What Our Party Stands For

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What Our Party Stands For

Recently a student at the university of Wales e-mailed the National Office of RCPB(ML). He said that as part of his course he had to make a short documentary on beliefs. He had therefore chosen to look into political beliefs and more specifically the communist view. He wished to know briefly what the Party stands for and how it wishes to achieve these aims.

He asked thirteen questions which would enable him to complete his project. He offered apologies if any questions seemed like he were questioning what the Party stands for, but he wanted the answers to be able to challenge those who dismiss communism and to bring interest to those who before have not given it the time of day.

He asked the National Office to add any other points that they would like to make, as he wanted the documentary to give a chance for the Party to get communist ideas across.

The following are the replies to the student’s questions from the National Office of RCPB(ML).

1. What is it that you and your Party stand for?
A. RCPB(ML) is a detachment in Britain of the International Communist Movement, and is the political party of the working class within Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). The Party stands for what is the most advanced, most enlightened and most humane in life.

We believe that if the working class is to play its historical revolutionary role and lead the entire society out of the crisis and open up a path for progress, it must have its own independent programme, that is, it must set its immediate and long-term aims. The strategic aim of the working class is the creation of the conditions for the emancipation of the working class and all humanity. It fulfils its strategic aim through the opening up of the path for the progress of society, mobilising all the exploited in order to establish a modern system according to modern definitions and creating a modern socialist society on this basis. To fulfil this aim it is necessary to socialise the ownership of the means of production, thereby enabling the people to control the direction of the economy on a planned basis to serve their needs.

The Party holds that the immediate challenge in resolving the contradiction at the base of society in the course of creating the subjective conditions for revolution is to organise the working class to constitute itself as the nation, making it conscious of the need to renovate society from top to bottom, to resolve the problem of democracy so that the people are truly sovereign, and recognise and guarantee the rights of each member of society simply by virtue of their being human. The challenge to create such a society, the whole work to prepare for the revolutionary storms which are in the making, is consistent with the long-term aim of the Party and the working class to bring about a socialist society in Britain, as the first stage of the transition to communism, which will usher in a classless society. The task facing the Party and the working class is to advance along a line of march leading to this new society, a society fit for human beings to live in.

Communism, therefore, is the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class and with it all humanity, and this is what our Party is working for as its long-term goal.

As an indispensable and integral component of this work, it has put on the agenda the restoration of the unity of the communists in Britain, and the transformation of the Party as a Mass Communist Party.

2. Do you feel that it is up to the lower classes to revolt against the exiting government and way of life?
A. Yes. The exploited, with the working class at their head, are the vast majority in society that have no choice but to revolt against existing government and way of life, and create the conditions which favour their interests. At the same time, communist leadership and political consciousness among the workers are needed to transform these conditions.

The British working class must make a break with all the old prejudices and way of life with which the reactionary bourgeoisie and the financial oligarchy have sought to shackle it. It must break with the old conscience. It must make its stand right now to contribute to the movement for national and social emancipation of the working and oppressed people of all lands.

This revolt begins from the premise that all have rights by virtue of their humanity, that these rights are inalienable and inviolable, and can neither be given nor taken away, and that everyone has their claims on society which must be met as of right. This revolt is directed against the government's conception of society and notion of values which are an anachronism at the beginning of the 21st century, a conception and values which, though the government claims they are universal, are actually a block to the progress of society, and which it is imposing by force under the most high-sounding phrases in Britain and throughout the world, in the interests of the rich and powerful.

As the task right at this time, it is necessary to plant the alternative to this way of life, and the anachronistic and party-dominated political system and institutions, right here on the soil of Britain. To do this it is necessary for worker politicians to come forward and constitute themselves as the Workers' Opposition.

3. Do you think that a revolution is more or less likely going to happen now that general politics is moving further to the right?
A. In general terms, retrogressive politics is deepening the possibility for revolution. But in the immediate sense, it is not possible to say whether revolution is just around the corner or not. However, the objective conditions for revolution have long-since matured and the task is to create the arrangements which will facilitate the working class and people to be prepared to go on the offensive.

What one can say is that the world is in a period of retreat of revolution. This period started with the end of the bipolar division of the world between the two superpowers and is continuing under the conditions of the unipolar world order that the United States is trying to impose on the world. So, whilst our Party denounced the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as a heinous crime, the present "war on terrorism" is not an attempt to defeat terrorism but to use the situation to accelerate the US domination of the world. The events of September 11 have deepened the trend of world reaction which has given rise to further atrocities of US and Britain's state terrorism in the bombing and intervention in Afghanistan and acts to curb the civil rights of their own peoples. At the same time, this has deepened all the trends in society and we are especially interested in the trend among the progressive forces to take up the alternative to this barbarous path down which the world is being plunged by the big powers. This is being facilitated by the exposure of the "Third Way" programme of Tony Blair as a new right ideology that masquerades as centre left.

