NUMBER 13 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1969 10 CENTS .Toward Stalinism or Trotskyism? NEW LEFT'S DEATH AGONY The heavily publicized SDS split' at its National At this year's June convention, the two currents met Convention in Chicago was the culmination of a year of head-on. There was no doubt that a showdown was in the factional squabbling and in-fighting between the "Na wings as the tension ran high, occasionally erupting tional Collective" (NC) and the "Worker-Student Al into fist fights and lapsing into shouting matches with liance" (WSA). The WSA is led by the Progressive each side waving Mao's "Little Red Book" at the other. Labor Party (PL), this country's semi-official-although The stage was set for a repetition in a higher~key of by no means only-Maoist organization. The NC is last year's PL-baiting,' and it became apparent that this based on SDS's National Officers and their supporters year the NC did not intend to stop short of expulsion. There was only one catch: the PL-WSA wing, by dint who included, as it turned out, the Communist Party of their crude working-class line's appeal and after and the Black Panthers. The NC tendency is actually months of determined organizing, came to the Conven a bloc of several distinct groups (the old New Left tion with what was probably a majority of the dele exemplified by Mark Rudd, Avakian's Bay Area Revolu gates. The NC was forced to speed up its timing in tionary Union, National Secretary Mike Klonsky) which order to force the intended split before the final voting crystallized in reflexive reaction to the aggressive as f<;>r the incoming leadership. In a heavy-handed man sault on mainstream New Leftism mounted by the WSA. euver, they brought in the Black Panther Party for an In terms of size and influence, SDS was at its apex. obviously pre-plannt;d denunciation of "racism" and Students newly radicalized by the Viet Nam war and "Trotskyism," including threats of physical violence. repressions of t,he ghetto rebellions flocked to SDS in Immediately following a harangue by the Panthers, droves, attracted by its professed openness and its ac leaflets were distributed-in a masterpiece of conveni tivism. In the main contemptuous of theory, SDSers ent timing-castigating PL for its "counter-revolution scorned the "Old Left," which they viewed as dogmatic, ary" and "racist" stands on Cuba, the NLF, the Black anti-democratic and faction-ridden, and sought to re movement, etc. The splitting faction, representing a place the old disputes with only a few classless phrases: large minority of the organization, walked out of the "participatory democracy," "community control," "or Convention hall and SDS. They took with them SDS's ganize the poor," "doing your own thing," etc. In 1965, funds, mailing lists, offices and newspaper. PL dissolved its earlier youth group, the May 2nd Move The Klonsky-Avakian-Dohrn bloc is united chiefly in ment (which had attempted, unsuccessfully, to compete its hostility to PL, its uncritical "Third World" en with SDS) to enter SDS. thusing, its refusal to tolerate criticism of what used to be called "progressive forces" and. its ·anti-working SDS Goes Stalinist class line. They see colonial revolutions as a precondi Faced with the pressing lack of program, perspective tion to any radicalization of the U.S. working class, and theory, SDS began to harden up in a number of whose role they see as at best passive allies for the directions. The politics of PL, the \nain group visible in Vietnamese or else as a labor aristocracy. bought off by SDS with any kind of proletarian line, had tremendous imperialist crumbs. Thus, they reduce themselves to appeal to the most serious SDSers groping for a class cheerleaders for the "Third World" guerrillas and func analysis. Partly in response, anti-PL'ism began to tion domestically as white Black Nationalists. crystallize a strong sentiment to transform SDS into a democratic-centralist youtl1 organization, a disciplined Spartacist Intervenes group representing evolving mainstream New Leftism. The Spartacist League intervened at the Convention At the June 1968 SDS Convention held in East Lansing, with several resolutions and position papers (reprinted PL came close to being thrown out of SDS as an "ex in this issue of SPARTACIST). After the split of the ternal cadre organization." The recent Revolutionary NC bloc, our comrades remained in SDS (i.e., the WSA Youth Movement (RYM) proposal embodied this at wing, to whom we stand closer than to the NC splitters tempt to transform SDS into domestic Red Guards, a who are ,both politically to