In the year 1898, in Czarist Russia, a small group of young, middle class intellectuals, Marxist revolutionaries, one and all, got together and formed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the RSDLP. One of those people was a fellow by the name of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, later to become famous under the name of Lenin.
It is safe to say that at that time, no one paid a great deal of attention to this assortment of young revolutionaries. The only exception was the secret police of the Czar, and they promptly rounded up the whole lot and threw them in jail. Lenin, among others, was sent to Siberia, and the secret police thought that was the end of the matter. They could not possibly have been more mistaken.
In 1902, the members of the Party came together once again and produced the political platform of the RSDLP. This was mainly written by Lenin, and of course was concerned with the situation which existed in Russia at that time. Parts of that document can be used as a basis for the creation of a Communist Party of America.
For the benefit of those who have only recently become politically active, I should mention that the RSDLP later changed its name to Bolshevik and then Communist.
There are several key passages within the Draft Program of the RSDLP which are just as important now as at the time they were written:
VII The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself.
VIII This proletarian revolution will completely abolish the division of society into classes and consequently any and all political inequality arising from that division.
IX To effect this social revolution the proletariat must win political power, which will make it master of the situation and enable it to remove all obstacles along the road to its great goal. In this sense the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat is an essential political condition of the social revolution.
These passages are just as valid today as at the time they were first written, and are just as completely unacceptable to the bourgeoisie. We can use these passages to assist in the formation of a political platform of a new Communist Party of America. We can also expect the supporters of the bourgeoisie, belly crawling boot lickers, including those who claim to be Marxists, to oppose these key passages. By contrast, those who are true Marxists, and not mere revisionists or social reformers, will embrace such passages.
I say that we can expect this because the capitalists are quite predictable. We can expect them to attempt that which they have attempted before. One of their favourite tricks is to send their agents into a revolutionary Communist party and to divert their policy onto a harmless policy of revision, of social reform. Such reforms are no threat to the rule of the bourgeoisie and are quite acceptable.
It was precisely on such differences that the RSDLP broke into two factions, a majority, or Bolshevik, led by Lenin, and a minority, or Menshevik, revisionist faction. The Mensheviks were in favour of social reform, of patching up capitalism, of working within the system, of ”changing it from within”. They denied the necessity of revolution and the subsequent Dictatorship Of the Proletariat. They claimed to be Marxists while at the same time maintaining that the theories of Marx had to be revised.
Lenin waged a merciless struggle against these revisionists, whom he referred to as Economists or Trade Unionists. He dealt with them at length in his excellent book, What Is To Be Done? Yet to this day there are people who peddle this same rubbish, and in the name of Marx and Lenin, no less!
One of the more clear cut examples is that of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist – Leninist) or CPC (ML). In their latest weekly newspaper, dated January 19, 2019, the headlines proclaim:
In 2019, Let Everyone Take Up Politics of Social Responsibility and Speak in Their Own Name
All Out to Humanize the Social and Natural Environment!
Affirm the Rights of All!
Make Canada a Zone for Peace!
It is only natural to wonder just what they mean by this, and in fact the lead article takes up the ”politics of social responsibility and speak in their own name…this includes first and foremost the work for political renewal which will focus on defining the modern democratic personality and politics of social responsibility. It includes the work to make sure the working people are able to speak in their own name and do not get silenced or criminalized by the measures put in place to marginalize and dismiss their concerns. The Party also joins efforts which contribute to humanizing the social and natural environment…”
It is difficult to imagine terms which are more vague than ”social responsibility”, ”political renewal”, ”modern democratic personality”, ”humanizing the social and natural environment”, ”working people are able to speak in their own name”. This is nothing more that a miscellaneous assortment of words, random verbiage which is grouped together so that they have absolutely no meaning, sheer gobbledegook. Yet this gibberish is put forward in the name of Marx and Lenin!
This stands in stark contrast to the political platform put forward by Lenin, in which he refers to proletarian revolution and the subsequent Dictatorship Of the Proletariat.
The rest of the newspaper is put forward in the same manner. The capitalist class is not even referred to as the bourgeoise, but as the ”ruling elites”. Class conflict is glossed over. There is no mention of revolution or of the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat.
I have deliberately chosen this newspaper as it is a very clear cut example of a party which claims to be Communist and Marxist Leninist and yet is merely straight forward revisionist. There are other parties which claim to be socialist but have a less clearly defined ideology, assuming they have any ideology at all.
This is a rather serious matter. As a result of the revolutionary movement, a great many people, mainly working class but also middle class, are now politically active. Most of them have previously been apathetic, and are now fed up with the main stream political parties and are looking for a socialist alternative. It is only natural that they should approach a Communist Party and very quickly become very confused. It may take them a while to realize that the only difference between the main stream parties and the leftist parties is that one is more hypocritical than the other. Sadly, it is those who claim to be Communist who are more hypocritical.
The natural result of this is to divert the revolutionary movement onto some harmless path of social reform, as the bourgeois ideology reasserts itself. This must be opposed, and that is where a true Communist Party comes into play. We must first form and then stress that we are a revolutionary Communist Party, dedicated to the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat. We must educate workers to the existence of classes, raise their level of awareness using such terms as proletariat and bourgeoisie. These words must be explained, sometimes in very popular literature, for the sake of workers who are somewhat less advanced. For those who are more advanced, less popular literature can be used. Repetition is also useful, as we all learned the alphabet through repetition. We must drive home the point that our class interests are diametrically opposed, the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, using examples of current events, such as the lies and deception of Trump, the government shutdown and the national debt ceiling. From such examples, which we can use as mere particulars, we can move onto the general point of class conflict, of the necessity of revolution and the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat. Otherwise we run the risk of becoming mere babblers.
That is our task, the task of conscious people, those of us who are well aware of that which is happening. This stands in stark contrast to the working people who are taking part in the revolution, even though they are not aware of their actions. They need direction, their level of awareness must be raised, to the level of Marxists. At least, the most advanced workers must become revolutionary Marxists, aware of the necessity of the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat. The less advanced will follow the more advanced workers.
That is where we come in. It is up to us, conscious people, Marxists, to provide the working people with that level of awareness, to lead the revolutionary movement onto a proper path of scientific socialism. Otherwise, the bourgeoisie will divert it onto some path of harmless social reform.
That is the reason we need a party, in order to give that direction. It must be a proper Communist Party, which is the reason I suggest the name of American Communist Party, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or ACP,DOP.
The need for a revolutionary Communist Party is urgent, as time is not on our side. The revolution is not about to wait for us. That is the reason I call upon conscious people, Marxists, to come together to form a proper Communist Party.
In that spirit, I can once again stress the need to provide the rudiments of class consciousness to all working people, in the form of slogans:
Workers of the World, Unite!
Scientific Socialism!
Dictatorship Of the Proletariat!
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 