Orientations for the basic organizations of the Party
IN THE SECTORS IN WHICH THEY OPERATE
For the Party to perform its role of the organized vanguard detachment of the working class, as the force inspiring and leading the whole life of the country, it is essential that the basic organization, as its solid foundation, fully plays its role in the enterprise, cooperative, village, military detachment, administration and everywhere else. This means that the fate of the enterprise, cooperative, detachment, etc., is in the hands, not of one person, but of the basic organization as a whole. To this end the following matters must be made very clear:
1. — In any collective, what determines whether affairs run smoothly is the level of the ideological, political, organizational and mobilizing work of the basic organization of the Party. Without underrating the very great importance which the cadres have for the Party, it is not the secretary, the director, the chairman or the commander who are the reflection of the work in a cooperative, economic enterprise, school, military detachment or elsewhere, but mainly the basic organization of the Party. It is always the careful work of the Party which has raised our cadres from the ranks of the masses.
The task of the basic organization of the Party is not just to support the orders of the director, the chairman or the commander. It is the organization of the Party that guides all the work, that decides what must be done by the communists and all the working people to carry the work forward, what tasks must be fulfilled, how to defeat the enemy in war, etc., and on the basis of this, each individual must carry out the duties entrusted to him. All the organs, organizations or other bodies are levers of the Party. As such they must work to put into practice the line, decisions and the correct orientations of the Party without deviating in the slightest from all the requirements of the democratic centralism of the state and other organizations of the masses.
There is no problem in which the basic organization of the Party is not interested, but it cannot carry out all the work on its own. It has to guide and should stand in such a position that it has a broad view of all the work. The basic organization must fight against sectarianism, against any attempt to monopolize affairs. Sectarianism inhibits the initiative of the cadres and the masses, weakens and shrivels the Party. The basic organizations of the Party must continually enhance their ability to set everything necessary in motion so that its members and levers and all the working people perform their tasks fully with the highest sense of responsibility.
While working to develop the initiative and enhance the responsibility of cadres and various organs, the basic organizations of the Party must not permit localist or departmentalist tendencies or manifestations of technocracy, which are other manifestations of the bureaucratic pressure on the Party.
Not rigid forms, but the ideological, political, organizational and technical uplift of the basic organizations of the Party must constitute the main concern of the organizations of the Party today.
2. — Any manifestation of lack of confidence in. the basic organizations of the Party and of tutelage over them, any method of compulsion and rigid administration which inhibit their initiative should be combated. Instead of these, there should be qualified assistance and control which will open broad horizons for activity to the basic organizations, the party members and the working masses. Those problems which it is up to the basic organization to decide on and solve, should be left to it to decide and solve. Particular care must be shown to assist the basic organizations in the countryside where the tasks are more difficult.
a) The dictation from above of agendas for the meetings of the basic organizations through various decisions, instructions and orders, for example, political information must be done once a month, the problem of dues should be examined once in three months, the problems of livestock-farming should be examined once in six months, etc., is a harmful practice which should be ended.
b) The initiative and responsibility of the basic organizations of the Party should be extensively developed, especially in the work for the analysis and the creative application of directives and orientations of the Party. The basic organizations of the Party must react immediately when various decisions, orders or instructions run counter to the line of the Party, to its correct policy and the interests of the people. The Party has no interests other than those of the people, therefore anything contrary to these interests is at the same time contrary to the line of the Party. During the discussions which have been held in the Party and among the people about the struggle against bureaucracy and for the improvement of the method and style of work, it emerged clearly that the basic organizations have not been thoroughly on guard against bureaucratic distortions. This must be made a good lesson. Democratic centralism requires that we raise our voice loudly, through party channels, against any distortion of the Marxist-Leninist line of our Party.
3. — Above all, our Party is the leader, organizer, educator, adviser and inspirer of the working masses and it exists and fights in order to defend their interests. The basic organizations of the Party and every communist must devote all their main activity to practical work for the education and mobilization of people, listening to and respecting their opinions. There ought to be no problem which is discussed in the basic organization of the Party in which the opinion of the masses, of those most interested in carrying out the tasks which the basic organization sets, is not stressed. Likewise there ought to be no decision, task or orientation which does not respond to the concern of the masses and the solution of their demands. It should become the rule that after the meeting of the basic organization the workers are informed about the matters which are of interest to them, and the most suitable means and forms for carrying out the decisions should be found together with the workers.
From time to time when the need arises, open meetings of the basic organization should be held, too. They should play an important role in the education and mobilization of the working people and in the strengthening of links with them.
The ability and strength of the organizations of the Party, the people's state power and our dictatorship of the proletariat will be more and more enhanced from their links with the masses. On the contrary, any action or stand which weakens these links at the same time weakens our Party and state power. Any replacement of the method of conviction with orders, dictate and arrogance must be sternly condemned. No one can be convinced by such methods .
