Why the Northstar Compass is not Brezhnevite

Northstar Compass (NSC) is organ of the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity 
with Soviet People (ICFSP). The ICFSP is not a communist organization or 
party but a united front of various mass organizations, groups, parties, 
individuals, publications, etc., from around the world and of various 
tendencies with the basic unity only of supporting the peoples of the 
former U.S.S.R. in their struggle to reestablish socialism as they see 
it, which the members believe is that as guided by Lenin and Stalin. 
ICFSP is just an anti-imperialist organization and to impute Brezhnevism 
on it imputes too much ideological unity to it and a character beyond an 
advanced anti-imperialist united front. Some of the members are 
neo-Brezhnevites, some Hoxhaites, some Maoists, some Pan-Slav 
nationalists, etc. They agree to disagree on many issues and often have 
struggle on many of these same issues including over the question of 
Brezhnev. In other words, there is no one ideological position, there is 
struggle and minimal anti-imperialist unity. As such, over time the 
articles it has carried have improved mainly because of this struggle 
inside. You are correct to infer this much about the Brezhnevism in that 
NSC was founded by ex-members of the CP of Canada and that of course 
hangs over their necks. However, the CP of Canada has opposed NSC.

A Northstar Compass activist
October, 2004

mim3@mim.org responds:

It is true that in his day, Brezhnev would not have allowed any pro-Mao articles 
to appear in one of his periodicals. Nonetheless, most of the articles in NSC
have historically targetted Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin while leaving unclear
why the USSR under Brezhnev was state-capitalist. Even calling for a "restoration"
of the USSR plays into Brezhnevism, because the USSR continued to exist after Lenin
and Stalin. It just wasn't socialist.

We also regard NSC as continuing the revisionist line, thanks to the notion above
of united front. In fact, NSC is an alliance of the state-capitalists with former
and aspiring labor bureacrats. Maoism cannot be mixed together with Brezhnevism in a
united front in the imperialist countries, because the ideologies represent opposite classes.

Where an amalgamation of various exploiter and exploited
ideologies appears in an imperialist context,
that amalgamation benefits the status quo.  It is in this sense 
that Brezhnevism dominates within NSC though NSC may tolerate some Maoist activity. 

Since the days of Lenin, Stalin and Mao, scientific communists realize that united fronts
are not organizational coalitions but alliances of classes aimed at power. We see
that perhaps we could make some selective alliances with the lumpen, students and undocumented
workers. Allying with ex-bureaucrats of the Brezhnev era is not a way out of imperialism,
but instead it is a means of dulling class consciousness. There is no way to have
a proletarian-led united front with Brezhnevites for a restoration of the USSR.