We are living in stormy times, when Russia’s history is marching on with seven-league strides, and every year sometimes signifies more than decades of tranquillity. Results of the half-century of the post-Reform period are being summed up, and the corner-stone is being laid for social and political edifices which will determine the fate of the entire country for many, many years to come. The revolutionary movement continues to grow with amazing rapidity—and “our trends” are ripening (and withering) uncommonly fast. Trends firmly rooted in the class system of such a rapidly developing capitalist country as Russia almost immediately reach their own level and feel their way to the classes they are related to. An example is the evolution of Mr. Struve, from whom the revolutionary workers proposed to “tear the mask” of a Marxist only one and a half years ago and who has now himself come forward without this mask as the leader (or servant?) of the liberal landlords, people who take pride in their earthiness and their sober judgement. On the other hand, trends expressing only the traditional instability of views held by the intermediate and indefinite sections of the intelligentsia try to substitute noisy declarations for rapprochement with definite classes, declarations which are all the noisier, the louder the thunder of events. “At least we make an infernal noise”¹—such is the slogan of many revolutionarily minded individuals who have been caught up in the maelstrom of events and who have neither theoretical principles nor social roots.

It is to these “noisy” trends that the “Socialist-Revolutionaries,” whose physiognomy is emerging more and more clearly, also belong. And it is high time for the proletariat to have a better look at this physiognomy, and form a clear idea of the real nature of these people, who seek the proletariat’s friendship all the more persistently, the more palpable it becomes to them that they cannot exist as a separate trend without close ties with the truly revolutionary class of society.

Three circumstances have served most to disclose the true face of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. These are, first, the split between the revolutionary Social-Democrats and the opportunists, who are raising their heads under the banner of the “criticism of Marxism.” Secondly, Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin and the new swing towards terrorism in the sentiments of some revolutionaries. Thirdly and mainly, the latest movement among the peasantry, which has compelled such that are accustomed to sit between two stools and have no programme whatever to come out post factum with some semblance of a programme. We shall proceed to examine these three circumstances, with the reservation that in a newspaper article it is possible to give only a brief outline of the main points in the argument and that we shall in all likelihood return to the subject and expound it in greater detail in a magazine article, or in a pamphlet.²

It was only in No. 2 of Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsti that the Socialist-Revolutionaries finally decided to come out with a theoretical statement of principle, in an unsigned editorial headed “The World Progress and Crisis of Socialism.” We strongly recommend this article to all who want to get a clear idea of utter unprincipledness and vacillation in matters of theory (as well as of the art of concealing this behind a spate of rhetoric). The entire content of this highly noteworthy article may be expressed in a few words. Socialism has grown into a world force, socialism (=Marxism) is now splitting as a result of the war of the revolutionaries (the “orthodox”) against the opportunists (the “critics”). We, Socialist-Revolutionaries, “of course” have never sympathised with opportunism, but we are over-joyed because of the “criticism” which has freed us from   a dogma; we too are working for a revision of this dogma— and although we have as yet nothing at all to show by way of criticism (except bourgeois-opportunist criticism), although we have as yet revised absolutely nothing, it is nevertheless that freedom from theory which redounds to our credit. That redounds to our credit all the more because, as people free of theory, we stand firmly for general unity and vehemently condemn all theoretical disputes over principles. “A serious revolutionary organisation,” Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii (No. 2, p. 127) assures us in all seriousness, “would give up trying to settle disputed questions of social theory, which always lead to disunity, although this of course should not hinder theoreticians from seeking their solution”—or, more outspokenly: let the writers do the writing and the readers do the reading³ and in the meantime, while they are busying themselves, we will rejoice at the blank left behind.

There is no need, of course, to engage in a serious analysis of this theory of deviation from socialism (in the event of disputes proper). In our opinion, the crisis of socialism makes it incumbent upon any in the least serious socialists to devote redoubled attention to theory—to adopt more resolutely a strictly definite stand, to draw a sharper line of demarcation between themselves and wavering and unreliable elements. In the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, if such things as confusion and splits are possible “even among Germans,” then it is God’s will that we, Russians, should pride ourselves on our ignorance of whither we are drifting. In our opinion, the absence of theory deprives a revolutionary trend of the right to existence and inevitably condemns it, sooner or later, to political bankruptcy. In the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, the absence of theory is a most excellent thing, most favourable “for unity.” As you see, we cannot reach agreement with them, for the fact of the matter is that we even speak different languages. There is one hope: perhaps they will be made to see reason by Mr. Struve, who also (only more seriously) speaks about the elimination of dogma and says that “our” business (as is the, business of any bourgeoisie that appeals to the proletariat) is not to disunite, but to unite. Will not the Socialist-Revolutionaries ever see, with the help of   Mr. Struve, what is really signified by their stand of liberation from socialism for the purpose of unity, and unity on the occasion of liberation from socialism?

Let us go over to the second point, the question of terrorism.

In their defence of terrorism, which the experience of the Russian revolutionary movement has so clearly proved to be ineffective, the Socialist-Revolutionaries are talking themselves blue in the face in asseverating that they recognise terrorism only in conjunction with work among the masses, and that therefore the arguments used by the Russian Social-Democrats to refute the efficacy of this method of struggle (and which have indeed been refuted for a long time to come) do not apply to them. Here something very similar to their attitude towards “criticism” is repeating itself. We are not opportunists, cry the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and at the same time they are shelving the dogma of proletarian socialism, for reason of sheer opportunist criticism and no other. We are not repeating the terrorists’ mistakes and are not diverting attention from work among the masses, the Socialist-Revolutionaries assure us, and at the same time enthusiastically recommend to the Party acts such as Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin, although everyone knows and sees perfectly well that this act was in no way connected with the masses and, moreover, could not have been by reason of the very way in which it was carried out—that the persons who committed this terrorist act neither counted on nor hoped for any definite action or support on the part of the masses. In their naïveté, the Socialist-Revolutionaries do not realise that their predilection for terrorism is causally most intimately linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and still keep, aloof from the working-class movement, without even attempting to become a party of the revolutionary class which is waging its class struggle. Over-ardent protestations very often lead one to doubt and suspect the worth of whatever it is that requires such strong seasoning. Do not these protestations weary them?—I often think of these words, when I read assurances by the Socialist-Revolutionaries: “by terrorism we are not relegating work among the masses into the background.”After all, these assurances come from the very people who have already   drifted away from the Social-Democratic labour movement, which really rouses the masses; they come from people who are continuing to drift away from this movement, clutching at fragments of any kind of theory.

The leaflet issued by the “Party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries” on April 3,1902, may serve as a splendid illustration of what has been stated above. It is a most realistic source, one that is very close to the immediate leaders, a most authentic source. The “presentation of the question of terrorist struggle” in this leaflet “coincides in full” also “with the Party views,” according to the valuable testimony of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (No. 7, p. 24).⁴

The April 3 leaflet follows the pattern of the terrorists’ “latest” arguments with remarkable accuracy. The first thing that strikes the eye is the words: “we advocate terrorism, not in place of work among the masses, but precisely for and simultaneously with that work.” They strike the eye particularly because these words are printed in letters three times as large as the rest of the text (a device that is of course repeated by Revolutsionnaya Rossiya). It is all really so simple! One has only to set “not in place of, but together with” in bold type—and all the arguments of the Social-Democrats, all that history has taught, will fall to the ground. But just read the whole leaflet and you will see that the protestation in bold type takes the name of the masses in vain. The day “when the working people will emerge from the shadows” and “the mighty popular wave will shatter the iron gates to smithereens”—“alas!” (literally, “alas!”) “is still a long way off, and it is frightful   to think of the future toll of victims!” Do not these words “alas, still a long way off” reflect an utter failure to under stand the mass movement and a lack of faith in it? Is not this argument meant as a deliberate sneer at the fact that the working people are already beginning to rise? And, finally, even if this trite argument were just as well-founded as it is actually stuff and nonsense, what would emerge from it in particularly bold relief would be the inefficacy of terrorism, for without the working people all bombs are power less, patently powerless.

Just listen to what follows: “Every terrorist blow, as it were, takes away part of the strength of the autocracy and transfers [!] all this strength [!] to the side of the fighters for freedom.” “And if terrorism is practised systematically [!], it is obvious that the scales of the balance will finally weigh down on our side.” Yes, indeed, it is obvious to all that we have here in its grossest form one of the greatest prejudices of the terrorists: political assassination of itself “transfers strength”! Thus, on the one hand you have the theory of the transference of strength, and on the other— “not in place of, but together with”…. Do not these protestations weary them?

But this is just the beginning. The real thing is yet to come. “Whom are we to strike down?” asks the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and replies: the ministers, and not the tsar, for “the tsar will not allow matters to go to extremes” (!! How did they find that out??), and besides “it is also easier” (this is literally what they say!): “No minister can ensconce himself in a palace as in a fortress.” And this argument concludes with the following piece of reasoning, which deserves to be immortalised as a model of the “theory” of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. “Against the crowd the autocracy has its soldiers; against the revolutionary organisations its secret and uniformed police; but what will save it…” (what kind of “it” is this? The autocracy? The author has unwittingly identified the autocracy with a target in the person of a minister whom it is easier to strike down!) “… from individuals or small groups that are ceaselessly, and even in ignorance of one another [!!], preparing for attack, and are attacking? No force will be of avail against elusiveness. Hence, our task is clear: to remove every one of the autocracy’s brutal oppressors by the only means that has been left [!] us by the autocracy–death.” No matter how many reams of paper the Socialist-Revolutionaries may fill with assurances that they are not relegating work among the masses into the background or disorganising it by their advocacy of terrorism—their spate of words cannot disprove the fact that the actual psychology of the modern terrorist is faithfully conveyed in the leaflet we have quoted. The theory of the transference of strength finds its natural complement in the theory of elusiveness, a theory which turns upside down, not only all past experience, but all common sense as well. That the only “hope” of the revolution is the “crowd”; that only a revolutionary organisation which leads this crowd (in deed and not in word) can fight against the police—all this is ABC. It is shameful to have to prove this. And only people who have forgotten everything and learned absolutely nothing could have decided “the other way about,” arriving at the fabulous, howling stupidity that the autocracy can be “saved” from the crowd by soldiers, and from the revolutionary organisations by the police, but that there is no salvation from individuals who hunt down ministers!!

This fabulous argument, which we are convinced is destined to become notorious, is by no means simply a curiosity. No, it is instructive because, through a sweeping reduction to an absurdity, it reveals the principal mistake of the terrorists, which they share with the “economists” (perhaps one might already say, with the former representatives of deceased “economism”?). This mistake, as we have already pointed out on numerous occasions, consists in the failure to understand the basic defect of our movement. Because of the extremely rapid growth of the movement, the leaders lagged behind the masses, the revolutionary organisations did not come up to the level of the revolutionary activity of the proletariat, were incapable of marching on in front and leading the masses. That a discrepancy of this sort exists cannot be doubted by any conscientious person who has even the slightest acquaintance with the movement. And if that is so, it is evident that the present-day terrorists are really “economists” turned inside out, going to the equally foolish but opposite extreme. At a time when the revolutionaries are short of the forces and means to lead the masses,   who are already rising, an appeal to resort to such terrorist acts as the organisation of attempts on the lives of ministers by individuals and groups that are not known to one another means, not only thereby breaking off work among the masses, but also introducing downright disorganisation into that work.

We, revolutionaries, “are accustomed to huddling together in timid knots,” we read in the April 3 leaflet, “and even [N.B.] the new, bold spirit that has appeared during the last two or three years has so far done more to raise the sentiments of the crowd than of individuals.” These words unintentionally express much that is true. And it is this very truth that deals a smashing rebuff to the propagandists of terrorism. From this truth every thinking socialist draws the conclusion that it is necessary to use group action more energetically, boldly, and harmoniously. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, conclude: “Shoot, elusive individual, for the knot of people, alas, is still a long way off, and besides there are soldiers against the knot.” This really defies all reason, gentlemen!

Nor does the leaflet eschew the theory of excitative terrorism. “Each time a hero engages in single combat, this arouses in us all a spirit of struggle and courage,” we are told. But we know from the past and see in the present that only new forms of the mass movement or the awakening of new sections of the masses to independent struggle really rouses a spirit of struggle and courage in all. Single combat however, inasmuch as it remains single combat waged by the Balmashovs, has the immediate effect of simply creating a short-lived sensation, while indirectly it even leads to apathy and passive waiting for the next bout. We are further assured that “every flash of terrorism lights up the mind,” which, unfortunately, we have not noticed to be the case with the terrorism-preaching party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. We are presented with the theory of big work and petty work. “Let not those who have greater strength, greater opportunities and resolution rest content with petty [!] work; let them find and devote themselves to a big cause—the propaganda of terrorism among the masses [!l, the preparation of the intricate… [the theory of elusiveness is already forgotten!]… terrorist   ventures.” How amazingly clever this is in all truth: to sacrifice the Life of a revolutionary for the sake of wreaking vengeance on the scoundrel Sipyagin, who is then replaced by the scoundrel Plehve—that is big work. But to prepare, for instance, the masses for an armed demonstration—that is petty work. This very point is explained in No. 8 of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya, which declares that “it is easy to write and speak” of armed demonstrations “as a matter of the vague and distant future,” “but up till now all this talk has been merely of a theoretical nature.” How well we know this Language of people who are free of the constraint of firm socialist convictions, of the burdensome experience of each and every kind of popular movement! They confuse immediately tangible and sensational results with practicalness. To them the demand to adhere steadfastly to the class standpoint and to maintain the mass nature of the movement is “vague” “theorising.” In their eyes definitiveness is slavish compliance with every turn of sentiment and … and, by reason of this compliance, inevitable helplessness at each turn. Demonstrations begin— and blood thirsty words, talk about the beginning of the end, flow from the lips of such people. The demonstrations halt— their hands drop helplessly, and before they have had time to wear out a pair of boots they are already shouting: “The people, alas, are still a long way off….” Some new outrage is perpetrated by the tsar’s henchmen—and they demand to be shown a “definite” measure that would serve as an exhaustive reply to that particular outrage, a measure that would bring about an immediate “transference of strength,” and they proudly promise this transference! These people do not understand that this very promise to “transfer” strength constitutes political adventurism, and that their adventurism stems from their lack of principle.