THE MOST IMPORTANT REQUIREMENT FOR ENHANCING THE ROLE OF THE BASIC ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY IS THE COMPLETE ACTIVATION OF ALL THE COMMUNISTS
1. — In order to enhance the sense of responsibility and increase the activity of each communist, we must eliminate the sectarianism and formalism which we have in the activation of communists and move towards a re-division of duties in all the basic organizations of the Party. We should act as Lenin teaches us: along with the sound centralization in the organization of the Party we should decentralize the responsibility of each individual member of the Party, a decentralization which is nothing but the division of duties amongst party members. Such a decentralization is an essential condition for revolutionary centralism.
a) No party member should be left out of the activity of the basic organization of the Party. The communist must not be, in any way. indifferent to any problem of the Party and the people. A narrow view of the work allocated, personal interest, efforts to settle into some «comfortable corner», are alien to the communists. Wherever a communist works he ought to be in the role of the vanguard fighter struggling to apply the line of the Party and be answerable for its work.
At the same time, the party member must be an outstanding political and social activist. From all its features, voluntary social work is purely communist work. Anyone who is not at the level to assume such a duty cannot be a party member. The sectarianism which is displayed in charging communists with tasks, their division into «capable» and «incapable» has no basis, it is evidence of the subjectivity and lack of ability of the leaders of the basic organization themselves.
b) The division of duties amongst members of the Party should not be standardized, but should be done closely linked wit h the conditions of the work, with the new requirements.
Apart from the division of work we have already in the basic organizations, in the organizations of sectors and their bureaus, the communists can also be charged individually or in groups, in conformity with their abilities and qualities, with responsibility for problems which concern the organization, for example in regard to planning, problems of finance, discipline, emulation, technical work, savings, the collection of manure, etc., etc.
At the same time the communists are political leaders, first of all, therefore they must be charged to work with a given mass of citizens or workers so that no working man or woman in town or countryside is left without living contact with the Party, without being nurtured with its teachings. The communists charged with this work, as well as those who are charged to work with the people's councils, the organizations of the masses, etc., are responsible to the basic organization of the Party to which they must report regularly on the tasks set to them. The communist must not reduce his role simply to seeing whether or not this course of education is run or this organization of the masses holds its meetings; he has no more rights than the others, can take no party or state measures against anyone,
but it is his duty to see that the work with which he is charged goes well, that the people are educated and a healthy party spirit prevails everywhere.
c) As well as this, the division of party forces is not unchangeable. In no way should the communist feel himself in this or that position fortuitously, but should feel himself a militant member of that centralized organism of the Party which includes all aspects of the life of the country.
The organizations of the Party should make a more correct redistribution of communists, not where the task is easier but where they are needed, on the main front of production, so that the hand of the Party is felt, its voice, line and advice are heard everywhere, in all the sectors, links and organisms.
d) The bureaus of the basic organizations of the Party should become real organizing nuclei for the activation of the communists. They must organize and divide the work well amongst their members and, on this basis, ensure the activation of all members of the Party and the necessary aid and control. This division should be applied also by the committees of the Party which can call the members of bureaus of the basic organizations of the Party to meetings, seminars, meetings of activists, etc., on given questions.
2. — One of the ugliest and most dangerous manifestations of bureaucracy and sectarianism which has weakened the militant spirit of communists and basic organizations, is the fact that sometimes criticism and self-criticism within the Party are not at the proper level.
Such manifestations must be condemned with the greatest severity. Each communist must examine himself in this direction and immediately put himself in order to use the weapon of criticism and self-criticism correctly, without hesitation or restriction. The organizations of the Party are nests of revolutionaries, which should be seething with vigorous life and in which the communist should temper and educate himself. The communist should express his opinions freely in the organization, because in this way he acts correctly, behaves honestly towards the Party, assists himself and his comrades and when his opinions are not right he will be corrected.
The steel unity of the communists is forged in the basic organization, not only in regard to the general line of the Party, but also in regard to all the problems which are raised and decided there. Without the clash of opinions, without drawing all the members of the organization into this struggle, there cannot be a single steel unity of opinion and action. From this viewpoint the rights of the party member must be defended as sacred and the basic organizations must defend all those who criticize fairly and severely.
The strengthening of convictions in the Part y is also an essential requirement of discipline, of that conscious, steel discipline without which the Party cannot exist and there can be no activity and life for the communists. Especially in the conditions of our country, surrounded by imperialist and revisionist enemies, in the conditions when the Party is always in a state of war, the continuous strengthening and tempering of conscious discipline is a daily necessity which makes the Party invincible.
