Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

“Centrist” Revisionism in the United States

(A letter from Homer Chase, of “Hammer & Steel Newsletter”).


First Published: Red Front [organ of the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Britain], August-September 1970.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba and Sam Richards
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Dear Mr. _______:

We use this rather formal salutation because there is an ideological gulf between us.

There is a focal contradiction. It is not a focal contradiction, as your letter states, “in the main”. It’s a number one, primary question. Forces must be evaluated on the basis of their theory and practice on the focal contradiction in this period. The other major contradictions cannot be resolved without resolution of the focal contradiction.

After reading your material and your letter we conclude that MLOB does not know what a national democratic revolution is all about. This conclusion is reached after reading your views on China, the Black Belt, Wales and Scotland.

J.V. Stalin was a great M-List theoretician on the national question. This does not mean that everything either he or Lenin wrote in one period can be mechanically applied to another period. The essence of Stalin’s teachings contradicts his statement concerning the national question being resolved, except for Ireland, in the British Isles. M-Lists who uphold Stalin’s life and work will support Scottish and Welsh efforts to destroy English imperialism now.

You are not taking a serious M-List view on the Afro-American question in the US. It is simply nonsense to deny, as you and Laski do, the contradiction between non-proletarian Afro-Americans and US imperialism. You and Laski claim to uphold national democratic revolutions in genera}, but in the specific you insist that only socialist revolutions, with proletarians firmly in leadership, should receive support. Since the present objective situation is not favourable for Socialist revolutions, this leaves you opposing revolution in stages and serving counter-revolution strategically. Of course the working class will eventually unite with the rural poor and lead national democratic revolutions in oppressed nations. This is precisely why H & S exposes pseudo-Marxists in all countries who oppose liberation struggles.

Your evaluation of the Cultural Revolution is not based on the actual relationship of forces which has caused the focal contradiction. The temporary strength of imperialism probed weaknesses in the countries headed by CP’s, imperialism forced the CPs in state power to side with the oppressors against the oppressed. Brezhnev deserted the oppressed nations under a right flag while Lin Piao raised first the right standard and then the left to betray the national democratic revolutions.

Your articles on May Day and Role of the New Left in Red Front May-June 1969 do not challenge the rampant white and great power chauvinism which infects the English and US workers. You have much in common with the English Trotskyites, the CPGB and the Cultural Revolution on the national question. M-Lists would have asked why no action on Ireland, why no support to the immigrants against Powell at this London demonstration which, according to you, featured “tremendous feeling of class conscious militancy”.

Since you have printed Laski’s attack on H&S’s M-List position on the Afro-American question we request that you print the above criticism.

Sincerely,
Homer B. Chase for the Editorial Board

Red Front Editorial Comment

There is indeed, Mr. Chase, “an ideological gulf” between us and it is, as you imply, the gulf which separates Marxism-Leninism from revisionism. But on which side of this gulf stands RED FRONT and on which side stands HAMMER & STEEL? This is determined, not by the fervency of our respective protestations, but by objective analysis of our respective political positions.

THE “FOCAL CONTRADICTION”

Your journal has defined the “focal contradiction” of which you speak in para. 2 of your letter as:

the struggle between the oppressed peoples of the world and imperialism. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”; April 1969; p.3).

You declare (para.2) that “the other major contradictions” – among which you are prepared to include the struggle between the working class of each capitalist country and the capitalist class which exploits it – are secondary to, subordinate to, this “focal contradiction” which is, you say, the “number one, primary question”. In other words, you declare that class struggle is secondary to, subordinate to, national liberation struggle.

Marxist-Leninists, however, hold the opposite view:

The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront. It advances them unconditionally. For the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle. ....
The proletariat .... values most the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and evaluates every national demand, every national separation from the angle of the class struggle of the workers. ....
Marx had no doubt as to the subordinate position of the national question as compared with the ’labour question’. But his theory is as far from ignoring the national question as heaven from earth. ....
The conclusion that follows from all these critical remarks of Marx is clear: the working class should be the last to make a fetish of the national question. ...
Marx does not make an absolute of the national movement, knowing as he does, that the victory of the working class alone can bring about the complete liberation of all nationalities.”(V.I. Lenin: “On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination” in “Selected Works”, Vol. 4; London; 1943, p. 264, 265, 275, 276, 278).

