Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.  
V. I. Lenin 
Economic & Philosophic Science Review 
Subscriptions (£25 p a.) & circulation:  078679 96074    [P&P Bulletin Publications PO B0X 50, London SW 17 9NL] [ Post Office Regd.]                                             
No 0884 December 17 1996                                                                                                                 10p
Bristol book fair Feb 1 No Review next 2 weeks.

'Unity' with all the middle-class bogus 'revolutionaries' is a trap the SLP wants to keep on avoiding if it is serious about abolishing capitalism in Britain.

The constitution of the Socialist Labour Party banning subversive entryism by Trotskyites is emerging as one of the Party's greatest strengths.

All year it has been assailed by the modern equivalent of "the alliance of bourgeois intellectuals directed against the workers" identified by Lenin (see quotes below) when splitting the Bolshevik Party of workers away from Trotsky, Plekhanov, and Martov's groups.

The petty-bourgeois 'revolutionary' sects trying to force 'unity' on the SLP only want a new mass-workers-party perch for their shallow manoeuvres, their endless bureaucratic obsessions, and 'human rights' individualism.

Now that New Labour has lost all mass class support from workers, and parasitism there is at an end, the 57 varieties of doctrinaire Trots have all tried burrowing into the SLP or browbeating the SLP into an alliance.

At the same time, fear and hostility towards the SLP, depicting Scargill as 'Stalin', has replaced for the Trots the ideological crutch of anti-communism they depended upon all the time the Soviet workers state existed.

These middle-class sects are not just physical parasites on the broader workers movement, they are also intellectual parasites, thriving only on non-stop carping criticism and anti-leadership manoeuvres.

Their unending formal rigmaroles attacking 'undemocratic' details of the SLP constitution, or denouncing the leadership for 'mendaciously pretending' to even have a valid constitution, or insisting on their 'rights' concerning how conference voting is run, or how the Party newspaper is run, etc, - are invariably academic or bureaucratic.

Rarely will these anti-communists speak up openly about their loathing for the Cuban workers state, for example, and challenge Scargill on that or other aspects of SLP socialist internationalism which they despise.

In general, they do not have, or will not voice, any broad political criticism of the SLP or Scargillism, although they dislike its mass-workers-party and workers-state character intensely. They limit their snide attacks to the sort of nitpicking tactic used against Scargill over his recent Manchester speech, trying to undermine confidence in Scargill and trying to obscure the political significance of the successful Manchester rally.

Their 'revolutionary platform' schematic drivel takes care to avoid attacking existing SLP policy. Its sly undermining of what the existing SLP leadership can do is all expressed in a few ultra-left postures about 'universal democratic principles' and the like, and in loads of utterly hypocritical 'rank-and-file-democracy' demands, which these frauds would never dream of observing within their own authoritarian sects or in their back-stabbing relations with each other.

The overall intention of these relentless disruptive activities is to create the impression that the existing SLP leadership is hopeless, that their 'left opposition' has the answer to every working-class dream, but without ever putting up a direct challenge to Scargill & Co for control of the SLP.

The 'Revolutionary Platform' leaflet, which these middle-class 'revolutionary' cuckoos insolently distribute in the SLP workers party nest, is devoid of a single scrap of Marxist-Leninist analysis of the current international balance of class forces or of the world revolutionary perspectives, even as applied to Britain, and noticeably fails to endorse the SLP development as such.

Every reference to the SLP is a veiled hostile one, looking for trouble and a reason to oppose the leadership, and always implying that disastrous failings are all that awaits the SLP as it is at present organised and led:

"All members of the SLP who are trade union officials must be instructed to accept a wage equal to the average of that union's membership. All remaining moneys shall be given over to the movement," 

it declares provocatively against Scargill and his trade union colleagues who formed the SLP.

And how would this ultra-left 'democratic' posturing work if applied to the CPGB which the 'revolutionary platform' has been turned into a front for?

A mentally-deranged high-income factory owner decides for certifiable 'reasons of conscience' to join the CPGB. He gives them £200 a week out of his vastly bigger weekly earnings. So does the CPGB say that unless the owner gives the CPGB all his earnings bar the amount of one of his average worker's weekly wage, they will refuse to let him join or accept his offered €200 a week? Like hell they would.

This is just a stinking posture solely designed to make these no-hopers look like great 'revolutionary democrats' and to cast a slur on the SLP's integrity.

