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p The art of political leadership consists not only in winning influence but also in maintaining and strengthening it. This 298 entails constant, day-to-day work among the people and the maintenance of contact with them. Lenin wrote that "it is our duty always (author’s italics) to intensify and broaden our work and influence among the masses.... Without this work, political activity would inevitably degenerate into a game."  [298•*  Revolutionary Marxists, Lenin said, would never renounce day-to-day work among the masses "which they regard as the real preparation for the decisive fight".  [298•**  The entire Communist Party, from its Central Committee to every rank-and-tile member, constantly educates the people and strengthens its links with them. In this work Lenin accorded an important role to the primary party organisations, writing that "these cells, which are to be in close touch with one another and with the party centre, should by pooling their experience, carrying on work of agitation, propaganda and organisation, adapting themselves to absolutely every sphere of public life and to every variety and category of the toiling masses, systematically educate ... the party, the class, and the masses".  [298•*** 

p Through the primary organisation, which is its foundation, the Communist Party keeps in touch with the people and conducts extensive work among them. Discussing the role of primary organisations Communist parties stress that it is the duty of these organisations to help the people to define their demands democratically and work out the best ways of fighting for the attainment of these demands; to help the people examine problems from the political angle by showing the link between the government’s policy, its main aims and the actual condition of the working people, by exposing the anti-social, demagogic policy pursued by the bourgeoisie. By its political work the primary organisation wins the support of the maximum number of people for the party’s democratic proposals. Moreover, it is active in the ideological struggle. The primary organisation thus becomes a centre of political activity among the people and through it every Communist joins in the work among the people.

p This work should not be irregular and it should not be activated only, for example, during election campaigns or 299 during preparations for a party congress. It should be conducted uninterruptedly and its aim, as Lenin defined it, is to enable the party to draw closer to and fuse with the people. Lenin showed how this closer link with the people could be achieved: the Communists had to work among the people everywhere, especially in public organisations. Lenin explained to Communists why they had to attach paramount importance to work in these organisations (trade unions, women’s, youth, sports organisations, cooperatives, and so on), and defined the principles for this work, demonstrating how to win influence in public organisations while preserving their autonomy and unitary character.

p The Communists make every effort to win decisive influence in public organisations, and in this they are helped by the fact that they neither have nor can have special interests in opposition to the interests of the working people belonging to the these organisations. They believe that democratic rules and regulations are a major condition preventing these organisations from becoming an adjunct of bourgeois and conciliatory political forces and from falling under the control of reactionary elements. Only where broad democracy reigns do the Communists get the opportunity to propagate their views, conduct broad discussions, give every member of the organisation a correct understanding of its aims and criticise misconceived views and actions.

p By acting within the framework of the rules of mass organisations and showing themselves to be active and consistent fighters for the aims of these organisations, Communists strengthen their influence in them, make their work more effective, and are elected to their governing bodies.

p The Communist parties attach particularly great importance to winning influence in the trade unions, which are the largest uncommitted organisation of the working class.

p In the trade unions the efforts of the Communists are directed towards securing the consistent defence of the people’s interests and preventing the trade unions from sliding into class collaboration. Lenin scathingly denounced the proponents of trade unions’ “neutrality”, which limited their activity to the economic struggle and rejected the need for close ties between the Communist Party and the trade unions. Although he regarded the trade unions as entirely 300 independent associations of the working people, as a school of unity, he saw in them an organisation linking the workers with the Communist Party, with its aims and ideals. These conclusions retain their significance to this day.

p It will be recalled that Marx wrote that the trade unions "must convince the world at large that their efforts, far from being narrow and selfish, aim at the emancipation of the downtrodden millions".  [300•*  In exposing the opportunism of the theory that the trade unions are “neutral”, Lenin showed that it pushed the trade unions towards neutrality relative to the political and, above all, the class struggle. Renunciation of the political struggle only played into the hands of the bourgeoisie. In actual fact neutrality in the political struggle signified dependence on the bourgeoisie. Without participating in the political struggle the trade unions could never achieve the emancipation of the working people from exploitation, for that was a political task. The closer the link between the Communist Party and the trade unions, the more active the latter become in the political struggle.

