The Communist Party is the vanguard and general staff of the workers (and poor farmers) in their struggle against the old system, in their revolution against it and in the upbuilding of the new system.
The Communist Party is a political party, which means that its concern is the struggle of the working class as a whole for State power. Whereas the primary concern of the revolutionary unions is the economic struggle for better conditions; whereas the primary concern of the Unemployed Councils is the fight for unemployment and social insurance; whereas the fraternal organizations concern themselves primarily with mutual aid and the struggle for social insurance (none of these struggles is isolated from the others and all of them must be fought on a political basis), the Communist Party concerns itself with all phases of the movement, unifying them, giving them direction, filling them with the spirit of the class struggle, orientating them towards the ultimate overthrow of the capitalist system.
The Communist Party is a political party. Its aim is to effect the seizure of political power by the workers. It therefore looks upon every activity of the workers (and poor farmers) from this point of view. But there is no contradiction between the ultimate aim and the immediate interests of the workers. Whatever contradicts the political aim of the workers is also harmful to them at present and therefore rejected by the Party. The outlook of the Communist Party is wider and more all-embracing than the outlook of the other working-class organizations, even those that assume the point of view of the class struggle.
The Communist Party not only draws into its ranks the most advanced and most militant workers, but it gives them political training. It teaches them Marxism-Leninism, which equips the worker with a thorough understanding of the society he lives in and of the historic task of the working class. The Communist Party looks upon its members as upon leaders in the struggle and it trams them to be fit for this work. The Communist Party is a school of the class struggle in every one of its phases.
At the bottom of all the activities of the Communist Party lies a clear and exhaustive analysis of the social forces in the society of the present. The Communist Party watches very carefully every turn in the development of the country, whether economic, political, social or cultural, and at every turn it points out to the workers what they have to do in order finally to achieve the maximum results, the overthrow of capitalism. This plan of struggle for the working class is called the Party line. The Communist Party is the only political organization that works out a line of activity for every branch of the labor movement at every given moment.
The Communist Party is active directly as an organization and indirectly through its members within other organizations. The Communist Party leads political as well as economic struggles, like the fight for the liberation of political prisoners, the fight against high taxes levied upon the workers, the fight for better housing, free lunches for school children, the fight against imperialist war and for the defense of the Soviet Union, the fight against governmental terror, the fight against the Jim Crow system and lynchings, the fight against fascism, the fight for the liberation of the oppressed colonial peoples, and many others. These fights are conducted through literature, through mass meetings, through demonstrations and, in extreme cases, through open mass combat with the police in the streets.
The Communist Party also participates in the election campaigns as a separate and distinct political party. It nominates its candidates for federal and local offices and it solicits votes. It is anxious to have its representatives in the legislative bodies. But its election campaigns and its activities within parliament are fundamentally different from those of, say, the Socialist Party. We Communists are not here to help the capitalists govern the masses. We are here to help the masses press their masters, get from the capitalists and their government a maximum of concessions. We do not spread the false notion that there can be cooperation between the exploited and their exploiters. On the contrary, we go to the legislatures to prove to the workers that such cooperation must not be because it is good only for the bosses. In other words, we go to the legislatures — and we conduct our election campaigns — in the spirit of the class struggle. We use the platform of the legislatures, from which our voice can be heard better than the voice of private citizens, to help organize the workers and help them conduct all their daily struggles. At the same time we try to force the law-makers to pass legislation that would bring relief to the workers. We do so, not by pretty speeches, not by telling the law-makers, who are servants of the big money bags, how fine and noble they are, but by heading great movements of the masses which would make those gentlemen sit up and take notice. In other words, while the Socialists solicit votes in order to reform the State and thereby to make it more effective for the capitalists, we Communists practice revolutionary parliamentarism, by which is meant strengthening the working class and weakening its enemies. We go to the law-making institutions, not to tinker them up for the benefit of the capitalists, but to be a monkey wrench in their machinery, preventing them from working smoothly on behalf of the masters. We use, while there, every step of those agents of the capitalists to expose them before the people, to show what these so-called representatives of the people and what all these so-called democratic institutions actually are.