The Social-Democrats will always warn against adventurism and ruthlessly expose illusions which inevitably end in complete disappointment. We must bear in mind that a revolutionary party is worthy of its name only when it quides [sic.] in deed the movement of a revolutionary class. We must bear in mind that any popular movement assumes an infinite variety of forms, is constantly developing new forms and discarding the old, and effecting modifications or new   combinations of old and new forms. It is our duty to participate actively in this process of working out means and methods of struggle. When the students’ movement became sharper, we began to call on the workers to come to the aid of the students (Iskra, No. 2[See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 414-19.—Ed.]) without taking it upon our selves to forecast the forms of the demonstrations, without promising that they would result in an immediate transference of strength, in lighting up the mind, or a special elusiveness. When the demonstrations became consolidated, we began to call for their organisation and for the arming of the masses, and put forward the task of preparing a popular uprising. Without in the least denying violence and terrorism in principle, we demanded work for the preparation of such forms of violence as were calculated to bring about the direct participation of the masses and which guaranteed that participation. We do not close our eyes to the difficulties of this task, but will work at it steadfastly and persistently, undeterred by the objections that this is a matter of the “vague and distant future.” Yes, gentlemen, we stand for future and not only past forms of the movement. We give preference to long and arduous work on what promises a future rather than to an “easy” repetition of what has been condemned by the past. We shall always expose people who in word war against hackneyed dogmas and in practice hold exclusively to such moth-eaten and harmful commonplaces as the theory of the transference of strength, the difference between big work and petty work and, of course, the theory of single combat. “Just as in the days of yore the peoples’ battles were fought out by their leaders in single combat, so now the terrorists will win Russia’s freedom in single combat with the autocracy,” the April 3 leaflet concludes. The mere reprinting of such sentences provides their refutation.

Anyone who really carries on his revolutionary work in conjunction with the class struggle of the proletariat very well knows, sees and feels what vast numbers of immediate and direct demands of the proletariat (and of the sections of the people capable of supporting the latter) remain unsatisfied. He knows that in very many places, throughout vast areas, the working people are literally   straining to go into action, and that their ardour runs to waste because of the scarcity of literature and leadership, the lack of forces and means in the revolutionary organisations. And we find ourselves—we see that we find our selves—in the same old vicious circle that has so long hemmed in the Russian revolution like an omen of evil. On the one hand, the revolutionary ardour of the insufficiently enlightened and unorganised crowd runs to waste. On the other hand, shots fired by the “elusive individuals” who are losing faith in the possibility of marching in formation and working hand in hand with the masses also end in smoke.

But things can still be put to rights, comrades! Loss of faith in a real cause is the rare exception rather than the rule. The urge to commit terrorist acts is a passing mood. Then let the Social-Democrats close their ranks, and we shall fuse the militant organisation of revolutionaries and the mass heroism of the Russian proletariat into a single whole!

In the next article we shall deal with the agrarian programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

II

The Socialist-Revolutionaries’ attitude to the peasant movement is of particular interest. It is precisely in the agrarian question that representatives of the old Russian socialism, their liberal-Narodnik descendants, and also adherents of opportunist criticism who are so numerous in Russia and so vociferously pass assurances that on this score Marxism has already been conclusively disproved by the “critics,” have always considered themselves especially strong. Our Socialist-Revolutionaries too are tearing Marxism to shreds, so to speak: “dogmatic prejudices… outlived dogmas long since refuted by life … the revolutionary intelligentsia has shut its eyes to the countryside, revolutionary work among the peasantry was forbidden by orthodoxy,” and much else in this vein. It is the current fashion to kick out at orthodoxy. But to what subspecies must one relegate those of the kickers who did not even manage to draw up an outline for an agrarian programme of their own before   the commencement of the peasant movement? When Iskra sketched its agrarian programme as early as in No. 3,[See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 420-28.—Ed.] Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii could only mutter: “Given such a presentation of the question, still another of our differences is fading away”—what happened here is that the editors of Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii had the mishap of utterly failing to understand Iskra’s presentation of the question (the “introduction of the class struggle into the country side”). Revolutsionnaya Rossiya now belatedly refers to the pamphlet entitled The Next Question, although it contains no programme whatever, but only panegyrics on such “celebrated” opportunists as Hertz.

And now these same people—who before the commencement of the movement were in agreement both with Iskra and with Hertz—come out, on the day following the peasant uprising, with a manifesto “from the peasant league [!] of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party,” a manifesto in which you will not find a single syllable really emanating from the peasantry, but only a literal repetition of what you have read hundreds of times in the writings of the Narodniks, the liberals, and the “critics.” … It is said that courage can move mountains. That is so, Messrs. the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but it is not to such courage that your garish advertisement testifies.

We have seen that the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ greatest “advantage” lies in their freedom from theory; their greatest skill consists in their ability to speak without saying anything. But in order to present a programme, one must nevertheless say something. It is necessary, for instance, to throw overboard the “dogma of the Russian Social-Democrats of the late eighties and early nineties to the effect that there is no revolutionary force save the urban proletariat.” What a handy little word “dogma” is! One need only slightly twist an opposing theory, cover up this twist with the bogy of “dogma”—and there you are!

Beginning with the Communist Manifesto, all modern socialism rests on the indisputable truth that the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class in capitalist society. The other classes may and do become revolutionary only in part and only under certain conditions. What, then, must one think of people who have “transformed” this truth into a dogma of the Russian Social-Democrats of a definite period and who try to convince the naive reader that this dogma was “based entirely on the belief that open political struggle lay far in the future”?

To counter Marx’s doctrine that there is only one really revolutionary class in modern society, the Socialist-Revolutionaries advance the trinity: “the intelligentsia, the proletariat, and the peasantry,” thereby revealing a hope less confusion of concepts. If one sets the intelligentsia against the proletariat and the peasantry it means that one considers the former a definite social stratum, a group of per sons occupying just as definite a social position as is occupied by the wage-workers and the peasants. But as such a stratum the Russian intelligentsia is precisely a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. With regard to this stratum, Mr. Struve is quite right in calling his paper the mouthpiece of the Russian intelligentsia. However, if one is referring to those intellectuals who have not yet taken any definite social stand, or have already been thrown off their normal stand by the facts of life, and are passing over to the side of the proletariat, then it is altogether absurd to contrapose this intelligentsia to the proletariat. Like any other class in modern society, the proletariat is not only advancing intellectuals from its own midst, but also accepts into its ranks supporters from the midst of all and sundry educated people. The campaign of the Socialist-Revolutionaries against the basic “dogma” of Marxism is merely additional proof that the entire strength of this party is represented by the handful of Russian intellectuals who have broken away from the old, but have not yet adhered to the new.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries’ views on the peasantry are even more muddled. To take just the posing of the question: “What social classes in general [!] always 1!! cling to the existing… Ithe autocratic only? or bourgeois in general?]… order, guard it and do not yield to revolutionisation?” As a matter of fact, this question can be answered only by another question: what elements of the intelligentsia in general always cling to the existing chaos of ideas, guard it and do not yield to a definite socialist world out look? But the Socialist-Revolutionaries want to give a serious answer to an insignificant question. To “these” classes they refer, first, the bourgeoisie, since its “interests have been satisfied.” This old prejudice that the interests of the Russian bourgeoisie have already been satisfied to such a degree that we neither have nor can have bourgeois democracy in our country (cf. Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii, No. 2, pp. 132-33) is now shared by the “economists” and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Again, won’t Mr. Struve teach them some common sense?

Secondly, the Socialist-Revolutionaries include among these classes the “petty-bourgeois strata” “whose interests are individualistic, undefined as class interests, and do not lend themselves to formulation in a reformative or revolutionary socio-political programme.” Whence this has come, the Lord alone knows. It is common knowledge that the petty bourgeoisie does not always and in general guard the existing order, but on the contrary often takes revolutionary action even against the bourgeoisie (specifically, when it joins the proletariat) and very often against absolutism, and that it almost always formulates programmes of social reform. Our author has simply come out with a “noisier” declaration against the petty bourgeoisie, in accordance with the “practical rule,” which Turgenev expressed through an “old fox” in one of his “Poems in Prose”: “Cry out most loudly against those vices you yourself feel guilty of.”⁵ And so, since the Socialist-Revolutionaries feel that the only social basis of their position between two stools can be perhaps provided only by certain petty-bourgeois sections of the intelligentsia, they therefore write about the petty bourgeoisie as if this term does not signify a social category, but is simply a polemical turn of speech. They likewise want to evade the unpleasant fact of their failure to understand that the peasantry of today belongs, as a whole, to the “petty-bourgeois strata.” Won’t you try to give us an answer on this score, Messrs. the Socialist-Revolutionaries? Won’t you tell us why it is that, while repeating snatches of the theory of Russian Marxism (for example, about the progressive significance of peasant outside employment and tramping), you turn a blind eye to the fact that this same Marxism has revealed the petty-bourgeois make-up of Russian peasant economy? Won’t you explain to us how it is possible in con temporary society for “proprietors or semi-proprietors” not to belong to the petty-bourgeois strata?

No, harbour no hopes! The Socialist-Revolutionaries will not reply; they will not say or explain anything bearing upon the matter, for they (again like the “economists”) have thoroughly learned the tactic of pleading ignorance when it comes to theory. Revolutsionnaya Rossiya looks meaningly towards Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsit—that is their job, they say (cf. No. 4, reply to Zarya), while Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii informs its readers of the exploits of the opportunist critics and keeps on threatening to make its criticism ever sharper. That is hardly enough, gentlemen!

The Socialist-Revolutionaries have kept themselves pure of the baneful influence of modern socialist doctrines. They have fully preserved the good old methods of vulgar socialism. We are confronted by a new historical fact, a new movement among a certain section of the people. They do not examine the condition of this section or set themselves the aim of explaining its movement by the nature of that section and its relation to the developing economic structure of society as a whole. To them, all this is an empty dogma, outlived orthodoxy. They do things more simply: what is it that the representatives of the rising section themselves are speaking about? Land, additional allotments, redistribution of the land. There it is in a nutshell. You have a “semi-socialist programme,” “a thoroughly correct principle,” “a bright idea,” “an ideal which already lives in the peasant’s mind in embryo form,” etc. All that is necessary is to “brush up and elaborate this ideal,” bring out the “pure idea of socialism.” You find this hard to believe, reader? It seems incredible to you that this Narodnik junk should again be dragged into the light of day by people who so glibly repeat whatever the latest book may tell them? And yet this is a fact, and all the words we have quoted are in the declaration “from the peasant league” published in No. 8 of Revolutstonnaya Rossiya.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries accuse Iskra of having prematurely tolled the knell of the peasant movement by describing it as the last peasant revolt. The peasantry,   they inform us, can participate in the socialist movement of the proletariat as well. This accusation testifies to the confusion of thought among the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They have not even grasped that the democratic movement against the remnants of serf-ownership is one thing, and the socialist movement against the bourgeoisie is quite another. Since they have failed to understand the peasant movement itself, they have likewise been unable to under stand that the words in Iskra, which frightened them so, refer only to the former movement. Not only has Iskra stated in its programme that the small producers (including the peasants), who are being ruined, can and should participate in the socialist movement of the proletariat, but it has also defined the exact conditions for this participation. The peasant movement of today, however, is not at all a socialist movement directed against the bourgeoisie and capitalism. On the contrary, it unites the bourgeois and the proletarian elements in the peasantry, which are really one in the struggle against the remnants of the serf-owning system. The peasant movement of today is leading—and will lead—to the establishment, not of a socialist or a semi-socialist way of life in the countryside, but of a bourgeois way of life, and will clear away the feudal debris cluttering up the bourgeois foundations that have already arisen in our countryside.

But all this is a sealed book to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They even assure Iskra in all seriousness that to clear the way for the development of capitalism is an empty dogma, since the “reforms” (of the sixties) “did clear 1!] full [!! I space for the development of capitalism.” That is what can be written by a glib person who lets a facile pen run away with him and who imagines that the “peasant league” can get away with anything: the peasant won’t see through it! But kindly reflect for a moment, my dear author: have you never heard that remnants of the serf-owning system retard the development of capitalism? Don’t you think that this is even all but tautological? And haven’t you read somewhere about the remnants of serf-ownership in the present-day Russian countryside?

Iskra says that the impending revolution will be a bourgeois revolution. The Socialist-Revolutionaries object:   it will be “primarily a political revolution and to a certain extent a democratic revolution.” Won’t the authors of this pretty objection try to explain this to us— does history know of any bourgeois revolution, or is such a bourgeois revolution conceivable, that is not “to a certain extent a democratic revolution”? Why, even the programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries themselves (equalitarian tenure of land that has become social property) does not go beyond the limits of a bourgeois programme, since the preservation of commodity production and toleration of private farming, even if it is conducted on common land, in no way eliminates capitalist relationships in agriculture.

The greater the levity with which the Socialist-Revolutionaries approach the most elementary truths of modern socialism, the more easily do they invent “most elementary deductions,” even taking pride in the fact that their “programme reduces itself” to such. Let us then examine all three of their deductions, which most probably will long remain a monument to the keen wit and profound socialist convictions of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Deduction No. 1: “A large portion of the territory of Russia now already belongs to the state—what we need is that all the territory should belong to the people.” Our teeth are “now already” on edge from the touching references to state ownership of land in Russia contained in the writings of the police Narodniks (à la Sazonov, etc.) and the various Katheder-reformers.⁶ “What we need” is that people who style themselves socialists and even revolutionaries should trail in the rear of these gentlemen. “What we need” is that socialists should lay stress on the alleged omnipotence of the “state” (forgetting even that a large share of the state land is concentrated in the uninhabited marginal regions of the country), and not on the class antagonism between the semi-serf peasantry and the privileged handful of big landowners, who own most of the best cultivated land and with whom the “state” has always been on the best of terms. Our Socialist-Revolutionaries, who imagine that they are deducing a pure idea of socialism, are in actual fact sullying this idea by their uncritical attitude towards the old Narodism.

