The continued post-war grip of right-opportunist revisionism on the Communist party of Great Britain (CPGB) led, ten years ago, in 1977 to the emergence of the New Comrnunlst Party, when Sid French led the Surrey district of the CPGB in a breakaway from what was considered to be a growing Eurocommunist degeneration of the Communist Party.

A group of people,who were subsequently expelled from the New Communist Party for defending Lenin's view on the role of the revolutionary paper, and who later formed Proletarian, wrote, after their expulsion, that 'The split which took place in the Communist Pary In 1977 was not just a significant political development but was rather the most important event in British working class politics since world war two' . (Proletarian No. I)

The significance of the split, although no doubt exagrarated by the above passage, lay in the fact that the tightening of the grip of opportunism in the Communist Party led to the setting up of the New Communist Party, demonstrating that even the unconscious opponents of opportunism would tolerate no further assilits on the basic principles of' Marxism-Leninism. The split demonstrated tnat Marxisrn-Leninism and opportunism cannot live in the same organization on a permanent, peaceful basis. One must defeat the other in the course of the ideological struggle. Inside the Comnunist Party at present the dominant opportunist tendency use organizational, administrative mans to defeat their opponents and the struggle against Marxism-Leninism continues on this basis.

The Communist Party no longer defends the central components of Marxism-Leninism, namely the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat combined with the leading role of the party in the period of transition from capitalist society to communism, as a means of defending the revolution from the counterrevolutionary forces of the past. In this sense, of course, to the extent that the Communist Party, officially rejects these two pillars of Marxism-Leninism, which is the most advanced doctrine of social change, we cannot, nor can any consistent Leninist, regard the CPGB as a Marxist-Leninist party; nor can the CPGB, in its present ideological condition, which is opportunism, be regarded as the vanguard of the British working class, a position which, indeed the opportunists have willing given up, for whatever moralistic reason, in their rejection of the leading role of the Communist Party.

The Communist Party, at present, Is not a Marxist-Leninist party, although it has within its ranks individuals who support Marxist-Leninist ideas. however, the helplessness of many of tbese individuals in face of the opportunist attacks on Marxism-Leninism, illustrates the continuing theoretical backwardness of those forces who claim to oppose the eurocommunist variant of opportunism.

The NCP has failed, to date, to rally the Marxist-Leninist forces in this country. Its leaciers do not realise that their rejection of Lenin's theory of the revolutionary paper, ie, the view that the paper must be aimed at the politically advanced workers, is the most important theoretical concession to opportunism that it is possible to make on the level of theory.

For this reason, we do not agree that the 1977 breakaway of Sid French and his supporters, who formed the NOP, was, to paraphrase Proletarian, the most important development in British post-war working class politics. In the world of theory, the expulsIon from the NCP of people who defended Lenin's views on the revolutionary paper, represents, for us, a higher level of importance. This is because this issue goes to the very heart of the question of defeating opportunism, and the defeat of opportunism is the central question we face at this stage of the class struggle in Britain.

Opportunism, however, is not something which, once defeated, goes away permanently. On the contrary, opportunism will always come back, opportunism is always outside, knocking at the door, waiting to be let in. Opportunism does not represent a principled development of thought on the basis of dialectical materialism, but rather represents a degeneration of thought to the level of petty-bougeois eclecticism.

The struggle of the petty-bourgeois forces of opportunism to defeat Marxism-Leninism, which is the conscious embodiment of the theory and practice required to lead the working masses to socialism, is an objectively imposed struggle reflecting the social interests of those elements who are economically, politically and psychologically attached in some way to capitalism in the present epoch.

The political struggle is governed by its own inherent logic, reflected in the views of its participants. For instance, the rejection of Lenin's view that the revolutionary paper must be aimed at the politically advance workers, as we have said, represents a major concession to the forces of petty-bourgeois opportunism. it makes it easier, than would otherwise be the case, for petty-bourgeois opportunist ideas to penetrate tbe organization of the politically conscious section of the working class, turning it towards, and in stages, to petty-bourgeois reformism. In This respect the CPGB provides a perfect example. The rejection of Lenin's view leads to a failure to train sufficient politically conscious workers to defend the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism.

