenin did? He drafted a program and assembled a cadre around that program. What is missing in such an over-simplified concept of Leninism, however, is the living class struggle.
 

Leninism

The starting point of Lenin's conception of organization was the class struggle itself. Lenin saw that, as struggles developed, there spontaneously appeared dedicated and committed leaders among those suffering exploitation and oppression. Out of these more politically advanced elements he sought to mold a genuine vanguard that could unify and lead in action the working class, along with other social strata suffering oppression.

Lenin opposed building a party of all workers. He saw that such a formation would have a rather confused political orientation. Instead, he argued for building a party based on the more advanced leaders and activists generated by the ongoing struggles.

By 1905, Lenin characterized the class struggle in Russia as the world's most advanced revolutionary mass movement ever. He set as his task the consolidation of a revolutionary vanguard, unified around a class struggle orientation. Lenin functioned within the framework of the mass movement unfolding in Europe at that time, the Second International and its affiliated socialist parties.

To Lenin, both the party's program and the organization of the revolutionary vanguard were directly tied to involvement in the mass movement. Lenin also emphasized that both programmatic and organizational norms evolve with circumstances in the class struggle.

Those who separate Lenin's conception of a vanguard from its roots in mass work turn Leninism into sect building based on abstract ideology. No "vanguard" in the United States is currently leading any mass movement. In most cases, our "vanguards" don't even participate in them.

Yet they like to insist that they have "the" program and a disciplined cadre that, taken together. qualify them for recognition as "the" Leninist vanguard or, at least, the "embryo of the vanguard."
 

Intellectualizing

Organizations. some having been around for 50 or 100 years, that claim to have "the" program are, by definition, wrong. For those seeking to create a vanguard formation in the United States, developing an effective program and strategy must involve, first, recognizing the existence of mass struggles and, second, directly participating in them. Those who deduce their program from intellectual study and assemble cadre in order to wait and be ready when the moment arrives make an idealist error. They reject the materialist starting point of Marxism.

For sectarians, the ideas (program come first, divorced from existing struggles. Their methods lead to the emergence of dogmatic sects whose loyalty is to their own ideology. In this manner, Marxism is reduced to an intellectual exercise involving debates and polemics to prove the "correctness" of one theory over and against another, instead of being a science to promote living struggles.

The first loyalty of revolutionaries must always be tied to the living struggles. Lenin insisted that genuine discipline was impossible without directly leading mass revolutionary struggles, and he predicted that those who pretend to develop revolutionary discipline while remaining isolated would end up phrase mongering and clowning. Anyone acquainted with the U.S. left knows that we have sufficient quantities of both.

The misconception that having the "correct program" will ultimately assure victory, regardless of one's direct participation in struggle, has lead to a series of policies and methods that condemn political formations to a sectarian existence. Let us look briefly at a few examples.
 

Intervention

A trademark of sectarians is their manner of "intervention." Some members of a group will be assigned to intervene among formations attempting to reach people on one issue or another. The real goal of these interventions is the cannibalization of movements and organizations in order to gain one more adherent to the sect. If the sect suddenly decides that the issue or group is no longer conducive to sect-building, its members will disappear as suddenly as they appeared. Sects approach struggles in the real world as though they were visitors from another planet checking out an alien environment.
 

Polemics

Small groups of fewer than 3,000 members, often with fewer than 1.000, will write great polemics attacking each other or some minority within their own group to defend their "program." They regard this practice, as "being Leninist." After all, didn't Lenin fight against all forms of obfuscation and attempts to revise or water down a Marxist program?

Yes, of course, Lenin polemicized. However, he focused his efforts against currents directly leading, or rather misleading, mass movements or currents whose views were affecting the genuine vanguards of those mass struggles. Lenin didn't waste time on polemics with groups that had no relationship to the living events of the day.

Most polemics in the U.S. left today involve either a discussion of activities being carried out by forces on some other continent or about some historical event. For instance, a battle will rage in the Middle East and, as with all mass struggles, the forces involved and the issues posed will be quite complex. What then occurs among our home-grown sectarians is an orgy of commentary. Each group comments on the events in the real world with the goal of confirming their particular views. They patiently point out the errors of those actually struggling in the Middle East and kindly offer their moral solidarity. This is usually climaxed with a headline saying something like "U.S. OUT" or some similar phrase that terminates their obligation to the real struggle.

The opening fray of comments soon leads to documents and pamphlets or even entire books. These are aimed to expose the commentary of other groups inside the United States or, at times, minorities from within their own groups. Of course, neither these critics nor the condemned are in any way involved in the struggles they are debating. Such debates are considered a Leninist involvement in politics. In actuality, they are a form of abstention from participation in real living struggles.
 