I do not want to quote my teacher, Comrade Lenin, since he is not here, and I am afraid that I mighty perhaps, quote him wrongly and inappropriately. Nevertheless, I am obliged to quote one passage, which is axiomatic and can give rise to no misunderstanding, in order that no doubt should be left in the minds of comrades with regard to the relative importance of the national question. Analysing Marx’s letter on the national question in an article on self-determination, Comrade Lenin draws the following conclusion:
’Marx had no doubt about the subordinate significance of the national question as compared with the “labour question”’.
Here are only two lines, but they are decisive. (J.V. Stalin: “Reply to the Discussion on the Report on National Factors in Party and State Affairs, Twelfth Congress of the RCP(B)” in “Works”, Vol. 5, Moscow; 1953; p. 271).

It is, therefore, clear that your declaration that class struggle is secondary to, subordinate to, national liberation struggle is a reversal of a principle of Marxism-Leninism is revisionist.

Also in the second paragraph of your letter you extend this revisionist declaration to assert that “the other major contradictions” (such as the class struggle between the working class of each capitalist country and the capitalist class which exploits it) “cannot be resolved without resolution of the focal contradiction” (that is, before the world-wide victory of the national liberation struggles of the peoples oppressed by imperialism).

Again, Marxist-Leninists hold the opposite view:

Marx does not make an absolute of the national movement, knowing, as he does that the victory of the working class alone can bring about the complete liberation of all nationalities. (V.I. Lenin: “On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination” in: “Selected Works”, Vol. 4, London, 1943, p. 278).

The victory of the Soviets and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship are a fundamental condition for abolishing national oppression, establishing national equality and guaranteeing the rights of national minorities. (J. V. Stalin: “The Immediate Tasks of the Party in the National Question”, in “Works”, Vol. 5; Moscow 1953, p. 20).

In the epoch of the Second International... it was tacitly assumed that... the national question could be settled without overthrowing the rule of capital, without, and before, the victory of the proletarian Revolution. That essentially imperialist view runs like a red thread through the well-known works of Springer and Bauer the national question. But the past decade has exposed the utter falsity and rottenness of this conception of the national question... The revolutionary experience of recent years has again confirmed that... the national and colonial questions are inseparable from the question of emancipation from the rule of capitals... the unequal nations and colonies cannot be liberated without overthrowing the rule of capital. (J.V. Stalin: “Concerning the Presentation of the National Question” in “Works”, vol. 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 56-57).

Leninism has proved, and the imperialist war and the revolution in Russia have confirmed, that the national question can be solved only in connection with and on the basis of the proletarian revolution. (J.V. Stalin: “The Foundations of Leninism” in ‥Works” Vol. 6; 1353, P. l46).

Permit us to ask you a simple question: was it “impossible” for the Russian working class to bring about the October socialist revolution until the nations oppressed by the Russian Empire had won their national freedom? History demonstrates, on the contrary, that it was the Russian socialist revolution which brought about the liberation of these oppressed nations.

It is clear that your declaration that socialist revolution cannot be successful before the world-wide victory of the national, liberation struggles of the peoples oppressed by imperialism is a reversal of a principle of Marxism-Leninism, is revisionist.

SPURIOUS “NATIONAL MOVEMENTS”

From “making an absolute of the national movement”, as Marx aptly put it, you proceed in para. 4 of your letter to urge support for the spurious “national movements” centred upon Wales and Scotland. These movements are spurious because Wales, Scotland and England do not conform to the Marxist-Leninist definition of nations, but form regions of the British nation; and because these movements are spurious, they are reactionary and divisive and have to be fought by all who work for the destruction of British imperialism. Since you admit that Stalin (whom you correctly acknowledge as “a great Marxist-Leninist theoretician on the national question”) held explicitly that the national question had long ago been resolved in the British Isles except for Ireland, we will not repeat the analyses of this question made by Lenin, Stalin and the Communist International. Again, however, it is clear that the MLOB and its organ RED FRONT adhere to the Marxist-Leninist position on the national question in relation to the British Isles, while you have taken up an opposite revisionist position. Your “defence” – “this does not mean that everything he or Lenin wrote in one period can be mechanically applied to another period” – must be taken to mean that the national question in Britain was resolved long ago, but not today! This is an apology for revisionism on a level of fatuity to which even Khrushchev hardly sank.

