Evaluating Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Revolution in 1969: The International United Front and the Impact on U.$. party-building by MC5, February, 1998 We consider ourselves lucky in the United $tates to have had two important communist-led mass movements of Euro-Amerikans to study in the last two generations. We believe they also hold important lessons for the comrades in the European imperialist countries. In one experience, the CP-USA achieved 100,000 members and at the time it did so it was catering to industrial worker demands. It soon lost those members, because they had succeeded in achieving their economic demands. Just as it reached its height, the CP-USA also dissolved itself once before passing into permanent Browderism. MIM has addressed this already in MT#10. We believe that what the CP-USA did had to be tried, but we also believe it proves beyond doubt that already by that time it was not possible to root a Communist Party in the industrial workers of imperialism, because those workers were already bought off. Even more relevant to our experience today is the history of the 1960s. Once again, a correct party emerged, gathered some momentum and threw itself headlong into the industrial workers. The result is there for all to see: the crypto-Trotskyism and sub- reformist New Age "politics" of the Progressive Labor Party. We call this New Age sub-reformism on PLP's part, because PLP attacked 90% of the 16 million member communist party under Mao as "capitalist class." With such a large and dispersed enemy, the only prescription the ultraleft ended up making was ideological remoulding for anyone. Such an approach de-emphasizes those who hold power. As we showed elsewhere in a review of their magazine Road to Revolution 4.5, this continues to this day in PLP's practice: the PLP now openly announces that changing one's mind is all that is necessary to make a break for communism and that "communism lives" inside the PLP. Before the worker-student alliance, the PLP upheld Mao and was its fraternal party. After the worker- student alliance went into application, PLP went down the drain, least of all numerically, but most importantly from an angle of political line. Reading the communist literature of the U.$.A. in the 1960s, it is important to remember how little communist culture existed following the McCarthy period. Much of the literature is dogmatic and devoid of factual substance or alternatively, watery in a right opportunist direction. The 1960s changed all that, for good. Although we are in a weak position in the 1990s as a communist movement, there is no shortage of ideological and theoretical thinking. In fact, we have now passed into the direction of having too many "sects." According to Mao, a sectarian is someone who puts his or her narrow organizational interest above that of the international proletariat. In the imperialist countries, most sect variety is on account of idealism. It is not much different than the reason the United States has so much Protestant sect variety. Religion is just one example of idealism's infinite possibilities of division. The Progressive Labor Party took the wrong turn in the 1968 to 1971 period. That wrong turn was caused by some difficulties and newness in the anti- revisionist movement and it was solidified and amplified by the PLP's "worker-student" alliance in which the PLP performed the magic act of making the petty-bourgeoisie disappear. In contrast, MIM has not gotten involved in serving the labor aristocracy, and MIM has managed to stay on the Maoist road for more than 15 years, compared with the 7 years for PLP. MIM upholds rooting oneself in the people. It is only by repeated exposure to the same line and people that the masses come to understand it. It does not follow that it is necessary to put forward the class demands of parasites to be rooted in the people. Progressive Labor Party is the proof of Lenin's dictum that no right opportunist error goes unpunished by another ultraleft error. By studying the documents below and above all by applying the materialist method consistently, MIM seeks to avoid PLP's revisionist outcome. Many who have not read Lenin's work very carefully will call MIM "ultraleft" and not much different than PLP. Indeed, where there is no large mass movement exerting pressure on the party, this must indeed be a suspicion. On the other hand, the question of demarcation here is not one principally related to the U.$.A. The whole question started with Vietnam. On this question, we invite the participation of the whole international communist movement. retyped by MC5 September 4, 1969 Central Committee of Communist Party of China Sends Message of Condolences to Central Committee of Viet Nam Workers' Party on Passing Away of President Ho Chi Minh "The Central Committee of the Viet Nam Workers' Party: "The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, on behalf of all the members of the Party and the entire Chinese people, expresses, with boundless grief, condolences on the passing away of President Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Viet Nam Workers' Party, the great leader of the Vietnamese people and the close comrade-in-arms of the Chinese people. "President Ho Chi Minh was an outstanding proletarian revolutionary. He applied the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of the Vietnamese revolution. He dedicated his whole life to the national-liberation struggle of Viet Nam and the cause of communism. Under the leadership of President Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Nam Workers' Party and the heroic Vietnamese people waged protracted and unyielding struggles