Differences

Another key difference between the methods of the U.S. sects and those of Lenin (or the Central American revolutionaries) centers on the question of which political points demarcate revolutionary and reformist currents.

In the United States, which is the center of world imperialism, points of demarcation between revolutionary and reformist currents will necessarily involve many factors, both of a national and an international character. The process through which a real ideological struggle unfolds, however, must be directly related to the living class struggle. Differences can only be resolved if we use a non-sectarian method of debate and discussion, one that bases points of demarcation on real struggles.

Undoubtedly, the leadership created by mass struggles will be a collective leadership, reflecting the complexities of the U.S. class struggle and the various exploited and oppressed layers. A genuine "correct program"—that is, one that is derived from reality—will develop through the conflict of ideas, permanently adjusted through experience. If an atmosphere tolerant of differences and debate does not exist among revolutionaries, they will find it difficult to respond to changing conditions or to correct errors. We must also have the patience and humility to recognize that people may change their views over time as many of us have done.

We are talking here not about intellectual exercises called debates or faction fights but rather of the constructive clash of ideas within a revolutionary framework. Such debates are impossible under the present dogmatic/sectarian misconceptions of Leninism incorporated in such claims as "We represent the continuity of the movement; therefore, we have the correct program."

U.S. revolutionaries need norms that permit the kind of discussions Lenin's party held. Those debates rarely led to splits or divisions. In fact, Lenin, the central leader of the revolutionary current, was on occasion voted down. This is something quite inconceivable for the central leadership of any of our many U.S. "vanguards."
 

The Class Analysis of Differences

The intolerance of existing U.S. "vanguards" toward differences inside their own ranks flows directly from their idealist errors regarding the relationship between program and organization on the one hand and mass struggles on the other.

The belief that one has the "correct program" leads straight to the corollary that political differences must reflect the pressures of a different class. After all, a "correct program" can only reflect the interests of the proletariat and, since there is only one proletariat and one program, different views must inevitably be rooted in some other class.

Since the claims of sectarian to the title of "the vanguard" and "the Marxist-Leninist party" are synonymous with their having the "correct program" as well as "historical continuity with Marx and Lenin," they cannot for long tolerate other groups or currents that hold different positions on major questions, or even different interpretations of history.

When groups that have little contact with mass struggles develop differences that cannot possibly be tested in practice, the differences quickly escalate into a challenge to the whole premise of the existing "vanguard " formation. Since they mechanically see questions as interrelated, even small differences become crucial in their eyes.

What usually follows is a "class analysis" of the views of one's "opponents," combined with a "class analysis" of the opponent as a person of a certain social grouping. In every case, it is "discovered" that the opponent represents an "alien class pressure," coming from the petty bourgeoisie. The opponent is thus outside the framework of the working class movement, and can be treated accordingly.

What is the result? More often than not, two "vanguards" each calling the other "petty bourgeois," emerge. As time passes and splits grow in number, we encounter an ever-increasing number of "vanguards," each with its own particular explanation of history and events.
 

One Party, One Class

One argument that is often heard in the polemics of sectarians is that only one party can truly represent the working class. In Russia, it was the Bolsheviks. All other Russian parties turned out to reflect alien class forces.

Thus, our U.S. "vanguards" conclude, only one organization can represent the U.S. working class.

Yet, today we see various organizations, coming from diverse backgrounds, working together in El Salvador within the FMLN—and all are genuine revolutionaries. This unity reflets the concrete process through which a vanguard developed in El Salvador. The experience in the Soviet Union is not the only form that history has provided for the development of a vanguard.

Genuine revolutionaries can have differences for the simple reason that revolutionaries can be wrong. In fact. all revolutionaries are wrong on one or another question at some time, and not merely with regard to secondary questions. Any honest historical study will show this to be the case. How could it be otherwise? We are all products of our societies, in spite of our dedication to social struggles.

Did Lenin reflect alien class pressures or stop being a proletarian because he opposed the soviets (mass united worker, peasant, and soldier councils) when they first appeared in 1905? Was Lenin no longer a revolutionary because he counterposed building a revolutionary party to building the soviets, or for later changing his mind and supporting soviets but insisting that the bourgeoisie be included in them?

Was Lenin no longer a revolutionary because he thought the revolution was in an upswing in early 1906 when it was in fact clearly declining? Or was Trotsky a hopeless petty bourgeois for disagreeing with Lenin on organizational questions for a whole period or for believing that the USSR would be crushed unless Europe went Socialist? Was Guevara no longer a proletarian revolutionary because there were weaknesses in his attempt to project a road to victory in Latin America in his foquista orientation (emphasizing the creation of small, rural guerilla bands)?