Aside from these political activities directly conducted in the name of the Communist Party, every Communist is obliged to be active in the organization to which he belongs and in the place where he works. Wherever there are three or more Communists, whether in a factory or in a mine, in a union or in a fraternal organization, they have to get together and form a group; or Communist nucleus. This nucleus discusses the problems of the shop or the organization and instructs its members to act in the best interests of the working class. A good Communist is a worker who thoroughly understands the problems of his place of work or his organization and who develops activity more energetic than his fellow workers. A good Communist is a social being who has the interests of his fellow workers at heart and who is devoting his best energies to advance the cause of the workers wherever he happens to be. A good Communist is a man or a woman who by virtue of these qualities becomes a leader amongst his fellow workers — not a leader by dint of some mechanical control, but a leader by dint of better understanding, more courage and superior organizing abilities. Communists are trained to be that way. This is why a small number of Communists will often achieve more than greater numbers of unorganized workers pulling in different directions. What is important to remember is this, that Communists have no interests other than the interests of the working class, the improvement of its life at present and the destruction of capitalism in the future. You have undoubtedly heard about the “sinister plots” of the Communists. There is nothing sinister about the Communist organization. Here are a dozen Communists working in the same shop. It is natural for them to get together and form a shop nucleus. It is natural for them to constitute themselves as a permanent body. They may use secrecy to avoid the spying eye of the employers; but this again is most natural under capitalism; the workers would be foolhardy to expose their plans of activity to the bosses.
A Party nucleus holds its meetings regularly every week. Our shop nucleus will discuss at nearly every meeting how to organize the struggle of the workers against the employer in that particular shop. The shop nucleus will not keep itself isolated from the rest of the workers. On the contrary, it will be the duty of every Communist to be in closest touch with the workers, to be part of the workers, to understand every issue of their shop life. The Communists will distribute papers and pamphlets among the workers. If need be, they will publish a local paper which will expose the evils of the shop and organize the workers for struggle. The Communists will keep secret from the management and the stool pigeons but not from the workers. They will invite nonparty workers to their nucleus meetings to discuss certain problems. They will gain the confidence of the workers just because they have a well-thought-out and fitting solution for the pressing problems and because they show resistance in dealing with the boss or with the foreman. They have got to stand up as fighters or else they cannot be Communists. They will soon become known to the workers as a militant group. Many more will join. The influence of the Communist Party will grow.
The time comes when the Communists head an opera struggle against the employer or the State. It may be a strike for higher wages. In this case the Communists will help organize a strike committee from among the rank-and-file workers, this committee to consist of Party and non-Party workers and to act under the direct leadership of the revolutionary trade union of that industry. It may be a mass demonstration for unemployment insurance. In that case the Communists will help organize a local rank-and-file Unemployed Council. It may be any other act of struggle. In either case the Communists will not force their will upon the workers. On the contrary, they will see to it that they share the initiative with as many workers as possible. They are not here to give orders. They are workers themselves who suffer like all the other workers but give a clearer voice to the protest that is brewing among the workers. The more workers participate in preparing an act of struggle the greater the chances of victory.
In such struggles some of the workers will move to the front as more clear-sighted, more active, more able to express the needs of the workers, and more quick-minded in finding a solution to an emergency problem. These will become the mass leaders. Some of them will be Communists, some non-Party workers, but in the long run every fighting mass leader will find his way to the Communist Party because lie will realize its advantages for the workers’ struggle.
Thus the Communist nucleus will establish itself as the fighting organization recognized by the workers. It will lead. It will put fear in the heart of the boss. It will put confidence in the hearts of the workers. It will become the vanguard and the leader of the local workers.