their right and openly exclu- hard-line youth party. (Continued Next Page) Special Issue on Split in SDS ' .. . AGOfV¥ Maoists vs. Mao for. proletarian hegemony~ Leninists sea Avakian and,the Panthers were right the need for mass organizatio~l forms -transitional organizations for, ~g., sionist), functioning as a leftcwing op when they accused PL of deviating from:' Maoist orthodox'y, since for Mao Black people, women, youth-to· strug position to PL. The ex-Trotskyist SWP gle for their special needs and cut YSA was conspicuous by its non-inter ists, M for Stalin, "national liberatio.n'" and blocs with petty-bourgeois class across national, ethnic and' sexual divi vention, not surpnsmg since among sions in order to focus all the oppressed youth groups the YSA stands qualita forces must take priority over class struggle. PUs shift on the national on a fight against the real source and tively to the right of both the WSA :profiteers of their· exploitation. RUs and NC wings of SDS. As a footnote, questiou seems a genuine attempt, to create, a. Leninist class-conscious poli recent discovery of the illusory nature the Independent Socialist Clubs have of Black Nationalism is insufficient and, finally provided it demonstration of' tics. of, struggle.. But. PL. must at. the same time for reasons of power (keep especially coming from left-wingers in their "third camp" philosophy by run the belly of the most powerful impe ning candidates in the Klonskyite group ing the Chinese franchise) lug Mao ism around their necks like a millstone. rialist nation on earth, decisively so. while proposing motions condemning In this country, in' which racial divi the splitters to the WSA wing. For Rejection of Stalin and, Mao being out of the question, of course, PL cannot sions in the working masses have been those who have been wondering where successfully exploited. in the interests the' "third camp" is located, the answer inquire into its historical roots or the basis of its present theories, which of the rulers for hundreds of years, seems to be-a foot in both camps. any pretention to a perspective of class ,,------~, unity without an understanding of Theoretical Bankruptcy WHO'S WHAT NOW? how to overcome divisions which cut In a sense, PL has had its own Sta~ "The Progressive Labor Party has at~ across class lines is theoretically bank linism shoved down its throat. In De tacked every revolutionary nationalistc rupt. cember 1968, at the Ann Arbor Na struggle of the Black and Latin·peoples Xerox Copy SDSes tional Council, PL blocked with the NC in the U.S. as being racist. and r~ac to racist-bait the Marcus group ("SDS tionary•••. Progressive Labor Party The physical act of bringing off the Labor Committee") for their critical has attacked Do Chi Minh, the Nation split exposes the NC as viciously sec support to the UFT in the NYC teach al Liberation Front of' South Vietnam, tarian. Crystallized into a tendency ers' strike, and supported their expul the revo1utiona,ry government of Cuba within SDS, they sought to turn SDS sion in direct violation of SDS's non -all' leaders, of the peoples' struggles itself. into their model of a youth party, exclusionist Constitution. Now. PL is for fr~edom against M.S. imperialism. with their politics, rather than organ at the mercy of the same degenerate, Progressive Labon Party, because of its izing, a competitor to PL outside SDS anti-consciousness weapons in the hands positions and practices, is objectively while continuing to function inside of the NC-exclusion and slander-for racist, anti· communist, and reaction SDS as a tendency. 'They desire instead their critical attitude toward Black Na ary. It has no place in,SDS, an organi to remake SDS in their own image, tionalism and the "Third World" Stal zation of revolutionary youth." wishing to both retain their power as inist leaders, a line which is too far (fropt official statemellt of Nation national officers and. avoid political left for the NC and its right-wing al Collective wing of SDS following combat with other tendencies in an Stalinists. In a classic ironic twist PL, June 1969 Convention, establishing open organization, a fear all Stalinists after years of denouncing Trotskyists new criteria for SDS membership) share. In splitting SDS, they have de for criticizing Stalinist-led movements stroyed: the one organization in. which and their states, is itself accused of "The Spartacists. in general, want a, t~e programs and analyses. of. all the Trotskyism for its present version, of revolution in Cuba, China (People's Re_ groups could compete for adherents the classically Trotskyist position that public), Alg.eria and the USSR. This while' still remaining democratic, in denunciation of betrayals is vital rather position and others has been taken by lclusive and open at the bottom for, than divisive in the fight against im the Spartacists and other trotskyites. newly radicalized youth. We also would perialism. Further, before its recent Coincidentally, this is the same posi like to see an organization of revolu turn, PL spent years uncritically sup tion taken by the U.S. State Depart tionary youth organized along the cor porting Black Nationalism in all its ment.