Revolutionaries are people. Only with an anti-cult attitude can we form a genuine collective leadership and develop the modesty and humility necessary to listen, think, and act collectively. It is only when we demystify revolutionaries will it become possible to genuinely recognize their great contributions.
 

The "Our Day Will Come" Syndrome

Sectarian formations teach their followers that their day will come. Since their "program" will triumph when conditions ripen, their task is to accumulate cadres and wait. They prepare mainly by raising their political level (translation: convincing themselves that their program is correct and their leadership profound). They are not upset that they are not in the leadership of any struggles, since it is not yet the time for revolutionaries. The objective conditions, you see, have yet to ripen. This concept of "our day will come" or cheering other revolutions without looking at the potential of our own working class and oppressed layers has religious overtones of looking for a promised land.

Such a concept is neither Leninist nor materialist. There is today in the United States an ongoing class struggle that takes a variety of forms. A genuine vanguard would lead that struggle at whatever level possible.

No better example could be given than the need to defend the Central American revolution. This is not a task that can be postponed until conditions are ripe. We

cannot wait until we have a better, more proletarian anti-intervention movement. We have to fight on every level possible, and those who lead such struggles today are the genuine beginnings of a vanguard.
 

Program

What really, after all, is a program?A program is not a written instruction manual on how to make a revolution in your country, nor is it the "best" historical interpretation of all past events. (One fast give-away of sectarians is their pre-occupation with proving their politically correct genealogy.)

A program is, rather, the working out of the tasks before the working class and its allies to liberate themselves from the exploitation and oppression they suffer under capitalism. A program also includes a strategy to eliminate racism, sexism, poverty. unemployment, and endless other human tragedies of a society that places profits above human needs.

A program is a general guide, an outline of a strategy for liberation. It is based on lessons from history, but it is not history itself. By definition, a program avoids making historical interpretations except on the broad outlines required by the living struggle. A program is the attempt to generalize the lessons from the history of the class struggle and to apply them to the present epoch. A program is both specific, by incorporating national considerations, and general, by including the international framework.

The program that is of any use evolves. It must emerge not only from generalizations from past struggles, but from the concrete manifestations of present struggles. A movement not completely immersed in mass struggles is incapable of developing an effective program.
 

A Program for the United States

A program for the Third American Revolution clearly evolves over time. A program written in 1984, as opposed to one written in 1954, would include a different spectrum of questions, though many fundamental considerations would remain the same.

Issues that have evolved—or, where our understanding has evolved—include the oppression of women, the treatment of homosexuals, problems related to pollution and the environment, the development of new sectors of the working class, and the tasks facing oppressed nationalities. To these, we can add the mass awareness of the growing threat of nuclear war and the new immigration from Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the world.

The fact that the program evolves and that there are many aspects to this process in no way means that the struggle in the United States does not remain fundamentally between those who own capita] and those who work for a living. Similarly, to specify the enormóus weight of the struggles of oppressed nationalities and women, or to raise issues that cut across class lines such as the struggle against the threat of nuclear destruction, is not to reject the underlying class struggle, but rather to make it more balanced and concrete.

The Example of Nicaragua

In order to illustrate the difference between Lenin's views and the views so prevalent among the U.S. "vanguard" groups, it is useful to look at an actual revolutionary experience. Nicaragua is better known by the present generation of the U.S. left than previous revolutions. (We could just as well take up other examples, including that of the Soviet Union, since the lessons to be drawn are quite similar, in spite of some important differences in form.)

In Nicaragua, the fundamental solution to all social problems was to win self-determination by driving U.S. imperialism out of the country. This took the form of a struggle against the Somoza dynasty.

The FSLN began with only a handful of individuals as the left wing of the largest, and most broad-based movement in Nicaraguan history, the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. The FSLN founders offered a program based on proletarian methods of struggle (minus the rhetoric), that is, a definitive struggle against Somoza and Somocismo, and not one of a rearrangement of imperialist rule.

They sought to rid Nicaragua of Somoza through direct mobilization of the workers and peasants. together with whatever allies could be won among other social layers. They fought to build a broadly united mass movement based on specific demands. Through this process, they grouped the vanguard elements created by the anti-Somoza struggle.

They avoided interjecting divisive and unnecessary conditions for unity, carefully choosing the points of demarcation from other currents in the anti-Somoza stuggle. In stark contrast to the orientation of every U.S. formation calling itself a "vanguard," the FSLN never sought complete agreement on interpretations of history, much less made such an agreement a requirement to be part of the developing vanguard in Nicaragua.