against the French colonialists and the Japanese fascists, won great victories, founded the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and embarked on the road of socialism. After U.S. imperialism unleashed its war of aggression against Viet Nam, President Ho Chi Minh, by giving full play to the might of people's war, led the entire Vietnamese people in fighting U.S. imperialism, which is the most ferocious of all, with the result that U.S. imperialism was severely battered, driven into an impasse and confronted with inevitable destruction. He thus made important contributions to the cause of the anti-imperialist struggle of the oppressed people and oppressed nations the world over. "Upholding proletarian internationalism, President Ho Chi Minh actively supported the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat of all countries and of all the oppressed people and oppressed nations. He came to China several times in the years when the Chinese people were waging the national-democratic revolutionary struggle. He shared weal and woe with the Chinese people and fought shoulder to shoulder with them, and built up profound proletarian feelings with the Chinese Communist Party. After the victory of the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, he worked untiringly for strengthening and developing the fraternal friendship and militant solidarity between the Chinese and Vietnamese peoples. Forged through protracted fighting, this friendship and solidarity between our two peoples can stand any test. "It is unfortunate that President Ho Chi Minh passed away at the crucial moment when the Vietnamese people's war against U.S. aggression and for national salvation is about to win final victory. This is a great loss for the Viet Nam Workers' Party and the Vietnamese people and also a great loss for the cause of the anti-U.S. struggle of the Chinese people and all the people of the world. President Ho Chi Minh has died, but his noble revolutionary qualities and fighting spirit of defying brute force will live for ever in the hearts of the Vietnamese people, in the hearts of the Chinese people and in the hearts of the revolutionary people of the world. "We profoundly understand and sympathize with the feelings of the broad masses of the Vietnamese people at this moment. We sincerely hope that you will turn grief into strength and deal U.S. imperialism still heavier blows. We are deeply convinced that following President Ho Chi Minh's teaching 'fearless of sacrifices and hardships. . . .determined to carry on and vigorously step up the resistance war, with the firm resolve to fight and win,' the Vietnamese people, who have a tradition of heroic revolutionary struggle, will certainly overcome every difficulty on their road of advance, small all schemes to undermine their war of liberation, drive the U.S. imperialists off the territory of Vietnam lock stock and barrel, liberate the south, defend the north and [lost text here, MC5] maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in their own hands and persevering in self-reliance. "'The 700 million Chinese people provide powerful backing for the Vietnamese people; the vast expanse of China's territory is their reliable rear area.' Following this teaching by Chairman Mao Tsetung, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people will, as always, resolutely support the Vietnamese people in carrying through to national salvation. "U.S. imperialism is sure to be defeated! Viet Nam is sure to win! "Eternal glory to President Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the Vietnamese people!" Peking Review, September 7 1969, pp. 3-4. MC5 comments: What is important to notice is that in the obituary from Mao's communist party, there is no mention of Ho Chi Minh's contributions to the struggle against revisionism or in support of the Cultural Revolution. Yet, Vietnam was appearing to uphold People's War. That much Vietnam did not share with the Soviet Union. From this obituary and many similar articles celebrating the People's War in Vietnam, we should gather that Mao considered Vietnam a part of the united front against imperialism. There were some agreements and some disagreements, but the disagreements with the Vietnamese comrades were not public. In contrast, the Progressive Labor Party in the U$A considered itself Maoist, but it criticized Vietnamese revisionism in public as early as May, 1968. It is clear that PLP benefited from the political training of the Chinese comrades. However, PLP became impatient about the struggle against revisionism. Starting with "Road to Revolution III" in 1971, PLP took an ultra-Trotskyist simpleton view of united fronts. Aping the fair-weather friends of the proletariat who abandoned Stalin in the hour of the Soviet Union's greatest need -- just because Stalin shook hands with the Nazis and signed the Non- Aggression Pact in 1939 -- PLP took up the Christian ultraleft purist stance of opposing Mao for shaking hands with Nixon. The road to that decision started with Vietnam. Progressive Labor: Boston News "Revisionism: Lea(r?)ning the Hard Way" Historic reprint, May, 1968 retyped by MC5 "But why would the Vietnamese sell-out? "The answer to this question is difficult to give in a short space. It lies in the nature of what Communists call 'revisionism' and the meaning of opposing it. "What is revisionism? "Some strikes are broken by the boss because he can hold out longer than the workers. Some are broken by the government, when the boss can't do the job. But most strikes are in fact never mainly defeated from without. They are basically sold out from within, by the trade union 'leaders' themselves. "These are