Progressive Labor Party (United States) - "Inter-imperialist Rivalry"

"Inter-imperialist Rivalry"

United front and popular front strategies, members say, have been proven wrong despite all valiant attempts to make them work by forces genuinely fighting for communism; they say that such forces' alliances with "lesser-evil" bosses and/or fake-left groups for short-term gains has been one of the main weaknesses of the old communist movement. They cite as evidence for this the fall of the Spanish Civil War to the fascists and the assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile, among other examples. So, rather than focus energy on participation in (or creation of) leftist coalitions, as it sees most other groups claiming Marxism doing, PL prefers to steadily strengthen its own political standing and recruitment via its basebuilding strategy.

On the circumstances that would lead to revolution, PLP looks at the world situation believing that the primary contradiction today is—unfortunately—between various groups of competing imperialists for world domination, or "inter-imperialist rivalry," rather than between workers and bosses, or (as Maoists claim) between imperialism and national-liberation movements. It recognizes the weakness of the radical left at the present stage in history and notes that nationalism has presently replaced communism as the driving force in the worldwide popular left. But the PLP simultaneously sees an inexorable economic and political decline of the U.S. versus other capitalist powers, like China and the European Union (EU), and dwindling of necessary imperial resources around the world like oil. The party thinks that cutthroat competition over such resources will inevitably lead to a third world war. They assert that such a war, while it will bring much suffering and death for workers, will also be the catalyst for a great new communist revolution, provided enough people are won to the party's ideas before and during such a conflict.

In line with its anti-nationalist politics, while firmly denouncing the "fascist" policies of the State of Israel, the party also criticizes both the Palestinian intifada and the Iraqi insurgency because of what it sees as these movements' reactionary nature; that the most they will do is put another capitalist government in power and establish new domination by local bosses, and dependency on non-US imperialists such as the European Union.

And in response to the current worldwide economic crisis, the party has continued its overall fight against the ideas and policies of the US ruling class, organizes workers into mainstream unions from which it then tries to lead wildcat strikes, berates cops and community policing strategies, and unreservedly criticizes US President Barack Obama for being yet another example of the rulers fooling the people with an impressive-seeming figurehead, in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton (the latter of whose "workfare" policies it had mercilessly blasted as racist "slave labor").

PL upholds what some might consider a purist vision of a mass-based communism, one that it claims was the true spirit of the Cultural Revolution sabotaged by Mao's cult of personality, reactionary elements within the Communist Party of China, and Mao's own political weaknesses. It believes it "stands on the shoulders of giants" but can also learn a lot from their mistakes, "to get it right the next time."

Despite the nature and intensity of its work and the fact that it sees itself as advocating a new type of communism inspired by but still separate from the old, the party has remained small throughout its history, staying relatively stable at an estimated few thousand active members, and neither gaining nor losing significant numbers along the way. Because of internal PLP security, it is not possible to get a public declaration of whether the estimate of a few thousand members includes members in countries other than the U.S. or members in the military forces and other non-public work. Generally, there is a consensus among members that "members lists", or even a general knowledge of specific or general membership size among participants, is both unnecessary and dangerous to the party's internal security in relation to law enforcement under capitalism. It would seem recently, however, that PLP has begun to increase its international work as it continues to face what it acknowledges is a comparatively stagnant and underdeveloped working-class militancy situation in the United States, and also amidst its own continued lack of steady growth in party membership even as it passes the 50-year anniversary of the original PLM's formation.