What exactly was the program of the FSLN? Their program was one of ending Somocismo and establishing a government truly representative of the working people of Nicaragua. Their strategy was the removal of Somocismo through direct action rather than Somoza's removal through negotiations with imperialism, that policy being the strategy of the reformist wing of the anti-Somicistas. They sought to rely on the workers and the peasants, the two forces they felt would be willing to carry out a decisive and committed struggle to end Somoza's rule, and to defend genuine self-determination.

Did the FSLN make errors? Of course. Only those who abstain from the complexity of the real living struggles make but one error—their abstention. Undoubtedly, the FSLN made many errors of both a right and left nature. Let us consider for a moment the sad consequence for Nicaragua if Carlos Fonseca and other founders of the FSLN had followed the methods of our U.S. "vanguards."

Suppose the FSLN founders had intellectualized their "program," requiring agreement on interpretations of every faction fight in the history of the workers' movement? What if, instead of developing the lines of demarcation between the FSLN and other currents on Nicaraguan issues, they had proceeded to engage in endless debates over Maoism, the validity of critiques of Stalinism, etc.? What if they had argued that every difference on how to participate in a struggle mirrored positions taken at this or that time by the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, or the Social Revolutionaries?

What would have happened in Nicaragua? One thing is certain: such an approach by the FSLN would have facilitated Somoza's efforts to isolate it. The FSI.N organized Nicaragua's natural vanguard. Fortunately, the FSLN acted in a Leninist fashion, without self-righteous fanfare and pompous self-justifications.

The programmatic and ideological misconceptions of our U.S. "vanguards," which separate them from the material reality of living struggles, regardless of verbal or written claims to the contrary, guarantee their isolation. If the FSLN had fallen into the U.S. methodology, they would never have secured the commitment and dedication of their people to a determined, exceedingly difficult struggle for liberation.

The concrete tasks of the FSLN, which developed as a process, were and obviously are different from those facing a vanguard formation in the United States, or in South Africa, or Sweden—but the method needed is similar.

What is applicable in one situation may be somewhat different in another. Issues that are secondary today and should not be dividing lines can become decisive tomorrow. And issues that may seem and, in fact, be decisive today can become secondary tomorrow. Program and points of demarcation evolve. Those who fail to appreciate such essentials will never build revolutionary movements, only highly intellectualized sects.

While each epoch and country may have sharply different needs, the method of building a revolutionary vanguard directly out of the living struggles, and of developing a program and organization as a process, are criteria that every revolutionary victory has shown to be a necessity.

Central America: The Acid Test

No example could be clearer than the developing revolutionary straggles in Central America. The peoples of this region have entered into a macs anti-imperialist struggle, opening up the possibility for a resolution of many years of oppression through the triumph of armed mass insurrectionary movements. The United States is the direct imperialist power involved. The future, not only of Central America but of our own movement, will be affected as a whole spectrum of international forces comes into play.

Those of us in the United States who consider ourselves sisters and brothers of all revolutionaries fighting for social justice must not fail to recognize both the duty to defend Central America and build opposition to U.S. aggression, and the opportunity to increase political consciousness in the United States. History is written by millions, and history is being written today in Central America, a history which is our own.

Where are our "vanguards"? Who has stepped forward to defend these living social revolutions? Who has put the struggle of the Central American peoples above all factional or sectarian considerations? Who has sought to develop and build a unified movement based on living reality, taking advantage of every possibility to mobilize U.S. forces in defense of Central America, and to neutrait. a or divide forces in the enemy camp?

Where are our "vanguards"? One is busy raiding a committee here and a committee there in an attempt to "get control," maybe to recruit two new members. Another is pontificating about alleged errors of those who are actually doing something, such as setting up literature tables to inform the average person about the facts, or collecting funds for medical aid.

Another sect is selling its paper at every movement activity, all the while declaring the solidarity movement meaningless. Two sects even called ballot initiatives advocating non-intervention in Central America "obstacles" to a supposedly "truly" revolutionary approach. A.nd to help facilitate the confusionist and obscurantist work of the bourgeois media, one of the more extreme sects will be sure to bring red flags bearing hammers and sickles to each demonstration.

One group will refuse to participate in the solidarity movement while declaring its unending support for the FMLN, while another comes to meetings to criticize the FMLN's alleged "imminent sell-out." The criticisms of these "vanguards," of course, are self-described as being the most important "aid" of all.

Of course, organizations that have fallen into sectarian methodologies can, at times, in spite of errors, take a correct position on one or another question, or engage in useful propaganda work, and even occasionally make a positive contribution in the class struggle. But like a stopped watch that is right twice a day, they are useless as a guide to either our next step or our long-range perspectives, despite their undeniable good intentions. In addition, we must acknowledge that many individuals and groups may evolve in a healthy direction. The history of movements such as those in Nicaragua and El Salvador indicate that even groups that for a long time made all kinds of errors have changed, adapted, evolved.