The same contemptuous tone is adopted throughout. "All SLP MPs must be subject to the discipline of the Party," it declares. In general, of course, this is a sound Bolshevik discipline. In the hands of these poseurs, it becomes just an other way of saying that they intend to challenge all SLP leadership on principle, whether the Party president, the Party newspaper, or Party MPs.

On the very existence of the SLP as the greatest step forward for the politics of the working class in a generation, at least, these stooges of "an alliance of bourgeois intellectuals directed against the workers" can declare no welcome at all, - only the sour snarl "For a democratic SLP. We need the principle of free and open debate without bureaucratic restriction".

This is the notorious "freedom of criticism" opportunist slogan of the anti-communist opponents of Leninism in the RSDLP who had no political theory of the epoch or the perspectives facing Russia, but who insisted on pettifogging 'programme' demands or bureaucratic barriers to 'authoritarian leadership' (meaning Leninism), while all the time insisting on "unity of all trends" which the Bolsheviks rejected.

The CPGB stooges inside the SLP have campaigned ceaselessly to destroy the SLP constitution so as to allow 'legal' entryism to these Trots to grow parasitically on the SLP, just as Militant Trots used to grow parasitically on the Labour Party.

Their lifeline in the 'revolutionary platform' which they hawk around the SLP declares: 

"Minority views should be given due recognition, and comrades should have the right to cooperate with co-thinkers to win support in the party", 

meaning a Trot free-for-all to just use the SLP as a playground or a convenient perch.

As Lenin (see below) said of the original Trotskyites, their 'unity' posturing is a substitute for their own 'impotence among the masses'. Without Scargill's SLP to piggyback on, they are reduced to going round in endless circles, rivalling each other over the claimed daring of their different 'programmes' or methods of work or organisation, but conspicuously failing to analyse the world developments remotely correctly, - or even at all, - and backstabbing each other to death in unending bureaucratic incompetence.

The struggle for Marxist-Leninist science distinguishes itself from these moralising schematic sectarians by its constant fight for the most advanced theory of where the international balance of class forces has got to, and what the perspectives are for completing the world socialist revolution, via every correct assessment of every particular anti-imperialist conflict currently making up the sum total of historical trends.

It is also distinguished by its ability to make rapid practical adjustments to the ebb and flow of class struggle, always coming down firmly on the main point of pressure opposing imperialism.

In Britain currently, that means backing the emergence of the Socialist Labour Party as an unprecedented opportunity for a crucial rallying point for rebuilding a mass workers party of socialism to resume the class struggle against British imperialism seriously for the first time in a long time.

It also means enthusiastically backing the SLP's fight against the disruptive nonsense of Trotskyite petty-bourgeois 'revolutionary' entryism which has one aim and one possibility only, - to eternally undermine the SLP and its leadership, and to eternally divert the Party from its real purposes.

Listen to the petty-bourgeois class defeatism of these permanent critics, 

"Our key weakness is the lack of SLP unity with the rest of the 'left'...

"Our key weakness is the lack of rank-and-file democracy in the SLP...

"Our key weakness is the-need for our trade union leaders to make do with an average worker's pay....

"Our key weakness is the lack of a 'unity' constitution in the SLP...'" etc, etc, etc:

Never do they add the key contribution which socialist 'intellectuals' among the workers party can assist with, - deepening the analysis of the crisis of British and world imperialism to further the working-class revolutionary understanding of what is to be done, and how it will be accomplished.

These anti-Scargill, anti-communist, fake-'lefts' are the inheritors of the most poisonous ideological weapon developed by modern imperialism, frauds demanding 'socialism' with a 'human face', or with 'rank-and-file democracy' in order to replace the class power of the workers state with the class power of the bourgeois state.

These were the CIA and Vatican stooges who paid Poles $10 a head to become 'members' of the Solidarnosc 'trade union', a counter-revolutionary stunt which ended up destroying the Polish workers state, undermining its colossal welfare and education provisions, restoring capitalism and profiteering exploitation, giving free rein to the mafia, and eventually installing the neo-fascist Walesa as president. With a total lack of conscience or responsibility for what these dilettantes do or say, the hysterical fans in Britain of the Solidarnosc counter-revolution now try to put all the blame on 'revisionist stupidity' alone for the collapse of the workers states in East Europe, ignoring their own part in the nonstop Cold War anti-communist crusade by which every aspect of the bourgeois ideology of the Western imperialist system, including the Trot bogus 'revolutionaries', joined in the undermining of the first socialist state ventures in Europe.

