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p Marxism-Leninism, which studies general laws without which it is impossible to accomplish the socialist revolution and build socialist society, provides the theoretical foundation for the policy pursued by the Communist Parties. It adopts a specific historical approach to reality, underscoring the fact that the general laws of the building of socialism manifest themselves in their own way in each given country. An indispensable prerequisite of the success of the cause of communism throughout the world is that these specific conditions must be taken into consideration.

p In the struggle against capitalism, for socialism and communism, the Communist Parties frame a definite political line, which finds concrete expression in strategy and tactics.

p It will be remembered that in the pre-October period of the communist movement, the concept strategy was, practically speaking, never used, while tactics were taken to mean the entire Party policy. For example, in Two Tactics of the Social-Democratic Party in the Democratic Revolution, Lenin speaks of tactics as of the Party’s political line for the entire period of the preparations for and the actual consummation of the democratic revolution. He used the concept strategy to denote the Party’s political line only in some of his post-October works, but even then he did not strictly distinguish it from the concept tactics.

p The contemporary communist movement takes strategy to mean the main direction or objective of the workingclass movement in a definite epoch of social development or, to use Lenin’s words, “the general and basic tasks" of the working class, of its Party. To define strategy means to define the principal goal of the movement, to distinguish the main class enemy against whom revolutionary efforts must be directed and win allies in the struggle against this enemy. As regards tactics, they are the totality of forms, methods and means of attaining the main goal in concrete circumstances. Tactics embrace a large variety of issues: the forms of struggle (economic, political, ideological; non-peaceful or peaceful); combinations of various forms of struggle; offensive, defence or retreat; compromise and agreements on the utilisation of 104 antagonisms, conflicts and friction in the enemy’s camp; a united front with non-proletarian masses, and so on; and the “routine”, day-to-day activities of the Party in educating and organising the proletariat and other working people with the purpose of leading them to a revolutionary offensive, to the achievement of the main goal of the workingclass movement. “Marxist tactics consist in combining the different forms of struggle, in the skilful transition from one form to another, in steadily enhancing the consciousness of the masses and extending the area of their collective actions.”  [104•* 

p Communists underscore the unity between strategy and tactics, the need to subordinate tactical tasks to strategic objectives, and require that a change in tactics should not denude them of their revolutionary content or distort the historic aim of the proletariat. They emphatically oppose the Right opportunists, who bury the revolutionary objectives of the struggle in oblivion, and the Left opportunists, who lump strategic and tactical tasks together, absolutising one or another form of struggle that has become obsolete by virtue of changes in the concrete situation.

p Strategy is relatively permanent and stable, the changes in it depending upon the stage of development of one contingent of the world communist movement or another or of one country or another. As a rule, new strategic tasks are formulated when the preceding tasks have been carried out and the country has entered a new stage of development. For instance, when the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution are carried out, the Communist Party advances a new strategy, that of preparing for and accomplishing the socialist revolution. Tactics, on the other hand, are more mobile and dynamic: the forms and methods of struggle change with changes in the balance of class forces, in the conditions obtaining in the country concerned, and in the international situation. An important aim of working-class revolutionary tactics is, as Lenin put it, to “study, detect and predict" the features of the objective movement to communism by various countries and different contingents of Communists.

p The policy of the Marxist party, its strategic and 105 tactical leadership is a science and art. Politics is a science, for it rests on a profound scientific analysis of reality, of the alignment of class forces in a concrete situation. However, it is important not only to work out a correct policy but also successfully to implement it. This requires consummate skill. Without this skill any policy, even the most correct, will remain an empty declaration. For that reason politics is also an art.

p The art of implementing policy is learned, first and foremost, in the course of the class struggle. Without passing through this practical school of struggle with its contradictions and difficulties, without experiencing the bitterness of setbacks and defeat and the joy of success and victory, it is impossible to master the art of strategic and tactical leadership. But this in no way means that every party must base itself solely on its own experience or go through the entire gamut of setbacks, errors and defeats. In mastering the art of political leadership it is important to study the experience of other parties, of the entire world communist movement.

p Political art embraces the ability to work among the masses; to pool the efforts of different parties and groups, including those with whom there are acute divergences; to choose forms of struggle and opportunely apply them in conformity with a change in the concrete situation; to take the offensive when conditions allow it; and, correctly, tactically to retreat; and of numerous tasks to select the basic one and concentrate the Party’s efforts on it, and so forth.

p One of the most important problems of strategy and tactics under capitalist conditions is that of forming and strengthening the alliance of the working class with the non-proletarian working masses, chiefly with the peasants*

p The position and the aims and tasks of the workers and peasants have much in common. Both classes are exploited by the capitalists and, naturally, seek to liberate themselves from bourgeois economic and political rule. This community of aims creates th’e objective foundation for a firm alliance between these classes. However this alliance does not form of itself, spontaneously. It is created by the Communist Parties in the course of the struggle against capitalism, for a new social system.

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p The idea of this alliance is one of the corner-stones of Marxism-Leninism, of scientific communism. Underlying it is the teaching that only the working class can settle the eternal agrarian problem in favour of the peasants, give them the possibility of tilling for their own benefit land belonging either to them or to society as a whole. On the other hand, the working class can destroy capitalism and build socialist society only with the support and active participation of the peasant masses in the revolution.

p The alliance of the working class with the peasants and other non-proletarian masses constitutes the social and political force of the revolution and, therefore, the setting up and consolidation of this alliance is one of the cardinal aims of the Communist Parties.

p Lenin regarded revolution as the result of active creative work by the broad masses. But in order to convince the masses of the need for a revolution, of the need for their active participation in it, the Party must be able to work among the masses. The ability to work among and with the masses is the main feature in the Party’s political art. This applies not only to the ability to conduct agitation and propaganda but also the ability to make the masses see the need for carrying out the tasks set by the Party.

p Lenin formulated the basic principles underlying the art of leading the masses, principles by which Communists are guided in pursuing their policy. They are:

p “Link with the masses.

p “Live in the thick of the masses.

p “Know their mood.

p “Know everything.

p “Understand the masses.

p “Know how to approach them.

p “Win their absolute trust.

“Leaders must not isolate themselves from the masses whom they lead, the vanguard must not isolate itself from the army of labour.”