But in this overall context, is it any surprise that, in city after city, those forces that are working on a day-to-day basis to concretely defend Central America see the "vanguards" more often as obstacles than allies? What we are witnessing through the experience of Central America at this time is the bankruptcy of the U.S. sectarians.

As opposed to the sectarians, a new, younger generation has stepped forward to place as its central concern advancing the real struggle against U.S. agression in the region. These activists have generated mutual respect and communication with the generations of Central American revolutionaries leading their people to self-determination. Without long theses and documents, a new generation of U.S. solidarity activists is doing more effective work than the self-declared "Marxist-Leninist vanguards." These younger forces, learning from the living struggle in Central America, are creating one part of a future framework from which a genuine U.S. revolutionary vanguard can expand.

[October 1, 1984]

A Comment on the North American Revolution
by Peter Camejo

The development of a vanguard for the Third American Revolution must be rooted in our culture, language, and democratic and revolutionary traditions. This question in our opinion is not simply a tactical matter, nor is it a question of finding popular expressions of Marxist concepts. It is rooted in a correct conception of the Third American Revolution.
 

The Defensive Nature of Revolution

Revolutions are defensive. Fundamental social change takes place as a defense against attempts to take back established rights, gains, or conditions. Revolutions do not occur out of ideological commitment to a better or higher social order. Ideas. on a mass scale, can transcend the ideological constraints of the existing social order only in part and for short periods of time, during intense. mass, independent (from the ruling class) activity. To believe otherwise is to reject a materialist conception of the relationship between ideas and their socioeconomic and political environment.

Revolutions in our epoch occur because deep contradictions develop between what the masses see as justifiable—as taught by the existing society—and the unjustifiable policies pursued by the ruling class.

For example. it is easy to see the contradiction between the democratic traditions stemming from bourgeois revolutions and present-day military dictatorships such as existed in Nicaragua under Somoza. The ability of the FSLN to win over and mobilize massive support in the revolutionary struggle against Somoza was rooted in the inability of imperialism to bring the fruits of its own bourgeois revolution to Nicaragua. and the ability of the FSLN to champion the progressive sentiments of the masses.

The traditional ideals of bourgeois revolutions—self-determination, bourgeois democracy (parliamentary regimes, civil liberties, etc.), land reform, and industrialization—were opposed by the same social order that helped transmit those very ideas through its example, culture, history, and traditions—United States capitalism. Thus, imperialism created a framework within which the defense of what is already accepted as the norm in our epoch became revolutionary in Nicaragua.

It is not surprising that the first anti-colonial movement in Central America led by Morazan looked to the United States for a model to follow. Or that Sandino closed his first political manifesto in 1921 by paraphrasing Lincoln. The ideals originally created by capitalism today are in conflict with its perpetuation.
 

"Down with Somoza"

"Down with Somoza" capsulized in three words the defensive demands of an historic epoch. This thought bridged the gap between what capitalism claimed society should be like and what it was—the gap between self-determination with civil liberties and a parliamentary democratic form of government and a totalitarian, arbitrary regime reflecting foreign domination. Yet this struggle opened the way to look beyond capitalism, because the social forces necessary to bring Somoza down were forces that objectively did not benefit by its continuation. What made this transition possible was the existence of a vanguard, the FSLN.,

As is evident in Nicaragua, capitalism creates a continuous conflict between its own ideals and the reality it creates. While capitalists find parliamentary forms to their advantage in the advanced industrial countries, they have been unable to take advantage of this form to its full extent in the Third World and have had to rule more overtly as a consequence.

In a longer range perspective, this difficulty holds true for capitalism worldwide, including the financial-industrial-commercial centers of Japan, Western Europe. and the United States. In a period of worldwide economic recession, the liberal reforms granted during earlier periods of economic expansion will be curtailed. The conflict between capitalism's drive for profits before human needs and the jcondoned" intervention and participation by an ever more educated and organized working class within capitalist society inevitably leads to social explosions.

Capitalism cannot resolve its basic contradiction by becoming more responsive to social needs except for short periods of time, and then only in a limited manner. This is the case because taking into consideration human needs always comes into conflict with the drive for profits that is capitalism's reason for existence. Inevitably, capitalism is forced to go against its own ideals and thus open the road towards revolution.