often men who got power in their unions by appearing or actually being quite militant. Sometimes they were phonies from the start. But a trade union leader can make a lot of money. If he never learns the necessity of sharp class struggle leading, in the long run, to the total destruction of the government which runs things for the boss, if he gives in to the constant enticement of bribes from the boss, even a militant can become a sell-out. This can only be prevented if revolutionaries lead workers to grasp the political realities of imperialism so those workers become themselves the guarantee against sell-outs by leaders who have gone over to the enemy. "Revisionism is the theory and practice of selling- out the people covered over with communist phraseology. As such, it represents the interests of exploiters against the oppressed. The history of the revolutionary movement demonstrates that, as long as there are exploited and exploiting classes, the revolutionary leaders of the oppressed can become revisionists, can betray the interests of the working people, can take the side of imperialists. Thus in the early 20th century, many leaders of the once- revolutionary European socialist parties became pro- imperialist. In European parliaments, most representatives of the old socialist parties voted for the First World War. It had long been agreed among revolutionaries that the coming war was a war among imperialists, a war for the division of the world's working people and resources among themselves. The socialist parties had agreed that the workers had to use the situation of Imperialist war to launch revolutions against their 'own' capitalist class. And after World War I, when workers began to take sharp revolutionary action in Germany, it was these revisionists who sided with the most reactionary forces in Germany to completely smash the working people. "Revisionism is presented by the American press as a swear word used by rigid Marxist-Leninists top smear their more 'creative' brothers. Thus to oppose revisionism is to be an ideological fanatic. In fact, revisionism is not marxist creativity. It opposes, in the particular context of a given struggle, the fundamental notions of marxism which make it revolutionary. Against class struggle, revisionism upholds peace between oppressors and oppressed. Despite the constantly repeated historical lesson that no class gives up power without revolution, the revisionists hold that reform can bring the working people to power. Against the Marxist-Leninist notion that people, people oppressed by imperialism and not technique or weaponry, can defeat imperialism, the revisionists uphold the motion that weapons are the main thing and the political awareness of the people is of minor significance. (In practice, this means that revisionism wants to keep the people politically 'innocent' so they can be misled.) When such people 'lead' the revolutionary movement, they can hurt it more than imperialism. When the imperialists attack the people, the latter can learn lessons from such attacks and fight back harder. But when revisionists establish a strong following among the people, they can use their position to prevent key lessons from being learned, to get the people to follow their wrong ideas, and thereby demoralize and sell out the revolution. Misprepared and demoralized by revisionist leadership, the people can be smashed by imperialists' tactics of violence and bribery. Thus, (CP), arguing that since the war was a just war against fascism (which was true, no class struggle in the U.S. was acceptable (false), dissolved sharecroppers' groups all over the south. The sharecroppers, left in the lurch, unprepared for a sharp fight, were literally slaughtered by police and vigilante forces. "In recent years, revisionism has become the dominant force in most old communist parties -- including most of those in power. The result has been tremendous setbacks for the movement. Thus the willingness of the European and Soviet revisionists to ease up the struggle in Europe meant that the U.S. could move huge numbers of Europe-based troops to Vietnam. Thus Russia gave large-scale aid too the Indonesian fascists, after they had slaughtered half a million reds and their followers, discussed earlier. Thus the deals between southern American communist parties and the military dictatorship in their countries. Thus the support of the revisionist American CP for Kennedy and McCarthy, and its attempt to swing the anti-war movement behind these imperialists. Thus the tremendous pressure the Soviets applied to get the Vietnamese to back down from their original four point stand for immediate withdrawal, to their present one-point, sell-out position. "Revisionism, therefore, is not an abstraction, an ideological heresy from which purists draw back in horror. It is the organized, systematic attempt by those who have sold-out to imperialism to betray the revolution from within. It can be seen, by observation, that revisionism develops in all revolutionary movements. To let it take the lead is to let the theory and practice of counter-revolution, of imperialism, lead the anti-imperialist movement. "In this stage in the development of the communist movement, more than at any time, to fight revisionism is crucial. Unless one defeats its ideological influence in and practical leadership of the movement, the movement must be reversed, must be turned from anti- to pro-imperialist. "It is clear, more and more, that revisionism is very strong in Vietnam. There are a number of ways we can see this. "First, the fact that the North Vietnamese leaders do not struggle against revisionism. There is no way of conducting this