First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 10, July 5, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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This paper represents the united views of a number of communist organizations and collectives who have joined together in the efforts to build a new Marxist-Leninist party. Based on our analysis of the objective conditions that exist in the United States and the world as a whole, and on our analysis of the subjective conditions within the communist and workers’ movements, we have reached the conclusions that party-building has become a task of immediacy and all Marxist-Leninists must immediately unite in the efforts to draft a communist program with the aim of holding a founding Party Congress in the near future.
The present Marxist-Leninist movement was born in struggle against modern revisionism. Our roots lie in the revolutionary fighters of the once-revolutionary Communist Party USA (CPUSA), who, for over 30 years of American history, acted as the vanguard of the U.S. working class. Many of these Marxist-Leninists bravely fought against the revisionist take-over of the CPUSA and it is they who first initiated the movement to build a new communist party in place of the old, degenerate CP. The first such effort, the Provisional Organizing Committee, had the participation of leading communist fighters. Unfortunately, due to the splitting and wrecking activities of police agents and neo-Trotskyites, this first effort quickly degenerated into an openly Trotskyist sect, driving all the genuine Marxist-Leninists out of its ranks.
The second effort, also initiated by former members of the CPUSA, was the Progressive Labor Party(PLP). Again, an opportunist and neo-Trotskyite line gained dominance in this organization. By the late 1960s, all genuine Marxist-Leninists had abandoned PLP, placing their hopes in the future formation of a genuine communist party.
The mass, spontaneous struggles of the 1960s gave rise to increasing numbers of revolutionary intellectuals and workers who turned to Marxism-Leninism as the only scientific analysis of revolution. These forces, along with comrades who had been struggling for Marxism-Leninism for many years, developed many organizational forms– pre-party organizations, local collectives and circles. In the course of the struggle for Marxism-Leninism and proletarian revolution, and in deepening work among the masses, the communist forces have grown stronger. All genuine Marxist-Leninists now recognize that the building of a new, anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist party is our central and pressing task.
Today, the conditions exist for realizing this urgent task. In summing up the history of the struggle against revisionism, the Marxist-Leninist movement has seen that a new communist party must be built on the solid foundation of Marxist-Leninist principles. It can neither be a party that isolates itself from the battles of the working class, nor can it be a party that tails after the spontaneous struggles of the people. The new communist party must be one that can play its historical role of the conscious vanguard of the working class, applying the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of the U.S. revolution. The communist party must wage a consistent struggle against revisionism and opportunism within the mass movements and within its own ranks, constantly developing and strengthening its line.
The need for such a conscious vanguard is particularly urgent under today’s conditions. U.S. imperialism is facing its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This is a reflection of the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism. Millions of workers have been thrown out on the streets left to survive as best they can. The labor aristocrats, loyal servants of the bourgeoisie, have issued calls to the workers to “tighten their belts” while selling out every basic right and interest of the workers. Repression and attacks on democratic rights have intensified-particularly aimed at minority peoples.
We are living in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, a period that the late Comrade Chou En-lai characterized as one of “great disorder on the earth.” Imperialism is the eve of socialist revolution. With the capitalist crisis, all the basic contradictions in the world are sharpening. The anti-imperialist united front is growing stronger on an international scale. The factors for war and revolution are rapidly increasing, and the world’s people must get prepared against the growing danger of a new world war. We are not afraid of world war, but recognize that the advent of imperialist war will heighten the contradictions in every country and create even more favorable conditions for revolutionary struggle. Whether war gives rise to revolution, or revolution prevents war, in either case the international situation will develop favorably for the people and the future of the world will be bright.
It is under these conditions that we are forging our new party. Today, more than ever before, we can see the total bankruptcy and traitorous nature of the revisionist CPUSA.
Abandoning all the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and basing itself on the strategy of peaceful transition to socialism, the CP has become the mouthpiece for Soviet social-imperialism within the United States. It has become the main proponent of the imperialist line of “detente” and the mainstay of its work in the U.S. has been to build a base of support for the Soviet Union’s aggression and hegemonic aims throughout the world. The CP has aligned itself with sections of the reformist trade union bureaucrats and liberal bourgeoisie to oppose the workers’ movement and divert it into reformist and electoral channels. At the same time, the CP acts as an agent of the fascist Soviet bourgeoisie.
