First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 4, No. 19, November 12, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Five comrades of the Communist Workers Party died a glorious death fighting the bourgeoisie and its agents, the KKK, Nazis and the FBI. These five Bolsheviks died fearlessly charging the enemy, fully aware of the danger that faced them in the most conscious possible way, knowing that if they fell another Party member and countless others would step into their place and continue the fight. They knew that defying the enemy, attacking wave upon wave is the only proletarian way to prepare for the dictatorship of the proletariat and defeat the bourgeoisie. These five comrades are immortal examples of the fighting tradition, staunch character and the correct line of the Communist Workers Party, and they will live forever in the hearts of Party members and the working class.
The CWP 5 are models for us all on this line.
Their deeds personified the Party’s line. They have set a standard for us all to live up to. We must take over from here on to carry on the tasks they started to implement and remain to be completed. They have, in essence, asked us to continue and complete the task they have left behind. This is unmistakably their wish as their exemplary lives have shown and as movingly shown by comrade Bill’s last act. Using his last breath, he said, "keep on shooting", as he handed over the handgun he was firing after he was fatally shot. Building on the Party to prepare for workers rule is the only purpose they lived for and the only wish they cherished. It remains for us to complete it. We must carry on and carry out their wish, comrades. We must carry on and take up the cause of the CWP 5.
Chairman Mao teaches, that all men must die, but death varies in its significance. To die working in the interest of the exploiting classes is lighter than a feather, and only deserves the contempt and indignation of the masses. To die working in the interests of the people is weightier than Mount Tai.
Our people, the U.S. people, have shed rivers of blood as they repeatedly rose up spontaneously throughout history. But most of our class brothers and sisters died in vain, not knowing what they lived for and even what exploited and oppressed them to the very end of their lives. For the same reason, most of them are soon forgotten. Living in itself is only physical existence.
It’s the principle we live for that counts. Human beings are distinguished from animals precisely because of our consciousness. Living without principles is like living a lower form of life. Capitalism condemns most of our brothers and sisters to live as slaves, with no clarity on the purpose of their lives. Capitalism deprives them of the goal in their lives–the emancipation of the working class in order to emancipate the whole of mankind. The CWP 5 died fighting rather than live as slaves. For communists, this is the only way to live and to die. To die fighting for the working class and the noble goal of communism is the most humane and glorious way to die. Their death is merely the last physical act in their lives. It’s what they lived for that remains eternal.
For this reason, the lives of our first Party martyrs will be eternal. They will be remembered and will never die. Their lives shine out and constantly grow in us as we cherish their memory, remembering what principle they lived and fought for and how they uncompromisingly carried out the Party’s line.
We deeply grieve for our comrades individually as we bid farewell to them, seeing them for the last time in our lives. But the firmer we grasp the line for which they lived and remember how they fought for the Party’s line, their fighting spirit in defying all odds and fearing no sacrifice, the more they will grow in our hearts. They have not passed away. They will live on forever. Their strength too will grow millions fold, as the Party produces 3, 4 more Jims, Sandys, Bills, Cesars, Mikes and countless others to takeup their cause, cherishing their heroic deeds, walking the same path, through the replacing of their bodies with countless communist successors and advanced elements.
The dauntless spirit of charging against automatic fire and sharpshooters’ bullets, the spirit of the CWP 5 and their Party, is utterly incomprehensible to the bourgeoisie and the revisionists. This is precisely the source of the invincibility of the Communist Workers Party and the cause of proletarian revolution.
That’s how we must fight in order to reach the point of no return where all turning back is impossible, until final victory.
We must take the offensive, to make the monopoly capitalist class pay for their crimes. We must make the deaths of the CWP 5 the costliest deaths the U.S. bourgeoisie ever inflicted. We have learned to fight, and we will continue to learn to fight, to deal more punishing and more deadly blows to the bourgeoisie. The proletarian revolution is the greatest struggle in human history. There is no other way for us to uplift our class to be the masters of our own society except to learn warfare through actual warfare. A bloodbath in the class struggle for the seizure of state power is inevitable. Active preparation in all forms of struggle, including military defensive armed struggle now is the only way to minimize our casualties in the upcoming bloodbath.
Yes, in the final analysis, the practice of our Party’s correct and militant line, and indeed the Party itself, can only be forged by blood–by sacrificing the most sacred of all things–our lives.
Today with our Party, we can be sure that our beloved comrades have not died in vain. Their deaths have irreversibly bolshevized the Party. The Party is unified around the correct line of its Central Committee at a higher level than ever. For the Party can forge itself only in the crucible of class struggle.
The Communist Workers Party is calling all advanced workers and advanced elements from all fronts of struggle to stand up and be counted, to come forward wave upon wave to join the ranks of the CWP. Every fallen comrade must and will be replaced by hundreds of new comrades. We must avenge the murder of the CWP 5 by winning wave upon wave of new recruits to the Party. This is the only and the most deadly way to make the criminal capitalist class pay for our blood shed.
We are calling a CWP 5 ENROLLMENT DRIVE in commemoration of the comrades who died heroic deaths fighting the bourgeoisie, to intensify our preparation a hundred fold and seal the doom of the bourgeoisie.