The anti-communism of these Trot petty-bourgeois sects is NOT just the 'freedom of criticism' of what they claim is 'wrong', about Cuba, or about how the East European socialist states were, or about how the SLP is developing, - as they pretend.

These fulltime 'critics' have a class mentality, -  petty-bourgeois, - which actually hates and fears the historical essence of what Marxist-Leninist science has named 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'.

At the first sight of the huge power of the working class being organised in a very disciplined way behind strong leadership, these incurable representatives of middle-class individualist philosophy, subjective idealism, start cranking up their well-worked bag of historical tricks to halt its progress, - challenges about 'human rights', about 'democracy', about the 'constitution', about 'authoritarianism', about 'bureaucratic dictatorship', etc,.etc, etc.

The SLP's instincts to keep these anti-communist 'left' posturers banned from the Party, with their non-stop disruptive 'freedom of criticism' agendas, was a totally sound one. Defend the SLP constitution.

Royston Bull

All-round SLP fight poised to take advantage of working-class scorn for the total corruption and deceit of parliamentary capitalism and for New Labour's wretched electoralism gimmickry.

The political situation facing the Socialist Labour Party grows more complicated all the time.

The Barnsley by-election result reveals the difficulties facing the SLP from working-class contempt for electoralism in general.

Any class support for Labour has virtually disappeared completely, such is the contempt for Blairism's identification with the ruling-class capitalist system.

New Labour may yet win elections, just as it won the Barnsley by-election, but it will be on the same basis that between Tescos, Sainsburys, and Safeways, one of the supermarkets is going to come out on top, depending largely on the advertising, packaging, and gimmicks, - without indicating any great public concern for who it is, or any proof that their whole retailing service really is 'good' for people, or even the best there is.

For the SLP to break into this monopoly game between Labour, the Tories, and the Lib-Dems is in one sense asking the impossible.

The whole game is a parliamentary bourgeois democracy racket, and it is specifically designed and carefully organised to make sure that only those monopoly parties keep on getting the lion's share of media coverage and establishment perks to feed their careerist opportunism which keeps them and all their stooge 'supporters' going so strongly.

As was once wisely observed, if voting in parliamentary bourgeois democracy was ever seriously going to change anything about capitalist exploitation and the survival of the ruling class, then voting would have been abolished long ago.

Or to put it another way, the emergence of the universal suffrage and the rights of workers to run for parliament (and local government) was properly fought for by workers in class war against the bourgeoisie, but was eventually conceded in such ways as to ensure that no real threat to the domination of the capitalist ruling class could possibly emerge from the establishment-dominated theatrical show that parliament and local government represent.

But despite the limits of bourgeois electoralism, it is absolutely correct for the SLP, or even any avowedly revolutionary party, to take part in bourgeois elections in order to use the 'democratic' tribune of the hustings and the subsequent assembly to take part, not in legislating for capitalism, but in proclaiming the working class's irreconcilable and independent interests in opposition to the entire capitalist system.

However, in taking part in what is basically a false 'democracy' charade, the workers party inevitably suffers itself from some of the working-class contempt for the whole racket of pretending to offer different 'governments' every four years or so, which in fact never alter the slightest fundamental thing about the essence of bourgeois class domination over the whole of society and the economy, and the essence of capitalist exploitation of labour at the heart of that system, even when widespread 'nationalisation' has taken place.

This minor disadvantage of having to play the electoral game was observable in the Barnsley contest.

The overall attitude of the working class to the farcical 'choice' of different major bourgeois parties was one of resigned cynicism. "So what will the next bunch of rascals do any different?" was a general sentiment. "Like all elections, we won't see them again for the next five years once they've got in".

Inevitably, seeing the routine election posters, candidate leaflets, party promises, and hearing the same old loudspeaker appeals, — some of this scepticism rubs off onto the SLP as well, which does not have much choice about election-fighting methods.

On top of this, the working-class voters are aware that even one SLP electoral winner is not going to make the slightest difference to how the next bourgeois parliament is going to carve up the working class and put the burdens of economic difficulty on their backs, just like every bourgeois parliament before it in history.