Deduction No. 2: “The land is now already passing from capital to labour—what we need is that this process be completed by the state.” The deeper you go into the forest, the thicker the trees.[A Russian saying.—Ed.] Let us take another step towards police Narodism; let us call on the (class!) “state” to extend peasant landownership in general. This is remarkably socialistic and amazingly revolutionary. But what can one expect of people who call the purchase and lease of land by the peasants a transfer “from capital to labour” and not transfer of land from the feudal-minded landlords to the rural bourgeoisie. Let us remind these people at least of the statistics on the actual distribution of the land that is “passing to labour”: between six- and nine-tenths of all peas ant-purchased land, and from five- to eight-tenths of all leased land are concentrated in the hands of one-filth of the peasant households, i.e., in the hands of a small minority of well-to-do peasants. From this one can judge whether there is much truth in the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ words when they assert “we do not at all count” on the well-to-do peasants but only on the “labouring sections exclusively.”

Deduction No. 3: “The peasant already has land, and in most cases on the basis of equalitarian land distribution—what we need is that this labour tenure should be carried through to the end … and culminate in collective agricultural production through the development of co-operatives of every kind.” Scratch a Socialist-Revolutionary and you find Mr. V. V.!⁷ When it came to action, all the old prejudices of Narodism, which had safely preserved themselves behind shifty phrasing, crept to the surface at once. State ownership of the land—the completion by the state of the transference of the land to the peasantry—the village commune—co-operatives—collectivism— in this magnificent scheme of Messrs. Sazonov, Yuzov, N.—on,⁸ the Socialist Revolutionaries, Hofstetter, Totomiants, and so on, and so forth—in this scheme a mere trifle is lacking. It takes account neither of developing capitalism, nor of the class struggle. But then how could this trifle enter the minds of people whose entire ideological luggage consists of Narodnik rags and smart patches of fashionable criticism? Did not Mr. Bulgakov himself say that there is no place for the class struggle in the countryside? Will the replacement of the class struggle by “co-operatives of every kind” fail to satisfy both the liberals and the “critics,” and in general all those to whom socialism is no more than a traditional label? And is it not possible to try to soothe naive people with the assurance: “Of course, any idealisation of the village commune is alien to us,” although right next to this assurance you read some colossal bombast about the “colossal organisation of the mir peasants,” then bombast that “in certain respects no other class in Russia is so impelled towards a purely III political struggle as the peasantry,” that peasant self-determination (!) is far broader in scope and in competence than that of the Zemstvo, that this combination of “broad” … (up to the very boundary of the village?) … “independent activity” with an absence of the “most elementary civic rights” “seems to have been deliberately designed for the purpose of … rousing and exercising H] political instincts and habits of social struggle.” If you don’t like all this, you don’t have to listen, but….

“One has to be blind not to see how much easier it is to pass to the idea of socialising the land from the traditions of communal land tenure.” Is it not the other way round, gentlemen? Are not those people hopelessly deaf and blind who to this very day do not know that it is precisely the medieval seclusion of the semi-serf commune, which splits the peasantry into tiny unions and binds the rural proletariat hand and foot, that maintains the traditions of stagnation, oppression, and barbarism? Are you not defeating your own purpose by recognising the usefulness of outside employment, which has already destroyed by three-quarters the much-vaunted traditions of equalitarian land tenure in the commune, and reduced these traditions to meddling by the police?

The minimum programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, based as it is on the theory we have just analysed, is a real curiosity. This “programme” includes two items: 1) “socialisation of the land, i.e., its conversion into the property of the whole of society, to be used by the working people”; 2) “the development among the peasantry of all possible types of public associations and economic co-operatives … [for a “purely” political struggle?]… for the gradual emancipation of the peasantry from the sway of money capital … [and subjugation to industrial?] … and for the preparation of collective agricultural production of the future.” Just as the sun is reflected in a drop of water, so is the entire spirit of the present-day “Social-Revolutionarism” reflected in these two items. In theory, revolutionary phrase mongering instead of a considered and integral system of views; in practice—helpless snatching at this or that modish petty expedient instead of participation in the class struggle—that is all they have to show. We must admit that it has required rare civic courage to place socialisation of the land alongside of co-operation in a minimum programme. Their minimum programme: Babeuf, on the one hand, and Mr. Levitsky, on the other.⁹ This is inimitable.

If it were possible to take this programme seriously, we should have to say that, in deceiving themselves with grandiloquent words, the Socialist-Revolutionaries are also deceiving the peasants. It is deception to assert that “co-operatives of every kind” play a revolutionary role in present-day society and prepare the way for collectivism rather than strengthen the rural bourgeoisie. It is deception to assert that socialisation of the land can be placed before the “peasantry” as a “minimum,” as something just as close at hand as the establishment of co-operatives. Any socialist could explain to our Socialist-Revolutionaries that today the abolition of private ownership of land can only be the immediate prelude to its abolition in general; that the mere transfer of the land “to be used by the working people” would still not satisfy the proletariat, since millions and tens of millions of ruined peasants are no longer able to work the land, even if they had it. And to supply these ruined millions with implements, cattle, etc., would amount to the socialisation of all the means of production and would require a socialist revolution of the proletariat and not a peasant movement against the remnants of the serf owning system. The Socialist-Revolutionaries are confusing socialisation of the land with bourgeois nationalisation of the land. Speaking in the abstract, the latter is conceivable on the basis of capitalism too, without abolishing wage labour. But the very example of these same Socialist-Revolutionaries   is vivid confirmation of the truth that to advance the demand for nationalisation of the land in a police state is tantamount to obscuring the only revolutionary principle, that of the class struggle, and bringing grist to the mill of every kind of bureaucracy.

Not only that. The Socialist-Revolutionaries descend to outright reaction when they rise up against the demand of our draft programme for the “annulment of all laws restricting the peasant in the free disposal of his land.” For the sake of the Narodnik prejudice about the “commune principle” and the “equalitarian principle” they deny to the peasant such a “most elementary civic right” as the right freely to dispose of his land; they complacently shut their eyes to the fact that the village commune of today is hemmed in by its social-estate reality; they become champions of the police interdictions established and supported by the “state” … of the rural superintendents! We believe that not only Mr. Levitsky but Mr. Pobedonostsev¹⁰ too will not be very much alarmed over the demand for socialisation of the land for the purpose of establishing equalitarian land tenure, once this demand is put forth as a minimum demand alongside of which such things figure as co-operatives and the defence of the police system of keeping the muzhik tied down to the official allotment which supports him.

Let the agrarian programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries serve as a lesson and a warning to all socialists, a glaring example of what results from an absence of ideology and principles, which some unthinking people call freedom from dogma. When it came to action, the Socialist-Revolutionaries did not reveal even a single of the three conditions essential for the elaboration of a consistent socialist programme: a clear idea of the ultimate aim; a correct understanding of the path leading to that aim; an accurate conception of the true state of affairs at the given moment or of the immediate tasks of that moment. They simply obscured the ultimate aim of socialism by con fusing socialisation of the land with bourgeois nationalisation and by confusing the primitive peasant idea about small-scale equalitarian land tenure with the doctrine of modern socialism on the conversion of all means of production   into public property and the organisation of socialist production. Their conception of the path leading to socialism is peerlessly characterised by their substitution of the development of co-operatives for the class struggle. In their estimation of the present stage in the agrarian evolution of Russia, they have forgotten a trifle: the remnants of serf-ownership, which weigh so heavily on our country side. The famous trinity which reflects their theoretical views—the intelligentsia, the proletariat, and the peasantry—has its complement in the no less famous three-point “programme”—socialisation of the land, co-operatives, and attachment to the allotment.

Compare this with Iskra’s programme, which indicates to the entire militant proletariat one ultimate aim, with out reducing it to a “minimum,” without debasing it so as to adapt it to the ideas of certain backward sections of the proletariat or of the small producers. The road leading to this aim is the same in town and countryside—the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. But besides this class struggle, another struggle is going on in our countryside: the struggle of the entire peasantry against the remnants of serf-ownership. And in this struggle the party of the proletariat promises its support to the entire peasantry and strives to provide its revolutionary ardour with a real objective, and guide its uprising against its real enemy, considering it dishonest and unworthy to treat the muzhik as though he were under tutelage or to conceal from him the fact that at present and immediately he can achieve only the complete eradication of all traces and remnants of the serf-owning system, and only clear the way for the broader and more difficult struggle of the entire proletariat against the whole of bourgeois society.

1. “At least we make an infernal noise.” Words spoken by Repetilov, a character in Griboyedov’s well-known comedy, Wit Works Woe, Act IV, Scene 4. ︎
2. V.I. Lenin’s intention “to return in a magazine article, or in a pamphlet” to a more detailed exposition of the arguments against the programmatic views and tactics of the Socialist-Revolutionaries remained unfulfilled. The following is the preliminary material for the intended pamphlet: “Extract from an Article Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries” (December 1902) (see pp. 287-88 of this volume), “Outline of a Pamphlet Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries” (spring 1903) (see Proletarskaya Revolutsia, 1939, No. 1, pp. 22-28), and “Outline of an Article Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries” (first half of July 1903) (see pp. 464-65 of this volume). ︎
3. “Let the writers do the writing and the readers do the reading”—a sentence from M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Miscellaneous Letters, Letter One. ︎
4. ︎
5. The reference is to one of Turgenev’s Poems in Prose—“A Rule of Life” (see I. S. Turgenev, Collected Works, Russ. ed., Vol. 8, 1956, p. 464). ︎
6. Katheder-reformers, Katheder-Socialists—representatives of a trend in bourgeois political economy, which arose in Germany in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century. Under the guise of socialism the Katheder-Socialists advocated from the university chairs (Katheder in German) bourgeois-liberal reformism. Katheder-Socialism was motivated by the exploiting classes’ fear of the spread of Marxism and the growth of the working-class movement, and also by the effor True, Revolzststonnaya Rossiya does some juggling with this point also. On the one hand—“coincides in full,” on the other—a hint about “exaggerations.” On the one hand, Revolntsionnaya Rossiya declares that this leaflet comes from only “one group” of Socialist-Revolutionaries. On the other hand, it is a fact that the leaflet bears the imprint: “Published by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.” Moreover, it carries the motto of. this same Revolutsionnaya Rosaiga (“By struggle you will achieve your rights”). We appreciate that Revolutsionnaya Rossiya finds it disagreeable to touch on this ticklish point, but we believe that it is simply unseemly to play at hide-and-seek in such cases. The existence of “economism” was just as disagreeable to revolutionary Social-Democracy, but the latter exposed it openly, without ever making the slightest attempt to mislead anyone. —Lenints of bourgeois ideologists to find fresh means of keeping the working people in subjugation.
   Representatives of Katheder-Socialism (Adolf Wagner, Gustav Schmoller, Lorenz Brentano, Werner Sombart, and others) asserted that the bourgeois state stands above classes and is capable of reconciling the hostile classes and of gradually introducing “socialism,” without affecting the interests of the capitalists and, as far as possible, with due account of the working people’s demands. They proposed giving police regulation of wage-labour the force of law and reviving the medieval guilds. Marx, Engels and Lenin exposed the reactionary nature of Ketheder-Socialism, which in Russia was spread by the “legal Marxists.” ︎
7. V.V. (pseudonym of V. P. Vorontsov)—one of the ideologists of liberal Narodism in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century. ︎
8. N.—on or Nikolai—on (pseudonym of N. F. Danielson)—one of the ideologists of liberal Narodism in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century. ︎
9. Babeuf (1760-1797)—revolutionary Communist and leader of the French bourgeois revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. He organised a secret society, which in 1796 tried to over throw the power of the exploiting classes.
   Levitsky—liberal Narodnik, founder of agricultural artels in Kherson Gubernia in the nineties of the nineteenth century. ︎
10. Pobedonostsev—reactionary tsarist statesman, Procurator-General of the Synod, actually head of the government and chief inspirer of the savage feudal reaction under Alexander III. He continued to play a prominent part under Nicholas II. ︎

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Capital – through multinational companies and their staunch supporters Britain, the US and other Western countries – tried to impose their hegemony through so-called free global trade, advocated through the World Trade Organization and described rightly as LPG (Liberation, Privatization and Globalization).

This process was initiated during the presidency of Republican Ronald Regan. It is interesting to note that this policy continued during the regime of Democratic presidents like Bill Clinton and Barak Obama. The reason is clear, as both wanted to continue with US dominance.

However, subsequent developments like the rise of China, Russia and other Asian countries like India, Japan and South Korea led to rethinking in the US. Fardeen Zakaria has rightly described the process as “the rise of the rest.” This challenged the dominant position of US. Hence, under Republican president Donald Trump, the trend of policy reversal is clear as he talks of imposing unilateral tariff or taxes on imports from other countries.

When Trump became president for the first time in 2016, he targeted Russia and China and helped create tensions between Europe and Russia through NATO. Europe was dependent on cheap Russian oil and gas, but this conflict forced Europe to abandon the Russian oil and gas and turn to US for the same. Thus, the US is now the biggest supplier of oil and gas to Europe. The conflict also led to the Ukraine-Russia war.

This new situation brought Russia, China and Iran together. Similarly, Russian attempts to use BRICS countries to challenge the dollar currency is also seen as a challenge by the US; hence Trump is threatening BRICS countries and even those that are interested in joining the BRICS.

German and French interests prevailed in the 20th century through the development of the common European market, the single currency of the Euro, and bringing together the European countries through the formation of the European Parliament. This development is perceived as a challenge to US hegemony and hence it is Trump’s strategy to compel them to divert their funds by increasing their defence spending through NATO.

By advocating a ceasefire between Russian and Ukraine, Trump is trying to create a wedge between China and Russia. For a long time, Russians have considered themselves Europeans and thought a weak Europe could be dominated by them, but pulling Russia away from China seems to be the new strategy of Trump in his second term. The military industrial complex and its interest are looked after by Trump, using US military power on one hand and US economic power or market strength and technological dominance on the other.

Meanwhile China is also preparing by developing AI technology (through DeepSeek) and through the Belt and Road Initiative. It is deliberately avoiding an arms race with the US, as this led to grave consequences for the USSR.

Return of the Nation State

After the Second World War most of the countries in the “Third World” became independent and colonialism was ended. During that period the US dominated the world and defeated existing socialism led by the USSR – it is no wonder that Trump in his second term is trying to repeat the same experience. But the world has changed, so the tactics of “democratic socialism” and projecting the West as the defender of democracy is no longer going to work. Thus, compromising democracy and democratic values is becoming common in the process of “Return of the State.”