MISREPRESENTATION

In para. 5 of your letter you assert that we “deny the contradiction between non-proletarian Afro-Americans and US imperialism”. On the contrary, we recognize, as do the Marxist-Leninists of the M.-L. Organisation of the U.S.A., the existence of the negro nation in the American South and express our full solidarity with the national liberation struggle of its people – proletarian and non-proletarian.

You go on to assert that we “insist that only socialist revolutions, with proletarians firmly in leadership, should receive support.” On the contrary, we urge support for all nationals-democratic revolutions directed against imperialism. What we do say, however, is that only when the working class leads a national-democratic revolution can this be transformed uninterruptedly into a socialist revolution – an important principle of Marxism-Leninism. That in your polemic you should have to resort to such gross misrepresentation of the clearly stated position of the MLOB provides additional testimony of the untenability of your own revisionist position.

Let us examine your political position in greater detail as it has been put forward in recent issues of your journal “Hammer & Steel Newsletter”.

MARXIST-LENINIST TASKS IN AN OPPRESSED NATION

What, first, are the principal tasks of Marxist-Leninists in an oppressed nation, such as the black nation of the southern United States or in Ireland?

You say:

Marxist-Leninists in every oppressed nation will lead in developing anti-imperialist coalitions including all classes who oppose imperialism for whatever reasons. They will struggle for working class leadership of these coalitions. They will place primary emphasis on the core of the anti-imperialist coalition, i.e., the unity of the working class and the rural poor. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, July 1969; p.3).

But one task which Marxist-Leninists regard as essential is significantly missing from your formulation.

The Socialists of the oppressed nation on the other hand, must particularly fight for and maintain complete, absolute unity (also organisational) between the workers of the oppressed nation and the workers of the oppressing nation. (V.I. Lenin: “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-determination” in: “Selected Works”, Vol.5, London 1935; p.272).

That this omission is not accidental is demonstrated by your paper’s support for so-called “black nationalist leaders” of the type of R. Williams (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, April 1969, p. ll). Far from working for unity between the workers of the oppressed south and the oppressing north, Williams has been putting out for some years, under the protection of the counter-revolutionary “left” revisionists in Peking, the most virulent anti-white racist propaganda calling for a racial war against the white race.

The role of “black nationalist” leaders of the type of R. Williams is to divert the anger of exploited black people away from their real enemy, the US imperialists, towards a false “enemy,” the “white race”. Their role is to assist the white racists by urging segregation, by campaigning in favour of black ghettoes and the right of black workers to be hit on the head by black cops. It was not accidental that “black nationalist” leaders urged their followers to vote for the white racist Wallace in the last Presidential election.

MARXIST-LENINIST TASKS IN AN OPPRESSOR NATION

What, secondly is the central task of Marxist-Leninists in an oppressor nation, such as the northern United States or Britain?

Lenin makes it abundantly clear that their central task is to lead the working class step by step to realise, the necessity of socialist revolution and eventually to bring this socialist revolution about. On this analysis the demand for the self-determination of oppressed nations takes its correct perspective as a demand to further this aim of socialist revolution and to win the confidence of and solidarity with the oppressed peoples, who are objectively the allies of the working class of the oppressor nation.

It is absurd to contrast the socialist revolution and the revolutionary struggle against capitalism with one of the questions of democracy, in this case, the national question. We must combine the revolutionary struggle against capitalism with a revolutionary programme and revolutionary tactics relative to all democratic demands: a republic, a militia, election of officials by the people, equal rights for women, self-determination of nations, etc. While capitalism exists, these demands can be achieved only in exceptional cases, and in an incomplete, distorted form. Basing ourselves on democracy as already achieved, exposing its incompleteness under capitalism, we demand the overthrow of capitalism, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, as a necessary basis both for the abolition of the poverty of the masses and for the complete and all-sided achievement of all democratic reforms. Some of these reforms will be started before the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, others in the process of this overthrow, and still others after it. The social revolution is not a single battle, but represents a whole epoch of numerous battles around all the problems of economic and democratic reforms, which can be consummated only by the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It is for the sake of this final aim that we must formulate every one of our democratic demands in a consistently revolutionary manner. (V.I. Lenin: “The revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-determination”, in “Selected Works”, Vol, 5; Moscow; 1935; p. 283).