3. — The organs and organizations of the Party must direct the activation of the communists from close at hand, teach them how to work so that they proceed properly on the road of the Party and are educated concretely through the struggle with difficulties and the victories which are achieved. The organizations of the Party should educate and temper the communists through the issues which emerge from life, from the daily struggle and experience of the Party and the people.
Special work must be done with the communists of the countryside. Horizons of concrete work, knowledge and activity should be opened to them and their initiative developed. The communists must use their own brains about everything, on the basis of the line of the Party and its orientations and the decisions of the basic organizations of the Party. They themselves should organize the political work which they have to do with the masses on each problem in the forms most suitable for their conditions and should not wait for lectures or orders to be sent from above.
It should be kept well in min d that just giving orders is the easiest thing, but there are many intrinsic evils in this. Among those who act in this way the idea is created that «they have been born» to dictate to others. This gives rise to conceit, a feeling of superiority, and develops arrogance, all of which are alien to the line of our Party and to be condemned.
Amongst those who receive orders and directives this harmful method creates the habit of issuing orders and directives themselves. Thus a rotten, bureaucratic vicious circle is created, one stratum which issues orders and another stratum which has to apply them. A stern and merciless struggle must be waged by the basic organizations of the Party against such views and actions, because sometimes they begin unwittingly, innocently, but if they are not combated they become a very dangerous line.
Such a method of work stops people thinking with their own brains, makes them inert, cowardly and servile in front of their superiors, stops the member of the Party from using his own brains and reflecting deeply. As a result people lose the initiative that is so necessary, their valuable proposals are scorned, and in such cases there can be no talk of Marxist-Leninist criticism or self-criticism.
We must enhance the vigilance of the communists, their militant spirit, to clean away the above-mentioned alien manifestations as soon as they crop up. Our revolutionary vigilance must not be an empty formula which is prated day in and day out to no purpose. No! It must be developed in all directions to defend everything sound in the Party and in our country and to uncover and eradicate everything evil. This will be achieved only where the work of the Party is carried out on a revolutionary mass scale, where the communists and the people get right down to the essence of problems, that is to say, both the good aspects and the bad, and work, think and fight on the basis of the line of the Party as its genuine fighters. No party member must ever forget this.
4. — We must put fully into practice the well-know n teaching of the Party to make the basic organizations the most important centres of the education and tempering of the communists. The education of communists is primarily the task of the basic organizations of the Party; they are the places where the linking of theory with practice is embodied best. In this way, that formalism and dogmatism which we have in our ideo-political work will be combated more successfully.
We should examine all the problems we discuss and every measure we take from the standpoint of the general line of the Party, should always analyse their ideological and political content and in this way disclose their roots. We should always proceed only from correct principled positions, from the general interest, from the great objectives of our Party: the construction of socialism and communism, the defence of the victories of our people, the defence of the socialist Homeland.
Whenever it is considered necessary, problems which have to do with the education and tempering of communists, with their vanguard role, linked closely with the life of the organizations and the communists, should be discussed in the meetings of the basic organizations of the Party.
WE SHOULD COMBAT THE NARROW SECTARIAN CONCEPT OF FORMS OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARTY AND STERILE OFFICIAL FORMALITY IN THE MEETINGS OF THE BASIC ORGANIZATIONS
We should always remember that the organizational forms and norms have their basis in life and they demonstrate their vitality in life. Responding to its demands, they should be enriched and, if need be, altered. One cannot stand still in life: one must advance or otherwise fall behind. Real relations, teaches V.I. Lenin, are not something inanimate, they are alive and develop. Juridical definitions can respond to the progressive development of these relations, but (if these definitions are bad) they can also «respond» to regression or stagnation.
Life requires that we make the basic organizations of the Party more responsive and swift-acting in their structure and work, get rid of unnecessary forms and links and apply those forms which strengthen the work of the Party. This is of great importance in principle and practice.
1. — We must fight hard to further enliven the basic organizations of the Party. Not their form, but their content should be our main concern. In this direction we must completely change our method and requirements. The things that determine the content and the success of the work of the basic organizations of the Party are neither the place of the meeting, its empty solemnity, nor the written reports. The result of holding meetings should be measured wit h their thorough examination of urgent problems, with their drawing all the members of the Party into the solution of the problems, with the working out of measures which lead to the solution of the problems and, finally, with the complete application of these measures. All members must prepare themselves seriously for the meetings of the basic organization of the Party. This is the main thing. The method of the preparation and the examination of the problem may vary, the report may be complete in writing or with notes, perhaps only the draft of measures which should be taken is presented, unscheduled meetings can be held for matters that cannot wait, or questions not on the agenda can be raised for discussion, the implementation of decisions or other matters can be examined. The party organization must settle these matters itself, just as it must settle the method of holding the meeting, the way it is run, etc. The important thing is the content of the analysis and especially the conclusion. Three quarters of the proceedings of the meetings of the basic organization of the Party should be occupied wit h working out, discussing and checking up on measures which must be taken to solve problems. The decision ought to be the synthesis of all the proceedings, of the threshing out of opinions and the proposals made in the meetings.