struggle secretly. The intensity of the fight in the world communist movement between the revolutionary and the opportunist, the revisionist position, is tremendous. Therefore, the thing that most clearly marks the revolutionary forces within that movement today is that they wage a sharp struggle, both theoretically and in day to day practice, against revisionism. This means criticizing a revisionist approach as it develops out of the mistakes of basically solid revolutionaries, as well as sharply opposing the theory and practice of the world-wide revisionist movement. But the Vietnamese have been notable for their abstention from that struggle. Their stand has been (somewhat favorably) presented in the Western press as a 'third' socialist path. There can be no such third path. In America, for example, Progressive Labor opposes the class privelege (sic.) of 2S as unjust and a thing which divides students and workers. The revisionist Communist Party supports 2S. What is the third path here? Similarly, revolutionary force call for the total elimination of U.S. influence in Vietnam. The revisionists argue that this is too extreme, that it is unreasonable, that a deal maintaining U.S. presence is the only way. Where is the third path here? "Secondly, the Vietnamese go further. Not only don't they attack revisionism internationally -- they support it, although this support is somewhat veiled. Thus Ho Chi Minh sent a telegram wishing success to the recent Soviet sponsored congress of revisionist parties, call to attack the revolutionary part of the communist movement, especially China. Again, the DRV consistently invites the worst sell- outs, revisionists from all over the world, to visit Vietnam. Then they can return, their influence greatly enhanced by the prestige of the Vietnamese struggle. "Thirdly, the Vietnamese don't fight revisionism in their own country. There are two ways we can tell this. One way is by reading their literature. A struggle against revisionism cannot be waged in private. Its absence from Vietnamese publications means its absence from the efforts of the Vietnamese leaders. A second way is by considering what it means to accept Soviet aid. Nobody gives aid without strings. Even if the Soviet aid were without explicit strings (and Burchett's statement, quoted earlier by Theodore Draper), indicates this is hardly the case)(sic.), there is the unspoken 'string': do something against me or what I represent, and I'll remove aid. You can't expect a man to lend you money if you spit in his face. The Soviets would never give aid to those who fight revisionism -- that was precisely why they cut off aid to China in 1960. "And this acceptance of Soviet aid, in turn, gives the revisionists a tremendous boost around the world. 'Don't tell me the USSR's leadership is counter- revolutionary! Don't they help the Vietnamese?' This involves, of course, a fundamental misestimate of why the Russians give that aid. As the U.S. knows, that Russian aid enables the Vietnamese to shoot down a few planes is secondary. For it also allows Russian (revisionist) influence to become much stronger in Vietnam; it builds the prestige of sell-outs all over the world; it confuses people about revisionism, so they see it as less militant communism instead of as disguised counter-revolution; it prevents the Vietnamese from fighting revisionism within their own country, for if they fight, they lose aid. The more aid accepted, the stronger it shows that revisionism has become, the harder it is for wavering forces to accept the hardships of rejecting the aid, the greater the influence of revisionism in Vietnam can become. The circle is vicious: the end result is the defeat of the Vietnamese. "'But why not unite with revisionism?' some people argue. 'After all, does someone have to agree completely for you Maoists to unite with him?'" "Of course not. Revolutions develop in stages. To make revolutions, communists must unite groups of people whose needs may dictate very different long- term goals, but who, within that stage, can unite in a common struggle against a common enemy. Thus, in Vietnam, workers and peasants unite with various elements like small shop keepers and anti-U.S. businessmen against imperialism. That's one thing. But uniting with revisionism is another. Revisionism means selling out the struggle on whatever level. Revisionism isn't a class; rather, its leadership rests on the opportunism present in all classes. It acts to get various groups to function in the least revolutionary way. To unite with revisionism is as bad as uniting with imperialism. "If the Vietnamese leaders opposed revisionism, denounced it, fought it internally and externally, and refused aid from it, the absence of that aid would probably mean a slightly more difficult situation in the 'purely military' sense. (Of course, the weakness of the U.S. is not 'purely military' anyway; the few planes that the SAM's (sic. for surface-to-air missiles (plural) --ed. ) shoot down can easily be replaced.) But the struggle against revisionism would greatly strengthen the Vietnamese politically. It would strengthen people all over the world politically. And that, after all, is how you win a people's war in the first place. WHAT WILL HAPPEN? WHAT SHOULD WE DO? "The situation that will emerge in Vietnam as a result of negotiations for a U.S. presence will undoubtedly be very complex. Although the revisionists have the upper hand in the Vietnamese communist party (north and south), and therefore tremendous influence, most Vietnamese communists are against revisionism. The revisionists will be able to set the struggle back. But we have n doubt that -- in the long run -- the struggle