The emergence of nationalism all over the world in 20th century, when people were fighting their colonial masters, resulted in anti-imperialist and independent countries. This strengthened the non-alignment movement. People’s interests were primary in this process; however, in the 21st century it is mostly the fascist or rightist, conservative forces that are leading the return of the nation state. Hence, people’s interests are pushed back, leading to increasing unemployment, a widening gap between classes, and inflation.

Because of the rivalry between European countries during 1930-40, the world faced the Second World War and five million civilians lost their lives. The return of the nation state and competition may again lead to a war, or multiple wars, and a death blow to democracy and its values unless people unite to defeat fascist forces.

New Age (Communist Party of India)

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Longshoremen walked off the job at 12:01 am October 1^st for a strike that lasted three days. The demands included a 77% pay raise over six years, maintaining ILA jurisdiction, protecting Container Royalties^[1], and no automation of ILA jobs.

Bourgeois Attacks on the Strike

In typical bourgeois fashion, the country was sent into a panic by the three-day strike as the media warned of empty shelves, and a shattered economy in the weeks leading up to the strike. After the devastating Hurricane Helene made landfall in late September, the capitalist-controlled media rushed to further fear-monger about how the strike would “block the recovery” for the hurricane’s victims.

Attacks on the strike escalated against the workers after the New York Post had a field day with the contradictions regarding the bourgeois lifestyle led by ILA President, Harold Daggett.^[2] The bloated salaries and lavish lifestyles of many business unionist bureaucrats, including Daggett, do not reflect the living standards of the rank-and-file members and are used to diminish the workers’ struggle. There will be more on this, what Lenin dubbed the “labor aristocracy,” later.

Fitting in their “exposé”, the NY Post article had no mention of the exorbitant salaries paid out to the CEOs of the port carriers, represented by the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). USMX is a modern-day cartel aimed at monopolizing control of the East and Gulf Coast ports in the United States. USMX plays a similar role in the collective bargaining process that the National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC) did in the railroad dispute in 2022.

We also saw the typical attacks from Conservative and Republican Party politicians, and even sections of the Democratic Party as the so-called “party of labor” had its share of attacks on striking dock workers.

Citing an article on the ILA’s website where Daggett showed empathy for Trump after his alleged assassination attempt, many Democratic Party operatives, including former Obama staffer Jon Cooper, attacked the strike as a stunt to damage the economy to get Donald Trump elected. This rhetoric lasted throughout the entire strike, refusing to take into account the union’s attempts at negotiating a new Master Contract well in advance of the prior contract’s expiration. In a statement the ILA released on the first day of the strike, the union noted how negotiations went with the USMX:

“Let’s be clear: the ILA has been fully prepared to negotiate a fair contract since two years before its expiration. USMX’s claim that they are ready to bargain rings hollow when they waited until the eve of a potential strike to present this offer. The last offer from USMX was back in February 2023, and the ILA has been listening to our members’ concerns ever since.”

We cannot also forget the role played by Daggett and the ILA leadership in securing the AFL-CIO endorsement for President Biden in the 2020 election. This endorsement was in doubt after the resolution passed by the AFL-CIO convention in 2017 ending labor’s support for the “lesser of two evils.”^[3]

The Ultra-Left, Objective Agents of the Bourgeoisie, Attack Striking Workers

To be clear, we cannot be surprised by bourgeois attacks on strike actions, even from political operatives of parties that claim to support the labor movement. Those attacks are expected. It’s the attacks by groupings who claim to be “fighters for the working class”, many of whom even call themselves Socialists and Communists who openly attacked the strike, boldly pronounced their position against it, all while claiming to push a “leftist” agenda.

Such a position can be described as nothing short of “left in form, right in essence,” a phrase many of us within the Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) use to describe the various elements of the ultra-left. To understand the nature of these attacks it is important to understand the petty-bourgeois nature of ultra-leftism, no matter what form it may take—i.e., Anarchism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Hoxhaism, generic “Leftism”, Sakaiism, etc.

It must be noted that the basic concept of class struggle has been rejected by the modern ultra-left. We can routinely see these forces attack actual Communists with the phrase “class reductionist” while hiding behind a hammer and sickle. In his work, “Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism”, former CPUSA General Secretary Gus Hall noted:

“The very essence of capitalism is class exploitation. It is exploitation of people, again in mass. The essence of any struggle is the class struggle. The central moving force is the exploited class–the working class.”^[4]

He went on to say:

“Petty-bourgeois radicalism as a concept rejects the basic class nature of society and the class struggle as a pivotal element in the fight for progress. It rejects the role of mass movements because it does not see its basic ingredient–the working class. A class approach to struggle is of necessity a mass approach. The petty-bourgeois radical rhetoric is a sanctuary for those who have given up the possibilities of leading masses, and in the first place the working-class masses, in struggle. It is a way of keeping a radical image when in fact one has retreated and given up the struggle.”^[5]

The ultra-left attacks were aimed at the agreement made by ILA leadership to continue moving military cargo during the strike, a practice dating back to strikes as far back as the First World War. The current genocide being waged against the Palestinians by the Netanyahu regime was used as a reason to not back striking workers. The ultra-left even used a statement by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, backing the blocking of arms shipments to justify their position.^[6] What they left out is that the ILWU, including Local 10, supported the striking ILA workers. This support was carried out in multiple ways. First and foremost, the ILWU respected the ILA picket lines by not unloading cargo diverted to the West Coast ports; the ILWU also sent a contingent of members to join the ILA picket lines.

It must be noted that for the ILA strike to have been most effective, not just for the longshoremen themselves, but for the anti-imperialist struggle, it would have been necessary to block the shipments of military cargo. So this brings us to another criticism the ultra-left had, which was that the strike was merely an economic one. It is easy to criticize the strike for its failure to block the shipment of weapons from the outside, but what is being done to organize and educate these workers politically? The lack of seriousness in these attacks is demonstrated by the ultra-left’s use of J. Sakai’s abomination of a text, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat.  (See Image )

It is also worth noting that within the framework of the ultra-left position is the rejection of working within the trade union movement. These forces reject the working class in the US as having any revolutionary potential (along the lines of the thesis of Sakai’s Settlers) despite the rise in militancy, and in spite of the fact there is no vanguard to lead the way. What this amounts to is a rejection of Lenin’s thesis that revolutionaries must work within reactionary trade unions to push them left, and to make them a leading force in a future dictatorship of the proletariat. As Leninists we must also remember the wise words of Comrade Lenin in his brilliant polemic against the ultra-left of his time:

“The Party must more than ever and in a new way, not only in the old way, educate and guide the trade unions, at the same time bearing in mind that they are and will long remain an indispensable ‘school of Communism’ and a preparatory school that trains the proletarians to exercise their dictatorship.”^[7]

Comrade Gus Hall further explained plainly why we should not take these attacks seriously:

“Concepts of struggle not based on the above reality will sooner or later come into conflict with it. The advocates of petty-bourgeois radicalism try to bypass this reality. They believe they can avoid the necessary and unavoidable consistent and sustained work, the work of organizing, educating, mobilizing and leading people in mass, of leading people on the level of their understanding, of their own self-interest, and in this sense reflecting the objective processes leading to a revolutionary struggle against capitalism. For this they seek to substitute radical rhetoric with general slogans, or advanced actions that have no relationship to struggles to which the masses do respond. Thus, when the concepts based on unreality meet the reality of class struggle they bounce back. If such tactics are further pursued they become an obstacle to struggle. They become a destructive and divisive force. Organized groups which pursue such policies not only tend to move away from the working class, but they reject mass concepts of struggle altogether.”^[8]

Are the Ultra-Left Correct?

It is worth noting that having the correct ideas is not enough; if they are not applied properly and you are unable to win over the masses, it means nothing. Gus Hall once again said it perfectly:

“The concepts, the ideas, motivating petty-bourgeois radicalism are not necessarily wrong in the abstract. Those who follow wrong concepts, in most cases, are dedicated and sincere individuals. The concepts are wrong when they do not reflect the specific reality of the moment. Therefore, the more determined such individuals are, the more damaging they can be. … [The workers] do not respond to ideas–even good ideas–if they do not see their self-interests involved in these ideas.”^[9]

With this in mind, the ultra-left position in the abstract is a correct one. It is up to the working class to take the fight to imperialism, and blocking military cargo in a time when US imperialists are arming the genocide of the Palestinian people would be at the forefront of this fight. What is missing is the state of the labor movement at present time; we are living in a time where we are working to rebuild our vanguard role in the working-class movement since the post-Gus Hall leadership of the old Party abandoned class struggle for tailism.

Without a Communist presence in the rank and file to build a class-oriented movement we cannot expect the masses, who lack class consciousness, to lead this struggle by themselves. For a strike to lead to a political strug­gle, we must embed ourselves in the rank and file to lead an edu­cation campaign to build the class consciousness of the work­ers.

In laying out the Comintern plan to “bolshevize” the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries, O. Piatnitsky laid out how the Bolsheviks worked within the trade unions:

“… at the very beginning of the development of the labor movement the Bolsheviks established a connection between the economic struggle and the political. When the sentiments of the workers in the factories became favorable towards a strike, the Bolshevik cells immediately placed themselves in the leadership. The strikes in single shops spread to all departments, a strike in a single factory spread to all the other factories, and the strikes of the factory workers, under the influence and leadership of the Bolshevik Party organizations (our emphasis—Ed.), frequently assumed the forms of street demonstrations, and in this way the economic strikes developed into a political struggle.”^[10]

In the immediate lead-up to the strike, Democratic President Joe Biden announced he would not enact the Taft-Hartley act which would have imposed a 90-day “cooling-off period” that would have forced the dock workers back to work until January. There is no doubt that if military cargo was blocked, Biden would have forced this Taft-Hartley cooling-off period on the longshoremen. At the dock worker picket line on the first day of the strike, several rank-and-file members did not express a prior understanding of how the strike can impact the political situation. After some discussion, workers seemed to confirm the idea that shutting down military cargo would have led to Biden enforcing Taft-Hartley on the striking longshoremen. This would have meant the total destruction of the strike itself.

On the ultra-left’s aversion to working within reactionary trade unions, we must note that it is unequivocally wrong for anyone who claims to be a Communist to hold this anti-Leninist position. In talking about the German “Left” in his day, Lenin made it clear:

“In their opinion, decla­mations, and angry ejacu­lations … against ‘reac­tionary’ and ‘counter-rev­olutionary’ trade unions are sufficient ‘proof’ that it is unnecessary and even impermissible for revolu­tionaries and communists to work in yellow, social-chauvinist, compromising, counter-revolutionary trade unions. …

“But however strongly the German ‘Lefts’ may be convinced of the revolutionism of such tactics, these tactics are in fact fundamentally wrong, and amount to no more than empty phrase-mongering.”^[11]

Improving Our Work on Industrial Concentration is Essential to Becoming a Vanguard Party

The ILA strike, in addition to other strikes of recent years, has demonstrated that the labor movement in the United States is ripe for the development of a higher class-consciousness. The ultra-left with their comments against the strike have shown that they will not be able to lead this movement. The vanguard Party which emerges to lead the American labor movement must instead be rooted in the working class through the policy of industrial concentration.

Since our Second Congress, the PCUSA has embarked on a plan of Industrial Concentration. This plan is important for multiple reasons, most notably to increase Communist cadre within the key industries. In order to be the vanguard of the working class, Communists must root themselves in the working class.

It is, however, not enough to push a policy of Industrial Concentration merely for Party building. It is imperative that we build these cadres within the key industries in the United States. Special focus must be made on the industries that have seen an increase of labor militancy within the recent strike wave. These industries include the railroad, automotive, shipping/logistics and specifically the longshore industry as these constitute the most essential foundations of the US imperialist order.

It seems we are still in a stage where Communists do not grasp the importance of an Industrial Concentration policy. We need to increase this understanding, which is why we held the recent Peoples School for Marxist-Leninist Studies class on Industrial Concentration. Also, the PCUSA Labor Commission is working with the Jones-Foster School for Party Education to develop a class to be included in its cadre ascension curriculum.

To help build this understanding, we must look to the former CPUSA Organizational Secretary Henry Winston, who said it best in 1948:

“What is the essence of a concentration policy?

“First of all, it requires a fundamental understanding of the role of the workers in the basic industries, in relation to the working class and the life of the country as a whole. It is precisely these workers employed in the huge plants by the tens of thousands who, as Lenin pointed out, become educated to understand the need for unity, collective action and solidarity by the very process of large-scale production itself. One cannot conceive of successfully building the Progressive Party [or the labor-led anti-monopoly coalition of today—Ed.], of organizing an effective fight against the Draft [conscription], or in defense of civil liberties, a successful fight against war and fascism, unless this section of the working class is fully mobilized. And, of course, one cannot speak of winning the American workers for Socialism without winning the majority of this section of the working class. It is necessary to permeate the entire Party with this consciousness.

“Secondly, such a policy requires the selection of the points of concentration where a base must be secured, if we are to set in motion the entire labor movement. This means knowing which districts must be given major national attention, which industries are key and what plants are decisive. … While we must strengthen the Party in all basic industries, we must particularly select for major concentration such industries as steel, auto, mining, maritime, electrical and railroad. Within these industries we must pursue a policy of concentration in key industrial towns and key plants and departments—with special consideration to the most underpaid sections of the workers, the unskilled and semi-skilled. …

“Thirdly, the full mobilization of the Party is required to achieve the objectives of our concentration policy. Concretely, this means that all Party clubs must have a share in the responsibility for work at the concentration points. Communists in the mass organizations, trade unions, etc., should try to convince these organizations similarly to pursue a concentration policy.

“Fourthly, beginning with the national and state leaderships, the entire Party must be involved in planning, guiding, and assuming systematic control and check-up of concentration objectives. All political and organizational problems must be discussed and reviewed from the standpoint of how to realize them in concentration industries. Systematic discussion of the problems in concentration industries must be organized in the top political bodies of the Party. Our leadership must be unsparing in the allocation of capable forces, finances, literature, and other material assistance.”^[12]

This excerpt comes from Winston’s speech to the 14^th CPUSA Convention. It must be understood that this took place during the early stages of the second “Red Scare” in the United States. Specifically, it came a little more than one year after the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 was passed forcing labor leaders to sign affidavits stating they were not members of the Communist Party. To go along with this campaign the business unionists within the CIO worked with the Truman’s Democratic Party administration to purge all militants from their unions under the guise of anti-Communism.