The Communists who, for one reason or another, are not members of a shop nucleus (or mine or mill nucleus) organize locally in the place of residence into a street nucleus. The street nucleus is composed of the Communists living in the same neighborhood. It may consist of from ten to thirty, but rarely more members, because a large nucleus becomes unwieldy. When a street nucleus grows too large, part of it is organized into another nucleus and given another territory to work in. The street nucleus organizes and leads the workers’ struggles in its territory. Suppose there is a shop in that territory and the workers are unorganized. The street nucleus concentrates on that shop. It organizes open air meetings in front of the shop just at the time when the workers finish work. Some of the workers stop to listen, become interested, receive papers and pamphlets distributed around the meeting place. The nucleus repeats this action until contacts are established with the shop. Once there is a group of sympathetic workers inside, the task of organizing the shop workers to defend their interests becomes much easier. One street nucleus may concentrate on a number of local shops. It also concentrates on unemployed work. It makes a canvass of all the unemployed in its territory, organizes from among them an Unemployed Council, fights together with it for unemployed relief; if need be, the street nucleus calls a demonstration in front of the local Home Relief Bureau to insist on aid for those discriminated against. The street nucleus heads many other workers’ struggles in its territory. The fight against the eviction of unemployed, the fight for free gas and electricity for the unemployed, the fight for the release of imprisoned local workers, assistance to strikers’ pickets, local demonstrations against the oppression of Negroes in the neighborhood-all these and many other activities are the almost daily tasks of the street nucleus.
Both the shop and the street nuclei, thus, exist not for themselves, not for “Communist interests,” as you are so often told, for there are no Communist interests outside of the interests of the working class. The Party nucleus is a center of fighting workers, in a shop or neighborhood. That is a bad nucleus which stews in its own juice. A good nucleus is one that is in various ways connected with the workers in the shop or neighborhood, is recognized by them as a fighting unit, is supported by them, is continually increased by the joining of new workers, and is proved as leader in many class conflicts for the benefit of the workers.
Not the least among the functions of the shop and street nuclei is the distribution of the Communist papers, magazines and pamphlets. After all, the press is a good propagandist and a good organizer. Its influence can be great, if the workers are induced to read it and to spread it. The Communists make it their business to talk to non-Party workers, explaining to them the meaning of the Communist press as the workers’ press, and offering to provide them with a paper or magazine. In the same way they distribute pamphlets and books. Once a worker has begun to read a paper or pamphlet explaining to him the class struggle, he soon recognizes the truth of that explanation which he can supplement by numerous facts from his own experience. Reading about the class struggle, recognizing the correctness of the class struggle, is a step to actual participation in the class struggle.
Here as elsewhere there is a deep gulf between us Communists and the Socialist reformists. They say the American workers are difficult to move and that there is no hope of workers putting up a stiff fight in this country. We say, but let the American worker recognize his class interests, and he will fight in great working-class militant organizations for his life, for his freedom, for the final liberation of his class and all oppressed.
Aside from shop (mine, plant) nuclei and street nuclei of the Communist Party, there are Party fractions. The Communists belonging to any organization form a special fraction which discusses the problems of its organization and makes decisions for its members. This enables the Communists in a reformist union or fraternal organization to follow the same line. The Party fraction advocates militancy and strives to transform the whole organization into a real fighting unit.
It is quite obvious that Communist activity requires training. Every Party nucleus is in fact a training school in the practice of the class struggle. It also gives theoretical classes to its members. It conducts discussions on current questions. Its most capable, militant members are sent to special training schools. The whole Party is engaged in raising, as we call it, the theoretical level of its members.
You will now understand what there is to those tales about “Communist plots”. The Communists have a good organization and a uniform line; they plan work and they carry it out. The bosses certainly dislike such a method, when used by the workers. You will also understand why the enemies speak so much about “rigid Communist discipline”. They would like the workers to be undecided, without unity and cohesion. That would be good for the capitalist interests. When they see a party of revolutionary workers organized, enlightened, trained to do revolutionary work and acting in harmony with one another in accordance with a preconceived plan, they decry it. In this plan, unity and cohesion, however, is the strength of every workers’ organization, including that of the Communist Party. We discuss problems, we study them carefully, but once a decision is made it is binding for every member. We are a democratic organization because every member has a vote and every rank and filer is entitled and invited to criticize the activities of the organization or of individual leaders. We are at the same time a centralized organization because we work according to one plan and because decisions of the higher Party bodies are obligatory for the lower bodies — from the center down to the units. The Communist Party is thus built on the basis of democratic centralism. That makes for unity of action.