•.. In effect, the trotskyites do rect program-Le., a Young Spartacist. guises, thus helping establish the prec the work of the enemy." But to seek to play power politics in edent that the Pap.thers-who have (from PUs William McAdoo's let the hope of turning SDS itself into now led the anti-PL purge-must be ter to the Chicago Epton Defense such a group would be viciously de correct by definition. Committee excluding Spartacists structive of radicalizing the newer lay ers of young people. While the Klonsky-Dohrn-Avakian from Epton defense work, 3 March 1965) wing comes out openly for smashing '~ ______~ ______~ __J' The need for a broad.based, non the working class for its racism, the exclUsionary democratic organization WSA-PL opposes Black separatism and would reveal a great deal about its of radical yo:uth remains. But neither calls for working-class unity across heroes. And without any methodology, the Klonskyites nor the. WSA-SDS is color lines. This is again a crude ver PL can only readjust. its mistakes by capable of making their rival organi sion of an impulse toward Trotskyism: flip.flopping impressionistically every zations such a g;roup. The Klonskyites that is, the program of proletarian rev time the wind changes, often to a sym immediately adopted an exclusionary olution rather than Maoist peasant-. metrical error from the opposite direc clause barring from membership P,L, based "Bloc of Four Classes" national tion. anyone who opposes PL's exclusion and movements. But in typical Stalinist The Leninist-Trotskyist conception of anyone who does not unconditionally fashion, PL has rejected its former the role 'of the vanguard in broader 'support "the struggles of the Black and line of uncritical apologetics for Black struggles includes recognition of the Latin colonies within the U.S. for na Nationalism only to jump over the Len special oppression of'racial; ethnic; na tional'liberation" and,the NLF, North inist outlook into the camp of color tional, social minorities and seeks to Vi~ Nam, China, North Korea, Al blind unity-mongering, denying the fight for the special needs of all the bania.. Cuba. PUs own past history of need to fight against the special oppres oppressed While re
The following document was written was Mao, Stalin's greatest living aco '0 for' ~ Students for a Democratic So lyte himself, who engineered the polit (AND ~ 'Ciety (SDS) regional conference by ical techniques that disarmed the Indo A Black Nation? ;, Spartlicist League comrades in the nesian working class and led to the :"Suuth;1ater, copies of the polemic, with mass execution of their Communist Klonsky says American Blacks are a an introduction and entitled Mike Klon Party. Readers of this document should nation, and that self-determination, in ,'sky" Versus Brother Stalin, were .dis not allow any admiration for Stalin's the Marxist sense, applies to their tributed 'at the June 1969 SDS Con youthful Leninist orthodoxy here to struggle. In his recent New Left Notes , vention. blind them to the fact that in whatever article' on SSOC, he says: contemporary guise" Stalinism is the "While I disagree with SSOC's notion 'Protskyists loathe Stalin, and after of the South as a colony, I do believe his. earliest years we do not consider syphilis of the workers' movement and unless mercilessly eradicated will de that the nature of the struggle in the "his, views Marxist. Marxism and the South is going to take on special char National Question was a viable refer stroy yet another generation of young revolutionaries. acteristics. This is due primarily to the ence for two reasons: this was Klon historic role of the Black liberation sky's "theoretical" cover for his own ,movement in the South and to the fact, se,paratist views, not corresponding to What is self-determination? SDS Na that the historical basis for a separate canon text; secondly, as the document tional Secretary Mike Klonsky says Black nation lies in the South." (em makes clear, Stalin wrote this work in self-determination means the right of a phasis