When the CIO was not successful in their purging of Communists in member-unions they purged the unions themselves as they did with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU); International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine Mill); Food and Tobacco Workers (FTA); International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE). The CIO even went so far as to work with the State Department and Westinghouse Corporation to create the International United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (IUE) as a dual union to raid the membership of the UE.^[13]

The Party’s policy of Industrial Concentration has been aimed at rebuilding the influence the Communists once had in the American trade union movement. To this point neither the PCUSA nor the CPUSA has yet been able to reclaim this great legacy. It has not been all failure though, as the CPUSA, under the leadership of Gus Hall, was involved in the expansion of the rank-and-file movement in the 1970s. This involvement started with the Rank and File Conference in Chicago on June 27-28, 1970 which set up the National Coordinating Committee for Trade Union Action and Democracy (TUAD).^[14] Today, the trade union movement is just now beginning to emerge from the lowest point since its inception. Communists now have the opportunity to take the militant rumblings and develop them into a class-oriented force capable of taking on the stranglehold of modern monopoly capital. A well-implemented policy of Industrial Concentration is the only means with which this historic task can be accomplished.

[1] Container Royalties—special payments made to longshoremen to compensate for a decrease in employment opportunities caused by the use of containerized shipping. These payments are calculated based off of tonnage.

[2] https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/business/harold-daggetts-sprawling-nj-mansion-has-bentley-5-car-garage-and-guest-house/

[3] https://aflcio.org/resolutions/resolution-2-independent-political-voice.

[4] Hall, Gus, “Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism”, The Communist, Vol. 2; PCUSA Ideological Department: Seattle, 2022, p. 44.

[5] Ibid., p. 48.

[6] https://www.internationalist.org/ilwu-local-10-calls-for-labor-boycott-arms-to-israel-2405.html.

[7] Lenin, V.I., “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2022, p. 46.

[8] Hall, Op. Cit., 2022, p. 44.

[9] Hall, Op. Cit., 2022, pp. 43-44.

[10] Piatnitsky, O., The Bolshevization of the Communist Parties in the Capitalist Countries: By Eradicating Social-Democratic Traditions; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2024, pp. 13-14.

[11] Lenin, Op. Cit., 2022, p. 41.

[12] Winston, Henry, “For a Fighting Party Rooted Among the Industrial Workers”, Selected Works of Henry Winston, Vol. 1; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2024, pp. 92-94.

[13] Sears, John Bennett, The Electrical Unions and the Cold War; International Publishers: New York, 2019, pp. 67-72.

[14] Morris, George, Rebellion in the Unions: A Handbook for Rank-and-File Action; New Outlook Publishers: New York, New York, 1971, p. 145.

The post The International Longshoremen’s Association Strike, the Bankruptcy of the Ultra-Left, and the Need for a Policy of Industrial Concentration appeared first on The Communist.

“Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership. … Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat.”

For the past few decades, American electoral politics has been shifting evermore rightward while pitting working-class Americans against one another. Today, we see that, just as FDR predicted, the American people have chosen the side of reaction as a result of the worsening economic realities they face.

As Communists, we have a duty to explain the general crisis in the capitalist society and how that creates the conditions for a sharpening of reactionary politics. Furthermore, we will present the labor-led anti-monopoly coalition will be the path for Communists and all progressive Americans to work towards an administration which will be beneficial to the American working class.

Trump: Representative of Monopoly Capital

On November 5, 2024, real estate billionaire Donald Trump was elected as the 47^th President of the United States of America. Trump was elected based on a belief that he would bring about a more prosperous economy for working people who have suffered under the post-COVID inflation of the Biden administration. However, as shown by his previous term, Trump, as a  member of the reactionary monopoly capitalist class will not come close to satisfying any of the criteria which Communists put forward for support of a candidate, namely, support for labor, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism.

In terms of organized labor, while the leadership of almost all AFL-CIO unions endorsed the Democratic Party in the 2024 election, the reality among the rank-and-file was significantly different. Many American workers think that Trump’s anti-immigrant policies will make the job market be more in their favor, making it easier for them to find and keep work.

In reality, Trump has been, and will be, as antagonistic to organized labor as any monopoly capitalist would be expected to be. Donald Trump has refused to guarantee that he will veto right to work legislation, as the Teamsters have called for. His appointees in the Supreme Court are likely to rule the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) unconstitutional in the pending Amazon v. NLRB case, which would be a massive step backwards for labor’s right to organize in America. Recently, Elon Musk, who has sued to throw out the NLRB, has been named to the leadership of Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency.” This organization will likely push deregulation, including labor standards like OSHA and NLRB regulations that protect labor unions.

On the issue of oppressed peoples, Trump has already made openly xenophobic comments during the 2024 presidential race itself. In his speeches, Trump has attempted to stir reactionary anti-immigrant sentiments by falsely stating that Haitian immigrants were “eating pets.”

Furthermore, on the issue of LGBT+ rights, Trump has promised that his administration will rescind federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and will assert that federal civil rights laws do not cover anti-LGBT+ discrimination. Already, Trump has stated he will introduce a day-one bill recognizing only male and female genders. He has stated, “We will promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique.”

There are some on the Left who claim that Trump will be better than Harris would have been when it comes to the issues of war and imperialism. However, the reality is that Trump shows many of the same issues in this area.

On the issue of Israel-Palestine, Trump is a good friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently waging a genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza. Trump has called for the recognition of the whole of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and he has derailed the road to a US-recognized Palestinian state by unilaterally moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is contrary to the UN position of including East Jerusalem in Palestine. Furthermore, Trump has stated that he will install Mike Huckabee, a prominent Christian Zionist who is fully opposed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, as the ambassador to Israel.

Furthermore, Trump has already signaled that he will be just as hawkish on People’s China as the Democratic Party would be, which is particularly important in the context of the potential upcoming conflict involving the Chinese province of Taiwan. As a representative of monopoly capital, his interest is in removing America’s dependency on the Chinese semiconductor industry.

There are some ultra-left forces in the US, especially the so-called “MAGA Communists”, which have, through their actions, objectively endorsed Trump as “the lesser of two evils” for President in 2024. However, the reality is that a Trump Administration would be just as, if not more, detrimental to the cause of labor, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism as the Democratic Party will be.

Despite all of Trump’s drawbacks, he was still elected over the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. The American people indicated through their vote that they were unhappy with the Biden administration, and that they were looking for a change. Because no viable progressive Democratic Party alternative was presented, the people instead moved to the right, towards Trump.

What is to Be Done?

The International Communist Movement throughout its history has been successful when it was able to identify the primary contradictions in society. From these contradictions the communists then clearly forge a path that exploits the divisions within the camps of the working class’ enemies.

From 2016 onward, we have seen such a division within the big bourgeoisie. The conservative bourgeoisie has a desire to shift American politics to the extreme right whereas the liberal bourgeoisie is struggling to hold onto old methods to preserve the status quo. We can see that while liberal Democrat voters may have a desire to preserve democracy, it is clear the Democratic Party leadership will not be willing to do what needs to be done to preserve the Union. Communists must understand this while helping to lead the Anti-Monopoly coalition. Through a well-organized leadership of the American working class, the pro-democratic sentiment that liberal Democrats hold can be preserved.

As the rank-and-file of the trade union movement begins to understandably turn away from the Democratic Party, Communists must work to halt and reverse the growth of reactionary politics (i.e., extreme conservativism) within the American working class and steer them in a progressive direction. In order to do this, we will need to return to the days of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) when all American unions had a class-oriented political education.

This also means the creation of independent political action in the form of the anti-monopoly coalition led by organized labor. The heart of this movement will be a rank-and-file-led class-oriented trade union movement uniting all progressive elements of society.

Communists have historically been instrumental in the development of independent, progressive political action in the United States. This has been exemplified with Communist participation in the Progressive Party and Henry Wallace’s campaign for President in 1948. The Communist Party activity within the Progressive Party demonstrated the commitment to coalition building with all progressive forces. This was also called the Center-Left Coalition, especially under the leadership of Comrade Gus Hall.

The Communist Party also worked with and supported Congressman Vito Marcantonio, a member of the American Labor Party from the State of New York. Marcantonio was the only elected representative in Congress who stood up and voted against US interventionism in the Korean War. The Communist Party also backed Marcantonio because of his pro-Puerto Rican immigration policies which reflected his progressive ideology.

As the Third Congress of the Party of Communists USA affirmed:

“We call for the formation of an Anti-Monopoly Coalition as the specific form that the Popular Front will take in the USA. This will be composed of all democratic and anti-imperialist forces, including the progressive elements of the labor movement, the anti-war/peace movements, local progressive forces, and emerging third-party electoral formations which oppose US imperialism and monopoly capital.”

In today’s world, new opportunities are emerging to work with organized labor outside of the two-party duopoly. The United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Worker’s Union of America (UE) has recently condemned the anti-labor activities of the picks of the Democratic and Republican Parties, and called for the creation of a labor party in the United States.

Furthermore, the Teamsters, the Firefighter’s Union, and Local 3000 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) have all chosen to not endorse either major presidential candidate. This behavior marks a shift away from the support for the Democratic Party as a party of labor, and a realization that it has become a party of big business. Now, some in organized labor are going to begin to realize that they need a party of their own. What can be clearer than to see Trump flying the unelected billionaire Elon Musk, who represents only himself and his own profits, out around the world to meet with foreign leaders on the behalf of Americans? We have seen that the people are no longer interested in following the two-party duopoly. The American people are now beginning to see that there is in reality only one major American political party, and that is the money party of monopoly capital. From November 6, the day after the election, onward, the job of American Communists is to work tirelessly and start building the anti-monopoly coalition based in organized labor.

The post The 2024 Presidential Election: Where Do We Go From Here? appeared first on The Communist.

Three years have passed since the Emergency National Convention. Looking back on that Convention from the vantage point of 1948, the entire Party can more easily grasp the full historic significance of its decisions. The Emergency Convention rejected Browder’s non-existent “progressive imperialism” and utopia of “class peace”; restored to the Party its Marxist-Leninist science, the priceless heritage of working-class theory and practice; and armed it for the struggles of the real postwar world.

The fight for the reconstitution of the Party as the Marxist vanguard of the American working class was carried through under the most difficult conditions.

The most ferocious attacks against our Party have spearheaded Wall Street’s offensive against the economic and political rights of labor and the people and its drive toward war and fascism. Here as everywhere anti-Communism is the hallmark of reaction and fascism. In our country, as formerly in Hitler-Germany, anti-Communism seeks to screen the imperialist and pro-fascist aims of reaction from the people.

In these past three years the Party has been forced to defend itself on many fronts. It has been threatened by a multitude of repressive measures, in the state legislatures and city councils, as well as in Congress. Communist leaders have been subjected to persecution, court prosecution, threats of imprisonment, and imprisonment.

Truman’s “loyalty order” bars Communists from Federal employment—and this infamous blacklist is being extended to private industry, the schools and colleges.

The anti-Communist provisions of the Taft-Hartley Law handicap not only the work of Communist trade unionists but that of all progressive unionists, thereby weakening all organized labor.

Foreign-born workers, Communist and non-Communist, have been harassed, denied the right to citizenship, arrested, and threatened with deportation. Already five members of our outgoing National Committee are faced with the threat of deportation, Comrades Williamson, Stachel, Bittelman, Jones and Potash.

The House Un-American Committee, which has fomented the most vicious anti-Communist hysteria, has become one of the major instrumentalities in the attempt of reaction to impose a fascist, militarist state upon our country.

The monopoly-controlled press, radio, and movies constantly bombard the American people with anti-Communist venom. Day in and day out, they lie and slander, deliberately, when they label Communists as “red-fascists, Communazis, spies, saboteurs, and foreign agents.” They deliberately lie and slander when they charge that Communists are “advocates of force and violence to overthrow the government of the United States.”

Our Party has confronted many obstacles in its efforts to counteract these Hitlerite lies with the truth. The commercial channels of communication are being denied our Party. Storm-troop violence is increasingly being unleashed against our members, our public meetings and the canvassers of our press.

We do not minimize the extent to which anti-Communist prejudices have penetrated sections of the labor movement and the American people. But we also see that the American working class and people are resisting the unprecedented effort to stampede them into the surrender of their gains and rights in this atmosphere of anti-Communist hysteria. Our Party can take pride in the tireless work of our membership and leadership to arouse the working people in the fight to block these plans of reaction.

The appearance of Comrade Dennis before the House Un-American Committee in March, 1947, despite the Committee’s refusal to hear his testimony, did much to inspire the Party and arouse the people for action against the Sheppard-Rankin Bill.

The earlier testimony of Comrades William Z. Foster and Ben Davis before the Un-American Committee transformed the hearing into a counter-attack against the un-Americans. Comrade Davis appeared before the Committee again in February, 1948, to expose the trickery of the “registration” proposals through which the Thomas-Rankin group is seeking to outlaw the Party and nullify the Bill of Rights.

The Fight Against the Outlawing of Our Party

A high point of Party activity was reached in the Spring of 1947, at the time when the late Secretary of Labor Schwellenbach, proposed the outlawing of the Party. In answer to this attack our Party raised a fighting fund of $250,000 in less than 25 days. In fact, more than $1,000,000 was actually raised by the Districts. In the months of March and April the Party reached 10,000,000 Americans through numerous advertisements in national newspapers, including trade-union, Negro and national group papers, as well as the big metropolitan press and liberal weeklies.

At the same time, despite many refusals, the Party reached the radio audience through no broadcasts—most of them organized locally. Comrades Foster and Dennis spoke on national hook-ups, and recordings of their speeches were made available for re-broadcast in the Districts. Literally millions of leaflets were issued by clubs, sections, counties, and districts. As a result of this activity, broad sections of the people rallied to the Party’s defense, and numerous individuals and organizations issued public statements. The popular response to the Party’s call in defense of the Bill of Rights killed the Schwellenbach proposal and upset reaction’s time-table.

The Mundt-Nixon Bill, sponsored by the House un-Americans in 1948, had wider support in Congress, in Administration circles, and in various organizations. This offered a more serious threat to the democratic rights of our Party, to the labor movement, and other progressive organizations.