The experience of the last 20 years has shown that these revisionists are not merely “reformists” who neglect to raise the final aims of the struggle, or who have simply abandoned some Marxist-Leninist principles, but rather have become the out-and-out enemies of revolution everywhere in the world. Today modern revisionism represents a consolidated reactionary trend with an organizational form of revisionist parties in many countries, state power in several countries and a center in the Soviet Union. The Marxist-Leninists in the United States, along with the Marxist-Leninist movements throughout the world, have the responsibility to completely smash the revisionist parties in their countries. To date, our growth and development has been dependent on this struggle and has brought us to the point where we have achieved greater unity and clarity than ever before. We have in the past and are continuing to receive great inspiration from the principled stand of the People’s Republics of China and Albania against the Soviet revisionists. We communists in the United States are part of a world-wide Marxist-Leninist movement that is being built in the heat of struggle and is growing stronger every day.
In the U.S., the communist movement consists of several large communist organizations and many more smaller local collectives and circles. While the scattered, primitive nature of the communist movement was part of an unavoidable stage in making the break with revisionism, this period of small circles and primitiveness is rapidly drawing to a close. We must do everything possible to hasten this process, and put an end to our current amateurishness and primitiveness.
Through the course of deepening the struggle against modern revisionism, several trends have emerged, all calling themselves Marxist-Leninist. One of these trends, represented by the groups who are issuing this call, as well as by other Marxist-Leninist organizations and individuals, has shown itself to stand for communist unity on the principles of Marxism-Leninism. This trend represents a rising force to which increasing numbers of Marxist-Leninists are gravitating.
There are other trends in the communist movement which have become consolidated around opportunist lines and are presently holding back the building of a united, Marxist-Leninist party. Still others have taken their stand against Marxism-Leninism and have moved outside the anti-revisionist movement. The struggle against these various opportunist trends, as well as the two-line struggle within our own ranks, has helped to strengthen the communist movement.
The next period will be one of intense ideological and political struggle. This is a necessary thing in order to unite Marxist-Leninists and expose opportunism. When we say that the communist movement has now become prepared to build a new, vanguard party, we mean that the ideological and practical struggle has developed to the point where it is now possible to identify, and to unite the Marxist-Leninists around a general line for the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. We can now clearly distinguish between Marxism and revisionism on each of the main questions facing the communist and workers’ movement.
The first “party” to be formed following the demise of the Progressive Labor Party was the so-called “Communist Labor Party” (CLP), formerly Communist League (CL). The CL’s sham party congress ended in a dismal failure, leaving them isolated and exposed. In their initial period the CL represented an ultra-“left” deviation. Once their party was formed, they quickly degenerated into, a group of right-wing apologists for Soviet social-imperialism, echoing the revisionist line of “detente” and viciously attacking the anti-imperialist movements in the third world. Thoroughly exposed to the genuine Marxist-Leninists, the CLP has now dropped its “anti-revisionist” cover completely and today is the tail of the CPUSA revisionists.
A more dangerous and influential conciliationist trend that has emerged full-blown in the most recent period is the “centrist” trend represented by the Guardian newspaper. While continuing to call itself “Marxist-Leninist,” this trend openly promotes the view that the Soviet Union is a socialist country and portrays Soviet aggression in the third world as “proletarian internationalism.”
The Guardian has been in the forefront of the calls for “united action” with the revisionists, and has viciously attacked the genuine Marxist-Leninists throughout the world and in the U.S. for making a principled break in theory and practice with the revisionists. This trend has also attacked the present party-building effort as “fatally flawed” for its consistent opposition to both superpowers. Most recently, the Guardian, under the thinly-veiled guise of “opening up discussion on China’s foreign policy” has viciously slandered the proletarian dictatorship in China and the line and leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
This “centrist” trend has also been characterized by the worst forms of chauvinism–echoing the revisionist line that the national question in the U.S. has been resolved through the economic development of imperialism, in particular through the industrialization of the South.
Finally, it has been the “centrists”-who have most actively upheld the “backwardness” of the movement as a cover for their own anti-party stand, and who have raised their own backwardness to the level of theory, opposing the formation of a Leninist-type party built on a factory basis with democratic centralism.