But things will change, however.

It is unanswerable that the next working-class experience of bourgeois government, - any government, Blair or otherwise, - will further harden workers' contempt for the whole corrupt racket of capitalism, as the crisis of the system irrevocably deepens.

This is not remotely an argument for getting workers to vote New Labour next time, however. It is the 'bi-partisan' game of parliamentary 'opposition' which will ensure that the burdens of the economic crisis are all loaded onto the backs of the working-class, regardless of which is the party in office.

And this the working class already well understand, - which is why the turnout in Barnsley was so contemptuously low, with nearly 70% refusing to vote, indicating that both 'bunches of rascals' are equally despised.

With supposedly one of the most unpopular governments in history currently in office, and about to lose its overall Commons majority depending on the Barnsley poll, bringing this hated government's downfall that much closer, - the electorate of Barnsley East responded with a gigantic dubious yawn.

The mood is far from defeatist. On the contrary, it seemed very buoyant and defiant, especially in view of the devastating blows the area has suffered as a result of the economic disasters already inflicted on it under previous bourgeois parliaments.

Far from being crushed, the working class showed signs of being interested in a much bigger fight than just an electoral by-election, which is where the SLP has the opportunity to really come into its own as a mass workers party, offering a really different future for the working class.

For the SLP has made it crystal clear that it does not see its role purely in electoral terms, but also sees itself just as importantly, and just as legitimately, as a party of extra-parliamentary struggle as well, uniting and representing every kind of protest and resistance movement that the people in general, and different sectors of the population, and the trade unions, etc, organise in their own defence.

All things considered, Ken Capstick's vote for the SLP was another step forward for the Party. Massive political experience was gained, new organised contacts were made for the SLP, and the establishment's attempted dismissal of the SLP as a silly irrelevance was confidently resisted.

Practical experience of the struggle confirmed the colossal strengths and the obvious weaknesses of this stage of the class war.

The SLP is overwhelmingly a workers party, and in this belated emergence from bourgeois New Labour, it remains for a while a little short of the efficient levels of organisation and know-how it will eventually achieve. But in this solidly working-class character of the SLP also rests its entire inspiration and justification, - always tending instinctively towards hostility towards imperialism and hostility to anti-communism (Trotskyism) in equal measure.

The need for this working-class party, dedicated to the abolition of capitalism, is indisputable. It is far from being a Bolshevik Party yet, and possibly never will be. But the SLP has made no secret of its intention to function just as vigorously in extra-parliamentary struggle as in electoral contests. To this extent, there is no need to shy away from tactical comparisons with Bolshevik electoralism and how workers' instinctive hostility to the parliamentary fraud should be dealt with.

The SLP has yet to highlight the need for revolutionary theory to develop its work further, but a verbal allegiance to Marxism has been acknowledged (or shown no overt hostility at least), and the Party continues flowering in all directions.

The last thing it needs, of course, is a Trotskyite 'left opposition' to hold it back (see next story); and a serious struggle for Marxist-Leninist science has every opportunity of usefully helping the SLP's development to continue,-by backing the routing of this disruptive entryist menace. The further building of Leninist understanding in the workers movement in Britain will greatly aid this work. Tom Baxter

CPGB crooks creep away from their libellous mess.

The Weekly Worker practitioners of theft and deception on the working class, - raising funds for their rag under the pretence of collecting for the 'Unemployed Workers Charter', - have withdrawn their silly slanders implying that SLP members who oppose their 'left opposition' tactics only do so because they have been bribed.

These petty-bourgeois criminal ponces on the working class now pretend that their gross libel, - which these scum know would land them in court in a flash if they tried it on a bourgeois politician, - was all a 'polemical trick' to provoke the EPSR comrades into scabbing on CPGB entryists into the SLP.

Such infantile 'rationalisation' of what could only be regarded as a deranged self-destructive tactic if it were true, - will just be laughed at by any sane adults.

These middle-class dilettantes cannot avoid personal abuse because they cannot answer the scientific Leninist polemics which have trounced them on issue after issue this year.

Their insulting personal slander began when they could no longer refute the EPSR exposure of their pathetic misunderstanding of the SLP and the total failure of their daft entryist and takeover programme.

That their attempted personal abuse was also libellous only shows what incompetent ignorance rules at the CPGB.

