Russell Jacoby <https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/jacoby-the-politics-of-objectivity.pdf> in Telos : "Martin Nicolaus recommends Stalin in his introduction to this translation of the Grundrisse,15 and has since gone on to battle for Stalin's honor. According to Nicolaus, the "restoration of capitalism in the USSR" was due to the unexpected discovery that Stalin was mortal. "For as long as Stalin himself was alive, the newly engendered bourgeois forces in Soviet society.. .dared not take a decisive step.. .let them take one step out of line and they were
15. Martin Nicolaus, "Forward" Marx, Grundrisse (Penguin, 1973), p. 43. See the discussion of this Forward in M. Postone, H. Reinicke "On Nicolaus' Introduction," J. Keane, B. Singer "On Conceptual Anthropology," Telos, 22 (Winter 1974-75). done for.. .There was only one man then and there, in the leadership, who had the power to save the situation. And that man, Stalin himself, died..."16 Nicolaus since has attacked other Marxist-Leninist interpretations of Russia as disrespectful of Stalin's achievements. "This basic approach is very near in spirit and method to the Trotskyist views of Soviet socialism, much as it pays lip-service to Stalin."17 17. Martin Nicolaus, "Critique of Red Papers 7: Metaphysics cannot defeat Revisionism," Class Struggle (Summer, 1975). The end of this is perhaps predictable: Nicolaus has been "purged" from his own group for not being up to snuff on Stalin and other questions. "The October League has purged a revisionist and opportunist from its ranks.. .Martin Nicolaus, a former member of the OL Central Committee, has been expelled following a long and successful struggle against his right-opportunist line.. .Nicolaus, like all revisionists, also slandered Stalin for his suppression of the bourgeoisie within the party... While he praised Stalin to the skies one minute, claiming him to be a genius and the only man who could save socialism, Nicolaus turned around the next minute and repeated the bourgeoisie's lies about Stalin 'the tyrant'.. .This revisionist lover of the liberal bourgeoisie and revisionists has been purged from the ranks of the Marxist-Leninists. The Marxist-Leninists have been greatly strengthened by this action.. .Long live Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tse-tung Thought ! Death to Revisionism ! " "Martin Nicolaus Expelled from OL," The Call, November 29, 1976. Martin Nicolaus Expelled from OL <https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-3/ol-nicolaus.htm> *M-L Forward Note:* *The Call*, organ of the October League, published in its issue of Nov. 30 an announcement of the ”expulsion” of Martin Nicolaus and a polemic against his alleged political views. Nicolaus, it asserted, ”promoted revisionism on every question.” Below is Nicolaus’ reply to these allegations and his account <https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-3/nicolaus/introduction.htm> of the controversy. The Expulsion of Martin Nicolaus <https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpml-redweldor.htm> This disgraceful affair was carried out behind closed doors, mainly in Chicago. We in the provinces were not presented with the facts; we were presented with a fait accompli. Nicolaus’ side of the story only came out years later when EROL published his article, “Marxism or Klonskyism.”[27] The dispute began over the article “On Building the Party Among the Masses” by Barry Litt. Nicolaus reports that he opposed publication of the article without some sort of disclaimer because it put forward a rightist view on the definition of advanced worker. He said that Litt’s view was similar to that of Chairman Avakian. Avakian had defined as “advanced” the workers “...who provide leadership in the struggle...even if the individual professes some anti-communism.”[28] Litt proposed instead to recruit the workers who “...respond most rapidly and easily to the ideas of socialism...and...are most active and dedicated to the cause of the proletariat.” Even though this worker “...has not considered himself a socialist, .... has had relatively little intellectual training, ...has not recognized that…capitalism is the source of his oppression; (but) is a strong class fighter and reflects a high level of consciousness in practice.”[29] The difference between these two is that Litt wants to recruit a worker who knows little or nothing about socialism so long as he is sufficiently active while Avakian would recruit even an anti-communist on the same condition. Lenin’s idea, which Litt himself quoted, identified the advanced as those workers “who devote themselves entirely to the education and organization of the proletariat, who accept socialism consciously, and who even elaborate independent socialist theories.” That’s not enough for Mr. Litt. He says that prospective leaders of working class must be “the most active and dedicated class fighters”... who can be... “found in the thick of the class struggle.” Fighting discrimination of women and minorities, etc., etc... In other words, loud mouths; add money and they turn into shop stewards. Litt’s double-talk only proves one thing, as he said himself: “The test (of an advanced worker and potential party member) is not Lenin’s.” No, it is not Lenin’s. It is Gates’. It embodies Gates’ view that theory and principle is unimportant. This is exactly the theory and practice of the CPUSA. It is the practice of Browder and it caused massive turnover in the CPUSA as Litt pointed out later in the same article and as Litt should have known from his own experience in Los Angeles. Those who might have expected Chairman Klonsky to clarify the difference between advanced workers and anti-communists were disappointed. His response was to denounce as a right opportunist the comrade who had identified the right opportunist in the first place. And that was Martin Nicolaus. Nicolaus was charged with five transgressions: 1) Said Chairman Klonsky, “Nicolaus claimed that hardly any advanced workers exist and that party building must go through a stage of agitation before the Party can be built.” Actually it was Litt who said that advanced workers “represent a very small strata in our movement,” etc It was not Nicolaus but Litt who said “The newspaper must combine propaganda and agitation. Primarily it should be agitational.”