While the CLP and the “centrists” have consolidated as anti-Marxist-Leninist trends outside our movement, there is also a sharp struggle within the anti-revisionist movement, represented by the struggle against the trends of the so-called “Revolutionary Wing” and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
The “Revolutionary Wing” (which is rapidly diminishing) has been one of the most vocal opponents of the present attempts to forge Marxist-Leninist unity and build a new communist party. Both past and present members of the “wing” have different political lines on almost every question. They have banded together, however, primarily on the basis of their anti-party opposition. They have resorted, self-admittedly, to unprincipled blocking. At the same time, there is an ultra-“left” thread that runs throughout all of their political stands. Its main characteristic is dogmatism and a distortion of the Marxist-Leninist principles on the. relationship between reform and revolution.
The “wing” has determined party-building to be the only task for Marxist-Leninists and, on this basis, has attacked any form of communist participation in the mass movements as “reformist.” These “left” opportunists have distorted the relationship between communist propaganda and agitation and have issued a call for “propaganda only” during this period. Finally, the “wing,” while giving lip-service to the communist principle of multinational, Leninist organization, has maintained and glorified the old circle and nationalist forms left over from the early period of development of the movement and has advanced a plan for “federation” of the various groupings that make up its bloc, which would basically leave the movement in its present, primitive state. The communist party that is presently being built must oppose in principle the rightist line of a “federationist” party composed of various autonomous sections, based on nationality or any other distinction. We must build our party with the firm foundation of a Marxist-Leninist line, with democratic centralism and one center. The “wing’s” opposition to this Marxist-Leninist approach to party-building exposes the right opportunist essence behind their ultra-“left” line.
Representing a much larger grouping of Marxist-Leninists than the “wing” is the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), formerly Revolutionary Union (RU). Prior to their founding congress in 1975, the RU had attempted to unite other Marxist-Leninists through the method of unprincipled blocking to form their party. This “Liaison Committee” attempt, however, was not built on Marxist-Leninist principles and ended up in disarray. Finally the RCP was formed almost entirely out of the forces that had made up the RU. While calling itself Marxist-Leninist, this party was formed on the basis of an opportunist line, which had been the target of sharp struggle throughout the entire communist movement.
In theory, and through the test of social practice, RCP’s line has taken a chauvinist and opportunist stand towards the struggle of the working class and the oppressed nationalities. In the Boston busing struggle, the RCP has stood on the side of the bourgeoisie and the racist anti-busing forces, opposing the democratic rights of oppressed minorities and upholding the imperialist policy of segregation.
With regard to the anti-imperialist struggles of the third world, RCP has taken a divisive stand and failed to support the growing trend of third world unity and increased opposition to superpower hegemonism. While in the past RCP upheld the ultra-’left” pose of “jamming” the trade unions, the rightist and economist essence of RCP’s line has always been evident with their economist “workers” papers. The RCP’s line that the primary task of communists has always been to build the mass movement (except for the brief period of their party formation) is further evidence of this right-opportunism.
Through the struggle against all of these opportunist trends, the communist movement has advanced its theoretical understanding qualitatively and has become prepared to build a new vanguard party. We have been educated in the struggle against both right and “left” opportunism. Today, the danger of right opportunism is the greatest obstacle to party-building. This is due to a number of factors.
In the last several years, important ideological struggles have done much to isolate and discredit “left” opportunism in our movement, while our growth and development has brought us recently into much more direct and sharper conflict with the revisionist CPUSA. In addition, a consolidated “centrist” trend has emerged in our movement and is actively spreading the line of conciliation to revisionism and social-imperialism under the “cloak” of Marxism-Leninism. Finally, our movement has begun to increase its work of mass agitation–particularly in beginning to give communist leadership to the developing mass upsurge against the conditions of the capitalist crisis. This is a sign of our maturity and represents the process of breaking with the old, propaganda circles that initially characterized our movement. At the same time, the motion towards increased mass agitation heightens tine danger of right opportunism.
Today the right danger is the greatest, but at the same time the communist movement must not lower its vigilance against the danger from the “left.” We must become good at fighting both enemies. While the struggles that have taken place so far in our movement have prepared us to make the leap to the organizational formation of the new party, we must also recognize that even after the party is formed, we will still have the responsibility to continue our fight against revisionism and opportunism, wage a two-line struggle within our own ranks, and unite all the genuine Marxist-Leninists into one, single united communist party.
The following principles constitute the basis of unity of the communists who are taking part in the unity efforts to forge a new communist party – These principles of unity represent the fundamental points that distinguish our Marxist-Leninist trend from revisionism and all forms of opportunism. Over the next immediate pre-Congress period, these points of unity will be developed through study, discussion and struggle into a draft program that will be adopted at the first Party Congress and represent the new party’s basic line. Marxist-Leninist unity must be built on the principled basis of a Marxist-Leninist political line.