The right to self-determination is certainly one of the more loudly advertised attributes of the U.S. model of democracy. Self-determination is at once the declared goal of the United States as taught in the official education system, reinforced in every ideological defense of "America," and the principle it violates in reality on a massive scale, in an increasingly crude manner, throughout the world. Of course, this has and does provoke crises within the United States, weaken the credibility of its government, and create divisions within society as a whole. The hollow promise also serves to inject confusion and disarray into ruling class circles as they attempt to deal with an opposition that roots itself in a framework that is difficult to repudiate. Thus, imperialist politicians are forced into the most complicated distortions of truth, attempting to make opposition to self-determination appear instead as support. The drive to defend the Third World from "Russian imperialism" is a familiar—if perverted—rationale. Reagan's orchestration of the media during the invasion of Grenada is a fine example of the poor correlation between freedom of the press and inquiry and the functional access to information we experience in the United States. Mondale, claiming a "difference" with Reagan, favored the invasion to protect Grenada's right of self-determination from "communists"—but thought it incorrect to exclude the press.

It is these contradictions between reality and tradition that have generated massive sympathy for the nonintervention movement, along with the memory of Vietnam and the growing consciousness of the danger of nuclear holocaust. The conflict generated in the U.S. around the issue of self-determination in Central America is one example of a process that is occurring in response to a whole range of issues and crises.

Even such a simple everyday concept as the right to education. 'which we have come to take for granted, at least at the secondary level, comes into direct conflict with the profit system. The struggle for universal education as a right swept the United States as a byproduct of the First American Revolution in the period between the First and Second revolutions—the 1770s to the 1860s. It is now deeply engrained in our consciousness as a norm and a right.

The general expression "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" takes on a thousand and one concrete forms that are coming into increased conflict with the needs and very premises of the capitalist order. From efforts to protect our environment to the battles against oppression based on gender and race, people are drawn into the struggles to defend a "tradition" that lays claim to the right to "life. liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
 

Ending Our Isolation

The need to root the future vanguard of the Third North American Revolution in the traditions, language. and culture of the United States is essential in order to avoid isolation. This is crucial to unifying and organizing whatever mass expressions of opposition might be generated by the contradictions of the system.

An understanding of the traditions, ideals, and the variations that exist among the different sectors of the exploited and oppressed in the U.S. is crucial if we are to develop a revolutionary movement capable of linking with mass consciousness. It is essential for driving a wedge between the ruling class and the masses and for creating mass motion against the ruling class.

The traditions of the struggles of working people, oppressed nationalities, and women have left impressions on the mass consciousness in the United States. From the Declaration of Independence's revolutionary rhetoric to Lincoln's claim that our government should be "of. by, and for the people." we have a basis for opposition to present ruling class policies.
 

Speaking Americanese

Symbols and terms borrowed from other revolutionary experiences are often completely misunderstood by the people, and socialists have often used them in ways that are counterproductive. An obvious example is the famous Russian symbol of the hammer and sickle. In 1917 they symbolized workers and peasants and their need to unite to fight for their common interests. However, to wave a flag emblazoned with a hammer and sickle in the United States does not bring to mind thoughts of workers and peasants. To most it evokes the Soviet Union and is equated, as a byproduct of anticommunist propaganda, with dictatorship and governmental abuse. Yet some of our truly infantile ultralefts love to bring the hammer and sickle to demonstrations. Such "radical" acts usually serve the ruling class by confusing the issues and undermining the actual struggles that the ultralefts allegedly want to support. Yet this more extreme example is repeated on more subtle levels continuously by our left.
 

For a "Workers' and Farmers' Government"

A more sophisticated example is the use of terms like a "workers and farmers" government. This term comes out of discussions in the Third International of the early 1920s in Moscow, but today some sectarians actually think it a "popularized" expression in the United States.

In pursuing this example, we must first explain the concept behind this slogan. What interests us is finding a genuine form to the concept that would be understandable to the American people, and thus of some value.

In the early 1920s the world revolutionary movement tried to draw lessons from the Russian Revolution by discussing at length what kind of government should be advocated. Their starting premise was Marx's concept that, to end the rule of capitalism, a state was needed that would defend the interests of the working class. Such a state must be prepared to suppress the capitalist class as a class, preventing it from continuing its exploitative economic role. Marx referred to such a state as a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to a "dictatorship of capital." Marx was not speaking of the form that a government might take at the head of a state apparatus. Under capitalism governments have taken a variety of forms from fascist dictatorships to parliamentary democracies, all of which maintain by force exploitative capitalist economic and social relations. Thus, they are all "dictatorships of capital."

A "dictatorship of the proletariat," that is, a state that defends the interests of the working people, is by definition far more democratic in any form than the most democratic dictatorship of capital, which must defend the interests of a tiny minority. History has already shown us that great abuses can exist under regimes that have broken the control of capitalism and are moving toward a socialist society. But this is another matter. What must concern us here is how to explain to the North American people what kind of government we advocate.