The proceedings of meetings of the basic organizations should not be pushed through hastily, but neither should they be dragged out unnecessarily. They may last half an hour or ten hours. The time required depends on the problem, the way it is presented, on its preparation, etc. There is nothing more important than the meetings of the Party, therefore no underestimation can be permitted.
2. — The party committees of the districts, relying on the basic principles, on the Constitution of the Party, from now on should decide the structure of basic organizations of the Party on their own initiative.
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PLA considers it in order to re-emphasize that the fundamental rule in the structure of basic organizations of the Party is always the uniting of all members of the Part y who work in an enterprise, agricultural cooperative, institution, etc., in a single basic organization of the Party. Th e essential number for setting up a basic organization is three party members. The general meeting of the basic organization is summoned not less than once a month. At the same time, till the coming Congress, until the respective amendments are made to the Constitution of the Party, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee also advises these preliminary measures:
a) The organizations of the Party of sectors and the groups of the Party should be set up wherever such a thing is considered useful, regardless of the total number of communists in the basic organization. In this case the main concern of the basic organizations and committees of the Party should be, not how to ensure the necessary number of communists to set them up, but how the forces of the Party can be organized most usefully. They must be constructed correctly according to sectors of the work, wherever the communists wage the most active struggle for the implementation of the line of the Party, can be set up for more than one unit of production, as for one, two or three brigades of a village in the united cooperatives, etc.
Wherever they work, in the sector, detachment, village, etc., the communists, individually or jointly, have the responsibility to see that the work runs smoothly. No matter how many they are, they must think, discuss with one another and work to determine their common stands. Likewise they must set in motion the activists who are not party members, consult with them and Organize the carrying out of tasks together with them.
The basic organization of the Party itself should have the right to set up organizations of the Party in the sectors and groups of the Party.
b) In the big organizations, when this is considered appropriate by the party committee of the district and by its decision, organizations of the Party in sectors and detachments can be given all the rights of basic organizations of the Party. In these cases, apart from meetings for rendering account and elections the general meeting of the basic organization should be called when and as frequently as is considered necessary.
c) The secretary, assistant secretary (more than one when necessary) or the bureau of the basic organization are elected to lead all the work of the basic organization of the Party. In all cases the basic organization of the Party decides this according to the need and the number of members of the Party. The: bureaucratic work of secretaries and bureaus should be combated. They should establish direct relations with the communists and workers. As a rule there should no longer be full-time secretaries of the basic organizations.
In those cases when the organizations of a sector have the rights of a basic organization of the Party, the bureaus of the basic organizations also have the right to examine the decisions on admissions into and expulsions from the Party. When these are considered correct they are sent for approval to the higher organ.
d) In special cases, when the enterprises or institutions are very dispersed, with extensive and isolated work sectors and wit h a large number of communists, more than one basic organization of the Party can be created according to sectors. These must be linked directly with the party committee of the district or the region, or by special decision of the Central Committee of the Party for these organizations, party committees with the rights of party committees of regions or peasant zones can be created.
e) On the basis of the Constitution of the Party, in production centres or other work centres where there are fewer than three party members, groups of the Party and youth can be set up. Likewise, where necessary, groups of the Party and trade-unions can be set up. The members and candidate members of the Party and some of the members of the basic organization of the trade-unions should take part in them. Such a group should be led by a party member appointed by the party committee of the district, region or zone.
With these guidelines the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PLA does not intend to replace one set of forms with another, or to set out a series of forms and methods of work ready for any occasion, or anything which may crop up in practice. If we were to act in that way, instead of achieving the proper aims and further invigorating the life of the Party, we would weaken it and make it bureaucratic. We must bear this in mind in all our work.
The Party of Labour of Albania is the party of the revolution. Its organizational principles and norms do not constitute an aim in themselves, but serve its revolutionary development to assist the realization of the majestic plans which it drafts for the triumph of socialism and communism.
Now the primary task is to enhance the role of the vanguard fighter, to enhance the creative revolutionary enthusiasm of the communists and the organizations of the Party so that they will lead forward the great movement which has swept all the working people, as they have always done in the past.
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PLA thinks that these guidelines will serve this great purpose. Therefore, let us raise even higher the role of the basic organizations as militant centres of our Party, as nests to raise true revolutionaries, as great schools to temper the members.
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania
Enver Hoxha
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