There were some people in trade-union and liberal circles who, overwhelmed with a sense of defeatism, felt that the fight was over and that “nothing could be done.” But the sounding of the alarm by our Party and its appeal to labor and to all democratic-minded Americans, irrespective of their stand on Communism, to enlist in an all-out fight to defeat the Mundt-Nixon Bill, evoked a wide response. This appeal, issued by Comrades Foster and Dennis, was sent to every international union and national people’s organization and was circulated locally to civic, fraternal, political, and religious groups. Despite the denial of press and radio to our Party’s statements, we were able to rally popular opposition which assumed wide proportions.

The appearance of Comrades Foster and Gates at the Senate Committee hearing resulted in the exposure of the true nature of the Bill through a brilliant defense of the position of our Party. The fight for radio time resulted in the Foster-Mundt debate which reached millions.

Our Party again appealed for a $500,000 fund to fight the Mundt Bill, and the membership responded, even though it had just carried through the Party-Press Fighting Fund Drive. This activity broke through the attempted conspiracy of silence. Local after local, as well as central trades councils, in the A. F. of L.; city C.I.O. bodies; Railroad Brotherhood unions; and many international unions, both A. F. of L. and C.I.O., came out in opposition to the Bill. Even William Green and Philip Murray sent private letters to the Committee protesting the unconstitutionality of the Bill. Church groups, such as Northern and Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, and even isolated Catholic voices, joined the anti-Mundt Bill fight. And Washington saw an inspiring demonstration of more than 6,000 representative men and women converge upon it to defend the Bill of Rights. The call of our clubs—“Every man at his post”—witnessed the greatest activity of our membership in many a year. As is known, at the regular session of Congress, the Mundt-Nixon Bill was buried in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Reaction’s time-table was again upset.

During this entire period, locally and nationally, the Party has been involved in numerous court cases requiring legal defense of the Party leaders and members. The case of Comrade Dennis, whose conviction for contempt of the Un-American Committee and one year jail sentence is now being appealed, presents a basic challenge to the constitutionality of the House Un-American Committee. The Party takes pride in the fact that Comrade Dennis, in defending his personal liberty and the democratic rights of the Party, also converted his case into a weapon for striking a blow against the national oppression of the Negro people. His firm stand that John Rankin sits in Congress in violation of the 14^th Amendment has won wide support among all sections of the Negro people.

A significant victory was won in the fight for release on bail of the five hunger strikers, held in Tom Clark’s Ellis Island concentration camp. The Party expresses special pride in the political initiative of Comrades John Williamson and Irving Potash, members of the outgoing National Board, and of the staunch German Communist leader, Gerhart Eisler.

The attacks on our Party have not ceased. Having failed so far, the enemy now resorts to new plots in its frenzy to outlaw the Communist Party. The “Special Grand Jury” which labored nearly a year and a half to prove a non-existent “foreign agent conspiracy” gave birth to the present monstrous frame-up indictments of the twelve members of the outgoing National Board. This is the most serious attempt yet to outlaw the Communist Party. Should the enemy succeed in this frame-up, it will mean more than the imprisonment of the members of the National Board. For, involved in this indictment is the democratic right to membership in, and the legal existence of, the Communist Party. With every ounce of energy we must guarantee that the monopolists shall not have their way.

Our Party has shown a capacity to fight relentlessly and has proved that it can defend the rights of the American workers and people. However, we should note and correct certain shortcomings in our defense work up to now.

It was correct to guard against submerging the Party in defense work. It was not correct to neglect, as was the case at times, the defense of the Party and to fail to give this defense a mass character. Thus, for example, the successful mass struggle around the hunger strike must be contrasted to the failure of the Party to develop a sustained mass campaign in the Dennis and ’Josephson cases, or around the deportation cases involving numerous other members.

It was correct to call for the defense of the democratic rights of Communists on the broad issue of civil liberties; but it was not correct to gloss over, as was sometimes done, the vanguard role of the Party and to fail to explain to the masses why our Party is a special target for reaction in its drive toward war and fascism. We must convince the American people that it is precisely the Communists who must be defended—because the Communists are the best fighters for the immediate interests of the workers and all the common people, precisely because we are the Party of socialism.

It is correct to put up the best legal defense of the Party and its leadership. But it is also necessary to combat legalistic illusions which still exist. We must never allow legal defense to become a substitute for mass activity.

The Need of a Policy of Industrial Concentration

In spite of many hardships and difficulties since the Emergency Convention, we were able to make some important advances in the strengthening and building of our Party.

Under Browder the entire Party was organized primarily in 800 community clubs. Now we have approximately 3,000 clubs. In addition to 1,700 community clubs we have 309 shop, 425 industrial clubs as well as 200 professional and 200 student and youth clubs.

Our Party has 300 sections organized in 32 districts, 8 of which are new. The Party is organized in 600 cities, towns, and rural communities. During the three-year period since the Emergency Convention, our Party has grown from a membership of 52,824 to over 60,000. We now have a Party in seven Southern states. Of all the Party Districts, New York, California and Connecticut have shown the most consistent growth.

We all realize that this growth is inadequate. Not only inadequate in general, but above all in the light of the big tasks and responsibilities that our Party faces. This is why we have to examine critically all our work, determine what are the weaknesses and how to overcome them. Central to this task is the thorough examination of the results of our industrial concentration policy in order to draw the necessary lessons from this phase of our work. In this connection we can make the following section of the Main Resolution the starting point for this analysis.

For the American working class to advance to leadership of the developing people’s democratic coalition, and for the coalition itself to become a power for victory, there must be a growing and influential Communist Party.

Only a Communist Party of mass strength and influence, and functioning as an organized and inseparable part of the people’s coalition, can effectively promote the struggle for working-class leadership in the nation. Without such a Communist Party, this struggle cannot be won. In the course of daily and resolute struggle for working-class leadership in the progressive movements of the American people for peace and progress, for the defense of their vital interests, a mass Communist Party of great strength and influence must and will become a reality in the United States.

We must build our Party along these lines—politically, ideologically, and organizationally. It must be built daily in the realization of the Party’s vanguard role in the working class and among the people as a whole. It must be built, in the first place, among the basic industrial workers by a consistent, unflagging policy of concentration. The Party must be built in the struggle for its Marxist-Leninist principles and policies.

In examining the composition of our Party, the following factors must be noted: In the last three years, the industrial composition of our Party has increased only slightly. At present 51 percent of our members are industrial workers, and of these, 11 percent are at present unemployed.

At the same time, our trade-union membership in the last three years shows a decline from 46 percent to 44 percent; 28 percent belong to various C.I.O. unions; 13 1/2 percent are in the A.F. of L. and 24 percent in independent unions. Approximately 7 percent of our industrial workers are not members of any unions.

We get the following picture insofar as the basic industries are concerned: Of our employed membership, 18 1/2 percent are to be found in basic industry. Over the past three years the numerical growth of our Party in basic industry has shown no fundamental change. In the main our Party membership has remained static in such industries as steel, auto, rubber, and maritime. In some industries we have shown a slight growth, even though in some case it is unstable, as in electrical, coal mining, packing, longshore, and the building trades. In certain industries we have suffered a serious loss. In some cases this was due to a decline in production, as in shipbuilding. However, this was not the reason for the decline in the railroad and textile industries.

We must take note at this Convention that in the main industrial concentration states, with the exception of Ohio, we show a decline in membership. This is true of Illinois, Michigan, and Western Pennsylvania.

The mere presentation of this brief picture poses two questions: What is the cause of this situation, and how shall we proceed quickly to overcome it? To avoid repetition, we shall try to answer both questions simultaneously.

The central task before the Party is the fight for shifting the main base of our Party to the working class. This cannot be done unless we turn the face of the entire Party to the workers in the factories. There is already a new awareness in our entire Party of this urgent task. Every single state convention, and scores of comrades in the pre-Convention discussion, have given major attention to this question. We must transform this new awareness into deeds.

How to Apply the Concentration Policy

What is the essence of a concentration policy?

First of all, it requires a fundamental understanding of the role of the workers in the basic industries, in relation to the working class and the life of the country as a whole. It is precisely these workers employed in the huge plants by the tens of thousands who, as Lenin pointed out, become educated to understand the need for unity, collective action and solidarity by the very process of large-scale production itself. One cannot conceive of successfully building the Progressive Party, of organizing an effective fight against the Draft, or in defense of civil liberties, a successful fight against war and fascism, unless this section of the working class is fully mobilized. And, of course, one cannot speak of winning the American workers for Socialism without winning the majority of this section of the working class. It is necessary to permeate the entire Party with this consciousness.

Secondly, such a policy requires the selection of the points of concentration where a base must be secured, if we are to set in motion the entire labor movement. This means knowing which districts must be given major national attention, which industries are key and what plants are decisive. Concretely, while we must strengthen our base in all industrial states, we must above all shift our main emphasis to such states as Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan and to Western Pennsylvania. While we must strengthen the Party in all basic industries, we must particularly select for major concentration such industries as steel, auto, mining, maritime, electrical and railroad. Within these industries we must pursue a policy of concentration in key industrial towns and key plants and departments—with special consideration to the most underpaid sections of the workers, the unskilled and semiskilled. In some districts additional industries may be selected, as for instance textile in the South and New England; in Ohio rubber, in addition to steel and mining, etc.

Thirdly, the full mobilization of the Party is required to achieve the objectives of our concentration policy. Concretely, this means that all Party clubs must have a share in the responsibility for work at the concentration points. Communists in the mass organizations, trade unions, etc., should try to convince these organizations similarly to pursue a concentration policy.

Fourthly, beginning with the national and state leaderships, the entire Party must be involved in planning, guiding, and assuming systematic control and check-up of concentration objectives. All political and organizational problems must be discussed and reviewed from the standpoint of how to realize them in concentration industries. Systematic discussion of the problems in concentration industries must be organized in the top political bodies of the Party. Our leadership must be unsparing in the allocation of capable forces, finances, literature, and other material assistance.

Have we said some of these things before? We have. In fact, at our Emergency Convention three years ago the need for applying a consistent concentration policy was placed as a central objective. Why is it that we did not realize all of the objectives set for ourselves nationally and in the states?

It is not due to the fact that we did not select the key states, industries, shops and towns. In fact, some of our most capable comrades were assigned to these key districts, national coordinators were assigned to key industries, and many leading returned veterans were sent into a number of industrial towns.

We must frankly say that the failure to secure adequate results in our concentration work in the last three years is due, in the main, to an underestimation in practice of the vanguard role of the Party. In practice we concerned ourselves much more with specific policy and tactical questions of the unions, of relationship to top bodies, rather than to questions of building a base below to insure correct policies and tactics. What was incorrect? The separation of the building of the Party from the solution of questions of policy! What must not be forgotten is that it is not enough to have a correct policy in the industries, but in addition the organized strength of the Party must be thrown into the key points of concentration. From now on a drastic change must be made. Questions of policy and tactical line must always be related to the forces required to carry out the policy. This will demand a systematic and constant political check-up of our strength in the concentration areas: first, by the political bodies of the Party; and, secondly, through greater coordination of all departments and, most important, a fusion of the work of trade-union and organizational personnel.

The realization of the objectives of our concentration policy demands:

1. Developing and testing in life a correct policy for each industry.

2. Developing the united front from below to insure the carrying through of such a policy.

3. Drawing constant lessons from the experiences of the workers in the course of their struggles, thus helping to develop their class consciousness.

4. Systematically building the Party, by bringing into its ranks the most militant and advanced workers.

In the period immediately after this Convention the national and state leadership of our Party must work out the specific tasks of concentration which are to be carried out between now and the end of the year, and which should be checked at regular intervals by leading political bodies—a procedure which must be regularized and made a permanent feature of our work. Among these tasks, in addition to those mentioned, should be the following:

1. To review and allocate additional forces to provide leadership to work in the concentration industries.

2. To convince a selected number of comrades now employed in light industries, and from among white-collar and professional workers, veterans, and students—men and women—to secure work in basic industry.

3. To seek to influence key national groups, whose members are employed in concentration points, to direct their main emphasis to these industries.

4. To ensure the more effective utilization of the Daily Worker and the Worker in the concentration industries. In this connection, we must guarantee that the Daily Worker and the Worker secure and print material reflecting problems in these industries, and that the most consistent effort be made to .increase their circulation.

5. To improve the mass propaganda work of the Party in these industries through the medium of leaflets, pamphlets, and shop gate meetings. Especially important is the use of our numerous pamphlets for mass sale and distribution.

6. To institute a consistent policy of training and developing forces at the concentration points through political discussions, lectures, study groups, and schools.

The Party Club and Concentration

If we are to achieve these objectives, our attention has to be turned first of all to the Party clubs, and particularly to the shop and industrial clubs.

These clubs constitute the link between the Party and the basic industrial workers. It is through them that we shall be able to mobilize the workers to resist the drive of monopoly capitalism against their living standards and their trade unions, to resist the drive toward war and fascism. This means that a correct policy of concentration requires that the entire leadership concern itself with the problem of improving qualitatively the work of the shop and industrial clubs in general, and of the individual members in particular.

If these clubs are to be able to play their rightful role, the entire level of our theoretical and political work has to be raised. If these clubs are to reflect in the shops and industries the vanguard role of the Party, we must assist them to become the policy-making bodies within the shops and industries, firmly grounded in the knowledge of Marxism-Leninism. It is only in the struggle to realize such an objective that the clubs and individual members will be able to play the leading role in the development of the united front on a de­partmental, shop and industry level. Through such methods these clubs will be able to work with, and give leadership to, broad sections o£ the workers in the struggle for the defense of their economic needs and to spur the workers to independent political action and class consciousness. More and more workers will thus come to realize the class nature and role of the state, the crisis in the two-party system, the harmful role of Social-Democracy and the reformist trade-union bureaucrats, the need for becoming fully involved in the development of the Progressive Party, etc.

