J.P. Cannon on the Vanguard Party

["Richard Fidler" <rfidler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Our list moderator has several times cited statements by James P. Cannon,
usually made in the late 1940s or early 1950s, lauding the SWP as the
already-existing party of the American (socialist) revolution. On their face,
these egregiously triumphalist declarations are sectarian nonsense, I agree. But
do they express the essence of Cannon's mature assessment of the role and
function of the vanguard party? And to what degree did such declarations inform
the practice and self-conception of the SWP cadres in subsequent years?

This is debatable, and I don't pretend to any certainty on the matter. But it is
hard to imagine how the party could have responded as positively as it did to
the late-1950s regroupment experience, the rise of the Black Power movement and
the sentiment for a Freedom Now Party, or for that matter the antiwar and
feminist movements if SWP members had thought their party was some
self-sufficient repository of progressive thought and action. That is, whatever
the strength of the Manichean tendency (which always existed, to some degree),
it was in constant tension with the felt need to reach out to newly radicalizing
forces, engage them politically and work with them in common actions. The SWP's
inability to do so today is the clearest indication of its decline into
irrelevance.

Towards the end of his active political life, Cannon himself expressed a more
nuanced view of the process of building a revolutionary Marxist party. I think
the following essay, to my knowledge his last writing on the subject, is also
his most complete exposition. I have scanned it from the book Fifty Years of
World Revolution (1917-1967), published by the SWP's Merit Publishers to mark
the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. (See note below on the fate
of this book.)

Cannon's exposition is rather abstract yet it contains many pregnant
formulations, each of which could be (and in some cases have been) the subject
of entire volumes. Keeping in mind some of the thoughts that have been expressed
by various contributors on this list in recent months, I would single out the
following:

- The vanguard party, in Cannon's conception (attributed to Lenin), is the
"organizer and director" of the proletarian revolution. It is not just a party
that discusses and engages in common actions by its own members or in
conjunction with other forces. Its entire activity is informed by the struggle
of the working class for power. And its rationale lies in the heterogenity of
the working class and the "exceptionally conscious character" of the struggle.

- The problem of the vanguard party "has yet to be solved in the everyday
struggle", even among those who undertand Lenin's theory. This seems somewhat
different from proclaiming one's own party as the already existing vehicle.

- Once the objective conditions have reached "a certain point of maturity", the
workers' "will and consciousness, expressed through the intervention of the
organized vanguard, *can* become the key component in determining the outcome of
the class struggle." This formulation is substantially more modest in its
projection than the suggestion in Trotsky's 1938 Transitional Program that the
objective conditions are already mature and only the immaturity of the
proletariat and its vanguard stands in the way of successful socialist
revolution. However, Cannon does subsequently cite this assertion in the TP,
together with Trotsky's categorical statement that "the crisis of the
proletarian leadership ... can be resolved only by the Fourth International,"
the World Party of the Socialist Revolution [sic]. And Cannon concludes his
essay with a similar statement. I would argue, however, that it is a further
step to proclaim that your tiny sect is already *that* party.

- "The vanguard party cannot be proclaimed by sectarian fiat...." This is in
clear contradiction with the Cannon declarations referred to earlier. This view
was so widely held in the Fourth International in my time (roughly 1960-1980)
that some members of our youth organization in Canada had satirized it with a
song to the effect that the road to revolution can't be travelled by a sectarian
Fiat! Note as well Cannon's distinction, in the same paragraph, of stages in the
development of the party.

- Cannon then, in effect, reassesses the validity of his concept of the vanguard
party (which he consistently attributes to Lenin) in light of post-World War II
developments: the restabilization of capitalism in the imperialist sector, the
reverses of the colonial revolution and the seizure of power by some CPs, albeit
under the pressure of extraordinarily powerful revolutionary upsurges. While
reaffirming the need for such a party, he emphasizes that "The difficulties
encountered by the Trotskyist vanguard over the past three decades show that
there are no easy or simple recipes" for overcoming the problems inherent in
this task. He alludes to the contradictory experience with the entrist tactic in
mass Social Democratic and Stalinist parties.

How all these concepts will work out in practice will of course depend on
crucial considerations of time and location. Clearly, Lou's conception of
party-building possibilities in 1974 (with the benefit of hindsight!) reflects
an assessment of the situation at that time that differs sharply from the one
then held by the SWP. But I think Cannon's essay identifies the key
considerations that have to be addressed in any discussion of the vanguard
party, and is a rounded summing up of his own conceptions - which, I would
argue, were in fact the basis for what many of us who went through the
Trotskyist movement in recent decades considered "the Leninist concept of the
party". Since Lenin nowhere explicitly delineated his concept of "the party"
(other than in the 21 Conditions of the Communist International - and that's a
whole debate!), our understanding of "Leninist party-building" was actually
derived from Cannon.

