Comrades, the Presidium has submitted the Draft Constitution of the CPUSA/ML to the Congress for adoption. Similar to the Draft Party Program, the Constitution is the product of the collective labor of many comrades over a long period of time. Key questions on the principles and norms of the Party have been drafted, clarified and redrafted. The Presidium is firmly convinced that, for the first time in the history of the communist and workers’ movement in the U.S., a Marxist-Leninist constitution has been developed. This Constitution will be used to guide and regulate the life and building of the Party and to insure that the Party pursues a single Marxist-Leninist line.
Our Constitution is based on the Leninist and Stalinist teachings on fundamental organizational principles. In drafting the Constitution, we have greatly benefited from the experience of other Marxist-Leninist parties, especially the Party of Labor of Albania.
Comrade Lenin, by the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1902, had already laid out the basic rules of the party in the struggle against opportunism at that Congress. Lenin put an end to amateurishness, the narrow circle outlook, organizational disunity and the absence of party discipline. He rejected Martynov’s formulation that the Party open its doors to unstable, non-proletarian elements. He rejected the anarchist concept of self-enrollment.
In general, Lenin laid down the principles which put an end to anarchism, autonomism, and the glorification of individualism of the petty bourgeois intellectual. Lenin stated: “Ideological unity must be consolidated by the material unity of organization.” Only on this condition can the proletariat become an invincible force.
The second major struggle that Lenin waged against opportunism on organizational norms and principles was from 1908-1912. This was during the Stolypin reaction following the defeat of the 1905 revolution when the Party was under extreme repression. During this period the Mensheviks renounced the revolutionary demands of the program and the Party’s revolutionary slogans. They wanted to liquidate the revolutionary illegal Party.
The Bolsheviks strengthened and preserved the illegal Party organization and at the same time seized every legal opportunity to build broader connections with the masses. This struggle culminated in the Prague Conference of the Party in 1912. Here the Leninist and Stalinist position that the Party strengthens itself by purging its ranks of opportunist elements was adopted. This fundamentally distinguished the Bolshevik Party from social democratic parties of the Second International.
Comrade Stalin inherited and defended the Leninist organizational principles. He struggled against the repeated attempts of the opportunists, especially the Trotskyites, who first tried to liquidate the Party from within and then, after they had been expelled, tried to infiltrate as well as to destroy the Party from without. Comrade Stalin also guided the drafting of the organizational rules for the entire international communist movement, especially with respect to the principles and norms guiding the relationship between fraternal parties. Comrade Stalin implemented these with great diligence and care and showed by example as the leader of the great Bolshevik Party how to build the unity of the entire international communist movement.
The Constitution of the Communist International and the model statutes developed by the Com intern under Stalin’s leadership to guide building communist parties continue to be applicable today. Vanguard parties continue to be built and strengthened throughout the world based on these principles. This remains extremely crucial as revisionism in all forms still tries to take advantage of every break in party discipline to promote its theories in order to liquidate the vanguard party.
Two main revisionist trends exist on the question of organizational principles. Our Constitution decisively rejects both of these: the liberal anarchist trend and the bureaucratic centralist trend.
The liberal anarchist trend denies the need for centralization and is opposed to a single center giving overall leadership. It claims that lower bodies should be autonomous from higher bodies so they can “express their initiative;” and it denies the need for every member to belong to a party organization.
The bureaucratic trend breeds submission from fear of punishment and puts the party apparatus above the elected organs. The bureaucratic trend also leads to a bourgeois approach to party rules, setting standards only for the punishment pf cadre for violations, rather than using the constitution as an instrument to invigorate the collective life of the party.
These two deviations have deeply affected the workers’ and communist movements in the U.S. The Comintern at its 8th Plenum of the 5th Congress in May of 1927 set up a special American commission. The final resolution of this commission called for the unconditional abolition of all factionalism, a serious problem in the Party at the time. This was ignored by both factions, the Lovestone-Pepper faction and the Foster-Cannon faction, which included Earl Browder. Cannon later split from the Party and became the founder and head of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party.