added) 1913 at Lenin's direction and under his group, or a people, to decide their own Of course the South will exhibit spe editorial tutelage. The work pales in destiny. cial characteristics. The revolution in · significance compared with the subtle According to Marxism, self-determin Brooklyn will be very different from ty and depth of Lenin's own work on ation means the right of a nation to the struggle in Queens, for that matter. nationalities; but if mediocre, Stalin's independence and equality in its deal But is there actually a historical basis essay is still considered justifiably a ings with other nations. for a separate Black nation? Is there theoretical contribution of the Marxist What's the difference? First, the now, or in the future, a material basis movement. Marxist begins with material reality. for separatism? But even in terms of his own theory, Can this or that group really decide B·rother Klonsky seems· to assUme 'Stalin never had an integrated and sys its own destiny? Maybe students and correctly-that most radicals are un tematic view' on the national question. soldiers ought to be able to decide their aware of just what Marxists consider "The man who shortly before the Bolshe_ own destiny.·It might be nice. But these constitutes a "nation." At the recent vik Revolution was capable (with aid) groups exist only because they're sub-, SSOC High School Conference in At - of stating the Leninist analysis on im- sidized by the rest of society. Their lanta, he recommended as an authority · periaJism and the special oppression of struggles for political and personal on the national question-J. V. Stalin. minorities could, by 1922, indulge him freedom are necessary and just, but we Lenin, too, considered Stalin' an author self in a fierce, great-power bureau can't talk about self-determination for ity' on the rt'ational question for the cratic suppression of Georgia and the a fragment of society that can't sup Party; that is, until Stalin's brutal "Georgian Bolsheviks in so crass and port itself. Would a steel mill, under treatment of the Georgian communists, ugly a manner that when finally notice socialism, decide its own destiny? No, along with other offenses against the of this came to the attention of the the fate of the mill and the workers Bolshevik principle led Lenin to de dying Lenin his response was to rec would be socially determined by the clare that Stalin's tenure as General ommend to the Central Committee of need for steel, the availability of ore,. Secretary posed grave dangers for the his party that Stalin be removed from the state of technology, the skill and Party. the office of its General Secretary. consciousness of the workers. Stalin's Contribution Our document quotes Stalin to the After a successful revolution, does a· A standard work on the national effect that in contradistinction to the. workers' state "decide its own destiny"? question and self-determination is Sta bourgeoisie's attempt to prolong the No. Cuba's destiny is strongly influ lin's Marxism and the National Ques national aspects of social struggle, "the enced by U.S. and Soviet foreign policy. tion. We reread it, after the confusing ,class-conscious proletariat cannot rally Even if socialism were victorious on a experience of listening to Klonsky in under the 'national' flag of the bour world scale, the economic development Atlanta. The National Secretary kept geoisie." This is Lenin's politics. Yet of individual areas and industries referring to "self-determination" to the same man who wrote that became woutlt' be socially determined on an in support his points. For example, he the architect of the popular front with ternational basis. said that American radicals have no the "progressive bourgeoisie" and in So, Marxists don't begin by asking right to criticize the policies of the , China, Spain, France and tens' of other whether a group wants complete au NLF. That would be imperialism, since · places wrecked potential communist tonomy, or is oppressed, or deserves a their revolutio.n was their own busi revolutions by the self-same rallying break, or feels it needs independence. ness. We were wondering whether we under the "national" flag. Would-be When a revolutionary says "self-de had the right to criticize counter-revo revolutionaries should understand that termination" he isn't talking about lutionary Soviet policy when he blind enthusiasm for "national libera abstract or utopian. independence from dropped another one-criticism of the tion movements" in preference to class society by small, weak castes-"student Black Panthers indicated a racist men struggle conceptions leads down an old, power," for example. The revolutionary tality, since whites had nG right to tell old road heaped with the bodies of ded uses "self-determination" to describe the Black liberation fighters what to do. icated communists butchered by their the right to secede, and the capability That sounded consistent, anyway. "progressive," "liberal" bourgeois al to form a nation, when that struggle But the next moment Klonsky had nom lies. Those who seek sustenance in for secession advances the revolution inated the Panthers for vanguard not Maothought ,should remember that it the whole class struggle. only of the Black liberation struggle, ..
