CONVENTION NUMBER THE COMMUNIST ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS!
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA PRICE CENTS Vol. II. No. AUGUST 1920 Program of the Communist Party of America ciety the world.
capitalism One Day Pay ADOPTED AT ITS UND CONVENTION The Communist Party of America is the conlist state and the establishment of the proleta moderate Sociaist conception of the gradual scious expression of the class struggle of the rian dictatorship. growing into Socialism.
cognizes that the The Communist Party workers against capitalism. Its aim is to direct Unioniam.
American Federation of Labor is reactionary and this struggle to the conquest of political power, The older unionism was based on the craft But the Communist a bulwark of capitalism.
the destruction of the capialist state and the divisions of small industry. The unions con.
party rejects the idea, as advocated by the establishment of the dictatorship of the prolesisted primarily of skilled workers, whose skill of smashing the of in order tariat in the form of a Soviet Government, as the is itseli a form of property. Today, the domi to reconstruct the trade unions. At the present only means of introducing the Communist sonant unionism is actually a bulwark of capital time in this revolutionary epoch such a policy ismi; it is merging in Imperialism and accepts would necessitate the concentration of an enorThe Communist Party maintains that the State capitalism, mous amount of the energy of the revolationary problems of the American working class are The concentration industry and the devel.
novement the purely reformistic policy of identical with the problems of the workers of opihent of the machine process expropriates of changing the form of the economic organizations, The Communist Party realizes the their skill large numbers of skilled workers; thus ignoring the most pressing and important limitations of all other existing workers organi but the unjons sitli maintained the ideology of task or the Communist movement, namely the zations and determines to develop the revolu property contract and caste. Deprived of aotual propagation of Conimunism to the masses. That tionary movement necessary to free the workers power by the ineffectiveness of its localized is the supreme task of the Cominunist Party, from the oppression of capitalism.
strikes as against large scale industry, trade and all their work, such as building better ecoThe Communist Party the revolutionary van unionism resorts to dickering with the bour.
nomic organizations for waging the struggle guard of the proletariat prepares itself for geois state and accepts Imperialistic State Cap against their employers for higher wages and the proletarian revolution in the measure that italism to mainain its privileges as against the better conditions etc. is secondary, The Comit develops a program of action expressing the unskilled proletariat.
munist Party will encourage any movement of mass struggles of the proletariat and builds a The concentration of industry produces the the workers seeking to construct new or better strong, centralized and well disciplined political machine workers. Those workers massed in economic organizations for the workers in the party capable of carrying Communist propaganda the basic industries, constitute the militant basis shops, but it will constantly point out the limiand agitation to the masses and leading the of he class sruggle. Deprived of their skill and tations of such organizations and keep before workers to the final struggle against the capital craft divisions, the old petty, isolated strike is the workers the idea of proletarian revolution ist state.
useless to those workers. These facts of indus by means of mass action with its logical resulThe Communist Party is fundamentally a trial concentration developed the idea of indus tant, open, armed conflict with the capitalist It brings to the workers a trial unionism.
party of action.
state, and the dictatorship of the proletariat as consciousness of their oppression, of the im The Communist Party recognizes that industhe only means of destroying the bourgeois state, possibility of improving their conditions under trial unions are a a bolishing capitalism and introducing the Commore efficient weapon for munist society.
The Communist Party directs the The Communist Party recognizes trade and workers struggle against the capitalist state, industrial unions as a field for the propagation developing fuller forms and purposes in this struggle, culminating finally in revolutionary of Communism to the masses. Our task is to mass action armed insurrection and civil war.
inculcate and crystalize Communist understandPulitical and mass rotic Fiesolution adoption ycuno Convention a. be safe. the cade tuf te union bureanctacy. Wherever the workers are, The Communist Party maintains that the of the Communist Party of America.
whether in the of or similar organizaclass struggle is essentially a political struggle. We recommend that the Convention tions, or in the there the Communist that is, to conquer political power, destroy the issue a call for members to contribute one Party must constantly agitate, not for industrial bourgeois state machinery and establish the day pay for the party organization.
unionism, but for Communism. Just as we enter dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of a the bourgeois parliaments for our revolutionary Soviet Government in the transition period from propaganda, so must the Communist Party enter capitalism to Communism.