The demand for the immediate liberation of the colonies, as advanced by all revolutionary Social-Democrats, is also impossible of achievement under capitalism without a series of revolutions. This does not imply, however, that Social-Democracy must refrain from conducting an immediate-sad determined straggle for all these demands – to refrain would merely be to the advantage of the bourgeoisie and reaction. On the contrary, it implies that it is necessary to formulate and put forward all these demands, not in a reformist, but in a revolutionary way; not by keeping within the framework of bourgeois legality, but by breaking through it; not by confining oneself to parliamentary speeches and verbal protests, but by drawing the masses into real action, by widening and fomenting the struggle for every kind of fundamental, democratic demand, right up to and including the direct onslaught of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, i.e., to the socialist revolution...
The proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that ’its own’ nation oppresses. Unless it does this, proletarian internationalism will remain a meaningless phrase; mutual confidence and class solidarity between the workers of the oppressing and oppressed nations will be impossible.
The proletariat will be able to retain its independence only if it subordinates its struggle for all the democratic demands... to its revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie....
Marx, having in mind mainly the interests of the proletarian class struggle in the advanced countries, put into the forefront the fundamental principle of internationalism and socialism, viz, that no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations....
It was precisely from the standpoint of the revolutionary struggle of the English workers that Marx, in 1869 demanded the separation of Ireland from England.... Only in this way was Marx able, also in the sphere of the solution of national problems, to oppose the revolutionary action of the masses to verbal and often hypocritical recognition of the equality and the self-determination of nations... Marx’s policy... must serve as the model for all the advanced countries; for all of them now oppress other nations. (V.I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination” in “Selected Works”, Moscow, 1935, P 269, 272, 273, 274).

But, according to your journal, the most important anti-imperialist force in the United States of America is not the American working class, but the internal national liberation movements:

The Afro-American and Puerto Rican liberation movements are the most important anti-imperialist forces in the US. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, December 1969; p. 9).

According to your journal, the primary task of Marxist-Leninists in an oppressor nation such as that of the Northern United States is not the leading of the working class step by step to realise the necessity of socialist revolution and eventually to bring this socialist revolution about, but – the building of support for oppressed peoples.

In the oppressor nations Marxist-Leninists will lead in the development of anti-imperialist coalitions which will (1) support the oppressed people. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”; July 1969; P.3).

Here the working class, which is in fact the leading anti-imperialist force, disappears into a vague “anti-imperialist coalition”. A coalition of which classes? Under the leadership of which class? Your formulation is silent on these all-important questions, but despite this deliberate vagueness it is apparent from numerous-references in your journal that this “anti-imperialist coalition” is to be composed primarily of

Afro-Americans in the north and west. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, June 1969; p.6).

You say, in fact, that

a large percentage of white workers are poisoned with concepts of great power (white) chauvinism. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, July 1969; p.3).

and five months later this “large percentage” has become “the vast majority” of the working class?

Rotten great power chauvinist ideas... now infect the vast majority of people in the US including the working class. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, December 1969, p. 9-10).

“Consequently”, you say that the participation of white workers in anti-imperialist activity is a possibility only in the future:

Objective conditions are emerging for effective anti-imperialist activity among the white people. (my emphasis, Ed.)(Ibid., p. 3)

It is true that you say that a secondary aim of this “anti-imperialist coalition” in the oppressor nation should be:

(2) struggle against the imperialist oppressor. (Ibid., p. 3).

Perhaps, therefore, your formulation introduces socialist revolutionary work as a secondary aim? Far from it! Socialist revolutionary work is dismissed in a single fatuous and emphasised line:

There is not a proletarian revolution in the US at this time. (Ibid., p.3).