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1969 .OTHERKLONSKY AND STALIN
production organized along capitalist along racial lines, and most Blacks o WON) lines) know it. When they unite in separate 4) Common psychological make-up; Black organizations it has usually )Jeen but the whole American revolution. common culture to fight the separatism, the appearanc6 N ow if the National Secretary really Now which of these features of na of separate nationality, imposed upon thought he had no business criticizing tion~lism is shared by Blacks in the them by the (white) bourgeoisie. A the Blacks he wouldn't be putting the U.S.? Do they have a common language? separatist ideology, in its very nature, , Panthers on a pedestal at the expense Well, yes: English, like most' other cannot direct a struggle against the of SNCC, ELRUM, and many others. Americans. Common territor~ While segregation which keeps Blacks in their He would take his own advice, and the South retains a large Black popula doubly oppressed condition. And it's ob *eep his mouth shut. However, no such tion, the population shift of Blacks in viously dangerous to imply to racist deviation from character occurred. the last fifty years has been from the white workers that since Blacks are a By and by, Klonsky was asked where rural South into all parts of the coun separate nation and deserve a separate his theory came from. He referred us try, especially into the big cities, many state, t'he whites can have a seg,regated to Stalin. We had read the pamphlet. of which now have Black majorities or socialism. This is not different in prin Someone had a very bad memory. near-majorities. The geographical dis ciple from SSOC's organizing workers Checking the pamphlet would tell us tribution of Blacks is increasingly "the as Southerners. which. When we reread Uncle Joe's same as that of the U.S. working class work, we found that Stalin contradict as a whole. Psychological make-up Utopian Cultural Nationalism ed Klonsky on every point. The dif manifested in a common culture? This People trying to make a case for erences can't be accounted for by lapse question lends itself more than the Black Culture usually tell only half, or of memory. others to subjective interpretation; but less than half, of the story. They em· Let's summarize just what Stalin it seems that what common, distinctive phasize escape, insurrection, sabotage, said about the national question in culture exists is that of the lower, most protest-the whole spectrum of Black 1913, when his view was, close to Len oppressed stratum of the American resistance to oppression. in's. Once people get this straight in working class and that section squeezed In fact, these traditions are largely their minds, Klonsky can come for into the ranks of the chronically un absent from the Black community. ward and take credit for developing a employed. Blacks may give the appear They are smothered by the culture of new theory {)f nationalism that has ance of possessing some degree of spe humility and submission promoted .by nothing to do with the Bolshevik crew cial, national culture, because unlike the preachers and Uncle Toms. The de of amateurs. whites almost all Blacks are working mand for Black studies is an attempt Leninist Criteria class; this is a class difference in cul by the militants to attack the dominant ture, not a national one. Appalachian ghetto culture, the culture of submis What constitutes a nation, and once sion. This situation duplicates that of we know that, what should we do about white workers, or migrant agricultural the working class as a whole: a dom it? In Marxism and the National Ques laborers, for example, possess a some inant ideology of religion and patrio tion (Stalin, Works, vol. ii, pp. 300-381) what distinct culture as a result of tism, promoted by the rulers and all Stalin declares that: their special niches in capitalism's di- their media, and an insurgent culture "A