In accordance with the decision of the the most reactionary unions for Communist proIn those countries in which historical dev Convention, the issues this call paganda and agitation.
elopment has furnished the opportunity, the to all members of the Communist Party to Bourgeois Democracy and the working class has utilized the regime of poi.
contribute one day pay for the national Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
tical democracy for its organization against capi organization. Between capitalist and Communist society talism In all countries where the conditions Comrades, the need is great. You know there lies a period of revolutionary transformafor a proletarian revolution are not yet ripe, the it. We need not waste time and space tion from the former to the latter. state of same process will go on. The use of parliatelling you about it.
political transition corresponds to this period, mentarism, however, is of secondary importance. for revolutionary propaganda and the state during this period can be no other and agitation The Communist Party is unified and solidified on the basis of principles and than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proonly.
tactics as never before in its history.
letariat. Critique of the Gotha Program, by But within this process the workers must Karl Marx. nerer lose sight of the true character of bourThere are difficult tasks ahead of usgeois democracy. The capitalist class considers organization, education, propaganda, and The proletarian revolution comes at the moment of crisis in capitalism, of a collapse of the it advantageous to veil its deeds of violence agitation, old order. Under the impulse of the crisis, the behind parliamentary votes, has at its The spirit, the will, the determination proletariat organize separate organs of armed command, in order to gain its end, all the tradl the energy exists to carry on this highly working class power Soldiers. Sailors. and tions and attainments of former centuries of important work.
Workers Councis of Deputies (Soviets. and capitalist class rule, multiplied by the wonders BUT WITHOUT FUNDS WE CANNOT by the use or force acts for of capitalist technique lies, demagogism, per CARRY ON!
the conquest of political power, the destruction of the bour.
secution, slander, and bribery. The proletariat Comrades! Rally to the support of the geois state machinery and the establishment of cannot yield itself to the artificial rules devised Communist Farty!
a proletarian dictatorship. The proletarian state, by its mortal enemy but not observed by tha enemy. To do so would be to make a mockery GIVE ONE DAY PAY TO MAKE THE like every state, is an organ of suppression and of the proletarian struggle for power, a struggle PARTY PARTY OF ACTION.
coercion, but this machinery is directed against the enemy of the working class.
which depends primarily Its aim is to the development of break the desperate resistance of the exploiters, separate organs of working class power.
who use all the power at their command to The revolutionary epoch forces upon the prowaging the struggle of the workers for better Jetariat the application of such militant methods conditions and higher wages under capitalism.
drown the revolution in blood; its aim is to which concentrate its entire energy, namely, the But industrial unionism in itself is not revolu.
make this resistance impossible; the proletarian method of mass action with its logical resultant, tionary. Industrial unionism cannot conquer the clictatorship which openly places the working direct collision with the bourgeois state machinpower of the state. it cannot train and mobilize class in a privileged position in society, is on ery in open combat.
the other hand, a provisional institution. When All other methods, as for the workers for the prolcarian revolution. Ininstance, the revolutionary use of the bourgeois dustrial unionism, as advocated by the the resistance of the bourgeoisie is broken, when Darliament, has to be subordinated to this aſm.
and similar organizations, rejects the basic prin.
it is expropriated and gradually absorbed into ciples of the Communist International mass acthe labor strata, all classes Vanish, the prole.
Mass action is the proletarian response to tion, proletarian dictatorship and Soviet power.
tarian dictatorship disappears, and the state the centralized power of the capitalist class It rejects the idea of armed insurrection and its control of the state machinery, by means of the use of force in the time of revolution. Such The bourgeois parliamentary state is the which it can impose its will upon the workers. industrial unionism aims only at the direct sei.
organ of the bourgeoisie for the suppression and The power of the capitalist class lies in its zure of industry by the workers after the great coercion of the proletariat. Parliamentary govposeeasjon of the state machinery, with its majority of them will have been organized into ernment is the expression of bourgeois supremarray, navy, courts, police, bureaucracy, etc. industrial unions, and rejects the necessity of acy, the form of authority of the capitalist class Mass action develops as the spontaneous ac destroying the capitalist state. Moreover, indusover the working class. Bourgeois democracy tivity of the workers massed in the basic in. trial unionism at present, does not actually cons is nothing but the concealed dictatorship of the dustries; the mass strike is one of its initial truct the forms of the Communist administration bourgeoisie. The national will, united na.
fortos; in these strikes large masses of the of society. Only potentially, after the conquest are only fictions. In reality, the workers are unified by the impulse of the strug. of power, after the establishment of the prole.
classes exist the classes with opposite, irreconEle, developing new tactics and a new ideology. tarian dictatorship the industrial unions may becilable interests. But as the bourgeoisie is a small As the strikes grow in number and intensity, come the starting point for the Communist minority, it needs the fiction of national will they acquire poitical character by coming in construction of society. But the concept that and siunilar pleasant sounding phrases to streng.
direct conflict with the state, which openly emthe majority of the working class can be organ.
then its domination over the laboring classes and ploys its machinery for breaking the strike and ized into conscious Industrial unions, and cons.
Impose its will upon the proletariat. The main crushing the workers organizations.
This cul.
truct, under capitalism, the form of the Compower of bourgeois democracy lies in its purely minates in armed insurrection and clvil war munist society (building the new society within formal declaration of rights and liberties, aimed directly at the destruction of the capitathe shell of the old. is as utopian as the dies out.
tion, etc. Continued on page 7)