THE COMMUNIST PARTY: A MANUAL ON ORGANIZATION
First Published: July 1935 – The Worker’s Library Publishers
Reprinted: 1975 –Proletarian Publishers –San Francisco
Communist Organizing Manual – Page 4 of
(An Open Letter to All Members of the Communist Party, pp. 14-15.)
FUNDAMENTALS OF THE PARTY PROGRAM: Allies of the Proletariat
The Negro People
The other important ally of the American proletariat is the mass of 13,000,000 (Note: present circa 40,000,000) Negro people (Note: Black Lives Matter [BLM], i.e. Black Citizens – BLM-BC) in their struggle against national oppression.
The Communist Party, as the revolutionary Party of the proletariat, as the only Party which is courageously and resolutely carrying on a struggle against the double exploitation and national oppression of the Negro people, becoming particularly intense with the developing crisis, can win over the great masses of Negro people as allies of the proletariat against the American bourgeoisie.
The Party can stand at the head of the national revolutionary struggle of the Negro (BLM-BC) masses against American imperialism only if it energetically carries through the following tasks:
“The Party must mobilize the masses for the struggle for equal rights of the Negroes (BLM-BC)) and for the right of self-determination for the Negroes in the Black Belt.
It must ruthlessly combat any form of white chauvinism and Jim-Crow practices.
It must not only in words, but in deeds, overcome all obstacles to the drawing in of the best elements of the Negro proletariat, who in the recent years have shown themselves to be self-sacrificing fighters in the struggle against capital.
In view of this, special attention must be given to the promotion of Negro proletarians to leading work in the Party organizations.
In all mass actions, strikes and unemployed struggles the Party must pay particular attention that, in formulating practical demands, it takes into consideration and gives expression to the special forms of exploitation, oppression and denial of the rights of the employed and unemployed Negro masses.
At the same time the Party and in the first place the Negro comrades must genuinely improve the methods of patient, systematic but persistent struggle against the ideology and influence of petty-bourgeois nationalists among the Negro workers and toiling Negro masses.”
III. STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE PARTY ORGANIZATIONS
- The Negro organizations (churches, fraternal, cultural, [such as, NAACP, SCLC, Urban League, NAN, etc.]). The Communist Party through well functioning fractions in these institutions of the Negro people, leads the fight for the special interests of the Negroes (against discrimination, segregation) for the liberation struggle of the Negro people.
ANSWER THE WORKERS’ QUESTIONS
The Shop Units must convince the workers of the necessity for organizing unions, of the necessity for united struggle for better conditions, for freedom of organization (union recognition), for equal rights for Negroes, against police terror, against the factory spy system, against war and fascism, against lynching of Negroes, for the freedom of class war prisoners. (Note: Gascons’ behavior, especially toward black criminal!)
WHAT ARE THE ORGANIZATIONAL TASKS OF THE SHOP UNIT?
In this organizational activity of the factory Unit, we must pay special attention to the problems of the Negro workers in the factory, because of the special form of exploitation they are subjected to and because they are discriminated against on the job.
A special approach and methods should also be worked out to organize the women and the young workers in the factory.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL TASKS OF THE STREET AND TOWN UNITS
The organizational tasks of the Street and Town Units (antifa, etc.) are in the main the same as those of the Factory Units.
However, these organizations must consider the special problem of building unemployment organizations, of building fractions in all workers’ organizations in their territory, of building united fronts (antifa, etc.) with these organizations on concrete issues.
The Street Unit in a Negro neighborhood, especially if the Unit is composed of a large majority of Negro Party comrades, must remember that a vital task of the Party is to establish strong bonds with the broadest masses. (blm)
In Negro neighborhoods this can be done best by penetrating the Negro organizations: churches, fraternal organizations, societies, etc.
In order to carry out this task it is essential that every member of a Street Unit in the Negro territory be a member of a Negro organization.