nation is a historically constitut vision of labor. • of class struggle preserved by the left ed, stable community of people, formed The forced segregation of Blacks in on the basis of a common language, ter the U.S. is another factor lending them and part of the labor movement. ritory, economic life, and psychological the appearance of nationhood. But this In their book Black Power, Stokely make-up manifested in a common cul forced segregation from the bulk of the Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton state: ture." working class, of which they are eco "Under classic colonialism, the colon'll He goes further: nomically a part, stands in direct con is "It must be emphasized that none of trast to the usual pattern of national a source of cheaply produoed raw the above characteristics taken sepa oppression: forced assimilation. The materials .'•• which the "Mother Coun rately is sufficient to define a nation. forced segregation imposed on Blacks try" then processes into finished goods More than that, it is sufficient for a by a ruling class seeking to prevent and sells at a high profit-sometimes single one of these characteristics to working-class unity has impelled Blacks back to the colony itself. The black . be lacking and the nation ceases to be to seek integration and equality with communities in the United States do a nation." the rest of the working class. Separa not export anything except human la . The Bolsheviks thought it' was point tism is an accomodation to the ruling bor." (p. 6, emphasis added) less to spend a lot of blood trying to class' tactic of working-class division . (Continued Next Page) get political independence for groups which would fall, quickly and totally, under the economic domination of some MARXIST BULLETIN SERIES other power. So they defined a nation No. 5-"For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Question" by R. Fraser. in. such a way as to exclude religions, R~printed from SWP Discussion Bulletin A-30, August 1955. (30 pages, clIques, castes, aRli any other groups mImeographed) 25 cents which couldn't make a go of it inde No. 7-"The Leninist Position on Youtb-Party Relations." pendently. Stalin set down four char Documents from the Voung Socialist Alliance and Socialist Workers Party, acteristics, and specified that a "na 1957-61. (37 pages, mimeographed) 25 cents tion" must have all of them. No. 8-"Cuba and Marxist Theory." 1) Common language Selected Documents on the Cuban Question. (37 pages, mimeographed) 2) Common territory (other numbers in preparation) 35 cents 3) Common economic life (with inde Order from: SPARTACIST, Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y. 10001 pendent class $tructure and means of -institutions of oppression. For this in a direction ,favorable
lin's name-only his name-to justify tion of all the characteristic theory and ~~"""""""""""""""''" their attitude toward the Black libera practice of Communist Parties since tion struggle and their overall perspec Stalin's break with Lenin, Trotsky, and Spartacist Local Directory tive for SDS. Even a hasty reading of Marxism, and his dictatorship over the AUSTIN. Box 8165, Univ. Sta., Austin, Texas Marxism and the National Question Party. Socialism in One Country, the 78712. phone: 476·9714. leaves us with this choice of conclu Bloc of Four Classes, the Theory of BERKELEY. Box 852, Main P.O" Berkeley, Calif. sions: Social Fascism, the liberal Pop Fronts, 94701. phone: 525·5243. 1) Klonsky can't read. -aU this history of the. Third Interna BOSTON. Box 53, Nonantum, Newton, Mass. 2) Klonsky is lying. tional parties would have to be con 02195. phone: 891·6678. Ever since the National Collective; demned, and that would be, getting CHAMPAIGN-URBANA. Box 2161, Sta. A, made its first abortive power-play it "dangerously" close to-Trotskyism. Champaign, III, 61820 has been desperately searching for a PL belongs to a tradition of degenerate CHICAGO. Box 6044, Main P.O., Chicago, III. ,national perspective for SDS that Bolshevism - Stalinism and Maoism. 60680. phone: 281-4296. would justify greater centralism. It Both look to social formations other DETROIT. (contact New York) was unable to develop a program of than the working class for support of EUREKA. Box 3061, Eureka, Calif. 