Their discomfort (at being told that their personal abuse tactics were a disgrace, by a supporter of theirs) shows in two additional 'explanations'.

One pretends that the libel was just "an aside", which was "mentioned in passing" in a "small article", a piece of individual-style "florid language" over which there is no "sanitised, mono-tempo house style" control.

The other lame excuse for this degenerate irresponsible behaviour is that Lenin always insisted on writing in "an angry tone" to arouse contempt against what is harmful. Fine, but in class-political terms, not by personal libel-abuse.

These sordid little empty-heads are just like truculent children with their different 'excuses' for their ill-advised personal slander.

Their 'supporter' critic has suggested they apologise for their scurrilous remarks (which the CPGB clearly has no intention of doing). It would only work as part of a political recantation of totally wrong positions.

What this sad personal abuse records is a parting of the class ways over the SLP. Marxists will help build it. Petty-bourgeois 'intellectuals' (see previous story) will try to disrupt it.

The CPGB's latest 'onslaught' on the EPSR as 'rightist scabs', 'putrefied witch-hunters', 'opportunist lies', 'foul degenerative process', etc, is routine, if unimaginative and not very class-perceptive, political invective from shallow idealists. But the parting of the class ways over the SLP, - all summed up in the couldn't-care-less recourse to slanderous fictions, - remains the reality.

Comradely political collaboration with such class enemies, as Lenin regarded the sectarian alliance of 'left intellectuals', is out of the question.

It is only how energetically this class war is pursued with anti-communist individualism (which is truly scabbing on the SLP) which might be affected by any further CPGB decision to "provoke by personal libel" in this truly degenerate way.

Close comradely work inside the SLP with Trotskyite scabs responsible for shared authorship of damaging personal libels as a substitute for losing the political argument, will never be how the EPSR understands the requirements of Leninist science. How far-reaching a fight these deluded CPGB entryists want on this front is up to them.

The total political exposure of this anti-communist Trot parasitism remains an absolute. It is now clear that the CPGB is proud of its ability to rouse SLP supporters into very energetic defence of the Party's rights to be free from subversive entryism trying to destroy confidence in the SLP leadership. If these deranged fantasists are really pleased that their dirty libels have helped get them comprehensively politically slaughtered, then presumably they will continue their bizarre game.

What they will not do, of course, is ever answer the devastating political exposures by the EPSR of the Weekly Worker's defeatist and infantile 'political analysis'.

As opposed to their tortuous squirming over their ill-advised libel, these dilettante individualists - simply shut up about their disastrous political pronouncements, and refuse to answer criticism of them.

The world is still waiting to hear the next stage in how "previous thorns in imperialism's flesh are gradually being brought to book", the CPGB's ludicrously inept characterisation on Aug 29 of the current perspectives for the international balance of class and nationalist forces; or the next instalment of the 'sell-out' by the IRA and Gerry Adams who on June 20 became "a victim of the US-dominated New World Order, - i.e. the "negative resolution" of anti-imperialist struggles under which imperialism is "imposing" a corrupt sell-out of the Irish national-liberation struggle.

It will be a long wait.

These Trots have also failed to reply to the EPSR exposure of their dissembling over their original takeover plans for their entry into the SLP, which they subsequently attempted to deny in the course of their insincere promotion of 'revolutionary platform' and 'left opposition' posturing (as a front for the CPGB). 

Their dreams of a take-over via bureaucratic formal procedural manoeuvres is so unbelievably stupid and deluded as to be certifiable.

Their incorrigible factionalism for 'constitutional rights' shows up their use of the SLP for mere sectarian mischief, and recalls their catastrophic intervention (to 'improve upon' how the NUM ran the '84-'85 strike) when they fell for the MI5 campaign for a secret ballot, to undermine the picketing out of pits.

These fake-'lefts' are in the wrong era for a renewed parasitical ride such as Militant got out of the Labour Party. These middle-class fake 'revolutionaries' are becoming increasingly redundant historically. A far better SLP will be built out of ordinary workers and trade-unionists now breaking from New Labour's final capitulation to imperialist class-collaboration. 

Build Leninism. JH

Lenin denounces the fake 'left' of Martov, Plekhanov, and Trotsky's sects, - "an alliance of bourgeois intellectuals directed against the workers".

