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[introduction.]

p In scientifically substantiating the historic role of the working class, Marx and Engels at the same time established that the proletariat needed an independent political parly for the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into socialist society.

p They not only wrote about this, but also did a great deal to organise such a party. In 1847 Marx and Engels created the first communist organisation—the Communist League. The Communist League can be considered the prototype of the modern Communist Parties. On the basis of its experience, as also on that of the International Working Men’s Association, which was founded in 1864 and is known in the history of the working-class movement as the First International, Marx and Engels drew many important conclusions on the role of the revolutionary working-class parly, its organisation and policies.

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Under new historical conditions, Lenin developed those conclusions of Marx and Engels into a harmonious teaching on the Party. He showed the leading role of the Party in the working-class movement, formulated its organisational principles and norms of internal life, and the fundamental principles of its policies and tactics. This leaching is one of Lenin’s most important contributions to Marxism.

Revolutionary Character of a Marxist Party

p Of all the organisations created by the working class, only a political party can give proper expression to the basic interests of the working class and lead it to complete victory. With the aid of trade unions, mutual aid societies and other similar organisations alone the workers will never be able to put an end to capitalism and build a socialist society. For this the workers need an organisation of a higher type, an organisation that does not confine itself to the struggle for the satisfaction of the current needs of the working people hut aims at bringing the working class to power in order to effect a revolutionary transformation of society. Such an organisation is the Communist Parly. Lenin wrote that "... in order that the bulk of a certain cla.ss may learn to understand its interests and its position, in order that it may learn to pursue its own policies, requires precisely that the advanced elements of this class should be organised immediately and at all costs even if these elements at first constitute a negligible part of the class".^^1^^"

p As long as the working class wages only an economic struggle, the bourgeoisie does not see in that any great danger for itself; but when the working class organises politically, i.e., creates a political party which expresses its will as a class, the bourgeoisie begins seriously to fear for its rule. That is why reaction deals its main blows against the political party of the working class. At the same time, trying to undermine the party from within, capitalist propaganda endeavours to persuade the workers that they can do without their own party. One of the manifestations of bourgeois influence on the working class is the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist denial of the loading role of a political parly.

p Anarchist’s entirely reject the necessity for any political organisation. The anarcho-syndicalists preach that the working class should not engage in politics and that trade unions alone are enough. By denying politics the anarchists in actual fact subordinate the working class to bourgeois politics.

p Exposing the theoretical untenabilily and the danger of these views, Lenin wrote: "Only a political party of the working class, i.e., a Communist Party, is capable of uniting, educating and organising such .a vanguard of the proletariat and the whole mass of the working people, a vanguard which is alone able to resist the inevitable pettybourgeois vacillations of this mass, the inevitable traditions and 334 relapses of trade-unionist narrowness or trade-unionist prejudices amidst the proletariat, and to lead all the joint activities of the whole proletariat, i.e., to lead the proletariat politically and through it to lead all the masses of the working people.""^^3^^

p However, not every political party claiming the leadership of the working class is capable of accomplishing this task. This is evident from the experience of the Social-Democratic Parties of the Second International. Acting through the opportunist leaders of Social– Democracy, the bourgeoisie was able to a considerable extent to bring these parties under its influence, to “tame” them and make them barely distinguishable from the usual bourgeois parliamentary opposition. As a result, the Social-Democratic Parties, which at first raised high hopes in the working class, lost their ability to organise and lead the revolutionary working-class movement. This was particularly evident when all the social contradictions engendered by the epoch of imperialism became extremely aggravated.

p Objective reality and the interests of the proletariat made the creation of working-class parties of a new type a matter of imperative necessity.

p The first such party was successfully built in Russia, where the imperialist contradictions were particularly sharp. At the end of the 1890s, Lenin raised the banner of struggle against opportunism in the ranks of Social-Democracy. This struggle set an example for the revolutionary movement throughout the world. After the Great October Socialist Revolution Communist Parties began to be organised in many countries.

p The national peculiarities and the conditions of the struggle have left their imprint on each Communist Party but at the same time they all have something in common that radically distinguishes them from the Social-Democratic Parties.

p The main thing that characterises the parties of the new type is their irreconcilability to capitalism. The Communists are waging an active struggle for its abolition, for a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society, for they hold that the taking of political power by the working class and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat are essential conditions for this transformation. Hence the intolerance displayed by Communists for all forms of opportunism, which in practice signifies adaptation to capitalism.

p The Communist Parties do not act blindly, groping in the dark, but are guided by the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism which scientifically expresses the fundamental interests of the working class. The Party is a voluntary union of like-minded persons united for the purpose of applying the Marxist world outlook and carrying out the historic mission of the working class.

The revolutionary character of the Party determines its organisational principles, its unity, its identity of action and the flexibility of its tactics. Moreover, the main strength of the Communist Parties 335 lies in the fact that they are not parties of isolated individuals or narrow groups of professional revolutionaries, but of the broad masses of the working people, with whom they establish the closest possible contact and whose struggle they strive to lead.

Vanguard of fhe Working Class and All Working People

p The Communist Party is the vanguard of the working class, i.e., its advanced, class-conscious part, capable of leading the masses in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism. Lenin wrote: "By educating the workers’ party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat which is capable of assuming power and of leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organising the new order, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the toilers and exploited in the task of building up their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie.”^^1^^"

p The party of the proletariat—the Communist Party—while being a class party has at the same time deep roots not only among the workers but also among other sections of the people.

p Communists are in no way peculiar people; they are plain workers, peasants, intellectuals, in a word, ordinary people. But they are distinguished by their greater class-consciousness, ideological steadfastness and, consequently, more intense revolutionary character and readiness to face any ordeal for the sake of the lofty idea which they have united to realise. Their life is bound up with the interests of the people and they are deeply concerned with everything that agitates the people’s minds.

p The mass Communist Parties include representatives of all the popular forces that have joined the struggle against capitalism and, above all, the finest members of the working class.

p History shows us that before becoming real vanguards the revolutionary parties usually pass through a number of stages of political and organisational development. At the outset they are, more often than not, propagandist groups and their work is conducted mainly within their own ranks. This is necessary to ensure ideological unity, educate the membership and improve the organisation. Then comes the time when the parties go to the masses and begin to lead strikes and mass actions of the working class. This period signifies the merging of the spontaneous working-class movement with the ideas of socialism and its transformation into a class-conscious, organised movement. In the next stage the party becomes a real political force capable of leading not only the majority of the working class but also considerable masses of the people.

p In some capitalist countries the Communist Parties have not yet been able to win the broad masses of the working class and have not yet become mass parties. As the vanguard uniting the most classconscious section of the working class in its ranks, they play no small 336 part in the life and struggle of the working people. It is clear, however, that they will be able to play a still greater part when they unite the masses around themselves. Then they will become a political force capable of leading the workers to social emancipation, to the building of a new sociely.

The speed with which a party passes from one stage to another depends on objective conditions, as well as on the correctness of its own policies and the ability of its leadership. The aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism and the successes of the forces of socialism, and the increase in the political maturity and experience of the party membership, create in our days the prerequisites for all Communist Parties of the capitalist countries to rise to a higher level of development.