95501. class struggle, because most of the N a parasitic bureaucracies ruling in place phone: 442-1423. tional Collective doesn't believe in the of the proletariat. This is the basis, in HOUSTON. (contact Austin or New York) working class as a revolutionary force, political method, of the forty-year pat ITHACA. Box 442, Ithaca, N.Y. 14851. phone: much less the primary force for change. . tern of betrayal of the proletariat, a 272·6427. But it could and did unite around the betrayal proceeding from the bureauc NEW ORLEANS. Box 8121, Gentilly Sta., New romantic appeal of the Panthers. By racy's need to obtain support or neu Orleans, La. 70122, phone: 944·3646, making the victory of the Black move trality from bourgeois forces. PL's de NEW YORK. Box 1377, G.P.O., New York City, ment a precondition for the develop pendence on the ideology and leader N,Y. 10001. phone: WA 5·2426. ment of the American revolution (Klon ship emanating from China (read Pe PHILADELPHIA. Box 1827, Wm. Penn Annex, sky, "The White Question," NLN 20 king Review, if you can) will bring Philadelphia, Pa. 19105. phone: DA 9-6160. Mar. '69) it has dumped the difficult their national position right back to SAN FRANCISCO. Box 26076, Customs House, job of teaching class consciousness and Where it was should Mao's bureaucracy San Francisco, Calif, 94126. phone: 861-2090. promoting the class struggle. What re reprimand PL for its recent divergence WASHINGTON, D.C.·BALTIMORE. Box 680, Ben mains is simple agitation against white· from Peking's ultra-opportunistic Franklin Sta., Washington, D.C. 20044. supremacy, which quite a few liberal stance on the national question. The ~ and reformist groups have been doing old Moscow-oriented Communist Par for years. In effect, the National Col ties followed every twist and turn of in terms of opportunist, anti-democrat lective is "with" the Panthers the same the Soviet bureaucracy as it sought to ic, Stalinist functioning. way a tape worm is "with" its host. If avoid the twin dangers of imperialist In this context, something must be the Panthers pressure the National invasion and workers' political control said about the Black Panther Party. Collective to adopt a genuine revolu from below-in the period which PL The Black Panthers have newly dis-. tionary strategy of class struggle, we considers healthy and revolutionary. covered and repeated the errors which can depend on the parasite to leave by Radicals leaning toward PL should helped destroy the last Communist the traditional route. keep their political spines flexible, and , movement in the thirties. That is, they keep close watch on Peking Review. • make a suicidal confusion between fas PL V~. M1tl"xist Clarity -Nick Dicken-SDS at large, Sparta cism and bourgeois democracy, believ The chief, opposition to the National cist League ing that they are living under fascism, Colleetiva's line on nationalism has -Leon Day-SDS at large, Sparta,. and seek to create the classless popular. come from Brogressive.. Labor. Observ.,. cist League front agai1l8t fascism just as Stalin did e1'8 of this battle should know that un. in the thirties. While the Black Pan til its drastic left on, nationalism t~rn. thers have struggled hard against the of a few months ago, PL endorsed the e e, e WARFARE bourgeois state they have ignored Len same kind of petty-bourgeois national in's dictum that without a revolution ist, movements here and abroad. which (Continued from Back Page) ary theory, there can be no revolution. the Nati The following position papers were enchanted with the NLF when it be ideas, to the class character of the so worked up in consultation and during came obvious that another sell-out was ciety itself, and polemics by ostensibly" the heat of struggle by the Spartacist in the wings. Similarly, Progressive La revolutionary organizations such as PL. ' League members in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who attend bor has only recently changed their line However, students haven't broken out ed the convention. 1500 of these papers on Black Nationalism from uncritically of their social milieu, and have failed were distributed there on Saturday, 21 tail-ending all "Black Liberation" to establish concrete links to tlle work June 1969. They were sigued by: struggles despite their political content ing-class movement; students in this George Kukich, Cornell SDS, Sparta or program, to indifference to the spe society do not form a class and are in cist League cial needs of black people. Evidence of iact ,a multi-layered grouping in tran Gallatin Deitz, Univ. of Illinois SDS, this is their insensitive opposition to sition. Therefore, though it is proper Spartacist League the demand for "open admissions" at for students to turn their attention in Libby Scheier, SDS-at-Iarge (former City College. They are unable to see the direction of the working class, and ly at Berkeley), Spartacist League that extension of open admissions into utilize a Marxian