Nor was there, Mr. Chase, a proletarian revolution in Russia in 1916, but the Bolsheviks did not therefore confine their political activity to the Georgian national movement!

It is clear that this secondary aim of “anti-imperialist activity” should, in your view, be confined to struggle-against racial discrimination, should be confined to seeking

an end to oppression of the Afro-American minority in the north and west. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, June 1969, p.10).

that is, for equality with white citizens in the field of:

jobs, housing, schools and civil rights. (Ibid., p.7).

But this direct “anti-imperialist activity” in the oppressor north is secondary to support for:

the struggle for self-determination in the Black Belt(ibid.; p.7).

and it is this national liberation struggle which will – without the necessity of socialist revolution in the north:

guarantee the destruction of US imperialism. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, July 1969; p.4).

When, in the seventh paragraph of your letter, you censure the London workers for demonstrating against the British government’s attempts to gag and bind the organisations of the working class, instead of confining their activity to the questions of Ireland and racism, the whole anti-working class anti-Socialist content of your pernicious, counter revolutionary revisionist line stands exposed.

Perhaps, it may be argued, your line of urging that Marxist-Leninists in an oppressor nation should confine their activity to the building of support for oppressed peoples and for oppressed minorities is at least progressive as far as it goes. On the contrary, you make it clear that such support ought to be purely verbal (and therefore harmless to the imperialists), for you condemn effective, organised, mass action against the imperialists – including the great, broadly based demonstrations against imperialist aggression in Vietnam that have shaken the US administration to the core – as “helping the imperialists to foster illusions about democracy”!

Nixon often allows and even encourages, pre-publicised open “demonstrations” on Vietnam. Such demonstrations objectively serve his democratic pose and aggression against oppressed peoples. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, September 1969; p.7).

“PROGRESSIVE LABOR” AND NATIONAL LIBERATION

The revisionist political line which you put forward is, in important ways, complementary to that put forward by the mercenaries of the Peking counterrevolutionaries in the leadership of the American “Progressive Labor Party.” They denounce all national liberation movements. They reject the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the revolutionary process in colonial-type countries – that this must pass through the stage of national-democratic revolution before it can proceed to the stage of socialist revolution – and demand, as the trotskyites have long done, “socialist revolution now” in the colonial-type countries:

For many years we in the Progressive Labor Party held to the Idea of two types of nationalism: revolutionary and reactionary. But a look at world reality shows there is no such thing... Any form of nationalism is bad!...
We were confused by the concept of the two-stage struggle which claimed that first there is the battle for national liberation, and then communists transform it to the battle for socialism...
The NLF’s program is a nationalistic program that ignores the international situation and looks only to Vietnam. The day has long-passed, if there ever was such a day, when this type of program could be of real value to the oppressed people of any country... The fight for liberation is the fight for socialism. It is wrong for communists to advocate two-stage struggle. Communists have no business advocating national liberation movements that do not openly proclaim socialism as a goal...
When Communists work in a nationalistic movement, or national liberation movement as they are sometimes called, they must put forward the goal of socialism...
Black separatism in the South would only split workers further. (“Progressive Labor”, August l969, p. 6, 7, 8,9, 12).

You, from the opposite ditch, reject socialist revolution in the developed capitalist countries and urge progressives to confine their political activity to support for national liberation movements and to the reformist struggle against racial discrimination.

These two revisionist lines are complementary in that, from opposite angles, both seek to prevent the building of the essential alliance between the oppressed peoples of the colonial-type countries and the working classes, of the developed capitalist countries without which imperialism cannot be destroyed.

The interests of the proletarian movement in the developed countries and of the national liberation movement in the colonies call for the union of these two forms of the revolutionary movement into a common front against the common enemy, against imperialism.
The victory of the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation and the consolidation of a common revolutionary front. (J.V. Stalin: “The Foundations of Leninism”, in “Works”, Vol. 6, Moscow, 1953; p.150).

A “NEW MARXIST-LENINIST MOVEMENT”

You say:

A new Marxist-Leninist movement must be built. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, April 1969; p. l2).

