From: Marik
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 11:31 PM
To: pof-300
Subject: [pof-300] Frank Replies to M.F. #55


If someone could forward this to the bigger list, I'd appreciate 
it.  Below is a reply to Ben's Monthly Focus #55 by Frank, with 
S.A.I.C. and the C.V.O.



Regarding Ben’s M.F. #55

After 4 1/2 months Ben has not replied to any substantive 
question I raised in my comments on M.F. #51: 

Was handing out literature that did not have the address to an 
interactive website on it “useless” or “corrupt” work…or was this 
a sectarian slur of Ben’s? Silence. 

How about my exposure of Ben’s myth-making about why SAIA was 
dissolved? Silence.

Were Ben’s proposed organizational rules for the SAIC 
bureaucratic rules that would act against democracy? Silence

Was Ben sowing division in SAIC ranks, as well as division 
between the SAIC and activists outside of it with 
gutter-incitements against the CVO members, i.e., (1) our 
attitude regarding democracy is “Well the minority has the right 
to hit the road. End of story. Love it or leave it.” (2) CVO 
people are only “paying lip service to the goal of building an 
anti-imperialist pole of attraction and that their actual agenda 
is (a) to use SAIC to recruit into their group and consolidate 
those activists who are new on the scene and looking for some 
trend to hook up with and (b) to then liquidate SAIC once it has 
served this purpose.”? More silence.

Instead, in M.F. #55 he just pours on more abuse and slander: the 
CVO people are a bunch of “cargo-cultists” who fear spontaneity. 
Furthermore, I’m a “complete hypocrite” when I talk about doing 
theoretical work. Why? I allegedly don’t recognize that working 
class rule cannot exist without workers having fundamental 
political rights! It’s a bitter joke. I’m an anti-revisionist 
Marxist, Ben, not a would-be elitist bureaucrat.

Who can take away political rights from a working class that 
succeeded in smashing the bourgeois state and is consciously 
embarked on the path of attaining a classless (communist) 
society? (And, if the country or region is large enough, I would 
like to see some elitists try!) But history has shown that if 
the proletariat is not conscious and organized enough (especially 
if it exists in a country with a huge peasant population 
producing for a market), and it’s party abandons allegiance to 
Marxism and the working class for allegiance to the interests of 
a new bourgeoisie arising on the basis of private interests in 
ministries, state-capitalist enterprises, trusts, etc., then this 
new bourgeoisie and revisionist party can. 

No rules, no oaths of fidelity to fundamental political rights 
for the working masses can prevent this. Only a more organized 
and theoretically conscious class can. Hence the necessity of 
laying the basis for this: theoretical study of the real Marxist 
views on communism and the transition to it, study of the 
achievements but ultimate failure of the Great October Socialist 
Revolution, study of what Stalinist state-capitalism was, etc. 
Communist theory has to go beyond the original formulations of 
the early ‘20s, and draw a clearer picture of the transitional 
period. This is necessary in order to distinguish between a 
transitional economy and the Stalinist economies, and it is 
needed in order to help strengthen actual working class control 
during the transitional period, so as to avoid the tragedy of 
the Russian attempt. So, since the 90s the CVO has been engaged 
in advancing work on this front, popularizing it, trying to 
inspire other into it. (See, for example, the articles under 
http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/00LeninistTransition.html, and 
http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/00Stalinism.html, as well as 
several of the articles against Trotskyism on the same site.)

We say that “through this work, the Communist Voice seeks to 
pave the way for communism to once again become the red, fighting 
banner of the revolutionary working class movement. Only the 
influence of the real communist theory can help the goal of a 
classless, communist society again spread among the workers and 
oppressed here and around the globe.” 

But Ben sneers at our work by placing "theoretical work" inside 
quotation marks. From his narrow framework, it allegedly has 
nothing to do with giving activists confidence that a better 
world is possible. Why, it allegedly doesn’t disprove “that the 
only alternative to bourgeois rule is a police state” (another 
form of bourgeois rule). From mine, understanding what the 
Marxist socialist theory is, examining the world-historic 
experience of the Bolsheviks in applying it, understanding how 
and why the revisionists departed from this theory and turned it 
into a travesty does this, among many other things. 

Ben says we fear spontaneity, and yet, strangely enough, in all 
our literature we encourage the masses to take matters into their 
own hands---be it in economic, political, or theoretical 
struggles. We repeatedly agitate for serious study of the works 
of Marx, Engels, Lenin and others, with particular attention to 
their method. (I would add that among the “others” is early 
Plekhanov, particularly his “Development of the Monist View of 
History”.) We agitate for forming study groups, setting up 
anti-imperialist groups all over the place, etc. This is pretty 
strange behavior for people living in fear of the working class, 
fear of scientific truth, fear of having dogmas disintegrated. 
Why, it might even be interpreted as meaning that we a lot of 
faith in the basic masses being able to grasp and apply 
Marxist-Leninist theory for themselves. It might mean that rather 
than fearing ordinary activists doing this, we welcome it with 
all our hearts. 



 
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