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Workers' Movement, People's War and the reconstitution of the Communist Party.pdf

Workers' Movement, People's War and the reconstitution of the Communist Party

by the Revolutionary Worker's Party of the Spanish State.

The following excerpts are taken from The Workers' Movement, a congressional document from the Third Congress of the Revolutionary Workers' Party (https://somosrevolucion.es/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/PRT-Postura-Congreual_Movimiento-Obrero.pdf). We have translated it into English and share it now because we think it helps to begin to develop a basis for debate on how to understand the strategies of Reconstitution and Revolution in a developed capitalist-imperialist country.

The Workers' Movement and the reconstitution of the Communist Party

In the general revolutionary struggle, the principal strategic objective is the reconstitution of the Communist Party when it has not yet been constituted. Prior to Reconstitution, we apply the mass line for Reconstitution. Subsequently, we apply the mass line to initiate the People’s War.

Among mass movements, the strategically primary one is the Workers’ Movement, as has been clear since the Marxist stage. This holds true, yet mass movements remain secondary to the reconstitution of the Communist Party and the organization of the revolution.

We participate in movements to reconstitute the Communist Party, not the reverse. We engage in movements to refine our theory by learning from the struggling masses, to develop leadership skills, and to recruit fighters from the people.

Before reconstitution, communists focus on clarifying the correct political line, organizing advanced elements around this line, and assisting them in identifying answers—both general and specific to their mass struggles. In this way, our line is amplified in practice, extending into broad political struggles as well as mass movements. Here, advanced elements can apply their learnings to guide their comrades in struggle and organization, persuading them toward our political positions.

Naturally, communists are not external to the working class and the people. We cannot expect to lead advanced elements or engage in discussion at their level without not only a grasp of capitalism’s general features but also an understanding of the concrete needs of struggle. We must also possess a degree of credibility.

However, we will frequently encounter activists with deeper knowledge of their specific struggles than our own—a reality that is inevitable, as the masses must fight for their conditions and generate their own leaders through practical struggles for reforms. We must learn from them the most advanced forms of struggle, yet avoid becoming intimidated or entangled in micromanaging the intricacies of every concrete mass struggle. These advanced comrades may be recruited as contributors to the broader effort of Communist Party reconstitution by addressing their political concerns, which need not (and should not) center solely on their reformist struggles. In doing so, we integrate their knowledge into the Communist Movement.

Before the Party’s reconstitution, the primary tasks of communists—including within the Workers’ Movement—are formation, analysis, agitation, and propaganda. After reconstitution, the focus shifts to leading broad political struggles aimed at initiating the People’s War.

This is particularly critical to emphasize in the Workers’ Movement. The Workers’ Movement is powerful precisely because, unlike other movements of the capitalist-oppressed, it inherently mobilizes individuals who may initially lack ideological consciousness. Yet this very strength also poses a major risk for small revolutionary detachments. The tasks are endless, and the volume and concentration of intermediate and backward masses are immense from the outset, relative to the number and concentration of advanced elements. This stands in stark contrast to Urban Popular Movements.

The working class needs revolution but lacks its Communist Party. This is the principal contradiction among all the exploited and, by extension, within the Workers’ Movement itself. It is crucial to bear this in mind as the document progresses and we dissect the system of contradictions within the Workers’ Movement.

When identifying the Workers’ Movement’s principal tactical contradiction at any phase, we assert that resolving it will advance both the Movement and the Party’s reconstitution. If we merely focus on advancing the Movement in isolation, we risk succumbing to tacticism, thereby undermining the struggle for Party reconstitution and, ultimately, the progress of the Workers’ Movement itself.

The Labor Movement and the Protracted People's War

In our ideological and political documents, we have established that the Protracted People’s War is embraced as a universal theory for seizing power precisely because it adapts to the principal contradiction and the phase of revolutionary transformation required in each country.

In an imperialist power, the principal contradiction is that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and the transformation is socialist. Applying the principles of the Protracted People’s War—while acknowledging its most relevant manifestation for us, the Bolshevik Revolution—we observe that in imperialist powers, the revolution begins simultaneously across multiple heavily industrialized regions. Here, proletarian power annihilates bourgeois power and mobilizes working-class masses for the socialist transformation of production, particularly through war production, to expand the People’s War until control over the entire country is achieved. The strategic defensive phase emerges abruptly and at a relatively advanced level compared to the Third World, hence its insurrectional character, preceded by a buildup of forces that is primarily non-military.