That is exactly what they are—sterile! The "unity" of the varied intellectualist little groups is bought by the Narodniks at the price of their utter political impotence among the masses. And with us Marxists, too, it is the Trotskyism," the liquidators, the "conciliators", and the "Tyszka-ites",45  those who shout loudest about group unity, who display the same intellectualist impotence.

This conclusion is that attempts to create "unity" by means of "agreements" or "alliances" among intellectualist groups, which in fact express tendencies that are injurious to the working-class movement (Narodism, liquidationism, etc.), lead only to complete disintegration and impotence. Both Narodism and liquidationism have proved this by their lamentable example.

Only in opposition to these groups and grouplets (in a strenuous struggle, which is inevitable under bourgeois conditions and amidst a host of petty-bourgeois vacillations) is real unity building up among the working-class masses led by the majority of the class-conscious proletarians.

Naïve people will ask: How are we to distinguish the intellectualist groups which are causing damage to the working-class movement by disintegrating it and condemning it to impotence, from that group or groups which ideologically express the working-class movement, rally, unite and strengthen it? There are only two ways of distinguishing one from the other: theory and practical experience. It is necessary seriously to examine the theoretical content of such trends of thought as Narodism and liquidationism (the principal petty-bourgeois trends that are disintegrating the working-class movement). It is necessary to carefully study the practical experience of the mass working-class movement as a means of rallying the majority of class-conscious workers around integral and considered decisions.

He who gives close thought to the theory of Marxism and close attention to the practical experience of the last few years will realise that the elements of a genuine workers' party are rallying in Russia in spite of the motley, noisy, and vociferous (but essentially futile and harmful) groups of Narodniks, liquidators, and so forth. Unity of the working class is emerging from the disintegration of these groups and their isolation from the proletariat.

NARODISM and LIQUIDATIONISM Proletarskaya Pravda No 12. December 20, 1913

Trotsky, however, has never had any "physiognomy" at all; the only thing he does have is a habit of changing sides, of skipping from the liberals to the Marxists and back again, of mouthing scraps of catchwords and bombastic parrot phrases.

In Borba you will not find a single live word on any controversial issue.

This is incredible, but it is a fact.

The question of the "underground"? Not a word.

Does Trotsky share the views of Axelrod, Zasulich, F. D., i L. S. (Such   No. 101) and so forth? Not a murmur.

The slogan of fighting for an open party? Not a single word.

The liberal utterances of the Yezhovs and other Luchists on strikes? The annulment of the programme on the national question? Not a murmur.

The utterances of L. Sedov and other Lutanists against two of the "pillars"99? Not a murmur. Trotsky assures us that he is in favour of combining immediate demands with ultimate aims, but there is not a word as to his attitude towards the liquidator method of effecting this "combination"!

Actually, under cover of high-sounding, empty, and obscure phrases that confuse the non-class-conscious workers, Trotsky is defending the liquidators by passing over in silence the question of the "underground", by asserting that there is no liberal-labour policy in Russia, and the like.

And these near-Party people, who are unable to unite on their own "August"platform, try to deceive the workers with their shouts about "unity"! Vain efforts!

Unity means recognising the "old" and combating those who repudiate it. Unity means rallying the majority of the workers in Russia about decisions which have long been known, and which condemn liquidationism.

But the liquidators and Trotsky, the Seven and Trotsky, who tore up their own August bloc, who flouted all the decisions of the Party and dissociated themselves from the "underground" as well as from the organised workers, are the worst splitters. Fortunately, the workers have already realised this, and all class-conscious workers are creating their own real unity against the liquidator disruptor's of unity.

BREAK UP OF THE AUGUST BLOC. Put Pravdy No 37, March 15, 1914

In a petty-bourgeois country, which is passing through a historical period of bourgeois reconstruction, it is inevitable that a motley assortment of intellectuals should join the workers, and that these intellectuals should attempt to form all kinds of groups, adventurist in character in the sense referred to above.

Proof is provided by the history of the last decade (1904-14), which is most eventful and significant. During these ten years members of these groups have displayed the most helpless, most pitiful, most ludicrous vacillation on serious questions of tactics and organisation, and have shown their utter inability to create trends with roots among the masses.

Now Plekhanov has begun to repeat—with the liquidators, with Bogdanov and the rest—phrases about the unity of "all trends". We emphatically condemn this line, which should be relentlessly combated.