Let us now have a look at the Party as a whole. At the head of it is the Central Committee elected at the national convention. In the Districts there are District Committees elected at district conventions (the country is divided into 20 districts). Each District is divided into Sections and each Section comprises a number of units, i.e., shop and street nuclei. Under the District and Section Committees are the various fractions. All these members have thoroughly discussed every issue that comes up in the life of the working class. They have discussed in each unit what every member has to do in the coming few days. Directives have been given from the center to the districts, from the districts to the sections and the units. Everybody is prepared. Everybody understands the meaning of what is to be done. Everybody is obliged to assist one another. There is complete unity of purpose and unity of action. Tomorrow each one of these Party members will plunge headlong into one or the other realm of work. One will confront the boss with the demand of the workers in his shop; another will lead a group of unemployed workers to the Home Relief Bureau to demand immediate relief for those that have been discriminated against; a third will participate in the picket line facing the clubs of armed thugs; a fourth will be active in putting back into an apartment the furniture of an evicted family; a fifth will be cautiously speaking to a group of marine workers, trying to affiliate them with the Marine Workers Industrial Union; a sixth will be speaking to a group of workers engaged in an ammunition plant trying to make them understand the necessity of organizing in order to be ready to stop work in case of war; a seventh will distribute leaflets calling for a demonstration to protest against U. S. imperialist intervention in Cuba; an eighth will be leading the miners out of a mine in protest against the refusal of the N.R.A. to recognize the National Miners Union; a ninth will be speaking in the open air in favor of the local Communist candidate for mayor; a tenth will be showing the workers a Soviet film in which the free life of the workers under the proletarian dictatorship is vividly depicted. All these Communists will be animated with one ideal. They will all work along the same line. They will work hand in hand with all the workers they are connected with, trying to make them understand the better ways of struggle and to make their struggle more effective. All these Communist units, forming concentration points of the workers’ struggle, will be engaged in practical everyday work, the more practical the better, but at the same time they will never for a moment lose sight of the ultimate goal of the movement — the destruction of capitalism.
When you observe the Communist Party in action you cannot fail to compare it with the blood-stream of the human body. Like the blood-stream it brings life to every section of the body of the working class. Like the bloodstream it helps build up every tissue. Like the bloodstream it makes the organism live, act, grow.
There can be working class movements without the Communist Party, but there can be no real movement for the liberation of the working class without the Communist Party. There can be no ultimate overthrow of the entire capitalist system without the Communist Party.
Hand in hand with the Communist Party and under its guidance functions the Young Communist League, the revolutionary organization of the young workers, and many other organizations.
There is a Communist Party in every country of the world. All of them work for the same end, and all of them adapt their activities to conditions existing in their country. Delegates from each Communist Party gather once in a few years to an International Communist Congress (there have been six of them so far). The Congress meets for two or three weeks and discusses thoroughly the international situation and the situation in every country. Experiences of a world-wide struggle are shared and a general line of further struggles mapped out. The Congress elects an Executive Committee which is the governing body between one congress and the other. The decisions of the Executive Committee of the Communist International guide the activities of the parties. The Executive Committee meets at intervals of a few months. Its meetings very much resemble a small congress. Between one meeting and the other a smaller body called Presidium is conducting the affairs of the organization. The organization is called the Communist International and expresses the common purpose and common decisions of all the Communist Parties of the world. The Communist International (Comintern) gives unity of policy and leadership to the entire revolutionary movement of the world. It is the general staff of the world revolution of all the exploited and oppressed.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is affiliated with the Communist International. It is the most influential but not the only influential, party in the International. It is one part but not the whole of the International. Its advice is highly precious because it has long accomplished what the Communist Parties of the world are only striving at — the proletarian revolution. The advice and experiences of the other parties, however, is also of great value in determining the policies of the Comintern. The seat of the Comintern is Moscow because this is the capital of the only workers’ and peasants’ government in the world, and the Comintern can meet there freely. As the workers become the rulers of other countries, the Comintern will not have to confine its meetings to Moscow alone.
The Communist Party of the U.S.A. is thus part of a world-wide organization which gives it guidance and enhances its fighting power. Under the leadership of the Communist Party the workers of the U. S. A. will proceed from struggle to struggle, from victory to victory, until, rising in a revolution, they will crush the capitalist State, establish a Soviet State, abolish the cruel and bloody system of capitalism and proceed to the upbuilding of Socialism.
This is why every worker must join the Communist Party.