Again at the 6th Comintern Congress, Comrade Stalin spoke on the situation with the CPUSA. He summed up these points: “First, factionalism weakens the Party spirit, it dulls the revolutionary sense and blinds the Party workers to such an extent that, in the factional passion, they are .bound to place the interests of the faction above the interests of the Party, above the interests of the Comintern, above the interests of the working class.
“Secondly, factionalism interferes with the training of the Party in the spirit of a policy of principles: it prevents the training of the cadres in an honest, proletarian, incorruptable revolutionary spirit, free from rotten diplomacy and unprincipled intrigue.
“Thirdly, factionalism, by weakening the will for unity in the Party and by undermining its iron-like discipline, creates within the Party a peculiar factional regime, as a result of which the whole internal life of our Party is robbed of its conspirative protection in the face of the class enemy, and the Party itself runs the danger of being transformed into a plaything of the agents of the bourgeoisie.”
By 1940 factionalism had not subsided within the CPUSA. The organizational rules of the CPUSA clearly showed major deviations from the Leninist and Stalinist teachings. For example, the preamble of their constitution expressed the defense of the U.S. Constitution! Not only did this constitution contain no clause against factionalism, but in speaking of factionalism it also says that it opposes with all of its power any clique, group or party which conspires or acts to subvert or overthrow American democracy. There is no mention of Marxism-Leninism as the ideological basis of the Party, proletarian internationalism, or support of the socialist countries and the international proletariat.
After the reconstitution of the CPUSA by Foster in 1945, the organizational degeneration of CPUSA took both the forms of bureaucratic centralism, which was manifested in lines and policies not being discussed by the cadre of the Party, and anarchist liberalism, in which anyone could self-enroll into the Party. For example, in 1968 many CPUSA members voted for Democratic Senator George McGovern when the Party was running its own presidential candidate. This demonstrates in a vivid way the lack of unity of will and action in that party.
In the case of two of the more recently formed revisionist parties, the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist and the Revolutionary Communist Party, both are definitely affected by Chinese revisionism on questions of the party and party building. The constitution of the CP/ML glorifies the “revolutionary spirit of going against the tide”, and legitimizes two-line struggle in the party. There is no provision for a Control and Audit Commission to insure proper checkup from above and below to see to it that the policies of the Central Committee are implemented and that a high level of discipline is adhered to.
The Constitution of the RCP contains no mention of candidate membership to test new cadre and no clause against factionalism. Again there is no Control and Audit Commission. Also, between the central organs and the basic units, there is no structure which ties together a system of democratic centralism. Finally, the RCP’s constitution does not uphold proletarian internationalism and the relationship between Marxist-Leninist parties, revealing the national chauvinism of the RCP.
In contrast, our Constitution has developed in the struggle against all forms of opportunism on organizational principles. Article I prohibits any divisive or factional activity or any kind of deviations within the ranks of the Party. This is necessary to strengthen the Party’s monolithic unity, its iron and voluntary discipline, which is not possible without unity of will and action. Conflicts of opinion must be resolved through discussion, criticism and self-criticism. Once the discussion ends and a decision arrived at, all members must carry out the decision with unity of will and action. Liberalism in Party discipline is bound to erode centralized leadership and democratic centralism. Mistakes, weaknesses and deviations which are not disclosed and fought in time through revolutionary methods will become a source of revisionist groups, trends and platforms.
In conclusion, we would like to quote Comrade Enver Hoxha on the importance of the Constitution. He says, “The Constitution is a basic document which regulates the life of the Party, that synthesizes the principle direction of the Party, the rights and duties of the communist according to which unless he knows them thoroughly and carries them out in life he cannot be considered a good communist.”
The Presidium moves that we adopt this draft as the Constitution of the CPUSA/ML, the first Marxist-Leninist Constitution in the history of the working class movement in the United States.