Nowhere in the world do the workers' parties unite groups of intellectuals and "trends";  they unite workers on the following terms:  (1) recognition and application of definite Marxist decisions on questions of tactics and organisation; (2) submission of the minority of class-conscious workers to the majority.

Witless people may abuse the Pravdists and call them factionalists, splitters, and so forth, but these phrases and abuse will not wipe out the unity of the workers....

ADVENTURISM  Rabochy No.7,  June  9. 1914

But—and this is the whole point—no task is more unpleasant, undesirable, and unacceptable to the liquidators than that of ascertaining our main differences on questions of theory, programme, tactics and organisation. All their subterfuges, distortions and abuse in connection with the Bureau's resolution are solely designed to obscure its demand for a preliminary clarification of differences. We say: the organisation to be created as a result of unity should be based on such and such principles—acceptance of the old programme, a definite form of organisation, uncurtailed slogans, resolute tactics, etc. But you immediately declare that this formulation of the programme, tactics and tasks of the organisation, is nothing but a "complete list of liquidators' sins". We are sorry for you, but neither we nor the Bureau know of any method of building new organisations other than by clarifying their programme, their tactics, and so forth.

We are guilty of a still more grievous sin, however. Not only have we proposed the conditions for the creation of an organisation, i. e., clarified the terms of peace, but we have moreover, submitted these terms to the bar of the workers' opinion.

But the liquidators, of course, will to the very last shun this path, for the simple reason that neither a precise formulation of their political views nor the submission of these views to the bar of the broad circles of the workers is in the interests of their group.

Under these circumstances they will inevitably strive to substitute for the definite "clarification of differences"demanded by the Bureau, petty personal squabbles, distortions, and wilful misrepresentations.

ONCE MORE ABOUT ISB AND LlQUIDATORS Proletarskaya Pravda No11 December 19 1913

The publicists' alliance that we see today among the leaders of Narodism (Chernov, Rakitnikov and Sukhanov) and various Social-Democratic intellectualist factions that are either openly opposed to the "underground", i.e., the workers' party (the liquidators* Dan, Martov and Cherevanin) or else help these liquidation workerless groups (Trotsky and Slier, Bazarov, Lunacharsky and Plekhanov), is in fact nothing more nor less than an alliance of bourgeois intellectuals directed against the workers.

We regard Pravdism as the expression of the workers' unity on the basis of genuine recognition of the "underground" and of definite decisions that co-ordinate and guide tactics in the old spirit (the decisions of January 1912 and of February and the summer of 1913).

It is a fact that this workers' unity is built on the firm basis of integral, complete and, in principle, consistent decisions on all questions affecting the lives of the Marxist workers.                                     

BOURGEOIS INTELLIGENTSIA'S METHODS OF STRUGGLE   June  1914.

[Page 6 is missing]

influence under these new conditions.

In this process, the authority and decision-making powers of municipal agencies and enterprises are strengthened, thereby conferring a larger and more complex role on the Party's grass-roots organizations in their relationship with administrations and in ensuring that Communists take on their appropriate role in the fight for efficiency and production results in the framework of the policies established by the state.

Along with this comes an increase in the Party member's role in defense of the Revolution's political line. Put more directly, Party members must feel a constant responsibility to do political work in favor of the Revolution, and strive in their daily lives to preserve the people's interests in whatever place they find themselves, whether it is a state enterprise, a corporation, a cooperative or anything else. This responsibility is even greater for Party members who are in leadership positions and have the job of putting policy into practice, and who have the necessary resources to carry it out in any of the forms of foreign capital association.

The greater presence of market relations within our midst, the capitalist business psychology, as well as the consumerist habits which have inevitably made a certain space for themselves constitute real premises for the deviation of officials, cadres, and people representing the various levels of the Cuban state — i.e., the interests of the Cuban people.

In present and future conditions, the Party's grass-roots organizations should increase their efforts to observe the ethical behavior and the compliance with legislation in entities which handle foreign currency resources. This implies being aware of, supervising and making demands about the utilization of these resources, and paying attention to any suspicious handling of these resources, and any manifestation of bribery or corruption.