The best solution to this problem is for the majority of a Unit to join one such organization—the most important and biggest Negro.
The Party members in these organizations will work as a fraction under the guidance of the Street Unit.
It is understood, however, that Street Units will not give up the work in the neighborhood generally while the main attention is directed towards the work in the organizations where the Party members belong.
WHAT COMMISSIONS DO WE HAVE IN THE PARTY
COMMITTEES ?
- Organizational Commission (Org. Commission),
- Agitation and Propaganda Commission (Agit Prop;),
- Trade Union Commission,
- Negro Commission,
- Women’s Commission,
- Agrarian Commission.
If, in the other specific phases of Party work, certain special situations necessitate other Commissions, the Party committee takes steps to set them up (Negro, Women Commissions, etc.)
PARTY MEMBERSHIP AND CADRES
CONTINUOUS daily recruiting is the basic task of every Unit and each individual member of the Party.
In the daily struggles of the workers in the factories and the neighborhood, the Unit must conscientiously develop its recruiting activities, getting into the Party the best fighters in these struggles.
WHOM TO RECRUIT
Emphasis in the daily recruiting must always be placed on the basic proletarian elements, especially those from the big factories.
Special efforts must be made to get the native-born workers and Negroes into the Party.
The necessity of recruiting women workers must also be emphasized because of the strategic position the women workers have in many industries.
Besides this we shall never lose sight of the fact that during war the Communist women will play an important role in organizing and leading the workers in their revolutionary struggles.
The best method of getting new members into the Party is to place individual responsibility for recruiting on the Unit members. Each individual Party member has friends in the factory where he works, in the union of which he is a member, in the neighborhood where he lives.
Each individual Party member has the Communist duty of convincing these friends of his of the correctness of the program of the C.I. and of the Communist Party, and in this way, recruiting them into the Party.
It is understood that the individual Party members must pay special attention to those workers who prove to be fearless fighters on the picket line, in the unemployed struggles.
The necessity for individual responsibility of each Party member 103 in recruiting new members into the Party and in helping and guiding them after they join the Party cannot be over-emphasized.
While we have to bring into the Party tens of thousands of workers in order to build a real mass Party of the American proletariat, we must bear in mind always that our Party must be composed of the most courageous, most developed, most self-sacrificing elements of our class–the working class.
That means that, in recruiting members, we must pay special attention not only to the quantity but also to the quality of the new recruits.
WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE COMMUNIST PARTY?
The conditions for membership in our Party are contained in the following pledge read by Comrade Browder to 2,000 workers who were initiated into the Party in the New York District in 1935.
“I now take my place in the ranks of the Communist Party, the Party of the working class. I take this solemn oath to give the best that is in me to the service of my class.
I pledge myself to spare no effort in uniting the workers in militant struggle against fascism and war.
I pledge myself to work unsparingly in the union, in the shops, among the unemployed, to lead the struggles for the daily needs of the masses.
I solemnly pledge to take my place in the forefront of the struggle for Negro rights; against Jim-Crowism and lynching, against the chauvinist lies of the ruling class. I pledge myself.
Note Does this pledge sound familiar?
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
Now, compare the communist pledge to Americans’ Pledge of Allegiance.
Note that the communist pledges him/herself to a defined action to, “uniting the workers…”; “work unsparingly…to lead the struggles for the daily needs of the masses”;
Whereas, We the People, the Patriot citizens have and continue in ignorance to pledge ourselves to a finely color coordinate, in adamant objective above our heads, concerning a Republic most don’t know, nor understand (can’t even recite it), yet claiming to be “one nation under GOD” – authority, auspices, even chastisement, and ending by proclaiming a state of existence that has proven not be true, i.e., “liberty and justice for all”.
We the People E Pluribus Unum must rethink who were are as American Patriots and just what our solemn duties are to this continuous revolutionary Ordu Nordu Seclurum, with Annuit Ceptis
“As not what your country can do for you, ask, what can you do for your country”