will fully reassert itself, as the Vietnamese learn to see through revisionists among their leaders. . . ." (end of excerpt) MC5 comments: We have to agree with most of what PLP says about the vanguard party in Vietnam. In particular, the point that the Vietnamese party does not fight revisionism in its own country is crucial. From our limited factual knowledge of the time, there were some Maoists in Vietnam upholding the Cultural Revolution and the fight against revisionism. However, let us assume that PLP got its facts right here and that Vietnam has been on a downhill slide which ended up in its copying Deng Xiaoping revisionism after Liberation from U.S. imperialism and siding with Soviet social-imperialism even before that. Let's also ignore what PLP said about unions in the U$A and use it as a correct example where there are exploited workers in the majority. If we grant these smaller points to the PLP, then the larger issue remains what is the relationship between the international united front and the fight against revisionism? This is the crucial question where PLP took the wrong turn. Could the Vietnamese accept aid or was it automatically out of the question? On this question, we have to admit that the RCP-USA understanding is theoretically superior to PLP's. According to the RCP-USA, the contention of imperialist rivals is fundamental to the economic system of imperialism. Hence, whether the Soviet social-imperialists wanted to or not, whether they had intentions of spreading revisionism or not, they were bound to get involved somehow in the Vietnam War. This flows from the correct understanding of the imperialist anarchy of production. Cooperation amongst capitalists or imperialists is only relative, while contention is absolute. To hold otherwise is a fundamental revision of Marxism-Leninism tantamount to saying that imperialism is a peaceful system. Lenin handled this question in attacking Kautsky's theory of "super- imperialism." Mao also dealt with it in attacking Khruschev's "three peacefuls" including the ballot box road to power. Hence, PLP's ultraleft stance against Soviet aid to Vietnam and the united front merges with right opportunism in whitewashing the imperialist system, Soviet social-imperialism especially. Soviet social- imperialism got involved, because it was not a peaceful system and because it sought redivision of the world. Pursuing its own interests, it could nonetheless seek to undermine U.$. interests. The RCP-USA line is such a hodgepodge that we can see by reading the PLP of the late 1960s things that RCP-USA Avakian would say later in the 1970s. Thus, while the RCP-USA may understand dog-eat-dog capitalist competition, it did not draw the correct conclusions with regard to the united front. From the above document we should not be surprised with the document that came later in 1969 from the PLP. retyped by MC5 "Greetings from M. Rosen, Chairman of National Committee of U.S. Progressive Labor Party" "Comrade Mao Tsetung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Comrade Lin Piao, Vice-Chairman of the Party Central Committee, have received from Comrade Milton Rosen, Chairman of the National Committee of the Progressive Labor Party in the United States, a message of greetings on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. "The message said: On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the National Committee of the Progressive Labor Party extends deep comradely greetings to the people of China and to their proletarian vanguard, the Communist Party of China. The great revolutionary victory over imperialism and the Kuomintang bourgeois reactionaries established the dictatorship of the proletariat in China. Together with the October Revolution, which has been betrayed by the new Russian tsars, the Chinese revolution is a milestone of the proletarian socialist revolution. The timely launching of the proletarian cultural revolution consolidated the socialist state and brought the great Marxist- Leninist thought of Mao Tsetung to the masses of China and revolutionaries throughout the world. Above all, the teachings of Comrade Mao instruct revolutionaries to wholeheartedly serve the people. This means that in order to win and secure socialism we must defeat revisionism, racism and nationalism, which are based on the reactionary bourgeois outlook of self-profit. The U.S. and Soviet imperialists conspire to encircle and destroy socialist China. The focal point of their counter-revolutionary strategy is to liquidate the people's war in Viet Nam by obtaining a political deal in Paris which will protect the U.S. imperialist economic and military interests in Southeast Asia. Temporary reversals caused by revisionist-nationalist betrayals will ultimately be swept away by the continuing revolutionary upsurge of the oppressed masses led by genuine Marxist-Leninists. This upsurge also gains momentum here in the United States. With militant Black workers in the lead, a broad worker-student alliance is being forged against the U.S. ruling class. Increasing numbers of revolutionary youth study Marxism-Leninism and the teachings of Comrade Mao to guide the class struggle for a new society. All revolutionaries are inspired by the great achievements of the People's Republic of China under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tsetung." Source: Peking Review 24 October 1969. MC5 comments: The document above may seem like other communiques supporting Mao at the time, but it actually contains a number of rare items. First, it says "we must defeat, revisionism, racism and nationalism," without qualifying that the nationalism of oppressed nations is applied