1. Theoretical Basis
The line of the new communist party must take as its’ theoretical basis the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. These principles have been scientifically proven through the history of revolutionary struggle to be the only genuine guide for the working class in its struggle to achieve victory over the bourgeoisie. We must apply these principles to the concrete conditions of the United States. The guiding philosophy of the new party is dialectical materialism.
2. Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Building of Socialism as Our Strategic Objective
The dictatorship of the proletariat and the building of socialism is our strategic objective. This objective is based upon the historical mission of the proletariat, which is the only thoroughly revolutionary class that is capable of leading all working and oppressed people in the overthrow of monopoly capitalism and the building of socialism. In the U.S., this objective is directly on the agenda. The workers’ dictatorship can only come about through the revolutionary armed struggle of the masses and the smashing of the bourgeois state machinery and not through the strategy advanced by the modern revisionists of electoral or other forms of legal struggle. Nor can it come about through the so-called “urban guerrilla” tactics of groups of intellectuals like the “weathermen.” The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transitional stage on the path to a classless or communist society which is our ultimate goal. A hallmark of modem revisionism has been its abandonment of the Marxist-Leninist principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The new communist party must accept the dictatorship of the proletariat in deed, not only in words, through its literature, slogans and organization.
3. Party Organization
Party organization requires a disciplined cadre organization of the advanced, most class-conscious, self-sacrificing revolutionaries. From its beginning, it must be made up of the finest representatives of the working class, reflecting the multinational character of the working class. The party must base itself at the point of production with the factory nucleus constituting its basic unit, rather than in electoral districts as the revisionist and parliamentary parties do. It must practice democratic centralism, with one center and the fullest possible democracy for all members. There must be unity of action and unity of will. The party “becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements,” (Stalin) arid is “incompatible with the existence of factions.” Its style of work is characterized by the mass line (“from the masses to the masses”) which means developing the closest of ties to the working and oppressed people. It means intervening in the spontaneous struggles of the people and taking the ideas of the people, concentrating them, and raising them to a higher level through their integration with Marxism-Leninism. The party must combine both open and secret work, which will enable it to function under any possible conditions. The party must master all forms of work. A hallmark of the party must be a bold and open attitude towards criticism and self-criticism, enabling it to correct mistakes and carry out a constant struggle against all forms of opportunism within its ranks.
4. The International Situation
We live in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. The world today is characterized by great turmoil as the people of the world have risen up in a broad united front against imperialism and its strivings for world domination. This broad front is directed at the two imperialist superpowers, the U.S., on the decline, and the Soviet Union, on the rise. Their rivalry threatens the people of the world as they drive closer to war. Soviet social-imperialism, a latecomer to the imperialist feast, is today the main source of the danger of war. The two superpowers are the main enemies of the world’s peoples and to defeat them a united front must be forged of all countries, nations and peoples that can be united against the two superpowers. An essential task of our movement is to expose the myth of “detente” being spread by the imperialists to show that as long as imperialism exists, imperialist war is inevitable. We must prepare the people of the U.S. to meet the threat and outbreak of a new imperialist war. The revolutionary struggle of the people of the U.S. is part of the international united front. It is our responsibility to overthrow U.S. imperialism in the course of the struggle against both superpowers.
The party upholds the principle of internationalism, which is based on the unity of the working class and oppressed nations and peoples of the world. The party must render full support to the peoples, nations and countries of the world who are rising up in opposition to imperialism. This is especially true of the third world countries today who are the main motive force opposing imperialism and pushing world history forward.
We stand opposed to the international trend of revisionism, led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The CPSU revisionists have fully restored capitalism in the once-socialist Soviet Union. We fully support the great contribution of the socialist countries, particularly the Peoples Republic of China and Albania in the struggle against modern revisionism and for the building of socialism.
We link our communist unity with fraternal parties and organizations around the world and in this way are a part of the international communist and workers’ movement. While maintaining our own independence, we carry on bilateral relations with parties and organizations in other countries based on equality of all parties, big or small.
5. The National Question
Unity requires a proletarian internationalist stand on the revolutionary significance of the national question in this era. This includes support for the right of self-determination of all oppressed nations who suffer under the yoke of imperialism and in particular the right to political secession for the Afro-American people in their historic homeland in the Black Belt South. It also includes our support for Puerto Rican independence and full democratic rights for all oppressed national minorities, including the Puerto Rican national minority in the U.S., minorities and the Native American peoples. We also firmly support the democratic rights of non-citizens and foreign-born nationals in the U.S. and stand opposed to all forms of white chauvinism and narrow nationalism.