p Every Communist Party defines the content, forms and methods of its work in the trade unions, and the way to win influence in them in keeping with the obtaining situation, the level of class consciousness and the traditions of the class struggle and of the trade union movement in the given country. The Communists make sure that the trade unions put forward their own alternative to all aspects of the policy of the ruling classes. As seen by the Communist parties, the new, enhanced role of the trade unions springs from the fact that the socio-economic struggle waged by them is ranging beyond traditional limits, rising to the level of the national interests of the working people and becoming a struggle for the solution of key political problems of social development. The significance of the new demands of the trade unions is that they are designed to ensure trade union influence on the economic and political activities of the state (from individual enterprises to the national level).

p Changes in trade union policy induce changes in the anti-labour strategy of the bourgeoisie, which endeavours to belittle the role of the trade unions and outlaw strikes. The 301 assaults of the bourgeoisie on the trade unions make it imperative for the Communists to take a more active part in the struggle to preserve and broaden the rights of the trade unions, to democratise them and ensure their independence of the state and the entrepreneurs.

p The Communists attach paramount importance to the struggle for the unity of the trade union movement on the national and the international scale. To this end they work for united action with the other political parties in the trade unions, notably with the Social-Democratic parties that in many of the industrialised countries exercise the predominant influence in the trade unions. In some countries (chiefly Italy, France and Finland) such unity has in large measure been achieved and the attempts of the Right-opportunist leaders to break it have proved to be abortive.

p In addition to the trade unions the working class has mass organisations to which Communists are not admitted freely. Lenin urged Communists to learn to penetrate closed premises where the workers were influenced by the bourgeoisie, noting that the Communists who refused to understand and learn to do so could not hope to win the support of the majority of the workers.  [301•* 

p It cannot be said that this injunction by Lenin is complied with everywhere. Many Communist parties note the need for more vigorous activity in organisations with bourgeois leaders or with leaders collaborating with the bourgeoisie.

p Lenin closely studied the social psychology of all strata of the population and urged the Communists to "go among all classes of the population ... dispatch units of their army in all directions".  [301•**  He constantly reminded the Communists that to win the support of the masses they had to adopt a different approach to the various strata of the population. "We must learn,” he wrote, "to approach the masses with particular patience and caution so as to be able to understand the distinctive features in the mentality of each stratum, calling, etc., of these masses."  [301•***  The Communist Party, he pointed out, could not use the same words, arguments and slogans for all the strata of the population. Arguments understood 302 by one stratum might not be understood by another. Without taking into account the specifics, problems and professional interests of each social group and without a special approach to common problems the Communist Party could not unite the majority of the working people around itself.

p As the political organisation of the working class the Communist Party strives to influence, above all, the working class, to unite around itself the majority of the most revolutionary class, the proletariat, which is capable of consummating the struggle for the abolition of capitalism and building the new socialist society. A split in the working class and the Right Social-Democrats’ policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie raise formidable difficulties in achieving such unity. In line with the tactics of a united working-class front evolved by Lenin, the Communist parties are striving to cooperate with the Social-Democratic parties and act for united action with all the detachments of the working class.

p However, in this cooperation one of the most crucial and most difficult problems is that united action by the Communists and the Social-Democrats should be unmistakably antimonopolist at all levels. This is hindered by a number of circumstances, notably by the fact that the influence of Social-Democrats avoiding a clearcut class attitude is still very strong.

p One of the circumstances impeding the growth of the workers’ class consciousness is the appearance of new strata of the working class employed in advanced, progressive branches of the economy brought into being by the scientific and technological revolution. From the standpoint of their class consciousness these strata differ substantially from workers in traditional industries and therefore require considerable attention.

p The Communist parties should not ignore the impact of the various opportunist theories rejecting the revolutionary character of the working class and trying to persuade the workers that the scientific and technological revolution can resolve all economic, social and political problems in the interests of the working people without a social revolution.

p Consequently, the Communist parties have to give their unremitting attention to the political education of the workers.

