Organisation and Structure of the Communist Party -1
Guidelines on the Organizational Structure of Communist Parties, on the Methods and Content of their Work Adopted at the 24th Session of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 12 July 1921
I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
1. The organisation of the Party must be adapted to the conditions and to the goal of its activity. The Communist Party must be the vanguard, the advanced post of the Proletariat, through all the phases of revolutionary class struggle and during the subsequent transition period towards the realization of Socialism, i.e., the first stage of the Communist society.
2. There can be no absolutely infallible and unalterable form of organisation for the Communist Parties. The conditions of the proletarian class struggle are subject to changes in a continuous process of evolution, and in accordance with these changes, the organisation of the proletarian vanguard must be constantly seeking for the corresponding forms. The peculiar conditions of every individual country likewise determine the special adaptation of the forms of organisation of the respective Parties.
But this differentiation has definite limits. Regardless of all peculiarities, the quality of the conditions of the proletarian class struggle in the various countries, and through the various phases of the proletarian revolution, is of fundamental importance to the international Communist movement, creating a common basis for the organisation of the Communist Parties in all countries.
Upon this basis, it is necessary to develop the organisation of the Communist Parties, but not to seek to establish any new model parties instead of the existing ones and to aim at any absolutely correct form of organisation and ideal constitutions.
3. Most Communist Parties, and consequently the Communist International as the united party of the revolutionary proletariat of the world, have this common feature in their conditions of struggle, that they still have to fight against the dominant bourgeoisie. To conquer the bourgeoisie, and to wrest the power from its hands is, for all of them, until further developments, the determining and guiding main goal. Accordingly, the determining factor in the organizing activity of the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries must be the upbuilding of such organisations, as will make the victory of the proletarian revolution over the possessing classes, both possible and secure.
4. Leadership is a necessary condition for any common action, but most of all, it is indispensable in the greatest fight in the world's history. The organisation of the Communist Party is the organisation of Communist leadership in the proletarian revolution.
To be a good leader, the Party itself must have good leadership. Accordingly, the principal task of our organisational work must be -education, organisation and training of efficient Communist Parties under capable directing organs to the leading place in the proletarian revolutionary movement.
5. The leadership in the revolutionary class struggle presupposes the organic combination of the greatest possible striking force and of the greatest adaptability on the part of the Communist Party and its leading organs to the ever-changing conditions of the struggle. Furthermore, successful leadership requires, absolutely, the closest association with the proletarian masses. With out such association, the leadership will not lead the masses, but at best, will follow behind the masses.
The organic unity in the Communist Party organisation must be attained through democratic centralization.
II. ON DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISATION
6. Democratic centralization in the Communist Party organisation must be a real synthesis, a fusion of centralism and proletarian democracy. This fusion can be achieved only on the basis of constant common activity, constant common struggle of the entire Party organisation. Centralization in the Communist Party organisation does not mean formal and mechanical centralization, but a centralization of Communist activities, that is to say, the formation of a strong leadership, ready for war and at the same time capable of adaptability. A formal or mechanical centralization is the centralization of the ‘power' in the hands of an industrial bureaucracy, dominating over the rest of the membership, or over the masses of the revolutionary proletariat standing outside the organisation. Only the enemies of the Communists can assert that the Communist Party, conducting the proletarian class struggle and centralizing the Communist leadership, is trying rule over the revolutionary proletariat. Such an assertion is a lie.
Neither is any rivalry for power, nor any contest for supremacy within the Party at all compatible with the fundamental principles of democratic centralism adopted by the Communist International.
In the organisation of the old, non-revolutionary labour movement, there has developed an all-pervading dualism of the same nature as that of the bourgeois state, namely, the dualism between the bureaucracy and the ‘people'. Under this baneful influence of bourgeois environment, there has developed a separation of functions, a substitution of barren, formal democracy for the living association of common endeavour and the splitting up of the organisation into active functionaries and passive masses. Even the revolutionary labour movement inevitably inherits this tendency to dualism and formalism to a certain extent from the bourgeois environment.
The Communist Party must, fundamentally, overcome these contrasts by systematic and persevering political and organizing work and by constant improvement and revision.
7. In transforming a. Socialist mass party into a Communist Party, the Party must not confine itself to merely concentrating the authority in the hands of its central leadership while leaving the old order unchanged.
Centralization should not merely exist on paper, but be actually carried out, and this is possible of achievement only when the members at large will feel this authority as a fundamentally efficient instrument in their common activity and struggle. Otherwise, it will appear to the masses as a bureaucracy within the Party and, therefore, likely to stimulate opposition to all centralization, to all leadership, to all stringent discipline. Anarchism is the opposite pole of bureaucracy.