Our Party must take full advantage of every opportunity in the day-to-day struggles to champion and advance the fundamental interests of our class, thus demonstrating that:

“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”[1]

Current developments in the labor movement indicate the readiness of the workers for political as well as economic struggle. For example, there is the recent gathering of 500 activists, including presidents and members of Executive Boards of UA.W. locals, which endorsed Wallace and the Progressive Party. Despite the position of the John L. Lewis leadership, important groups of the miners are rallying to Wallace. In the steel industry significant changes are already taking place as the steel workers help to put the new party on the ballot. In Gary, thousands of steel workers turned out to hear Wallace.

Our Party must help to develop further this new initiative, and boldly promote united struggles to speed all positive developments which can bring about a new relationship of forces among the workers; we must build our Party as a force that can help bring about this change in the shortest time.

While we must struggle for this Marxist-Leninist concept of the role of the Party shop club, unfortunately only 25 percent of our industrial members are in shop and industrial clubs. While we have successfully established shop clubs in many of the large plants, there are still too many decisive plants where we have no shop clubs. Even in some of the large plants where we have established shop clubs, we find that in some of the key departments we are still isolated from the workers. The industrial clubs, which were established in most places to serve as a form of organization transitional to the establishment of shop clubs, have instead become a frozen form of organization. There is a reluctance in too many places to release comrades who are now attached to community clubs, but who rightfully belong in shop branches, the argument being given that this would weaken the community club. While we appreci­ate the needs of, and the problems faced by, our community clubs, once our basic concentration policy becomes clear; we should overcome all hesitations to shifting every comrade who should be in it to a shop club. At the same time, we must find the methods whereby the comrades in the shop clubs can play an important role in the struggles of the communities in which they live.

Unfortunately, due to unclarity on the role of the shop clubs and inadequate attention to them, we find that many have a tendency to concern themselves almost exclusively with trade union questions—and this, on a trade-union level—failing to grasp their role of vanguard political organization. Under such conditions, harmful tendencies develop; expressed in a reliance on the spontaneity of the workers, a failure to promote the class consciousness of the workers, and an inadequate building of our press. All this results in a situation in which our Party in many instances tail-ends behind the workers.

An Example of Correct Work

Let me give an example of the correct work of an individual Communist and his club, whose very fruitful experiences are worthy of study by this Convention:

I want to relate the experiences of Nick Migas, a steel worker from Indiana Harbor, a member of the National Committee of our Party.

Nick works in a plant employing 10,000 workers. Because of his role and leadership in the fight for the defense of the workers’ needs in his department, he was elected as the Department Grievance Committeeman, in spite of the most vicious Red-baiting threats, and intimidation by the leadership of this Right-wing union.

Comrade Nick accepted the challenge in true Communist fashion. He attends his Party club meetings, he discusses his problems at the club meetings, and the entire club works out collectively how he and other members can conduct a more effective struggle in the interests of the workers. Through his effort, together with that of other progressives in his local union, and despite many obstacles and difficulties, thirteen out of fifteen progressives, including Nick, were elected to the local’s Executive Committee. Nick and other progressives while defending the economic interests of the workers, helped also to create a Wallace Committee which hundreds of workers from the plant joined.

During the recent round of wage struggles the international leadership of the steelworkers’ union said that it was impossible to obtain wage increases in 1948. But Nick Migas, by applying a correct policy of the united front from below, raised this issue in his local and was elected with other progressives to his international union convention. You all know what happened at that convention and of the brave and honorable role that Nick played. After the convention, the workers in basic steel were granted wage increases. In all modesty we can say that Nick and his colleagues played no small role in winning an increase in wages of $450,000 a day for the workers in basic steel. This means an annual increase of $135,000,000. No wonder that the big trusts hate the Communists! Just imagine what it would mean for the American working class and our Party if in one hundred key plants in the country, we could train our shop clubs and individual members to become Nick Migases. This can be done! It must be done! Therefore, we must undertake in all seriousness to strengthen existing shop clubs and build new ones in the light of this example. There are undoubtedly other examples, and I hope that the comrades will relate them in the discussion.

The Community Club

I am sure that our entire Party will greet this emphasis on developing a concentration policy for the building up of our shop and industrial clubs. This in no way detracts from the urgent need to strengthen and build our community clubs. The objectives we set in concentration can be realized only if we successfully assist the community clubs in orienting their work toward the shops. The vital role of the community clubs is not lessened but becomes of even greater importance in the light of the industrial concentration approach we are attempting to establish.

We have innumerable examples of the splendid mass work of our clubs in developing struggles around such issues as high prices and rents, Negro discrimination, in defense of Israel, to repeal the draft, and a score of other local and national issues. These clubs in the main have been the builders of our press and distributors of our literature. These types of activity must be strengthened in every way. But now it must be pointed in the first place to the big shops and working-class communities. The example of these clubs could be multiplied manifold. Other comrades will give other examples. But what is missing is the fact that such splendid activity is not directed toward united action with workers in the plants and shops. The fight to solve this problem is the fight for a policy of working-class leadership of the entire people.

From the point of view of improving the content and quality of our concentration work, the group system deserves major attention. The groups must become a basic link in our work among the masses. The groups provide a medium which not only gives us greater mobility but a form through which we can give greater attention to the individual problems of our members—their education and personal development, their adjustment to Party life, so that they may grow as Communists and enhance their contribution. Sometimes we overlook the shy and retiring members and take little interest in their personal problems—and the result is that many become inactive. The group, in addition to its educational and political mass work, must become the creator of warmth, understanding, and comradeship among our members. Such an approach will help increase attendance and establish closer ties with our members, increase dues payments, increase the circulation of the Daily Worker and the Worker, bring higher sales of our literature, and involve more of our members in Party activities.

What Kind of Party are we Building?

In the coming days we shall witness an increase in the enemy attacks against our Party, but we shall also witness an ascending wave of mass struggles. Our Party must take all the necessary steps to strengthen itself speedily in order to be able to help lead these struggles. We should therefore, while taking a realistic view of the situation, act with the firm conviction that we can win this fight.

Some comrades conclude that under conditions of monopoly’s offensive and the defensive battles of the working class “we must retrench” and “wait for more favorable times” for Party building, or that “we need to limit the Party membership to the most militant activists within the vanguard Party.” In the light of the tasks facing us as Communists, can we accept this “theory”? Obviously not! Those who advance this “theory” fail to see that the “more favorable times” of tomorrow are being determined, and can be determined only by what we do in today’s struggles. In a period of reactionary offensive, favorable opportunities cannot be created by a “wait and see” policy, by “retrenchment” or by “limiting the Party membership to the most militant activists.”

The concept of “retrenchment” is not a line of struggle; it is a retreat. This concept flows from a one-sided estimate of the situation in the country. Comrades who defend such concepts fail to see the emerging struggles and the militant cadres they will bring to the fore. The place of many of these cadres should be in the Communist Party. Our day-to-day struggles must be designed to reach and win them and the Leftward moving masses.

Their one-sided estimate of the situation leads these comrades to overestimate the strength of the enemy and underestimate the fighting moods of the masses, as well as the ability of our Party to influence the course of the developing struggles. This “theory” denies the vanguard role of our Party and is in essence a form of liquidationism. The present offensive of monopoly is not an argument against, but an argument for building the Communist Party. We must reject all counsels of retreat and retrenchment.

Other comrades conclude that the best way to meet reaction’s offensive is by submerging the Party in the mass movement. In practice this concept would lead to a state of affairs in which the Party becomes identical with the trade union or mass organization. These comrades see the need for work among the masses, but they do not clearly see the need for the vanguard Party of the working class. In reverse form they express a certain timidity and a fear of the masses. Moreover, their conception tends to create a tailist policy, and not a policy of leadership which aims to instill class consciousness, pride in, and direction to, the working-class and people’s movement. Instead of following a conscious and consistent policy of leadership, these comrades tend to rely on spontaneity. Here again we have an overestimation of the strength of the enemy and an underestimation of the ability of the masses to fight back effectively under the leadership of the Party. This conception likewise denies the vanguard role of the Party.

Nor is the problem resolved by establishing two types of Communists—one doing “mass” work and submerging the Party among the masses, and the other doing “Communist” work and moving independently of the masses. This division is fundamentally wrong and solves nothing. This combination of Leftist-sectarianism and Right opportunism stands in opposition to the Marxist-Leninist principle of Party organization. Comrades given to such thinking fail to see that the starting point of all Communist work is mass work that the Party can be built only through such activity.

Nor will the “go it alone” “theory,” which draws sectarian conclusions from the independent role of the Party, solve anything. Clearly, strengthening the Party to play its vanguard role in the working-class and people’s movement requires a clear understanding of what we mean by its vanguard role. The vanguard Party is not separated, from the masses. It is integrally linked with them, leading and helping them to move forward. We ourselves have the task of making clear to the masses our Party’s oneness with them. We must show them that the Party is the most advanced section of the most progressive and advanced class. We cannot convince the people of our vanguard role just by talking about it. We can convince them only by helping to increase the fighting capacity of the people at all levels of struggle. This we can do only by increasing our own fighting capacity, and by improving the quality of leadership we give to the mass movement on the basis of our scientific understanding. Our task is to grasp all opportunities to help build the united front of struggle in the shops, in the working-class neighborhoods, to build the Progressive Party and every democratic movement, and thus to fight to build our Party as the indispensable instrument for beating back the offensive of reaction, fascism and war.

In the further building of our Party, we must also pay considerable attention to the need of substantially lowering the age level of the Party by recruiting large numbers of young people. Here it is worth noting that in the past several years we have made some progress in this direction. We have more than doubled our membership among World War II veterans. We have established a foothold among students on 95 campuses. We have recruited young people generally through the existing youth clubs. But we cannot be satisfied with these results. In fact, we must state that we are seriously lagging on this front.

There is a great stirring among the youth, who are the first to be hit by Wall Street’s drive toward war and fascism. Reaction is leaving no stone unturned to win the youth for its reactionary program. There are numerous instances indicating that reactionary forces have been able to misdirect the youth (as, for instance, in some unions, in inspiring hoodlum acts, etc.), because of the absence of decisive leadership in the fight for the youth. Hence, our Party must not only considerably intensify its activity among the youth, particularly among the young workers in industry and among the youth in the Negro communities, but we must place as a central task the recruiting of substantial numbers of young Americans into our ranks in the coming months.

Our Party in the Struggle for Negro Rights

In challenging monopoly oppression, the working class finds a powerful ally in the Negro people who, by the very nature of their position in American life, are rallying to the banners of the struggle against Wall Street. Success in the struggle against monopoly requires the forging of the alliance of labor and the Negro people, the building of the Negro people’s unity and the building of our Party, the consistent champion of the Negro people’s struggle. For without our Party such an alliance cannot grow and permanently exist. In this connection, we should take note of the following passage from the Draft Resolution:

“The intensified attacks upon the Negro people demonstrate clearly the growth of imperialist reaction and national oppression in the United States. The Negro people are experiencing the most extreme, the most brutal manifestations of the growing fascist danger, especially in the South.”

It would be a most fatal error on the part of labor if it failed to see that this attack is an attempt to tear asunder the growing alliance of the workers and the Negro people, and thus to destroy the labor movement itself. Participation in the fight for the equal rights of the Negro people is an indispensable duty for the American working class, and essential to the maintenance and extension of democracy. Hence the necessity for unfolding an energetic struggle for the equal rights of the Negro people; for the outlawing of Jim Crow and the passage of the anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation for the abolition of all forms of discrimination against the Negro people in army and civilian life; for democratic agrarian reforms in the South, satisfying the needs of the Negro people for land, freedom, and equality; for the right to self-determination of the Negro people in the Black Belt.

The Draft Resolution calls upon the Party to make the demand for full economic, political and social equality, a demand which corresponds to the class interests of the workers, a demand which should become the battle cry of the entire labor movement.

Thus, our Party must keep in view the aim of making a radical turn in the direction of unleashing the full potential of the Negro liberation movement and building our Party as the proven leader of the Negro workers and the Negro people. This is an undertaking that we accept with honor.

Our Party since the Emergency Convention has conducted many significant struggles for Negro rights: anti-lynch, anti-poll tax, for F.E.P.C. legislation, against restrictive covenants, against discrimination in the armed services, in defense of the Ingrams, etc. Nevertheless, these struggles have developed unevenly, and in many cases sporadically.

The basic weakness in the fight for the rights of the Negro people is the failure to tackle the basic problem of which the other issues are but a reflection. I have in mind the fight on the job against discriminatory firings and layoffs of Negro workers, against the refusal of many companies, including many in the basic industries, to hire Negro workers; and against the refusal of many plants to upgrade Negro workers, and of unions to promote them as shop stewards, committeemen and leaders. Only here and there can we record notable exceptions.

While we re-established our Party in the South, we do not yet have an operative policy of attacking the very basis of Negro oppression on the land. What does this mean? It means that while we must continue to strengthen and further develop in every way the struggles already begun, we must likewise direct our attention to the solution of the fundamental economic and social problems which will give basic substance to the fight of our class, and real equality to the Negro people.

The failure of the labor movement to conduct a consistent struggle for the vital interests of the Negro people is due to the fact that it still lacks an understanding of the Negro question. This means at the same time that, in failing to forge an effective labor-Negro alliance, the working class is failing to defend its own class interests. In such a situation, enormous obligations are placed upon the working-class vanguard.

The Negro workers in the trade-union movement are in revolt against the Social-Democratic do-nothing policy on the issue of job inequality. But the majority of the white workers, due to the influence of bourgeois ideology in the labor movement, have not yet come forward in solidarity with the Negro workers on this vital issue. In many cases, even among progressives in the trade unions, there is a negative approach to this burning issue of Negro job inequality. The result is that the white workers are not helped to understand what this revolt means to labor as a whole. Neither are the Negro workers helped to appreciate more fully the need for class solidarity.

Meanwhile, the bourgeoisie asserts itself as never before, trying to head off class solidarity and win the Negro workers to its banners. The monopolists make full use of Social-Democratic labor leaders, as well as of some Negro leaders who spread the slogan: “Neither Jim Crow nor Communism.” Left-progressive unionists will unwittingly help those who seek to weaken and undermine the unions, unless they overcome existing weaknesses in their fight for full equality.

It is important for us to understand that, as the offensive of the monopolists increases against labor, the class-collaborationist moves away from the defense of labor’s interests in general and those of the Negro workers in particular.

