Vol. 23, No. 7
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25 cents November 28, 1993
Fifth Congress votes to disband the MLP,USA
The proposal of the CC to dissolve the MLP
The Marxist-Leninist Party held its Fifth Congress on November 20-21. The meeting was called to consider the proposal of the Central Committee to dissolve the party.
It was attended by a large majority of the members of the MLP, as well as several friends of the party taking part as observers.
The Congress agreed to disband the party. It also elected a committee of trustees to oversee the liquidation of the MLP's assets, and it approved several guidelines for that purpose.
According to the decision of the Congress, this will be the final edition of the Workers' Advocate. This issue has been put out by a volunteer from the former staff of the paper, under the authority of the committee of trustees. A compilation of pre-Congress discussion documents will be available to subscribers of the Workers Advocate for a charge of $10.00.
In assessing the state of the life and work of our party, the Central Committee of the MLP has concluded that the party ought to dissolve. We are organizing over the next two months a discussion on the situation of the party, to be held among party members and supporters, so that the party itself can decide this question at a Congress to be held at the end of this discussion.
Our collective existence sprang from a single precept: as revolutionaries coming from different walks of life and varying experience in mass struggles, we shared a common conviction of the need for a party of the proletariat. Over the years, our particular views on a host of questions evolved or changed. Pretenders to the heritage of the world movement came and went. Yet we remained dedicated to the aim of building a party, and toward that end we oriented ourselves toward concentrating our forces in the industrial proletariat, toward intervening in all social movements from a revolutionary standpoint, and toward carrying through the theoretical struggle and theoretical clarification.
Our attempt at realizing this project has been approaching the end of its natural life. For nearly a decade the social movements have failed to give rise to new forces attracted to this program as we in our time rallied to it. Our forces have slowly eroded, while the pressures on us have mounted. Our industrial concentration has nearly been extinguished, while our capacity for intervening in the social movements has by-and-large become marginal. Outstanding theoretical problems have multiplied beyond our ability to satisfactorily address them.
This process of erosion has culminated in a crisis in our central organs: the National Executive Committee is dysfunctional, and we are unable to sustain our existing system of publications. That we are unable to overcome this crisis is due not only to the practical problem of the numerical erosion of our forces, but also to the loss of ideological cohesiveness and to the loss of most reflection among the masses of our activity. These factors, when continued over a protracted period, could not be overcome simply by individual belief in the need to maintain party organization at all costs, and inevitably reflected themselves in the spirit of the party as well. Under all these conditions, no amount of tinkering, adjustments or reorganization can patch things back together again. We no longer are what we once were.
Rather than endure further drift, rather than permit our organization to become a mockery of its past, the Central Committee prefers that we recognize that the end has come, and make a clean break of things, the better to clear the way for whatever the future will bring.
September 19, 1993
4th Plenum of the CC
Discussion materials on the proposal to dissolve the MLP
Available by request:
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The Workers' Advocate P.O. Box 8706 Emeryville, CA 94662