Merely formal democracy in the organisation cannot remove either bureaucratic or anarchical tendencies, which have found fertile soil on the basis of just that democracy. Therefore, the centralization of the organisation, i. e., the aim to create a strong leadership, cannot be successful if its achievement is sought on the basis of formal democracy. The necessary preliminary conditions are the development and maintenance of living associations and mutual relations within the Party between the directing organs and members, as well as between the Party and the masses of the proletariat outside the Party.
III. ON THE DUTIES OF COMMUNIST ACTIVITY
8. The Communist Party must be a training school for revolutionary Marxism. The organic ties between the different parts of the organisation and the membership become joined through the daily common work in the Party activities.
Regular participation, on the part of most of the members in the daily work of the parties, is lacking even today in lawful Communist Parties. That is the chief fault of these parties, forming the basis of constant insecurity in their development.
9. In the first stages of its Communist transformation, every workmen's party is in danger of being content with having accepted a Communist program, with having substituted the old doctrine in “its propaganda by Communist teaching, and having replaced the official belonging to the hostile camp by Communist officials. The acceptance of the Communist program is only the expression of the will to become a Communist. If the Communist activity is lacking, and the passivity of the mass members still remains, then the Party does not fulfil even the least part of the pledge it had taken upon itself in accepting the Communist program. For the first condition of an earnest carrying out of the program is the participation of all the members in the constant daily work of the Party.
The art of Communist organisation lies in the ability of making a use of each and every one for the proletarian class struggle; of distributing the Party work amongst all the Party members and of constantly attracting, through its members, ever wider masses of the proletariat to the revolutionary movement. Further, it must hold the direction of the whole movement in its hands not by virtue of its might, but by its authority, energy, greater experience, greater allround knowledge and capabilities.
10. A Communist Party must strive to have only really active members, and to demand from every rank and file Party worker, that he should place his whole strength and time, in so far as he can himself dispose of it under existing conditions, at the disposal of his Party and devote his best forces to these services.
Membership in the Communist Party entails naturally, besides Communist convictions, formal registration, first as a candidate, then as a member; likewise, the regular payment of the established fees, the subscription to the Party paper, etc. But the most important is the participation of each member in the daily work of the Party.
11. For the purpose of carrying out the Party work, every member, must as a rule, be also a member of a working smaller group, a committee, a commission, a broad group, fraction or nucleus. Only in this way can the Party work be properly distributed, directed and carried on.
Attendance at the general meeting of the members of the local organisation, of course, goes without saying; it is not wise to try, under conditions of legal existence, to replace these periodical meetings under lawful conditions by meetings of local representatives. All the members must be bound to attend these meetings regularly. But that is in no way sufficient.
The very preparation of these meetings presupposes work in smaller groups or through comrades detailed for the purpose, effectively utilizing as well as the preparations of the general workers' meetings, demonstrations and mass action of the working class. The numerous tasks connected with these activities, can be carefully studied only in smaller groups, and carried out intensively. Without such a constant daily work of the entire membership, divided among the great mass of smaller groups of workers, even the most laborious endeavours to take part in the class struggle of the proletariat will lead only to weak and futile attempts to influence these struggles, but not to the necessary consolidation of all the vital revolutionary forces of the proletariat into a single united capable Communist Party.
12. Communist nuclei must be formed for the daily work in the different branches of the Party activities; for timely agitation, for Party study, for newspaper work, for the distribution of literary matter, for information service, for constant service, etc.
The Communist nuclei are the kernel groups for the daily Communist work in the factories and workshops, in the trade unions, in the proletarian associations, in military units, etc.; wherever there are at least several members or candidates for membership in the Communist Party. If there are a greater number of Party members in the same factory or in the same union, etc., then the nucleus is enlarged into a fraction and its work is directed to the kernel group.
Should it be necessary to form a wider opposition fraction or to take part in existing one, then the Communists should try to take the leadership in it through special nucleus. Whether a Communist nucleus is to come out in the open, as far as its own surroundings are concerned, or even before the general public, will depend on the special conditions of the case after a serious study of the dangers and the advantages thereof.
13. The introduction of general obligatory work in the Party and the organisation of these small working groups is an especially difficult task for Communist mass parties. It cannot be carried out all at once; it demands unwearing perseverance, mature consideration and much energy.
It is especially important that this new form of organisation should be carried out from the very beginning with care and mature consideration. It would be an easy matter to divide all the members in each organisation, according to a formal scheme, into small nuclei and groups and to call these latter at once to the general daily Party work. Such a beginning would be worse than no beginning at all; it would only call forth discontent and aversion among the Party members towards these important innovations.