The movement of the oppressed nationalities constitutes the main strategic ally of the U.S. working class. The party has the special responsibility to train communist fighters from among the oppressed nationalities.
6. United Front Against Imperialism
One of the strategic tasks of the communist party is to build the united front to defeat imperialism and establish socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here in the U.S. our strategic objectives are overthrowing the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie and establishing a proletarian dictatorship in one stage. This must be done in the course of the struggle against both superpowers and the building of the world-wide united front against imperialism.
In the U.S., the united front includes all those that can be united under the leadership of the proletariat and its party to oppose the rule and the reactionary policies of die imperialists. The core of this united front is based on the alliance and merger of the proletariat with the national movements of the oppressed peoples struggling for liberation, self-determination and democratic rights. This is a revolutionary united front, as opposed to the “Anti-Monopoly Coalition” of the revisionists, which is led by the liberal bourgeoisie and based upon reformism and electoral struggle. Due to the modern revisionists’ betrayal of the revolutionary movements internationally and the role of the CPUSA as an agent and collaborator of the imperialist superpowers, we call for a principled break with the revisionists in theory and practice and reject the line of “united action” with revisionism.
7. The Woman Question
A component part of the struggle for socialist revolution is the full emancipation of women. We must take a proletarian approach to the emancipation of women. The woman question is in essence a question of class struggle for the overthrow of imperialism and the establishment of socialism, which will create the conditions for the complete liberation of women.
Special attention must be paid to training women, with the view that the emancipation of women cannot occur without a socialist revolution. We must carry out the fight for democratic rights and oppose all forms of male supremacy and bourgeois feminism which serve only to disunite the working class.
8. The Labor Movement
The trade unions are the most basic and comprehensible form of workers’ organization. The task of communists in the trade unions is to win them to the leadership of the party and to transform them into revolutionary organizations which fight for the complete emancipation of the working class. Our policy must be to work within the unions and organize the unorganized. Our main enemy within the labor movement is the labor aristocracy, including the reformist trade union bureaucrats and the revisionists. These traitors are presently in the leadership of-all the big unions. Our work is based upon a consistent struggle to isolate and expel these opportunists from leadership and replace them with revolutionary leadership. This requires consistent work to build up the communist factory nucleus and trade union fractions. We must carry out independent communist work among the workers. This education must direct itself against all chauvinist policies of the labor aristocracy as well as their bourgeois ideology of trade unionism and always raise the interests of the whole working class in its struggle for socialism.
We recognize the increasingly influential role of Marxist-Leninists in the workers’ movement. Our trend is united around the principle that the task of building the new party is inseparable from ongoing communist work among the masses. In this period of formation of the party, the primary focus of communist work must be to win the advanced workers to communism and the party.
This work among the vanguard of the working class cannot be done in isolation from the general workers’ movement.
The tasks of the period require that propaganda be the chief form of activity and that this propaganda be combined with broad agitation.
Our propaganda is aimed primarily at winning the vanguard of the proletariat to the side of communism and to the party, to proletarianize the party’s ranks and to weld it ever closer to the class as a whole. Communist agitation is aimed at spreading the influence of the party among the broad masses. This broad agitation continually brings forward the most class-conscious workers, increasing the ranks of the advanced and raising the level of the masses as a whole.
An important task of the groups participating in the party-building efforts and of the communist press will be to continue the struggle for Marxist-Leninist unity.
We must unite into a single, common effort to form a new party. Recognizing that there are many honest -Marxist-Leninists who are currently studying the different lines and trends in the communist movement, and are as yet unclear on them, we must make every attempt to unite them into the party-building efforts.
We urge all Marxist-Leninists to join with us and take part in the struggle to build the new party. Comrades, the working class demands a united Marxist-Leninist party. In this period, we must all be judged by our stand on the struggle for unity and the party.
The various opportunist trends who are opposed to principled unity must be dealt with and their anti-party lines exposed and defeated. We must draw as dear lines of demarcation as possible with these trends. At the same time, among those forces who are committed to unite, principled struggle over important questions of party program, organization, etc., must take place. To accompany both these tasks, we agree to the fullest possible cooperation within the bounds of the principles of unity and through the coordination of the Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party.
