If this document is appearing in a public form it is because the comrades at New Labor Press have refused to retract their slanderous article “On Renegades and Revolutionaries.” It is regretful that we must publish a response like this publicly, but it is with greater regret that the accusations, lies, and slander heaped upon us have been issued in the first place. The impetus of New Labor Press’s article, as identified by them, is twofold. Firstly, they cite a series of polemics issued by the news outlet, The Worker, along with the recent release of the self-criticism issued by the Central Group of the Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party USA on the publicly available website Redlibrary.info. Secondly, they were informed by “...organizations NLP communicates and works with, like the Revolutionary Student Union and chapters of the Revolutionary Study Group” that they had been the “...subject of an organized putsch that sought to break their internal discipline, poach branches and members of their organizations, and bring these tricked comrades under the leadership of an obscure, organized, and recently activated nameless conspiracy focused on the ‘Central Group’s’ ‘self-criticism’.” Comrades, these are serious charges, and we take them as such, and as such we will not let them go unchallenged.
It must be stated that when we read the beginning of the article we were shocked. We were shocked that an organization that many of us have been following with interest since its inception, including studying its position papers and recommending them to others for study, would so hastily publish a public document of this magnitude without conducting a basic investigation, in short, to seek truth from facts. Secondly, we were shocked to learn from these comrades that we are an “...organized, and recently activated nameless conspiracy”! These charges were leveled at us because several of us in Kansas City have recently undertaken a study of the self-criticism issued by the (CG) CR-CPUSA and have attempted to share our thoughts with other individuals across the country through a modestly organized phone call.
It became quite clear to us after reading and discussing the document amongst ourselves that the New Labor Press had been fed misinformation by the organizations they cite (RSU and RSG) that were based not on facts, but from wild speculations, gossip, and paranoia. What is on display here is nothing more than the operation of a rumor mill, sadly and regrettably taken public, as the result of poor communication, which has its roots in the conditions that Maoists find themselves in since the dispersal of the majority of our forces since Spring 2022. Please, comrades, allow us to dispel the rumors and present some facts for you regarding the situation.
To the first point raised by the comrades at NLP regarding the recent publication of several polemics issued by The Worker, we can say little beyond that we too are aware of them, and several of us have read them. We find many valuable and good things printed in The Worker, just as we find many valuable and good things printed in NLP. It reads to us as if the comrades at NLP are grasping at straws trying to link unlinked things together. You comrades are correct to think that these documents are timely. Indeed they are! However, not because they are linked to a shadowy conspiracy, but because their work, like yours, is a direct result of the political conditions imposed on us in the wake of dispersal, and they, like you, are fighting to see it corrected.
It also bears mentioning that a document of the magnitude of the (CG) CR-CPUSA’s criticism will provoke a firestorm of opinions, statements, and actions. This is only natural, and we are not the least bit afraid of it, in fact we welcome it. It must be remembered that this is the only self-criticism that has been released from anyone involved, at any level, in the old movement. Furthermore, there is still only one history of the first phase of our movement that has been written, and it has been written by liquidationists and traitors. This is a grievous error that anyone involved in the old movement shares. Existing organizations have produced no counter-history of our movement against a handful of liquidationists that try to paint the history of our movement as utterly black, and these same existing organizations have produced no public self-criticisms or summations regarding their involvement or emergence from the old movement either. These facts have made us concerned, comrades, because we want nothing swept under the rug, and have been dismayed to see really nothing produced regarding this in two years by organizations like yours that we know to be capable of producing quality work! And even more so, the reaction to people taking up the study of the (CG) CR-CPUSA’s self-criticism has us even more concerned that self-proclaimed revolutionary organizations would try to suppress and condemn our modest efforts.
We must emphatically state that we are not an organization, and therefore have no organizational links with any existing organizations, nor could we! We are merely a collection of individuals that has loosely held together since the dispersal of Spring 2022 solely due to our ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and our rejection of the liquidationists. During this time we have tried to maintain contacts with people we knew from the old movement, people who opposed the liquidationists and still were aiming to unite under Maoism. In this we have made good on our promise to ourselves and others verbalized in the National Working Group to maintain contacts with each other, even in the absence of our organization. We have tried to maintain the highest levels of revolutionary optimism and a revolutionary, diplomatic, and above-board approach in our protracted and difficult path to overcoming the dispersion of Maoists in this country. During this whole period we have kept the call put out, time and time again, by the International Communist League firmly in our minds, “Unite Under Maoism” as a guide.
During this time the situation has been difficult, as you comrades at NLP know. With dispersal came the elimination of national and regional lines of communication, all organizations in our movement, as well as the elimination of an ideological-political-organizational center. Many comrades were left rudderless, and many were barred from participating in many of the organizational efforts and conversations that came after dispersal by the liquidationists and their allies. The situation in Kansas City is much the same as what we have analyzed to be the conditions nationally. We are primarily composed of advanced workers and teachers, with all of us having been involved in the old movement, in varying degrees and at various stages, stretching the entirety of the effort, from 2014-2022. We are just now beginning our reorganization efforts here, as for the past two years we have been patiently observing developments across the country, as well as having our own discussions amongst ourselves over how to reorganize and recoup our forces that were lost.
In organizing our call to discuss our views of the (CG) CR-CPUSA’s self-criticism with others, we took no organizational ties into account, in fact we couldn’t take them into account because since dispersal we have been completely disconnected and isolated from any national organizations, both due to the conditions imposed on all of us and due to our own disorganization. Many of us have only recently rejoined the effort to reconstitute the Party after several years away from the movement, and as such many are unaware of the existence of organizations like the RSU, RSG, NLP, and The Worker due to their newness. We will apologize for the ignorance of some of our comrades regarding this, and for the logistical errors present in organizing our joint discussion, but we will never apologize for the intentions behind the discussion itself because they are based in the Three Do’s.
The reasons for dispersal, and the current situation, are complex and deserving of a larger explanation than this response is suited for, but succinctly, it has its roots in the errors of the old leadership and the prominent practice in the old movement of mistaking friends for enemies. We have seen much of this addressed in the self-criticism by the (CG) CR-CPUSA, and this is one of the main reasons we have encouraged others to study and discuss the document with us. Furthermore, the hastily put out article “On Renegades and Revolutionaries,” as well as the paranoiac gossip that inspired it, demonstrate to us that there is an urgent necessity to study this document, and to produce position papers on it for dissemination. This was the purpose of the joint discussion, and it will be fulfilled, even if only by us.
Many have rightly criticized the errors of the old movement and its leadership in words, but they have not corrected their practice. We believe that you have mistaken friends for enemies based, not on investigation, but on rumors and hearsay, and then have acted on this faulty information to condemn genuine revolutionaries on a public platform who are aiming to overcome disorganization and unite under Maoism. Comrades, we extend our hand to you with the aim of unity through struggle, and as such, it is our duty to say that your article is representative of the culture and practices of the old movement. We implore you comrades at NLP to issue a statement retracting the article “On Renegades and Revolutionaries” immediately. Furthermore, we would like to extend our hand to you to take up the study of the self-criticism by the (CG) CR-CPUSA and issue a public document synthesizing your views on it. We see this as a task that all organizations should take up at this time, and for those like us, we should use the study of the document to correct past errors, synthesize our own views on it, and use this to help develop a basis for our reorganization in this new phase of struggle.
For Unity Under Maoism and on behalf of the Kansas City comrades,
Daniel