Generally speaking our view on the present period is that we prepare for the coming revolutionary storms that will come when this period of retreat ends, and that either revolution will prevent world war or that world war will give rise to revolution.

4. What makes you object to capitalism?
A. It is important to understand that the present era is one of imperialism, the ultimate and most parasitic and exploitative stage of capitalism. Capitalism followed feudalism which it overthrew, but unlike feudalism capitalism gave rise to its own special product – the working class, a large social force that produces massive social wealth yet is marginalised from owning and controlling the distribution of that wealth. At the present time, the struggle on a world scale is taking place against the agenda of neo-liberal globalisation, the imposition of the dictate of finance capital and the drive of the imperialist bourgeoisie to undo the gains of progressive humanity in the 20th century and take the superstructure of society back to that of medievalism.

On the basis of its theory and the concrete analysis of the concrete conditions, our Party is of the opinion that the struggle going on in society is one which can be characterised as between the Old and the New. The whole of the 19th century liberal conceptions of society, the conceptions of multi-party democracy, the free-market economy, and "human rights" based on the right of the individual ownership of private property, are in thorough-going crisis. The international financial oligarchy is demanding that it should not even be recognised that society exists, let alone a society which sets as its aim to meet the claims of the people on it. This is what is creating such chaos and anarchy in society at large, as well as globally. The bourgeoisie is demanding that even areas which are supposed to care for the people's well-being, the social programmes of health education and so on, be opened up to "free-market" economics and become sources of maximum profit for the monopolies. In this battle of the New to overcome the Old, it is the modern communist party which can and must be the decisive factor by providing that coherence which enables the people to strike out on that path which will sort out the problems that the Old is causing.

5. What do you think of the claims that politics is a circle and that fascism and communism are a hair breath away?
A. Fascism is anti-communist, anti-worker and racist. Communism is the complete antithesis of this. History shows that in the 20th century the Soviet Union was the architect of the united front that defeated fascism. If the US, Britain, had not broken that alliance then fascism could have been defeated once and for all but it was these powers that rehabilitated the fascist forces in Japan, Germany, Greece, and all over the world to try and stop the working people democratising their countries. Then the US adapted the nazi doctrine to suit its purpose for world domination in attacking sovereign countries like it did in Korea and Vietnam under the justification of the domino theory. This is the same doctrine of Tony Blair that claims that the sovereignty of a nation like Afghanistan can be ignored under the doctrine of failed states. It is these doctrines that are not even a hair's breadth from the fascism of nazi Germany.

6. Can communism work effectively without a police state?
A. This is a question which stems from the prevailing anti-communism which the government and the economic forces it represents seek to impose as a matter of course. Look at the imperialist countries and the big powers today! Are not these police states? Internment without trial is one of the features used by the British state now. Another feature is the criminalisation of dissent and treating political problems in the society, especially with the workers and youth, as law and order questions.

Anti-communism erects a caricature of communism that is no better than the bourgeois states in this respect. During the epoch of socialism the proletarian state differs from the bourgeois state in that instead of representing the dictatorship of the minority over the majority it is represents the dictatorship of the majority over the minority. All problems amongst the people must be sorted out politically and the right to conscience, the inviolability of the human person enshrined in law.

During the period following the second world war beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the leaders of the Soviet Union abandoned communism except in name and instead of mobilising the peoples of the Soviet Union to run their countries transformed the state into a form of bourgeois state that oppressed the majority. This was one of the main factors in the collapse of this pseudo-socialism several decades later. It can be predicted that under communism, as antagonistic classes in society, and antagonisms between countries disappear, the state will also wither away and disappear. The state arose with the division of society into classes, and along with them the judiciary, and standing army maintained the rule of the class that wields these states. Of course this is all done with the deception that the state is above class interests and is simply the rule of law and is impartial. However, present developments, particularly after September 11, see the government itself in contempt of the rule of law, and facilitating the police and other state authorities to act with impunity.