This means that during this period leading up to the Party Congress, all the organizations in the party-building effort, while maintaining their democratic centralism, agree to put whatever resources they can, including various organs, at the disposal of the Organizing Committee. In addition, the Organizing Committee will have the authority to publish under its own name, documents and materials to both aid in building Marxist-Leninist unity and in pre-Congress discussions.
This perspective of the tasks of the communist press during the pre-Congress period highlights one of the key tasks of actual party formation–the creation of a single central organ, a newspaper of the Leninist type.
We call upon each organization to take on the tasks of seriously examining its work in the communist movement. Each organization, large or small, has valuable experiences in theoretical, organizational and mass work which should be summed up for use in developing the party program. These summations should be done in the communist spirit of criticism and self-criticism. Aimed at combating sectarianism and small circle mentality, the correct summations of Marxist-Leninist work will help form the basis of the party program.
The official name of the organizing committee is the Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party. The Organizing Committee is composed of one representative from each group participating in the unity efforts, regardless of size. The general purpose of the O.C. is to coordinate the work of building Marxist-Leninist unity and preparing for the first Party Congress. The decisions of the O.C. are based on majority rule. The work of the O.C. is guided by this statement and its principles of unity. The specific tasks of the O.C. include:
1) The O.C. will have the authority to expand its ranks. Organizations and collectives may be represented in the O.C. upon agreement with this statement and principles of unity. Once accepted by the committee, any groups joining the party-building efforts will have a seat on the O.C. In this way the O.C. serves as a credentials committee for the entire pre-Congress period including determining the number of representatives at the Congress itself.
2) The O.C. recognizes that the May Unity Meeting was an important first step towards uniting Marxist-Leninists. To continue this task there will be a speaking tour of various spokespeople of the party -building efforts coordinated by the O.C. The purpose of this speaking tour will be to further promote the cause of communist unity and to combat various opportunist anti-party trends in our movement.
3) The O.C. will offer suggestions to the organizations in the party-building efforts in regard to the most important polemical struggles needed to further demarcate our trend from the opportunist lines in the communist movement. These polemics should be aimed at winning all genuine Marxist-Leninists to unite on the basis of principles.
4) In conducting struggle in the communist movement and in the course of developing the party program, there will be a need for special research or theoretical work. The O.C. may request that one or more groups do such work.
5) Within three months the O.C. will convene another Unity Conference for the purpose of heightening our level of unity, expanding the ranks of the party-building efforts and discussing the draft party program in preparation for the final period of our Congress work.
6) The O.C. will ask each organization to provide funds for the pre-Congress work on the basis of “from each according to his ability.”
7) Coordination of the discussion of the party program. The party program must outline the general features of the U.S. revolution. This includes the objective aims of the movement and an analysis of the class forces as part of the overall communist strategy. The program should articulate the most burning demands of the working class as well as those of other strata of society opposed to imperialism.
In addition to utilizing the resources and organs of the groups within the unity efforts, the O.C. will have the authority to publish a journal or bulletin for the purpose of discussion and struggle over the party program.
We are committed to conducting the discussion and struggle around the party program in a disciplined communist fashion. We hold that the lack of any discipline or binding responsibility has been a chief cause of lowering the level of struggle over the political line and an obstacle to party unity. The program discussion should be guided by the maxims, “Practice Marxism, Not Revisionism,” “Be Open and Above Board,” “Don’t Intrigue and Conspire,” and “Unite and Don’t Split.”
While conducting the program discussion in a disciplined fashion, it is important that the struggle over program be as open as possible to the masses and to the communist movement. The O.C. has the responsibility of summing up the program discussion and publishing a draft program leaving ample time for struggle before convening of the Party Congress. In conjunction with the work on a program should be the drafting of a party constitution which would state the requirements and rights of party members.
8) The establishment of the rules of the Congress and its agenda. This demands adoption of a definite statement of the authority of the Congress as the highest body of the Party and recognition of its decisions as binding. This includes the election of a leading body. The Party program is adopted at the Congress by the delegates. Along with the adoption of the program and the election of leaders, the Congress must adopt more developed positions in the form of resolutions to guide the party’s work. The determination of which resolutions, etc., will require discussion is part of agreeing upon a Congress agenda. It is at the Party Congress that, upon agreement with the party program, the old circles are formally abolished and the democratic centralism of the new party is established.
Marxist-Leninists Unite!
Build a New Communist Party!
Down with Modern Revisionism!