analysis, the student Joel Salinger; SDS-at-Iarge (former the demand for universal free higher ly at Temple), Spartacist League movement cannot will itself into be education would be in the special in coming a working-class organization. terest of both black people and working However, in the' absence of a vanguard 1. PL-Trotskyism class struggle as a whole. Education is party rooted in the working class, there with a Pre-Frontal Lobotomy not simply the property of the bour has been a strongly felt pressure on the The Progressive Labor Party, pur geoisie. This struggle for open admis part of student activists to prove them portedly Marxist-Leninist, has led a sions is similar to the struggle by the selves serious revolutionaries. This growipg faction, the Worker-Student working class for free public education manifested itself as a growing senti Alliance, within SDS, claiming to rep at the turn of the century. This type of ment in SDS for the body to become a resent a working-class pole of attrac fight is a real attack on class privilege Marxist-Leninist organization (i.e., in 'tion. There are, however, serious prob requiring revolutionary tactics to im form, democratic centralist). This sen lems With the Progressive Labor pro-' plement. timent has been demonstrated by the gram and its theoretical bulwark. In making this shift on the black hardening up of factions into an in Progressive Labor has, since its in question, PL poses the concept that ra tense struggle for power. ception, been caught on the horns of an cial oppression must be defeated before This tendency should be opposed not irreconcilable contradiction; at once the class struggle can be fought. And merely because SDSers are students, wanting to be both pro-working class in using this mechanical, undialectical but largely because SDS has not ,de (mainly because they are located physic approach, PL has jumped right over veloped a program for working-class ally in a country in which the bulk of the the Leninist position: blacks, due to struggle which only comes with a com population are proletarians) and at their particular history and position in prehensive analysis of the history of the same time Maoist (Le., Stalinist in society, are going to playa leading role other working-class struggles, particu theory); wanting to be against Soviet in a united vanguard struggle for a larly the Russian Revolution, their revisionism, but unable to realize that working-class revolution, while at the achievements, failures, and consequenc that revising took place with Stalin, not same time putting forward demands es for their working classes. Short of after him; wanting to be critical of past that strike at the heart of their caste this elemental beginning of the creation errors, such as that of the PKI of In oppression. of theory for the transition from capi donesia forming a coalition with the POST-SPLIT NOTE: PL's failure talism to socialism, any attempt by Sukarno government, and not seeing in (following a vicious attack upon them) SDS to become a Marxist-Leninist or- that error the generalizable flaw of the to criticize the Black Panther Party's (Continued on Page 7) "left-center" coalition; wanting to b,e role in Friday's events can only be char historical, but not looking critically at acterized as opportunist. events of more than 20 years ago. PL could be characterized as Trotsky SUBSCRIBE TO THE ist in that they have a pro-working 2. Which Way SDS? class orientation that now sees the pro SDS has evolved as the leading radi letariat, as opposed to national or eth cal student organization in the mid SPARTACJST nic forces, as the primary force in the sixties for two reasons: objectively lox 1377, G.P.O. revolutionary struggle. What makes PL there was an imperialist war in Viet New York, N. Y. 10001 Nam and racial discrimination in the susceptible to the eharge of being lo twelve issues - $1 botomized is their lack of understand U.S.; subjectively because of the move ing of international revolutionary e ment's general openness, militancy and six issues - 50¢ vents and theory of the past fifty years. formal attempt at democracy in carry ing through its many actions.' Name Recent Shifts Slowly SDS came to understand the PL was totally uncritical of the NLF class nature of capitalism and the force Address in its fight against imperialism, ignor that will bring it down-the revolution ing Ho Chi Minh's Stalinist betrayal ary struggle of the working class. This of the revolution in 1946 and again in was due in part to the open attitude of City 1954 at Geneva, and only became dis- the student movement to developing new_