The problem of discrimination against Negro people in the basic industries is not limited to Negro industrial workers. One of the worst forms of discrimination is to be found in the general offices. The general offices of the steel, auto, mining, maritime, electrical, railroad, public utilities and a host of other trusts, refuse to hire Negro men and women. These offices remain “lily white.” Clearly, we cannot ignore this situation any longer. It is another example of the attempt to split the working class from the Negro people and create divisions also within the Negro people themselves.

We must recognize the fact that weaknesses on this front of struggle are due to the existence of white chauvinism, expressed in policy and practice. The phrase, “We’re all equal,” equates formalistically the problems of Negro workers with those of all exploited and oppressed. Supporting F.E.P.C. by resolution alone is a means of avoiding the concrete fight against inequality in the departments, shops and plants. This we all know. The failure effectively to combat this kind of hidden white chauvinism, expresses a lack of faith in the white workers. The white workers will rally, if convinced that their own interests are at stake in the fight for Negro rights.

The Party must unfold an energetic struggle against white chauvinism, not only in the realm of ideology, but also in a practical fight for equality on every level. The result will be that greater numbers of white workers will enlist in the fight and Negro workers will become more active participants and builders of the union. In addition, they will become a leading force in the Negro communities, and our Party will grow more rapidly among Negro and white workers.

I do not propose to deal with the problems of the South, since they will be dealt with in a special report before this Convention. I want, however, to deal briefly with several problems of the Negro community itself.

The Negro communities are highly organized and progressive and have, in the last decade or so, always been found in their majority in the progressive column on all the basic issues. However, one of the major weaknesses from which the Negro communities still suffer is to be found in the totally inadequate position of leadership that the Negro workers have won and assumed within the Negro community. Until basic progress is made in this respect, the Negro community cannot play its full role in the struggle for the interests of the Negro people and within the general people’s coalition for peace, democracy, and progress. But progress in the solution of this question is to a large degree dependent on the unfolding of the struggle for full and equal rights of the Negro workers in each factory, in each industry, and in each trade union. Thus, the fight by our Party forces, and by the progressive forces in general within the labor movement, for equality for the Negro workers is the key to the solution of almost all questions within the Negro community.

Undoubtedly, our Party generally enjoys greater influence and support among the Negro people than among any other group. This has been shown on innumerable occasions when the Negro workers rallied to the support, not only of Negro Communist leaders but of our Party as a whole. But it is also true that there exists a very wide gap between this general support and influence and the numerical growth and stability of our Party in the Negro community. Why is this so? To answer this question we must take note of some of the basic weaknesses in the work of our Party, which contribute to this situation.

In the first place, we quite often raise slogans and develop movements on such issues as the fight against high prices, for rent control, more adequate recreational, health and hospital facilities, against police brutality, and against discrimination and inequality in whatever forms they are expressed. The Negro people readily join with us in this fight. But it is also true that we do not always carry on a consistent and sustained fight on these issues and that we allow various reformist and Social-Democratic groups to take advantage of this inconsistency and thus take over leadership of such movements. Such a situation is also made possible by the fact that we do not always expose those petty-bourgeois and reformist leaders who are out to mislead and behead the Negro people’s movement and because we do not give sufficient attention to showing the Negro people in practice, through struggle and through consistent education, the difference between a reformist class-collaboration policy and a policy of struggle. In a certain sense it might almost be said that, because of the readiness of the Negro people to struggle and the ease with which they can be led into struggle, we often, instead of utilizing these very positive factors, tend to rely on spontaneity and thus tend to lag behind the masses. Here again, the assumption by the Negro workers of leadership in the Negro community is essential to overcome this weakness and to guarantee a consistent and persistent development of the struggle.

Finally, we must say that any weakening of the fight against white-chauvinist tendencies within the ranks of the Party, whether manifested in the Negro community, in the Party as a whole, or in the labor and people’s movement generally, is one of the greatest obstacles to the steady, advancement and consolidation of the Negro people’s movement within the Negro community and to the building of our Party into a mass Party in the Negro community. The very influence and respect that the Party has won among the Negro people makes them most sensitive to any failures on our part. They rightly demand of us more than of anyone else. They use a different yardstick in measuring us than in measuring anyone else.

By fighting for equal rights for the Negro workers within the labor movement, by a consistent policy of struggle for the rights of the Negro people in the community, by advancing resolutely the leadership of the Negro workers in the Negro community, by an effective exposure of the reformist and Social-Democratic misleaders, by an uncompromising struggle against every manifestation of white chauvinism, our Party can quickly overcome the gap between its general influence and its organizational weaknesses and establish itself as a major force among the Negro people.

For a Consistent Cadre Policy

We Communists are fully conscious of our tasks; and, in all modesty recognize that on us devolves the political leadership to the working class for shaping the future of our country. Our Party needs men and women from the ranks of the working class capable of accomplishing great tasks. For, as Stalin says: “Once the political line has been established, cadres decide everything.” To reach our objectives, we need to develop a consistent cadre policy. This means, not only the training and development of cadres as full-time functionaries, but, in the first place, a wide corps of non-full time activists with daily ties among the masses in the shops and working-class communities. Such a Communist cadre policy should strive to develop workers with indigenous ties, whether in the shop, plant, community, or mass organizations. This guide applies to clubs, sections and counties, as well as to the districts. In the present political situation, the qualities of our cadres will in great part decide the issue of the struggle. An undertaking of such importance cannot be solved by any particular department. It must become the task of the entire Party.

The essence of a correct cadre policy is the training and development of men and women who have faith and confidence in their class, have love for, and pride in, their class; are militant fighters, enjoying the confidence of the workers and our membership, and unreservedly accept the policies and principles of our Marxist-Leninist program.

They must be men and women who are not only known inside the Party but who have live contact with non-Party masses. They must be men and women who, having fullest confidence in our Party’s policies, fight for their realization among the masses in general and the workers in particular.

What kind of cadres does the vanguard party need and how should we select cadres? Comrade Dimitrov gives the answer in his celebrated report to the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, in 1935:

“First, absolute devotion to the cause of the working class, loyalty to the Party, tested in face of the enemy—in battle, in prison, in court.

“Second, the closest possible contact with the masses. The comrades concerned must be wholly absorbed in the interests of the masses, feel the life pulse of the masses, know their sentiments and requirements. The prestige of the leaders of our Party organization should be based, first of all, on the fact that the masses regard them as their leaders and are convinced through their own experience of their ability as leaders, and of their determination and self-sacrifice in struggle.

“Third, ability independently to find one’s bearings and not to be afraid of assuming responsibility in making decisions. He who fears to take responsibility is not a leader. He who is unable to display initiative, who says: ‘I will do only what I am told,’ is not a Bolshevik. Only he is a real Bolshevik leader who does not lose his head at moments of defeat, who does not get a swelled head at moments of success, who displays indomitable firmness in carrying out decisions. Cadres develop and grow best when they are placed in the position of having to solve concrete problems of the struggle independently and are aware that they are fully responsible for their decisions.

“Fourth, discipline and Bolshevik hardening in the struggle against the class enemy as well as in their irreconcilable opposition to all deviations from the Bolshevik line.”[2]

As can be seen, the ability to speak well and write well, while important elements in the struggle, are not the main criteria for the selection and bold promotion of working-class cadres in the Communist Party.

In fighting for such a cadre policy, our Party, in working out the solution to this decisive question, must take into account the fact that our cadres entered the Party at different periods—some, during the unemployed struggles; others, during the period of the democratic front; many, during the revisionist period; while many are joining today. In many cases the imprint of the period in which they joined remains with them. What does this mean? This means that our cadre policy must be designed to educate and re-educate our membership to understand the policies of our Party in the past, its history, but really to master our present-day policies and tactics.

On the other hand, the fight for a correct cadre policy also means that we take into account the fact that a few comrades who were outstanding Party leaders in the past now feel that the intensity of the struggle is too great, that they can take a back seat. There are a few who strive to move away from their proletarian base and origin and seek satisfaction in business outlets. There are some who balk at leaving the “comfort” of the big metropolitan cities for work among the masses in other industrial towns. There are some who have lost perspective under conditions of monopoly’s offensive, lack faith in the working class and consequently in the ability of the Party to rally the masses for a successful struggle. There are a few comrades in this category who also sit on the side lines. They are waiting for the leadership to make mistakes. They do not contribute to the struggle. But in all such cases history passes such comrades by. Is it not clear that such comrades cannot inspire confidence among the masses? Is it not clear that these comrades must either change their outlook or become sympathizers of the working-class struggles? It is equally clear that what the working class needs is more than sympathizers in those to whom it has a right to look for leadership. To the extent that our Party tackles this question, to that extent will it more rapidly embrace in its ranks such militant Communist leaders. This approach will enable us to put up an effective fight for the political line of our Party.

We must know our people, their qualities, difficulties and weaknesses, attitudes and tastes. Such knowledge will come from the course of the struggle itself; for struggles form and mold cadres. Schools and classes, which are also a form of struggle for cadres, constitute a basic auxiliary to the realization of the full potential of every individual. I repeat, we must pursue a bold policy of promotion of leading and active workers in every phase of activity.

We must be ever vigilant to the attempts of the class enemy to penetrate our ranks. This requires opening up a constant and consistent struggle against enemy influences and practices. In one district a stoolpigeon was a member of the District Committee for several years and was discovered only by accident. Is it not worth pondering over the question that too few of the enemy elements have been exposed in recent years?

Our Party has made the beginnings since the Emergency Convention in raising the theoretical level of the membership—through schools and classes, lectures and study circles, and an increase in the publication of the classics of our movement. Comrade Foster is leading the fight on this front. But what has been done is far from adequate in the light of the tasks we face. Thus, the all-around improvement of all our theoretical work is indispensable in the training and development of cadres. The importance of this entire question can be fully appreciated if we look at the composition of our leadership in the districts, counties and sections. The weaknesses that exist in terms of boldly promoting workers to operative leadership are due in the main to the fact that we are not fully conscious in our everyday work of the imperative need of tackling this problem. There exists in too many places a certain lack of patience in developing workers who are not so articulate. We promote them only when they are the full-fledged, finished product. This is obviously wrong. Our Party, to realize its aims, needs forces for basic industrial towns. America is a big country—and between Chicago and California there exists practically virgin territory for our Party’s work. We must build our Party here.

But in the quest for forces to solve this problem, the answer is often given that we have no forces. To this I give the reply of Lenin who in a similar situation replied:

“There are plenty of people, and yet we are short of people—this contradictory formula has long defined the contradictions in the organizational life and organizational requirements of Social-Democracy. And now this contradiction stands out with particular force; from all sides we often hear passionate appeals for new forces, complaints of the shortage of people in the organizations, and equally often and everywhere we have enormous offers of service, a growth of young forces, particularly in the working class. The practical organizer who complains of a shortage of people under such circumstances becomes the victim of the illusion from which Madame Roland suffered, during the period of the highest stage of development of the Great French Revolution, when she said in 1793: there are no men in France, we are surrounded by pigmies. Those who talk like this fail to see the wood for the trees; they confess that they are blinded by events; that it is not they, the revolutionaries, who control events in mind and activity, but that events control them and have overwhelmed them. Such organizers had better retire and leave the field clear for younger forces whose zeal may often compensate for lack of experience.”

There is no doubt that we will tackle this problem in the spirit that is required. Our Party is capable of accomplishing great things. We can do this because our Party’s policies are based on the science of Marxism-Leninism. Our Party will accomplish its objectives because in the fight to realize its line among the masses it will develop as a system in its work the Bolshevik weapon of criticism and self-criticism. And if we are able to lay bare our major weaknesses for discussion, it is due to the fact that we have every confidence that we can overcome them and strengthen every positive aspect in our Party’s work. The weapon of criticism and self-criticism is the sign of strength of a growing and maturing Communist Party under conditions of the sharpening monopoly offensive. We can look back with pride to our Emergency Convention’s action in rejecting Browder’s revisionism, which action restored to the Party at the same time the Leninist concept of democratic centralism. This Leninist principle of democratic centralism combines two concepts, which enables us to verify our policies and tactics among the masses and to strengthen the authority of Party leadership which resolutely defends the interests of the working class.

It was the application of this principle which enabled our Party to cleanse itself of such anti-Party and anti-working class elements as Browder, Darcy, Harrison George, Dunne, Vern Smith, and Franklin. The continued and energetic application of the principle is indispensable to a Communist Party fighting resolutely against bourgeois influences and practices which are alien to the spirit of working-class struggles. But to achieve this means to root out all petty-bourgeois concepts regarding Party democracy. We should once again return to the classics and refresh our understanding of democratic centralism, its need in the creation of a unified, monolithic Party which is so vital to our class today.

I should like to conclude with the closing section of the Draft Resolution:

“We live in stirring times, fraught with the most terrible dangers, but pregnant with unprecedented opportunities to advance toward the realization of mankind’s highest aspirations.

“As the vanguard Party of the American working class, we Communists have a heavy responsibility to our own people and to all the peace-loving peoples of the world.

“Only if our Party fulfills its vanguard obligations will the American working class succeed in leading the American people’s struggle to repel the dangers of war and fascism, and realize the objectives of peace, democracy, and social progress.

“We have confidence that our Communist Party will build itself, bigger and stronger, to measure up to the needs of our class and our country. We have confidence that the very fury of the coming storms will convince the best of the American workers to struggle with us, in our ranks.

“We will fight unflinchingly for the legality and constitutional rights of our Party. We do not shrink from the hammer blows of reaction. Under them we will steel our Party in Communist discipline, loyalty, and unity, develop its Marxist-Leninist understanding, and temper our cadres and leadership. Sharing the hardships and struggles of America’s working people; we will root our Party ever deeper in the American working-class soil from which it sprang. “As the vanguard Party of the American working class we take our place in the front line of battle, conscious of our responsibility to all Americans who struggle for peace, democracy, economic security, and social progress. We hold aloft the banner of our conviction that the American working people have the capacity, means, and allies to curb and defeat the fascists and warmongers, and, eventually, to advance toward the Socialist reorganization of society, which will forever end the dangers of fascism, crises, and war—the misery of exploitation and oppression. We face the oncoming struggles with confidence in our people, our class, and our Party.”

[1] Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick, The Communist Manifesto; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2022, p. 53.

[2] Dimitrov, Georgi, The United Front: The Struggle Against Fascism and War; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2023, pp. 134-135.

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