In particular, we must see that those appointed to these leadership posts are comrades who, along with having good technical training, are clearly committed to the Revolution and whose personal conduct is characterized by austerity and modesty. The cases which have come to light of officials who have succumbed to corruption or bribery indicate a lack of collective vigilance, the fact that no alarm was sounded when the first symptoms of misconduct emerged, and the fact that these symptoms were justified or covered up in some of these officials' previous records. No one can consider himself or herself exempt from control and in the case of Communist Party members, we have the obligation and duty to promote such control. Impunity is always a breeding ground for corruption.

We must ensure, with ever greater caution, to assume leadership positions, in any of these entities, as a service to the Revolution and the people, to whom we owe the fact that we are in such positions.

The Party must continue to make sure that the administrations and organizations in workplaces meet their responsibilities better and more efficiently, without accepting as Party responsibilities actions and obligations that rightly belong to others. As we have already mentioned, in our country the Party is involved in everything and its political activity is logically connected to the state, the mass organizations, all the institutions in the country and the people: but even though we know it is not easy, we must strive to express its leadership role in coordination, a demanding attitude, orientation and supervision.

To the extent we can do this, we will be able to develop and carry out ideological and political work under current conditions, in which the war being waged against our nation is increasingly becoming a confrontation of ideas, an attempt to force us to renounce our revolutionary ideology, to promote the proliferation among us of a tendency toward eliminating our ideology from the economy, politics, social action and history; in short, for us to abandon socialism and accept capitalism.

The enemy's plan to realize its dream of our nation disappearing is not viable if it does not manage to get us to deny our history, the legacy of thought and action left to us by our great heroes (Martí, Maceo, Mella, Che), Fidel's example, united with the principles of Marxism and Leninism. Knowing this is not enough if we do not turn our knowledge into practical actions directed at strengthening our ideological defenses, enriching and humanizing the ideological and political content in the actions of our Party cells and members in daily relations with groups and individuals, and giving them a concrete content so that those groups and individuals consciously opt for socialism.

It is the Party's job to promote a joint effort aimed at improving revolutionary ideology, systematically and rigorously imbuing it with our own social experience, but based on universal experience.

We need more dynamic, systematic and substantive action in providing information and orientation to Party members, from the higher agencies to the grass-roots level, accompanied by more creative and determined action by members and cadres when situations present themselves, and in regard to the orientations contained in the public speeches made by Fidel and other leaders of the Revolution.

Inaction can never be justified by a partial or total lack of information or orientation.

In present and future socio-economic and political conditions, political and ideological work in the neighborhoods has taken on greater importance.

Party members must pay more attention to daily life in their places of residence and think about concrete ways in which we can more directly influence those around us, so that they may better understand the real causes of our current difficulties, in order to promote and encourage citizens' participation in the solution of local problems and to boost optimism in the future and faith in our people's potential to move forward.

For that reason, it is essential that Party members protect their social prestige and that of their families, that we remain an example in community tasks and that we never lose our vanguard status.

Within any strategy directed at groups of workers, neighbors or circles of friends or relatives of the Party member, we must strive to increase the influence of the Party among young people, through the Young Communist League and directly. We must not allow an artificial gap to be opened between the generations that support and defend the Revolution, and we must adjust our forms of social relations and the content of our message to young people's uncertainties, requirements and expectations, without unnecessary paternalism and without renouncing our responsibility for preparing them as citizens and revolutionaries.

Finally, the quality of our operations is a matter which is essential in the efficiency of the Party's ideological and political activity.

While the Party's objectives and concrete activity are decisive, the way these things are carried out is a determining factor. Organization and operations are not an end in them selves, but the Party's goals cannot be achieved without them.

In recent times, in some grass-roots organizations, poor attention is paid to the internal life of the Party, which reflects itself in the superficial treatment of problems which require much more attention and analysis, in those places, meetings have become a formality and not enough time and energy are invested in dealing with existing problems.

It is not a matter of inventing content, but of putting the Party's internal life in its proper place. When not enough attention is paid to the Party's internal life, a lack of interest is promoted and practices appear which on occasions lead to using working time for Party tasks which in the first place should be characterized by the fact that they represent additional effort on the part of Party members.

The basis of this is a failure to take into account the Party's role in confronting concrete problems from the beginning, which is very important for all Party cells and above all for those now dealing with the greatest impact of the changes in the economy, work organization, production and services.

Meanwhile, the higher Party bodies, especially the municipal bureaus and committees, should pay more attention to the grass-roots organizations, providing the information and orientation necessary for their activity and the proper functioning of their internal life. •