internationalism and hence progressive. Secondly, the document mentions "temporary reversals caused by revisionist-nationalist betrayals." This was a veiled reference to the Communist Party of Vietnam. Finally, the document is excellent evidence that it was at that time that Progressive Labor Party was reaching out to workers to forge the "worker-student alliance." We believe the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB) and the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) should look at the experience of the PLP as foreshadowing their own experience. Magazines from PLP at the time criticized Soviet revisionism in a way particularly reminiscent of the MLPD. Like MLPD today, PLP wrote at length about the "petty- bourgeois mentality" that infected the Soviet Union's Communist Party. Unlike the PTB or MLPD though, the PLP took the stance above all else that all nationalism is bad. In their muddled explanation of their difference with Trotskyism, PLP claimed that Trotsky was too much for nationalism! In reality, PLP is for imperialist country nationalism -- perfuming of the imperialist country petty-bourgeoisie in particular. The PLP excels in rooting out the evil interests of the oppressed nation bourgeoisie, but it carried out one hell of a magic trick by making the imperialist country petty- bourgeoisie disappear. These combined efforts of the PLP are designed to cause the proletariat to lose in class struggle. Where the proletariat does set up a pole as in China, PLP opposes the united front and wishes defeat on the proletarian camp. Where there is no proletarian pole set up yet, PLP sabotages its creation from within by smuggling in the labor aristocracy and other elements of the petty-bourgeoisie. In the next document we see the PLP magic trick, a disappearing act for the imperialist country petty-bourgeoisie, one to be palely imitated by the RCP-USA later. Progressive Labor Boston News, May, 1968, page 50 "Progressive Labor: Building a Revolutionary Party of the Working Class" by a trade union club retyped by MC5 "The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is trying to build a revolutionary working class-led movement. The kind of movement we are trying to build and the way in which we fight is determined by our long range goal-- the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only Two Classes: Capitalists and Workers "The two most important and powerful classes in the world today are the working class and the owning class (capitalists, the bourgeoisie, the ruling class of the U=S= (sic.) and other capitalist countries). These two classes are defined by their relationship to the means of production (machinery, mines, buildings, land, etc.). The capitalist class owns the means of production and needs workers to operate the machines and produce the goods. The working class, which is the over-whelming majority, is that class of people who, because they don't own the means of production are forced to sell their ability to work (labor power in order to survive." MC5 comments: What they leave out talking about "the world today" is that the overwhelming majority in the U$A is petty-bourgeoisie. In response to this kind of blunder in the estimation of revisionism, some comrades became the precursors for post-modernism, which is the trendy way of being subjectivist and relativist. Writers like Sakai, Tani, Sera, the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and the Sojourner Truth Organization and others associated with the RYM (Revolutionary Youth Movement) saw supporting oppressed nation nationalism as a carte blanche for revisionism. The errors of the Vietnamese and Korean comrades were taken up and reinforced by these right opportunists and precursors to post-modernism. If Mao said there needed to be Cultural Revolution, then these right opportunists and post-modernists said the attack on the bourgeoisie in the party was only necessary in China. If PLP attacked revisionism, these comrades said it was only because PLP was white or in a white-dominated party. Even in a situation as we have today where the principal contradiction is between imperialism and oppressed nations, Marxist-Leninist-Maoists have an obligation to scientific truth first and foremost. The distinctiveness of each nation is not a goal higher than the repudiation of revisionism. Putting nationalism above repudiating revisionism in the communist party is insecure nationalism and Liberalism combined. The logical conclusion to such a line of reasoning as putting nationalism first is post-modernism. It's not much farther to saying what is correct or not depends on one's identity. That is why Marx stressed that a communist differs from other socialists and working- class activists in that communists are scientific and internationalist. Either the Soviet Union had a bourgeoisie in the party like Khruschev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin that restored capitalism, or it did not. The answer is not different depending on whether one is a Korean, Vietnamese or Chinese comrade. In this regard, we share our unity with PLP. The Vietnamese party did fall into revisionism. PLP was also right about Zhou Enlai and Hua Guofeng, even while it attacked too many other targets. Where MIM will not buy what PLP says concerns idealism. It is ultraleft idealism for PLP to split the way it has in the international communist movement. There is as yet no successful PLPist revolution, except in the minds and souls of PLP comrades led by their New Age gurus. We cannot have organizations splitting away every time they come up with a new line. The communist movement must be improved from within through unity and centralism.