7. History has shown that communism and democracy do not always go hand in hand. If Britain adopted a communist policy would it still be able to retain a democratic government?
A. What has history shown? The first monumental contribution to political theory by the Greeks was democracy, which means rule by the people. Yet in Greek society it was only democracy for the slave owners. In the dark ages only the Muslim scholars rescued this Greek political theory of rule by the people for modern civilisation. In contrast, in Britain at the time of bourgeois revolution the absolute power of the monarch was merely passed over to the executive in parliament. As increasing numbers campaigned for the vote the ruling class established the parliament and the party system as a system that ensured that people had no control over who was elected to parliament and that the executive in the form of the cabinet exercised power over the parliament. It is this archaic, pre-Greek, form of which is not even democracy for the "slave owners". So for example, the inner cabinet and not parliament took the decision to attack Afghanistan, a fact many MPs opposed this but could do nothing about it under the present system.

The stand of the communists is that the people should exercise power over the legislature, sharing power with their representatives, and that the executive should be accountable to the legislature. It is the electorate and not the political parties that should select candidates and it is they that should discuss and initiate the laws and constitution of the country. Such measures start from vesting sovereignty in the people. This is the problem of democracy which requires solution.

Incidentally, the British state as presently constituted has been built on the suppression of the peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and not along national lines, not to mention its enrichment through colonial and neo-colonial plunder throughout the world. The British state as presently constituted acts as a block to progress, to the fulfilment of the rights of all the nations which it oppresses, and is alien to both modern times and circumstances. Our Party therefore stands for the establishment of modern sovereign states for the people of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It advocates a free and equal union of these sovereign states, but only on a voluntary basis, if the peoples so desire.

8. Do you think that communism could benefit every country the world over or do you just see it as the most effective way Britain could run?
A. Our Party upholds the right of every nation and people to choose their own path of social development, and independently decide their own destiny. The imperialists, including the British government, are opposed to and are actively organising against this principle. Everywhere the people desire and are fighting for their national and social liberation, and the working class of Britain is duty bound to support these struggles. We uphold that socialism is the future for all humankind.

9. The majority of America’s wealth is shared between 1% of the population, who yet still have a committed view to capitalism with a wor force that would not revolt. How do you feel Britain will achieve a working class revolt when the wealth is more widely (though not perfectly) distributed?
A. The gap and divide between rich and poor, both nationally and internationally, is growing. The struggle in Britain is not simply for a redistribution of the wealth, but that the working class should take hold of what belongs to it by right, and by emancipating itself, guarantee the rights of all citizens and residents of Britain.

10. Do you agree with the statement that under communist rule people lose their basic human right to prosper?
A. No. Human rights will have their full realisation under communism. People have rights by virtue of being human and in modern society all have the right to "prosper". Under the present conditions in the world capitalist and imperialist system this right to prosper for certain individuals is achieved at the expense of the vast majority of the world's people. In particular the surplus value created by the labour of the working people is expropriated in order for a minority to "prosper". The working class cannot prosper unless they take hold of what they produce and ensure that all in society receive a share of the fruits of their labour and that the needs of all to health, education, housing and so on are met. Under socialism, instead of employers and state institutions deciding on what people are paid, people will decide what they are paid in their collectives. Under communism, society will have reached a stage of production where each will contribute to society according to their ability and each will take what they need.

11. What are your views of the development of Europe, the direction it is heading and the role that Britain has taken?
A. The European Union is a bloc which benefits and is being strengthened politically, economically and militarily in the interests of the monopolies. The imperialists and big powers strive to control Europe as a stepping stone to controlling Asia and then moving to world domination. This is the significance of the Anglo-US "New World Order", in which the US is striving for a unipolar world, and the European Union is also striving for a multipolar world. The European Union stands in opposition to the right of all countries to exercise their sovereignty, and participate in international affairs on an equal basis. It also stands in opposition to the struggle of the working class and people for socialism and a new society. Britain is taking the stand of, "Strong with the United States; Strong in Europe," as well as seeing its own big power interests being served through belonging to the European Union, under the signboard of "enlightened self-interest", as well as deepening its enslaving relations with its former colonies through the Commonwealth and other means. Britain should withdraw from the European Union, and the EU and all such political, economic and military blocs of the big powers should be dismantled. Britain should also withdraw from the aggressive NATO military alliance.

12. What is your Party position on war?
A. In today's world, imperialism is the source of war. Differences and conflicts between nations and peoples should be sorted out peacefully and the use of force should be renounced. The United Nations should be democratised, particularly the Security Council, and all countries, big or small, should participate in sorting out international affairs on an equal basis. There should be an end to the militarisation of the economy.

13. Do workers or bosses create the nation’s wealth?
A. Workers.