During Lenin's lifetime, the congresses of the Third International tried to take up the question of the class basis of government. The concept of a workers . and peasant government was developed as a step toward the "dictatorship of the proletariat." The point of a workers and peasants government was that it would rest on social layers broader than the working class. In countries where the working class was a minority, the call for a workers and peasant government thus had the content of a call for a "majority" government.

A "workers and peasants" government was a transitional step in winning allies of the working class to fight with it for a state that would defend the class interests of workers—a "workers' state," or a "dictatorship of the proletariat."

In the United States the working class itself forms the absolute majority of the population. A call for a government of working people is itself a call for majority rule. Nevertheless, the concept of a broader government that draws in working class allies is of paramount importance to isolate the ruling class and neutralize middle layers that might otherwise support that ruling class. The concept is also essential to consolidate an alliance with oppressed sectors that have suffered oppression independent of their status as workers, such as women, Afro-Americans, undocumented workers, and homosexuals. Potential allies also include small farmers' and other petty businesspeople.

How can we best express this concept of a broad government of workers and their allies? One obvious way is to call for a government of, by, and for the people.. Today, we have a government responsive to corporations run of. by, and for the rich. A majority of the North American people. based on our democratic traditions, favor a government genuinely of, by, and for the people, but do not fully understand that the present government does not meet that goal. Our task is not to introduce confusing terminology, so we can pat ourselves on the back for our imitation of historic revolutions in other lands. Our task is to claim for ourselves the positive symbols and traditions of struggle and so drive a wedge between the masses and the ruling class.

During the anti-Vietnam War movement and in the more recent movement against intervention in Central America, various banners and flags have appeared at demonstrations. In the large demonstrations of the late sixties we often saw the appearance of the stars and stripes with thirteen stars. What impact did this have? It drove home the contradiction between the accepted support for self-determination and the present policy of the U.S. government. Others would carry red flags or flags with the hammer and sickle. What did such flags mean? Did they help the Vietnamese, or our movement —or did they merely satisfy the egos of those who like to fantasize that they are super-revolutionaries?

Our movement must learn from others without stopping at simple imitation. We must drop all ultraleftism. We must learn to differentiate between our traditions of struggle and the symbol of chauvinism. We are patriots of the North American working class, of the Afro-Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans and other oppressed nationalities, all genders and ages of working people in the United States—not of the United States as an imperialist country. Yet, more often than not, avoiding the danger of social-patriotic symbols has meant handing many progressive symbols of our revolutionary traditions to the bourgeoisie.
 

Struggle for Rights

While it is the underlying contradiction between working people and the owners of capital that will create pre-revolutionary crises, the forms such crises take can appear quite diverse. A society that values profits over human needs provokes all kinds of crises, opposition, and mass struggles. While the underlying causes are economic, the form is inevitably political, the struggle for "rights."

Thus, the defense of the political freedoms that the working class has won can become the focus of other pressures. A working class suffering unusual difficulty during an economic depression can suddenly become enraged over a violation of freedom of speech. Such struggles tend to become most acute where they are most defensive in nature; their forms most acceptable and understandable; where the enemy camp is more divided, isolated, and vulnerable; and where such actions find broad support and sympathy.

The struggle to overthrow Somoza. for instance, was very popular worldwide. At the root of the anti-Somoza conflict was the poverty, the unemployment, the lack of education, the abuses of foreign domination, low wages, long hours, harsh working conditions, and a thousand other concrete instances of class exploitation and national oppression. But the line-up in the early stages of the struggle was more focused on the arbitrary form of Somoza's dictatorial rule in clear conflict with bourgeois democratic ideals.

Once the struggle advanced to a more direct attack on the underlying aspects of oppression, the ideological solidity of the anti-Somoza revolutionary camp became more vulnerable. The U.S. and other imperialist governments have sought to win allies and to isolate the Nicaraguan revolution by trying to turn the ideals of the bourgeois revolution, which helped orerthrow Somoza, against the revolution and its progressive anti-capitalist measures.

The FSLN has struggled marvelously to explain and maintain the continuity of Sandino's struggle for self-determination and the struggle to improve the conditions of workers and poor peasants.

We must learn to make this link. All our social problems are intertwined. and the struggle to improve the quality of our lives and our "rights" are tied to our tradition of struggle and the democratic side of our origins as a nation. It is inevitable that, as capitalism's crises increase, there will be explosions in defense of the Bill of Rights and the "Constitution."
 

Electoral Arena

Jesse Jackson, in his recent presidential campaign, noted a few of the whole network of regulations and laws that are aimed at blocking any political expression by working people. (Engels wrote 100 years ago that the electoral set-up in the United States was the "first" reason our working class has not developed an independent mass political party.) Jackson noted that when he got 20% of the vote he ended up with only 9c of the delegates.

