In the September 1972 issue of the Peoples Tribune, the Communist League proclaimed “that the situation has changed and now our theoretical and ideological hands are untied”. This “response to conciliators” on a ”line, which the imperialists manufactured during the Soviet revolution” had the CL dash off, leaving behind them a thick cloud of dust from which emanated the echoes of clashing sabers. One thing, however, is that all this saber rattling of the CL had the ’theoretically weak’ trying to understand what the CL was so upset about. The ’theoretically weak’ said: “Why is that fine looking fellow running so fast in the opposite direction? Can’t he tell it’s a dead-end, leading to nowhere?” From a fellow travelling ideologist came these remarks: “What do you mean ’going in the opposite direction! He’s running down a line ’routed through Moscow’. It is for you that this mighty genius paves the way. You should be overjoyed and grateful that he has come so close as to cover you with some of his fine powder.” And so our theoretician is out in the lead running down his line, and close on his heels are all the ideologists and self-proclaimed ’Lenins’ too frightened of being left behind to stop to look about.
Now, almost a year and a half later, our theoretician, who gained enough momentum with the help of fellow travelling ideologists, has finally run down his line to the “political offsprings of the CPUSA”. The ’trailing thick cloud of dust’ has blown away, but wait! What is this “fine powder”?
What is this line that has had the ’left’ so intrigued and astonished? How does it work so well that it deserved the attention of our theoretical geniuses of the Communist League?
Let us try to piece together the trail that has been imprinted for us to see. Let us examine the works and papers of the CL to get a clue as to the hows, whys, and wherefors of the line.
This document was originally drafted in response to the May 1973 conference of the Communist League. Red Banner, however, erroneously followed a ’left’ line of suppressing the statement and hence, failed to distribute it at that time to the Communist League, to whom it was addressed and as well, to the revolutionary left in general. The original plan of the document has been altered in light of further clarity, but in the main, it has been changed little. It is being distributed at this time in response to the real unfolding of events in relation to Communist League and other activity in the “left”, which had been foreseen in the original statement and subsequent analysis of Red Banner. A copy of this document has been sent to the Communist League, but the main intent of the present work is to stimulate discussion among sincere cadres on the pressing questions facing our struggle. As such, we hope to follow this document with further analysis and articles aimed at the target of revolution: the working, oppressed and revolutionary people.
The article begins with a discussion of the Communist League theoreticians’ abstract idealist theory of dialectics and how they try to maneuver inside their ’system’ of pure reason, of reason separate from material reality. Second, we examine the application of idealist and mechanical dialectics to a particular concept, i.e., the concept of Third World and point out how the Communist League finds the origin of ideas or concepts in the ’heads’ of imperialists on the one hand and on the other in a one-sided view of history. Then we take a look at how the idealist method of dialectics applies itself to the real world in the context of the real historical relations out of which arises the concepts it bats around in its mechanical and metaphysical schemas. Finally, we look into the the Peoples Tribune to ascertain some indication of the nature of the schemes of the bourgeois elements within the CL.
Editors of EL FUEGO
February 1974