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p For this purpose many Communist parties arrange conferences of Communist workers at which they discuss problems of the class struggle, the aims of the working class and the measures to be taken to step up the work of Communists at factories. Lenin stressed the significance of the work conducted by party organisations at the factories, writing that this work was particularly important to the party, that "the main strength of the movement lies in the organisation of the workers at the large factories".  [303•* 

p In recent years the Communist parties have been giving more attention to work at the factories and enlarged the number of organisations functioning directly at industrial enterprises. At their latest congresses the French and Italian Communist parties noted the considerable increase in the number of primary party organisations at factories and the need for enlarging the party organisations at industrial enterprises. By the beginning of 1979, 10,000 Communist Party organisations had been set up at industrial enterprises in France.

p Gus Hall’s Report to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the USA stressed that in their policy American Communists pay most attention to the working class, because the capitalist production process turns the workers into a class force. They have fewer and fewer illusions about capitalism; they are the only class in history that cannot solve its problems without assuming leadership of the struggle to solve the problems of society. The daily work of the Party from year to year should be planned and organised from top to bottom so as to focus constantly on the working class. Communist parties also note that the majority of their new members are workers.

p The course of events is stimulating the spread of very strong anti-monopoly and anti-oligarchic moods in agriculture. Communist parties are advancing their programmes of defending the interests of agricultural workers, small farmers, the owners of family farms, and other groups of rural workers, that are threatened by the policy of ruining and abolishing the peasantry, pursued by the monopolies with the help of the state.

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p Today the Communist parties attach considerable importance to work among intellectuals and young people. As allies of the working class these groups have moved to the fore-front in many countries because their numerical strength, their weight in social production and society in general, and their activity have risen steeply and tend to continue growing as a result of the scientific and technological revolution.

p The increasing exploitation of these groups of the population and their awareness of the injustices under the existing system are pushing them, along with the working class, into the struggle against monopoly rule. The intelligentsia is becoming more conscious of the contradiction between its creative aspirations and the policy of the monopolies, and it is beginning to see that monopoly capitalism has subordinated everything to the law of profit and hinders the utilisation of the productive forces in the interests of society. This is establishing the objective basis for joint action by the intelligentsia and the working class against the monopolies. However, it is not an easy matter to form this alliance because, on account of its isolation, due to its social origin, environment and system of education, the intelligentsia cannot at once take the road of a consistent revolutionary struggle, adopt the position of the working class and understand that cultural advancement and the full development of the individual’s creative potentiality are only possible as a result of society’s fundamental reorganisation, which cannot be achieved without the leadership of the working class.

p Lenin attached great importance to work among young people, associating with them the future of the communist movement. But being heterogeneous in composition and politically inexperienced young people easily fall under the influence of bourgeois ideology. However, the class interests of the bourgeoisie inevitably come into conflict with the natural aspiration of young people for all-round physical and cultural development. But the struggle waged by young people against capitalist, practices is not always purposeful, frequently acquiring the character of turbulent anarchistic actions without a constructive programme.

p Pseudo-revolutionary, Leftist elements take advantage of the militancy of young people and their growing discontent 305 with the existing practices. They prod them into illconsidered, frequently adventurist and unfounded actions that cannot be successful and only facilitate the attacks of the bourgeoisie on the youth movement.

p It is the duty of the Communist parties to give the youth movement a sure orientation. But this is an extremely difficult task. In tackling this task the Communists are guided by Lenin’s injunction that young people move towards socialism "in a different way, by other paths, in other forms, in other circumstances than their fathers".  [305•* 

p The Communist parties clearly see that their task is to help the young people shake off the influence of the bourgeoisie and Leftist, adventurist elements, educate them in the spirit of socialist ideals and draw them into the struggle against imperialism, for peace, democracy and socialism. The Communists show young people the danger harboured by pseudo-revolutionary ideas and help them find the correct road in the struggle against imperialism, in the joint struggle with the working class in defence of their interests.

p In recent years various mass movements have developed, in which the most varied strata of the population take part and which Communists are able to influence. These are the campaigns against the arms race, for human rights, and against racism, the demonstrations by nature conservationists and tenants, etc. In a number of countries such traditional forms as rural residents’ meetings have been revived.

p Communists and leaders of Communist parties disseminate newspapers and other party publications, give the public information, and explain the Communists’ standpoint on the most pressing questions. Workers’ press days have become traditional for many Communist parties and are a vivid demonstration of their close links with the broad mass of the working people. "Action days”, "action weeks" and mass campaigns organised by Communists on a wide range of problems affecting the concrete interests of the broad masses, have become widespread. Communist parties successfully organise mass demonstrations of working people in support of the liberation struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

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The Communist parties are constantly renewing and extending their forms of work in the masses, taking into account the requirements of the day, and ensuring that their influence reaches more and more working people. In the crisis that has developed the Communists has initiated mass actions connected with the problems of ensuring employment, against inflation, the rising cost of living, and the monopolies’ attack on the socio-economic gains of the working people.