It is recommended that the Party should take counsel with several capable organisers who are also convinced and inspired communists, and thoroughly acquainted with the state of the movement in the various centres of the country, and work out a detailed foundation for the introduction of these innovations.
After that trained organisers or organizing committees must take up the work on the spot, elect the first leaders of the groups and conduct the first steps of the work. All the organisations, working groups, nuclei and individual members must then receive concrete, precisely defined tasks presented in such a way as to at once appear to them to be useful, desirable and capable of execution. Wherever it may be necessary they must be shown by practical demonstrations in what way these tasks are to be carried out. They must be warned, at the same time, of the false steps especially to be avoided.
14. This work of re-organisation must be carried out in practice step by step. In the beginning too many nuclei or groups of workers should not be formed in the local organisation. It must first be proved in small cases that the nuclei, formed in separated important factories and trade unions, are functioning properly and that the necessary groups of workers have been formed also in the other chief branches of the Party activities and have, in some degree, become consolidated (for instance, in the information, communication, women's movement, or agitation department, newspaper work, unemployment movement, etc.). Before the new organisation apparatus will have acquired a certain practice, the old frames of the organisation should not be heedlessly broken up. At the same time this fundamental task of the Communist organisation work must be carried out everywhere with the greatest energy.
This places great demands not only on a legalized Party, but also on every unlegalised Party.
Until widespread network of Communist nuclei, fractions and groups of workers will be at work at all central points of the proletarian class struggle, until every member of the Party will be doing his share of the daily revolutionary work and this will have become natural and habitual for the members, the Party can allow itself no rest in its strenuous labours for the carrying out of this task.
15. This fundamental organisational task imposes upon the leading Party organs the obligation of constantly directing and exercising a systematic influence over the Party work. This requires manifold exertion on the part of those comrades who are active in the leadership of their organisation of the Party. Those in charge of Communist activity must not only see to it that comrades —men and women— should be engaged in Party work in general, they must help and direct such work systematically and with practical knowledge of the business with a precise orientation in regard to special conditions. They must also endeavour to find out any mistake committed in their own activities on the basis of experience, constantly improving the methods of work and not forgetting for a moment the object of the struggle.
16. Our whole Party work, consists either of direct struggles on theoretical or practical grounds or of preparation for the struggle. The specialization of this work has been very defective up to now. There are quite important branches in which the activity of the Party has been only occasional. For the lawful parties have done little in the matter of combating against secret service men. The instructing of our Party comrades has been carried on as a rule, only casually, as a secondary matter and so superficially that the greater part of the most important resolutions of the Party, even the Party program and the resolutions of the Communist International have remained unknown to the large strata of the membership. The instruction work must be carried on methodically and unceasingly through the whole system of the Party organisation in all the working committees of the Parties in order to obtain an ever-higher degree of specialization.
17. To the duties of the Communist activity belongs also that of submitting reports. This is the duty of all the organisations and organs of the Party as well as every individual member. There must be general reports made covering short periods of time. Special reports must be made on the work of special committees of the party. It is essential to make the work of reporting so systematic that its should become an established procedure as the best tradition of the Communist movement.
18. The Party must hand in its quarterly report to the leading body of the Communist International. Each organisation in the Party has to hand in its report to the next leading committee (for instance, monthly report of the local branches to the corresponding Party committee).
Each nucleus, fraction and group of workers must send its report to the Party organ under whose leader ship it is placed. The individual members must hand in their reports to the nucleus or group of workers, (respectively to the leader) to which he belongs, and on the carrying out of some special charge to the Party organ from which the order was received.
The report must always be made on the first opportunity. It is to be made by word of mouth, unless the Party or the person who had given the order, demands written report. The reports must be concise and to the point. The receiver of the report is responsible for having such communication as cannot be published without harm kept in safe custody and that important reports be sent in without delay to the corresponding Party organ.
19. All these reports must naturally be limited to the account of what the reporter has done himself. They must contain also information on such circumstances which may have come to light during the course of the work and which have a certain significance for our struggle, particularly such considerations as may give rise to a modification or improvement of our future work; also proposals for improvement necessity for which may have made itself felt during the work, must be included in the report.
In all Communist nuclei, fractions and groups of workers, all reports, both those which have been handed into them and those that they have to send, must be thoroughly discussed. Such discussions must become a regular habit.
Care must be taken in the nuclei and groups of workers that individual Party members or groups of members be regularly charged with observing and reporting on hostile organisations, especially with regard to the petty-bourgeois workers organisations and chiefly the organisation of the “socialist” parties.
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