First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 5, No. 29, August 11-17,1980.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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To be very frank with you, there isn’t any absolute guarantee. It is possible that sometime after the revolution, the Communist Workers Party will turn color, sell the American people out, and become a capitalist party. It’s happened in China, and it’s happened in Russia. Of course, all party members will try hard to check up on themselves. But, in the final analysis, it’s up to you and the 220 million other Americans and your children and your children’s children after them to keep the Party honest. You’ve got to be part of the struggle to fight for workers’ rule and for a new healthy socialist society.
In any case, we can’t do without a Party. Those rich bastards have their parties – the Democratic, Republican, and so on. The common man’s got to have his. Those capitalists are organized. They’ve got the whole federal government, the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Trilateral Commission. You name it. We’ve got to have our own leadership and organization that works for us. Otherwise, there’s no way we can free ourselves and kick those bloodsuckers out. Without a revolutionary party, we can’t have a revolution.
After we take over, we’ll still need people to be in leadership, because the fight won’t be over. Those greedy capitalists will try anything to make a comeback. The people who are leading us will have to have some special privileges. I mean you’d want our president to be well-protected from capitalist spies and agents and live in a nice, secure house. He or she would have a lot to think about everyday in looking after the good of the whole country. You can imagine the tons of work our president would have each day, meetings with all kinds of people, piles of reports to read and decisions to make. He or she would also need time to go out, find out what’s happening in the towns and cities of America firsthand, and what’s on the minds of the people.
Therefore our president would need a cook, a house cleaner, a chauffeur, and others to enable him to concentrate on these duties.
Some party members, particularly leading comrades, will have some privileges and power that the majority of people won’t have. The question is how make sure that the people in power with some necessary privileges don’t abuse them. To ensure that, most members will be working in a factory, on a farm, or somewhere else and will get paid the same as all other workers. This will make it easier for the people to look out for those members who get swelled heads and try to abuse their position. It will also help Party members to remember that it is the common working man who is the real master of society, who makes our country tick. It will build unity between the Party and the entire U.S, people and make our nation strong.
Under workers’ rule you’ll have real democracy for the first time, so you’ll be able to supervise the Party directly. You’ll have the right to elect and be elected and the right to remove those you elect anytime. You’ll have the right to criticize any Party member and the right to freedom of speech. You’ll have the right to organize with other workers, demonstrate, hold public rallies, and go on strike. So in case Party members in the factory or in the government try to take advantage of their position, abuse the trust the masses have in them, we workers will have the means to stop them.
People will be allowed to own guns and will be trained how to use them. In addition to the regular army, people’s militias will be organized in every town and city. This actually kills two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it will make our country strong militarily and better able to protect itself against imperialists like today’s Soviet Union. On the other hand, if the Party or some members in it sell out and try to make us slaves again and bring back capitalism, we’ll be all the more prepared to start a second revolution and overthrow them.
Today the Communist Workers Party, U.S.A. is the only party that is fighting for you and for the interests of the vast majority of American people. This is because our analysis of the domestic and international situation and our plan of how to make revolution in the U.S. is overall correct. Now this analysis and plan, which we call the Party’s line, did not just fall out of the sky or come out of one person’s head. It came from history and from the millions of people who’ve fought against exploitation and oppression. For centuries, slaves rebelled against their masters, peasants rebelled against their landlords, and workers rebelled against their bosses. In the past 100 years especially, revolutions have been a common occurrence.
The great Communist revolutionary leaders, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, were able to sum up this history and draw out general principles that guide the development of human society. It’s by studying their writings and applying these scientific principles to the United States today that we’ve been able to make our analysis and plan. We call this science Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It was Marxism (for short) that guided the Russian and Chinese Communist Parties and their people to overthrow their oppressors in 1917 and 1949. Those parties later sold out, and capitalism has again been established in both countries. Today we are still learning from this. Like medical science which doesn’t yet know cures for all diseases or those new diseases that will arise, Marxism will have to be continuously developed by human beings to deepen our understanding of how capitalism gets restored and of how to prevent traitors from taking over again after we’ve set up workers’ rule. Thus the science of Marxism will constantly progress to serve all future revolutions.
Naturally, you should not be surprised that Marxism is not taught in our public schools or colleges. The ruling class knows that if we get a hold of this science, it will be curtains for them. That’s why they’re so afraid of the Communist Workers Party, and why they killed five of our members in Greensboro, North Carolina last November 3. Our Party is learning and using this science. That’s where our line comes from, and that’s why the CWP is the only organization that can lead us to destroy this capitalist hell.
Anyone who wants to fight injustice and oppression can learn Marxism. And in fact, all of us have to study it in order to keep the Party honest and on the right track.
Capitalist politicians like Carter, Kennedy, and Reagan, and misleaders like Doug Fraser of the UAW and Jesse Jackson of PUSH, are all professional liars and swindlers. That’s easy to see. But it’s not so easy to detect lies of those Party members who turn sour but still mouth Marxism and socialism. In order to be able to see through their lies and tricks, we all have to study vigorously. In Russia and China, these capitalist readers in the Party like Khruschev, Brezhnev, Deng Xiao Ping, and Hua Guo Feng, have developed whole new theories which sound like Marxism, but which are actually opposed to Marxism 100%. This we call revisionism (revising or changing Marxism). They use these revisionist theories to try to cover up their making the people slaves once again. That’s why Chairman Mao, late leader of the Chinese revolution, said: “Revisionists in power means capitalists in power.”
In China Mao tried to prevent these traitors from getting over by having mass study campaigns where millions of common people would study Marxism in an organized fashion and hold great debates in open forums to criticize any capitalist tendencies in their work and thinking. There were tremendous obstacles, though, in a country where most of the people can’t read, where radio and television hardly exist, and where it’s real tough just producing enough food for people to eat. In a socialist U.S.A. this would be much easier, with our high literacy rate, modern machines and skilled labor force, and a TV and radio in every home.
Teaching our children to be fighting revolutionary successors is another very important ingredient in guarding against the Party selling out.
All Party members have to study and lead the people in studying Marxism and criticizing revisionism. This is the Number One criterion for being a Party member. There is democracy within the Party so that any member can criticize any other member, up to and including the top leadership. At the same time, there is strict discipline and policies in order to make sure the correct line is carried out by all members. Those who fight for and carry out the correct line are promoted, and those who don’t demoted. Those who become careerists and opportunists, caring only about themselves and how to get ahead, are booted out of the Party.
You need to have specialists, experts so-to-speak, within the Party. Some people just do theoretical work and write. Others spend all their time on military affairs. So there is a danger of bureaucracy, where some members concern themselves with their own department and nothing else, or become complacent and satisfied with their work and start to lax off. They lose the larger orientation of why they’re Party members. Here again, study, struggle within the Party and most important of all, supervision by you, the American people, have to combat this danger. In addition, the Party has to constantly recruit new members from the broad masses who show themselves to be staunch fighters for true justice and equality.
So you see, with us, Communists, you have a fighting chance. And it’s a better than equal chance at that. Indeed, it’s your only chance. But with the capitalists all you get and all your children can get is the no-money-back guarantee of death and destruction in another world war, the pain and terror of a fascist U.S.A., and more drugs and crime in a real live nightmare that even today’s crazy horror movies can’t match.
Take our word, look around for yourself. There is only one way this ugly nightmare will go away, and that is if you join with the Communist Workers Party and destroy it by force.