Very true. But from what class forces is this “new Marxist-Leninist movement” to be built? Stalin, as usual, is very explicit on this question:

The Party must be, first of all, the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must absorb all the best elements of the working class...
It must at the same time be a detachment of the class, part of the class, closely bound up with it by all the fibres of its being....
The Party is an inseparable part of the working class...
The Party is the organised detachment of the working class....
The Party is the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat. (J.V. Stalin: “The Foundations of Leninism”, in “Works”, Vol. 6, Moscow; 1953; p.177, 178, 180, 181, 186).

But you say, contrary once again to Marxism-Leninism, that the vanguard party will be built, not primarily from the working class, but from those engaged in the national liberation struggle and from their supporters in the oppressor countries, from students, and from the revisionist elements around “Hammer and Steel”:

A new Marxist-Leninist-movement will emerge mainly from out of the need and experience of those in the front lines of struggle against imperialism – the national democratic revolutions and those supporting them in the imperialist countries. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, April 1969; p. 12).

Some of the student forces... will help H&S build a genuine Marxist-Leninist Party.(“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, July 1969, p.4).

CONCLUSION

To sum up you say:

The enemies of Leninism, Khrushchev and Mao, have done great harm to the anti-imperialist cause. Their strength is completely dependent on the temporary success of the imperialists. The next crisis to hit imperialism will puncture the Khrushchev-Mao balloon. They will join their predecessors – the leaders of the 2nd International and Trotsky. (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, June 1969; p.12).

Your role, Mr. Chase, is therefore to put forward yet another variant of modern revisionism – which is, in fact, a form of the “centrist” revisionism analysed by the Central Committee of the MLOB in the Report on “The Role of Centrist Revisionism” published in RED FRONT of March 1970.

This new anti-Marxist-Leninist trend objectively fulfils the purpose of serving imperialism among strata of the working people among which both the right revisionism of Moscow and the “left” revisionism of Peking have become discredited.

The main features of your revisionist political line are:

It repudiates in practice the class struggle of the working class and the Marxist-Leninist strategy of leading the working class of the developed capitalist countries towards socialist revolution and the destruction of imperialism;

instead, it seeks to confine progressive political activity in these countries to purely verbal support for national liberation movements and to purely verbal support of the struggle of oppressed minorities for reforms in the sphere of employment, housing, education and civil rights; it opposes effective, organised mass action for these limited objectives on the grounds that such action “helps the imperialists to foster illusions about democracy”;

it gives support, to all kinds of spurious “national movements”, such as that of “black, nationalism”, “Welsh nationalism,” and “Scottish nationalism” which, being spurious, are reactionary and divisive;

it strives to build a new spurious “Marxist-Leninist movement” based on these revisionist and counter-revolutionary concepts, a movement built not from the advanced section of the working class but primarily from petty bourgeois elements who repudiate socialist revolution.

The “centrist” revisionist character of the political line which you are putting forward is manifested not only in the aspects of that line which relate to the United States of America (aspects which are very similar in principle, allowing for the differences between the situation of the American imperialists and those of Belgium, to the programme of the “centrist” revisionist-led “Communist Party of Belgium”) but also in your defence of the Korean “centrist” revisionist leader Kim II Sung (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, December 1969, p.6) and your characterisation of the strategy of the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Vietnam which is “centrist” revisionist in character and represents the interests of the Vietnamese national capitalists) as “Marxist-Leninist”:

The essence of Lenin’s and Stalin’s teachings on the imperialist stage of capitalism has been practised by the N.L.F. (i.e., by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, which is under the leadership of the “centrist” revisionist-led Workers’ Party of Vietnam – Ed.) (“Hammer & Steel Newsletter”, July 1969, p.3).

While such a neo-revisionist line may have, like its forerunners, some temporary diversionary success in the service of imperialism, the historical needs of the working class will in the not distant future relegate it to the dustbin, along with the right revisionism of Moscow and the “left” revisionism of Mao.

Only Marxism-Leninism, the science of socialist revolution, can enable the working people of the world to solve their problems and all the attempts of peddlers of revisionism like yourself to confuse and disrupt the working people are doomed to ignominious failure.

There is, indeed, an ideological gulf between us.

It is the gulf between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism.