On Party Building Theses on the relations between workers movement, class struggle and building a communist party (German version of October 2006) Preliminary Remark The deterioration of the living conditions of the working class leads to an increasing urge for a change of society that is taken up by various right-wing and left-wing parties. The spreading of spontaneous movements of the working class mainly concentrating on trade union aims (or economist aims in a widest sense) also leads to the strengthening of workers parties that aim at a far-reaching changes of the economic and social order. It depends on revolutionary workers and Marxist-Leninists whether a militant revolutionary communist party too will grow stronger within this spectrum. If we do not succeed then the left socialist, trotzkyist, neo-revisionist, anarcho-syndicalist and other party-building organisations will have the decisive influence among the most militant workers in case of an intensification of class struggle. As the full title says, these theses deal with the relations between workers movement, class struggle and party building. The question of what a communist party is and what its tasks are is dealt with in two of our fundamental brochures with texts by Lenin and Stalin (“Main Characteristics of the Communist Party” and “Two Phases in Party Building”) and in 2006 the “ML Literature Distribution” (MLLiteraturVertrieb) has published a special volume no 8 “On the Party” of the series “Leninism Booklets” (Leninismus-Hefte). On the question of our current focal points of party building the essence is said in our Founding Declaration (chapter “Focal points of our activities”) and in our Five-Year-Plan. On the question of the road the communist party will go to reach revolution and further, the essence is to be found in the “Theses on the road to proletarian revolution and communism”) that we adopted in 2005. When we speak of “party building” in the following text we mean the planned building of a militant revolutionary communist party. 1. The possibilities of building a communist party are in close relation with the current state of class struggles and existing movements – national and international. With the development of EU also a European side is developping; class struggles in other EU countries have a growing influence on party building in Austria (because EU wide struggles can also rouse the Austrian working class.) (Comments: This relation is however not at all a linear one but extremely complex and complicated. The possibilites of party building do not automatically grow with an intensification of class struggles – but in any case the necessity. There are objective (e.g. economic, political) as well as very subjective (e.g. personal, “psychical”) factors playing a role. For example, in the First Republic (of Austria, 1918-1938) for a long time it was extremely difficult to advance further in party building because of the demagogy of the Austro-Marxists. The CP of Austria only succeeded in breaking through when the SDAPÖ (Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria) totally failed politically and militarily (in 1934). Without open class struggles there is nearly no readiness to organise oneself lastingly in a CP(BO) - Communist Party (Building Organisation) what leads to intense fluctuation. More and stronger social movements of the working class and partially open class struggles create a greater stability of the CP(BO). Continuing movements and class struggles make a strengthening of the communist movement possible and make party building easier; cf. Founding Declaration, chapter “Situation on Austria”, par.4.) 2. As there can be leaps in the level of class struggle, as well the developments of party building can happen in leaps. This is one reason why communists must endeavor to advance party building also in times of lull to get prepared for leaps in development. Certain experiences of the working class and ML parties need not be repeated – experiences and results of previous struggles must be evaluated for the future ones; this is also a task of the Party (BO). 3. Especially in times of lull the development and consolidation of the cadres is difficult and lengthy, and numerous dangers are lurking: Again and again comrades give up and fall in despair; or there are also tendencies to take off (separate from) the working class and to over-emphasize theory or on the other hand to under-estimate theory and fall into practicism and spontanism. These dangerous tendencies (of giving up, taking off or spontanism) appear temporarily with certain comrades as well as in the whole organisation. The more necessary is a very conscious and aim-oriented pressing ahead of the ideological consolidation of the cadres. (Comments: There are a lot of conditions in Austria that especially obstruct the development of cadres in lull times. Among those are so different factors as e.g. the decades of experience of the workers aristocracy in turning down and choking off movements and struggles or e.g. the weather conditions that often deter from regularly taking part in certain acitivities.) 4.  From the very beginning the Party must be built up not only open but also clandestine as we have to expect repressions against revolutionaries when the movement gets stronger. (Comment: It can be absolutely useful to proclaim that the Party is active in a certain federal province or in a certain company but the structure and meetings must nevertheless remain clandestine.) 5. From the beginning the Party (BO) must be oriented on becoming a militant party for the proletarian revolution. Therefore we must orientate on the winning of persons who acknowledge the necessity and possibility of a proletarian revolution (or we can convince of it, resp.) and who are ready to work for this according to a plan. 6. It is an important task for communists to win the best fighters of the working class for revolution and communism. That is only possible in concrete theoretical and practical struggles where the communists stand the test. We must acquire theory, further develop it and bring it to the state of art to be able to solve new emerging problems in practice. When the movement and class struggle are weak then the Party (BO) can be only weak too – on a theoretical, organisational and practical level. Voluntaristic exaggeration and overstreching harms the party building in the long run. 7. When a Party (BO) knows the current problems of the masses and is linked with them and their movements and struggles it can lead them because of its far-range knowledge and capabilities. On the basis of its experience and analysis the Party (BO) can make out the possible next steps of development of a concrete movement and advance it actively. 8. For achieving a lasting progress in party building comrades are necessary who are convinced of the necessity and possibility of revolutionary communist party building despite repeated phases of hard times lasting for years and who are ready to take part in it in a planned way, continuously and collectively (cf. thesis 3). Also in this time of under-developped class struggle the theory must be further developped and tested in practice. (Comment: Theses 8 and 9 are directed against the mainly empiristically justified position that party building in imperialist countries is not possible, at least not under the given conditions.) 9. Building the party is done in two phases that differ in their respective focal points for the communists. Phase 1 means winning of the vanguard for communism (cf. theses 10 – 11); phase 2 means winning the masses for revolution (cf. thesis 12). (Comments: Here we do not touch the question of date/step at which an organisation should call itself “party”; that is in most cases derived from tactical points of view. When dividing party building into 2 phases we do not want to state that by doing so all steps of development are sufficiently characterised. But an orientation on winning the masses by their millions for revolution right from the beginning of party building will unavoidably lead to reformism and economism or sectarianism of all kinds.) 10. As we start party building from top to bottom it is possible, also in imperialist countries, even in times of undevelopped class struggles, to press ahead with the first phase of party building and come near to a position of advancing to the second phase. 11. Some criteria for the completion of the first phase are: - There is a firm core of cadres trained in Marxism-Leninism and ideologically consolidated; - there is a functioning “apparatus”  that remains fit for activities even when there are currently no (mass) movements; - the Party (BO) has a programme for the whole stage until revolution (including an analysis of capitalism, a strategy for revolution and a description of socialism with the perspective of a classless society): - the Party (BO) has developped the fundamentals of tactics (concerning trade unions, women, immigrants, elections, army etc.); - the party has independently working local groups at least in all provincial capitals with cells in big companies and neighbourhoods; further more: - the Party (BO) must participate in mass organisations, build and promote them and intervene in their leadership; - there must exist stable links to the working class, the Party (BO) must advance the achoring among the working class as strong as possible as a daily task; - the Party (BO) unites the big part of communist forces or organises their unification resp. For advancing into the second phase (cf. theses 9 to 12) it is not sufficient to fulfill these criteria – maybe only formally. When the class struggles in a country are too weakly developped even those party organisations that have fulfilled these criteria cannot advance to the second phase but must further develop their policies in the first phase. 12. The second phase, i.e. the “winning of the masses to their millions” for the proletarian revolution, is not imaginable without a broader movement of the working class and, first of all, without a considerable increase of class struggles. In this second phase the main task is to stregthen the influence of the party in the mass organisations, maybe build  own mass organisations and lead the working class and masses of the people into confrontations with the bourgeois state. For this a readiness to fight must existt that will be intensified by the communists. In non-revolutionary situations however only a minority of the working class will follow the communists.