What is a Cardinal Principle?

"by MC5, August 26, 1998"

There are two reasons that the unity of communists is not a simple
matter. One is that the enemy infiltrates the movement to subvert it
within. While doing so, the enemy pretends to be communist when it is
not. Secondly, some paths to communism are much faster than others. Each
generation produces leaders scientifically capable of moving the society
toward communism, but each generation also produces well-intentioned
people who should not be leaders. In fact, it is inevitable that
if everyone had the same approach as our least analytical and least
ideologically-driven comrades, life on this planet would be doomed to
a quick end.

Hence to say one is for classless society and opposed to all humyn
oppression of groups over groups of people is not enough. For this reason,
communists argue over what are cardinal principles, the principles more
important than others.

There are two approaches to cardinal principles--materialist and
idealist. The idealist approach to forming cardinal principles is no
different than forming a religion. Trotskyism and anarchism are good
examples of idealist formulation of cardinal principles. Splits over
such principles are endless, just as the division in the humyn race
caused by religion is infinite.

The materialist approach to cardinal principles stresses an examination
of actual history, not just our own vivid imaginations of how the world
SHOULD BE. We materialists do not take splitting the proletariat and its
vanguard party lightly. We form only as many cardinal principles as are
necessary to unmask the enemy's attempts to infiltrate us or divert us
to a less efficient road to communism.

As opposed to the idealist approach of coming to moralistic principles
off the top of our head, communists examine actual historical practices
to see what works to bring about communism. For this reason, MIM has
formulated two of its cardinal principles to correspond to the two
largest experiences of communist practice--China and Russia. If we cannot
recognize how to move forward in concrete circumstances such as in China
and Russia, we have even less chance of pulling principles out of a hat
that will work.

MIM's third cardinal principle is the concrete question most important
to the conditions in the imperialist countries where there has been no
communist revolution at all. In the imperialist countries we Leninists
have always spoken of an "oppressor-nation working-class." The imperialist
country working-class is in fact no longer an exploited class. It is
petty-bourgeoisie known as "labor aristocracy."

MIM's fourth cardinal principle is just democratic centralism on the other
questions. That means majority rule. It also means that party members are
obliged to carry out policies they don't agree with or fully understand.

Often times friends of MIM will overestimate their unity with MIM and
seek to join the party or form a new MIM party. Often at the beginning
they encounter one stand -- one among the thousands of positions MIM
takes -- that the comrade does not like.

To understand MIM, one must know that it is not worth splitting
over questions that are not cardinal principles. Likewise, it
means understanding that we are obliged to split over the cardinal
questions. We have pledged that if a majority of the party opposes the
Cultural Revolution in China, starts to back old Soviet revisionism or
sees a Euro-Amerikan working-class exploited in the majority in current
conditions of the last generation, we must split the party and not abide
by majority rule for revisionism or chauvinism. It is fundamentally a
waste of time to unite with so-called communists and enemy infiltrators.

Concretely, these principles mean supporting the "Gang of Four" against
Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping and opposing Khruschev and his ilk since
then. Moreover, we do not hang ourselves with a petty-bourgeois noose by
representing the economic demands of the imperialist country "working"
class.

Someone seeking to join a communist party should consider in advance what
principles s/he would split over. Hopefully it makes sense why MIM says
if we can't agree on concrete situations like Russia and China, it is
not likely we are going to be able to unite on forming socialism from
scratch. At the same time, we must also understand our own conditions
here and now well enough to move forward. Part of moving forward is
separating from the opportunists, revisionists and chauvinists subverting
the proletarian movement. That is why we have cardinal principles.