To reject Lenin's theory on The issue of the revolutionary paper is therefore to disarm the proletarian vanguard in the interest of opportunism. This includes those people who defend Lenin on the theoretical level, but reject him in practice. Consequently all opportunists, independently of themselves, are objectively conducting a struggle on behalf of the forces of the capitalist class. Those who go into a'crisis when they begin to attract the advance workers defeat,because of their own petty-bougeois tendencies, the very aims they set themselves in the first place. The first part of our docurnent deals with this process, necessarily so, because for us defending Lenin's view that the revolutionary paper must be aimed at the level of the politically advanced workers, has become the acid test separating out The genuine anti-opportunist forces, from those unconscious opponents of opportunism, such as the "Leninist" and Proletarian.

Those who understand what is going on in the struggle against opportunism, as opposed to Those who oppose opportunism from the stand-point of petty-bourgeois radicalism, such as the "Leninist" grouping, and all the other variants of petty-bourgeois radicalism, which is what Trotskyism is, will defend Lenin's view on this matter in theory and practice.

Opportunist views, of course, have no inherent strength in them. It can be said that, opportunism depends on capitalism for its survival, while the reverse is also true, i.e., capitalism depends on opportunism for its survival. Capitalism and opportunism is a mutual support system. Capitalism is an aged old man,and reformist-opportunism is its walking stick.

While the material foundation of opportunism is the capitalist system itself, the influence of this system must be socially transmitted into the organization of the politically conscious section of the working class through the social medium of a section of the petty-bourgeois labour aristocracy, who have experienced life under capitalism in such a way as to lead them to the conclusion that capitalism can be reformed on the basis of bourgeois democracy. Their one-sided experience of life under capitalism lead them to a view which fails to grasp the inner mechanics of capitalist rule behind the institutions of parliamentary democracy.

Sections of the petty-bourgeoisie arrive at such conclusions, or are prone to be easily convinced of such conclusions because their views and psychology are not moulded by the reality of the class struggle, and we do not simply mean the struggle of the working class, but also the struggle of the capitalists to hold on to their power, privilege and control over society. The struggle of opportunism against Marxisn-Leninism is, objectively speaking, part of the struggle of the capitalist class against revolution, while being a subjective reflection of petty-bourgeois scatter-brained eclecticism, expressing an hostility and petty-bourgeois incornprehension of dialectical reasoning or logic, which inevitably must lead to a struggle against Leninism.

As a branch circular noted, following the 40th Congress of the CPGB, 'The 1987 Communist Party congress concluded that it was not appropriate, at the present time, to eliminate Leninism from our party's aims and constitution. It was decided to make a decision on this issue at the next congress which will have, as one of its major task the updating of our party programme, "The British road to Socialism". The congress agreed that the aims and constitution, and the party programme should be in harmony and therefore that no alteration of our basis as a Marxist-Leninist party should take place until any revisions to the British road to socialism had been fully discussed'.

The Marxist-Leninist basis of the CPGB has long been demolished; the real basis of the party is petty-bourgeois opportunism, which, after the 40th congress has moved the party further to the right. We have outlined the nature and source of this opportunism and we completely reject the Trotskyist view being peddled by the Leninist grouping who argue that opportunism originated, 'in the acceptance, first by the CPSU in 1924 and then by the 5th-Congress of the Comintern, of Stalin's theory of building socialism in one country'.(The Leninist, December 1987)

Whether Marxism-Leninism can make a comeback in the CPGB, and defeat opportunist views, we certainly at the present time cannot say. What we can say for certain is that we are part of the struggle against those individuals who want to disarm the politically conscious section of the working class with their opportunist views. The task of Leninists is to win the political vanguard to the principles of Marxism-Leninism.

The price we pay, of course, for the stranglehold of opportunism on the communist movement in this country is the existence of such ideological groupings as 'The Leninist'^*, representing a left-deviation. which while reacting to the right-opportunist degeneration of the CPGB, declare that they, the Leninist, are, 'in fact the highest expression of the contradiction between opportunism and Marxism-Leninism in Britain'. (The Leninist, December, 1987). But, in fact, their opposition to right-opportunism leads to left-opportunist adaptation to spontaneity, when they make the absurd and callous claim that Lenin's International defends the blowing up of Innocent civilians, such as at Enniskillen. The argument the so-called 'Leninist' used to support their views is a passage from the Comintern theses, where it says that 'the British socialist who fails to support by all possible means the uprisings in Ireland, Egypt and India against the London plutocracy...such a socialist deserves to be branded with infamy, if not with a bullet' (The Leninist, December, 1987). What this passage actually shows is that the pretenders to Leninism can't even distinguish between an "uprising' and substitutionist action by Freedom fighters.