1. The British monopoly capitalist bourgeoisie would long ago have been overthrown, but for the existence of bourgeois ideology and, in particular of opportunism within the working class.
2. The predominant ideology in any society is the ideology of the ruling class, but bourgeois ideology is especially strong in an imperialist country. In imperialist Britain bourgeois ideology affects all classes and strata, including the working class. Bourgeois individualism and idealism are widespread.
3. A serious form of bourgeois ideology among the working class is opportunism, that is, sacrificing the basic and long term interests of the proletariat for the real or assumed advantages of the moment. With opportunism in command, it is impossible to sustain a bold, resolute and complicated struggle right through to victory in the proletarian revolution. Instead, opportunism limits the working class to a reformist struggle merely for better conditions within the capitalist system, and ties the working class to the coat-tails of the reformist section of bourgeois politics. The fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism.
4. Opportunists are agents of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement. The opportunists prettify the bourgeoisie and try to divert the working class from revolution by depicting in glowing colours the charms and possibilities of the reformist path. The active people in the working class who adhere to the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself.
5. The task of winning over the class conscious vanguard to a conviction in the necessity for revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be accomplished without a complete ideological and political victory over opportunism within the vanguard of the working class.
6. Revisionism is opportunism disguised as Marxism. It robs Marxism of its revolutionary class content. Revisionism is the most dangerous enemy in. the working class movement because it uses the name and terms of Communism to deceive the working class, and it paves the way for aggression by Soviet social imperialism. In building the revolutionary Communist Party one of the most important tasks will be a ruthless and protracted struggle to completely expose the revisionist ’Communist’ Party of Great Britain in the eyes of the workers. The revolutionary Communist Party must be firmly established as the sole party of the working class. Inside the Party, in order to preserve and strengthen its proletarian ideology, we must pay particular attention to combating revisionism.
7. Chairman Mao Tsetung initiated and led the great struggle in the international Communist movement against the latest wave of revisionism, modern revisionism, which is headed by the Soviet revisionist renegade clique. This great struggle brought into being genuine Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations all over the world, including in Britain. It is essential to strengthen our unity with the international Communist movement in the worldwide struggle against modern revisionism, as well as in the struggle against imperialism, especially the hegemonism of the two superpowers.
8. Within Britain, social democracy is the most widespread ideological enemy within the working class movement. We must wage a persistent ideological campaign against social democracy in conjunction with the political campaign against the Labour Party, the “best bosses’ party”.
9. Trotskyism is a third form of opportunism within Britain. It is generally ’left’ in form and right in essence; in practice it ties the working class to the bourgeois Labour Party. It has a limited following among some misled young people, among students and among those workers who want to fight back against the bourgeoisie but who are disillusioned with the ’C’.P.G.B. and the Labour Party, and who lack Marxist-Leninist leadership.
10. In Britain modern revisionism, social democracy, and Trotskyism overlap and interlock in many ways, performing an indispensible role for the bourgeoisie that the bourgeoisie could never play directly itself. While distinguishing between rank and file members and the opportunist organization itself, we ’ will persevere in smashing the hold that these opportunist organizations have on the struggle of the working class.
11. In order to defeat opportunism, we must have a firm grasp of its economic, social and political roots.
12. The economic roots of opportunism in Britain today lie in imperialism itself. Imperialism has extracted huge superprofits by direct and indirect means from the oppressed peoples and nations of the world, and to a large extent still does so. These superprofits enable it to bribe in a thousand different ways, individually and collectively, a privileged stratum of the working people.
13. Most of the petty bourgeoisie, most of the intelligentsia and a minority of skilled workers, make up this privileged stratum. By their better terms of employment, and their more stable and comfortable life, they are separated from the mass of the working class. This stratum is most imbued with a narrow concern for its own professional interests and with petty bourgeois and imperialist prejudices. It provides the social roots for the opportunism that is so widespread among working people in imperialist Britain.
14. The reformist trade union leaders and bureaucrats are an important political source of opportunism. They are ”labour lieutenants of capital”. In innumerable ways they receive privileges which put them socially among the privileged stratum of working people. In addition, bourgeois careerism and the job of negotiating compromises with the management without having a revolutionary Communist perspective, also predispose this well-organized body of people to opportunism. In particular the opportunist leaders of the TUC have become an indispensible political prop for British imperialism.
Unless there is revolutionary Communist leadership, the trade union movement spontaneously gives rise to the ideology of narrow trade unionism, a bourgeois ideology that restricts the workers’ struggle to reforms within the limits of the capitalist system.
15. A further political source of opportunism within the British working class results from the zigzags of bourgeois tactics. In fighting for its interests the bourgeoisie uses two policies towards the working class - one of repression, the other of reforms and concessions. It passes from one method to the other as a result of fundamental contradictions in its own position and under pressure from the struggles of the working class. The zigzags and, in particular, the policy of bourgeois reformism intensify opportunism among a section of workers and of their representatives who allow themselves to be deceived by sham concessions.
16. The fight against opportunism is essential to the victory of the proletarian revolution. Our basic strategy for this fight is two fold. Firstly we must wage a relentless ideological, political and organizational struggle against opportunism in the course of struggling against the monopoly capitalist bourgeoisie. Secondly, in rallying the vanguard of the working class we must concentrate not on the privileged strata who are predisposed to opportunism, but on going lower and deeper to the real masses.
17. Imperialism also uses bourgeois ideology to divide and weaken the ranks of the working class.
18. Racism is the most serious of these divisive ideological tendencies. It is the main ideological weapon the monopoly capitalist bourgeoisie use in order to try to bring in fascism, and to justify their increasing use of fascist methods.
19. Racism is closely associated with imperialism. It was specifically developed in the era of imperialism to justify the exploitation and oppression of hundreds of millions of people of Africa, Asia, and Latin America by imperialism.
20. In the battle against racism revolutionary Communists must constantly fight for working class unity, in spirit and in deed, between black and white workers and between workers of all nationalities and cultures. We must help the British working class see that their closest comrades in arms are the oppressed peoples of the third world who are dealing repeated blows against imperialism.
21. We must boldly point out to white workers that the oppression of black workers is an attack on the class as a whole because it forces them to accept lower paid jobs and worse living conditions. This in turn holds down the wages and living conditions of all workers.
22. We will strive to unite black and white workers in the course of struggle by propagating proletarian ideology against imperialist ideology. The revolutionary Communist Party must particularly strive to overcome attitudes of racism and white superiority among white workers in the course of struggle. We will tirelessly point out the bourgeois nature of attitudes of white superiority. We will also struggle against the incorrect reaction of narrow black nationalism. We must unite the working class by “working at it from both sides”.
23. The bourgeoisie divides the working class on grounds of sex, by discriminating against women economically and politically and by spreading attitudes of male superiority and also of bourgeois feminism.
24. Working class women are an integral part of the working class. The working class as a whole, men and women, face the same enemy and must wage the same fight.
25. Discrimination against women, forces them to accept lower wages and this keeps wages for the whole class down. We must boldly call on men workers to see that the oppression of women is an attack on the class as a whole.
26. We will deepen the unity of men and women workers in the course of struggle by propagating proletarian ideology. The revolutionary Communist Party must particularly strive to overcome attitudes of male superiority while uniting with male workers in the course of struggle. We will tirelessly point out the bourgeois nature of attitudes both of male superiority and of bourgeois feminism. Once again we will unite the working class by “working at it from both sides”.