------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 24, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
BUILDING A WORKING-CLASS PARTY By Deirdre Griswold [From a talk at the Sept. 21-22 Workers World Party conference.] In China there is an ongoing debate and struggle over whether the bourgeois elements, the "entrepreneurs," should be allowed to join the Communist Party. Capitalist development in China has gone very far, but the CP is still the ruling party. It has changed very much since the death of Mao Zedong, but it has preserved elements of socialist planning and ownership that the bourgeoisie wants to do away with. If the Chinese CP were to decide that you cannot be a capitalist and a communist at the same time, we would regard that as a victory for the left, a step back from the direction in which China has been moving ever since Deng Xiaoping. There was a time when many groups and parties here followed China's lead. They were inspired by its defense of Marxism and the revolutionary struggles in the Third World during the 1960s, when the leaders of the Soviet Union were promoting peaceful coexistence of the two social systems, socialism and capitalism. It should be very clear now that this revision of basic Leninism by the Soviet CP, this abandoning of the communist view on the irreconcilable character of the two social systems, contributed to the downfall of the USSR. The idea that capitalism and socialism were "converging" was false. In fact, they were in mortal struggle, something the imperialists always understood. We were among the first to hail China's efforts to return to the revolutionary essence of Marxism and Leninism. But unlike the other groups here, we didn't just adopt all the slogans and views of the Chinese party as our own. I raise this in connection with our own efforts to build a revolutionary Marxist and Leninist party based in the working class in the U.S. Our focus is on finding those workers who are the clearest and most resolute about fighting this system and all its reactionary manifestations. We recognize that the most oppressed sectors of our class-- those with the least to lose and the most to gain from breaking the chains of oppression--will be the strongest fighters for social change. But what about people who come from other social classes? Can they be members of our party? A PARTY OF WORKERS I think we in the United States have the least to fear from this question--both because the working class is the most numerous class and because the workers here, certainly by comparison to many earlier revolutions, have the skills to be the leaders of their own struggle. They do not have to rely on literate and skilled people from other classes to bring this knowledge to them. Certainly not in the same degree as was true in the Russian or Chinese or other revolutions where the workers were a small minority in society, where few could even read or write. Our party reflects a different reality. We ARE a party of workers. And we strive every day to become more representative of the multinational working class in this country. And overwhelmingly, it is those who directly feel the whip of reaction and exploitation who are attracted to WWP. Certainly, the bourgeoisie is not breaking down the doors asking to join our party. In China, the problem is that the party is in control of the state and runs society. Having someone from the new bourgeoisie in the party means they will inevitably bring bourgeois influence into the decisions made by the state. They are not joining the party to fight against a bourgeois government. They are joining to try to undermine what remains of a workers' and peasants' government. Our party does not wield state power. Our aim is to liberate this society from capitalism by helping create a workers' state to replace the capitalist state. That, by the way, is one of the essential features of a socialist revolution: the appearance of new structures, developed by the masses themselves, that begin to contend for power with the old state apparatus. It is the job of revolutionaries to encourage these bodies to exercise the authority that the workers have given them and take the power. If someone who comes from another class truly understands this and wants to join us, that means they have betrayed their class origins and joined the struggle of the workers. Can someone truly betray their class origins and ideologically join forces with a contending class? It doesn't happen often, but there are notable examples. Frederick Engels was a manufacturer's son and continued in the family business, although he hated it, so he could help finance Karl Marx's monumental work in developing socialist theory--both in breaking from bourgeois philosophy and in analyzing capitalist political economy. There is no opportunist reason for joining Workers World Party. We have nothing to offer but hard work, dedication, self-sacrifice and the joy of knowing you are helping to create a just world for everyone. This is a period when the dual crisis of imperialist war and economic chaos is shaking up many people. There is already a movement of people from across the class spectrum who are dismayed at the wholesale destruction of the environment caused by unplanned, profit-driven exploitation of the world's natural resources. It is a task of the revolutionary working class party to reach everyone with our socialist message, to make them understand that their energies will be most effective when they recognize the pivotal role of the workers in changing society. For years there have been thousands of organizations here that lobby politicians and appeal to the corporations to make reforms, to agree to forgo a small portion of their profits in the interests of the social good. But the class struggle is heating up and those methods bear little fruit. Lobbying won't prevent mass layoffs or imperialist war or the hideous effects of global warming. Capitalism is moving more and more into a crisis mode that will bring out resistance from the workers. It's more important than ever that we build this party, which has understood so correctly the world relationship of class forces, and provide clear Marxist leadership in the stormy days to come. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