The right to vote, the right to representation is deeply engrained in our culture and traditions and can become a powerful weapon against the ruling class. When is the last time the left demanded free elections in the United States? We have one of the most manipulative and reactionary electoral arrangements among the capitalist nations. Most voters end up without any representation whatsoever. The composition of the U.S. Senate is in no way representative of the people it claims to represent. Obviously this situation is due to a class relationship that is maintained by a spectrum of forces, one of which is quite vulnerable to struggles based on the existing consciousness of the people—the manipulative nature of our electoral laws.

Why do we allow electoral laws to exist without even a whimper of protest; For most of our "vanguards," this point undoubtedly sounds terribly "reformist" and "electoralist." They are far more interested in something that reminds them of someone else's revolution, for it is much easier to play at revolution then to find the way to one's own masses.
 

Forms of Struggle

Over time mass struggles appear. They are not created subjectively. Their forms are determined by hundreds of factors. These are objective factors out of our control. Mass movements always begin in contradictory ways (they evolve from contradictions themselves) and develop under broad pressures from conflicting interests. The recent Jackson campaign is a clear, living example. We can argue about history, but we cannot stop or control it. Those who insist on preconceived forms of struggle will simply be bypassed by history. We must watch for the trends that reflect underlying class conflicts and adapt ourselves to the forms they take while remaining true to a consistent class struggle orientation.

We are at a very late stage in the development of capitalism economically. The world is overripe for a planned rationally based economic order that produces for human needs and is administered democratically. But while we may be at a late stage economically, we are still at an early stage politically in the development of independent pro-working class movements in the United States. The left cannot grow in this country without recognizing this dichotomy. It is true the left can and will suddenly grow rapidly as political events catch up with economic contradictions. The fact that our working class has neither a mass political formation, nor a vanguard formation tempered in mass struggles, only adds to the surprise we will find in the forms of the future movements.
 

The Stage We Are In

The generation of the sixties and seventies lived one important phase in the history of the world's revolutionary movements. This phase had its roots in the struggles of earlier generations, of course. But one can usefully begin with the Cuban revolution as a turning point in breaking out of certain limits and formalisms that had developed after the Russian revolution.

In the past 25 years we have seen wave after wave of revolutionary struggles, many of them victorious. These mass struggles and the formations that led them have helped make clear the previous errors of the left and clarified many questions that can be quite helpful for us.

A return to a better understanding of Marxism, a better grasp of linking up with one's own revolutionary heritage and people, is not simply a negation of formations and organizations that had already been in existence. In many cases we have seen that the traditional "Communist" parties were bypassed, such as in Cuba, Nicaragua, and now in El Salvador. But we have also seen the incorporation into the revolutionary struggles not only individuals but entire traditional formations. Those of us coming out of the radicalization of the sixties and seventies must reconsider the one-sided and often sectarian attitude that has existed toward the potential of traditional left formations that for various reasons were more vulnerable to rightist pressures than to the ultraleftism and dogmatism that swept our wing of the left.

The efforts of the well-intentioned but dogmatic sectarians who opposed, sometimes correctly, certain errors and abuses within the workers' movement too frequently led to self-righteousness, and to the formation of "vanguards" who fancied themselves the final answer. History has shown them wanting. Standing as critics of the "old left," they became transformed, into critics of truly revolutionary currents that united and organized their peoples in massive struggles, such as the Communist parties of Cuba, Vietnam and today El Salvador.

Today on our very continent, not to speak of other areas of the world, living mass revolutionary struggles can help us a hundred times better than academic studies, regardless of their importance or value with regard to movement building, differentiating between dogmatists or opportunists, between left or rightist adaptations, etc.

Our left today is, in general, divided between ideological dogmatists on one side and single-issue activists on the other. The future is with the activists. Dogmatism is usually terminal. For those of us out of the sixties and seventies who were able to absorb the lessons of those years, our task is to unite in action with those involved in the more advanced political struggles of our day. Our task today is not to "declare" the formation of a North American vanguard but to lay the groundwork for its formation later on down the road.

The sectarians wish to overcome our dichotomy between less politicized activist and highly politicized dogmatist by recruiting out of the activist layers new members into their sects. We reject this—completely. We see a totally different process. We see the development of currents attracted and inspired by the living non-sectarian mass revolutionary movements of our time and rooted in direct participation.

The transformation of such a movement into a Leninist vanguard formation will develop out of the concrete experiences of mass struggles. It will not arise as the growth and ideological triumph of one sect over the others. The road forward is with the activists, not the ideologues. We must learn to be Marxists, not sectarians who substitute ideological posturing for what can only be accomplished in living class struggle.

[October 1, 1984]