[30] Litt’s was correct that there were few advanced workers in “our movement,” or in the whole USA, but this view was not advanced by Nicolaus. And Nicolaus said nothing about a stage of agitation before the party could be built. He correctly advised against hastening to declare the party prematurely. 2) Chairman Klonsky also pointed out “Rather than relying on the working class, Nicolaus argued that we should rely on the liberal bourgeoisie because the workers and minorities were not ready to play their role in the revolution at this time.”[31] What Nicolaus said was about uniting with liberals was: Provided the proper conditions exist, such alliances are entirely permissible, consistent with Marxist-Leninist principles, and even obligatory. Those who take an absolutist stance against alliances with bourgeois leaders of the working class, as does the Klonsky circle, are depriving the Party of the proletariat of one of the indispensable weapons in its arsenal for exposing the liberals and building the leadership of Marxist-Leninists. To reject tactical alliances with bourgeois leaders “on principle,” to howl and shout that such alliances amount to “alliance with the liberal wing of the U.S. imperialists,” to forget altogether about the difference between tactics and strategy – all these stratagems of the Klonsky circle are nothing more than another form of abandoning the battlefield, of capitulation to bourgeois leadership.”[32] (Marxism or Klonskyism, EROL) 3) Nicolaus was accused of promoting an unholy “future alliance with the US against the USSR.”[33] Nicolaus’ notes do not indicate that he was so far-sighted. What he said was perfectly in keeping with the line of the Central Committee: “In the face of the threatened war between the two superpowers, certain people show a complete lack of faith in the forces of revolution. Anti-imperialist unity is impossible! Marxism-Leninism is impossible! So they reason, and conclude: we must enlist with the one superpower or the other.”[34] There is no proof that Nicolaus advocated “a future alliance with the US against the USSR.” There is proof that the Communist Party of China advocated such an alliance. There is proof that the CPUSA advocated an alliance with the US bourgeoisie against the Nazi-fascist beast. And there is proof that those who opposed that alliance were righteously denounced by Earl Browder and others as Trotskyites. Of this fact Chairman Klonsky could hardly been unaware. 4) The CPUSA has a tradition of denouncing political opponents as racist or national chauvinist. In this respect Chairman Klonsky followed in the footsteps of his forbears, saying that Nicolaus’ “chauvinist stand on the Afro-American national question and other national minority questions ran throughout all his work.”[35] As a matter of fact Nicolaus’ paper explicitly endorsed our stand for self-determination. “In one or a few areas of its work, a sufficient level exists for doing effective propaganda, in the precise sense. This is the case chiefly on the Afro-American national question; one can almost say it is on the Afro-American question exclusively. Even here, unsettled theoretical problems remain, notably the relation between the struggle for the right of self-determination and the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat.”[36] 5) Nicolaus was also accused of being a Browderite and opposing the dictatorship of the proletariat. What Nicolaus said was “... that the Party’s chief task from its inception as a Party is to prepare the ground of public opinion in favor of the future revolutionary storm that will establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to refute all notions that there is no possibility of doing so, that the masses are too backward to hear such ideas, that there is no fertile soil for such seeds to take root, etc. etc.”[37] Nicolaus’ position did not amount to Browderism. But lying, cheating, stealing and stabbing in the back certainly does. So Nicolaus was expelled. Klehr, Burstein and Davidson soon wrote articles against him much as Foster and Thompson and others wrote articles against Browder in 1945 when the Duclos letter was published. This unity collapsed at the Second Congress when the individual whose article started the controversy in the first place criticized the CPML for ultra-leftism and proposed to replace our program in its entirety. The OL traded a first-rate intellectual for a second-rate lawyer. Chairman Klonsky enthusiastically supported the expulsion of Nicolaus. You might even say that he orchestrated it. He had nursed a viper to his breast. His more recent activities. https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-nicolaus-15441674 His reflections on his civil rights activism of the 60's, https://www.crmvet.org/vet/nicolaus.htm . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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