Incidentally, one reason I scanned this essay for the List was that it is
apparently no longer in publication. An article in the June 29, 1998 issue (Vol.
62, No. 25) of The Militant (SWP) revealed that Merit Publishers (a Pathfinder
imprint) had withdrawn Fifty Years of World Revolution from publication because
the SWP did not agree with the views expressed by some of the authors, such as
Ernest Mandel! In fact, the book was an unprecedented joint collaboration by 15
prominent leaders of the reunified Fourth International. Immediately after its
publication, factional divisions reappeared in the FI, beginning with the issue
of strategy in Latin America, and no further joint publication ever appeared.
While the essays are, inevitably, uneven in quality, the book itself is a
treasure - a good reflection of some of the most advanced thinking on many
issues of international significance at that time.

-- Richard Fidler


THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE WORLD REVOLUTION

By James P. Cannon

The greatest contribution to the arsenal of Marxism since the death of Engels in
1895 was Lenin's conception of the vanguard party as the organizer and director
of the proletarian revolution. That celebrated theory of organization was not,
as some contend, simply a product of the special Russian conditions of his time
and restricted to them. It is deep-rooted in two of the weightiest realities of
the twentieth century: the actuality of the workers' struggle for the conquest
of power, and the necessity of creating a leadership capable of carrying it
through to the end.

Recognizing that our epoch was characterized by imperialist wars, proletarian
revolutions, and colonial uprisings, Lenin deliberately set out at the beginning
of this century to form a party able to turn such cataclysmic events to the
advantage of socialism. The triumph of the Bolsheviks in the upheavals of 1917,
and the durability of the Soviet Union they established, attested to Lenin's
foresight and the merits of his methods of organization. His party stands out as
the unsurpassed prototype of what a democratic and centralized leadership of the
workers, true to Marxist principles and applying them with courage and skill,
can be and do.

Limited as it was to a single country, the epoch-making achievement of the
Bolsheviks did not conclusively dispose of further dispute over the nature of
the revolutionary leadership. That controversy has continued ever since. Fifty
years afterwards there is no lack of skeptics inside the socialist ranks who
doubt or deny that a party of the Leninist type is either necessary or
desirable. And even where Lenin's theory is clearly understood and convincing,
the problem of the vanguard party remains as urgent as ever, since it has yet to
be solved in the everyday struggle against the old order.

A correct appreciation of the vanguard party and its indispensable role depends
upon understanding the crucial importance of the subjective factors in the
proletarian revolution. On a broad historical scale, and in the final
accounting, economic conditions are decisive in shaping the development society.
This truth of historical materialism does not negate the fact that the political
and psychological processes unfolding within the working masses more directly
and immediately affect the course, the pace, and the outcome of the national and
world revolution. Once the objective material preconditions for revolutionary
activity by the workers have reached a certain point of maturity, their will and
consciousness, expressed through the intervention of the organized vanguard,
can become the key component in determining the outcome of the class struggle.

The Leninist theory of the vanguard party is based on two factors: the
heterogeneity of the working class and the exceptionally conscious character of
the movement for socialism. The revolutionizing of the proletariat and oppressed
people in general is a complex, prolonged, and contradictory affair. Under class
society and capitalism, the toilers are stratified and divided in many ways;
they live under very dissimilar conditions and are at disparate stages of
economic and political development.

Their culture is inadequate and their outlook narrow. Consequently they do not
and cannot all at once, en masse and to the same degree, arrive at a clear and
comprehensive understanding of their real position in society or the political
course they must follow to end the evils they suffer from and make their way to
a better system. Still less can they learn quickly and easily how to act most
effectively to protect and promote their class interests.

This irregular self-determination of the class as a whole is the primary cause
for a vanguard party. It has to be constituted by those elements of the class
and their spokesmen who grasp the requirements for revolutionary action and
proceed to their implementation sooner than the bulk of the proletariat on both
a national and international scale. Here also is the basic reason that the
vanguard always begins as a minority of its class, a "splinter group." The
earliest formations of advanced workers committed to socialism, and their
intellectual associates propagating its views, must first organize themselves
around a definite body of scientific doctrine, class tradition, and experience,
and work out a correct political program in order then to organize and lead the
big battalions of revolutionary forces.

The vanguard party should aim at all times to reach, move, and win, the broadest
masses. Yet, beginning with Lenin's Bolsheviks, no such party has ever started
out with the backing of the majority of the class and as its recognized head. It
originates, as a rule, as a group of propagandists concerned with the
elaboration and dissemination of ideas. It trains, teaches, and tempers cadres
around that program and outlook which they take to the masses for consideration,
adoption, action, and verification.

The size and influence of their organization is never a matter of indifference
to serious revolutionists. Nonetheless, quantitative indices alone cannot be
taken as the decisive determinants for judging the real nature of a
revolutionary grouping. More fundamental are such qualitative features as the
program and relationship with the class whose interests it formulates,
represents, and fights for.

"The interests of the class cannot be formulated otherwise than in the shape of
a program; the program cannot be defended otherwise than by creating the party,"
wrote Trotsky in What Next? "The class, taken by itself, is only raw material
for exploitation. The proletariat acquires an independent role only at that
moment when, from a social class in itself, it becomes a political class for
itself. This cannot take place otherwise than through the medium of a party .
The party is that historical organ by means of which the class becomes class
conscious."

Marxism teaches that the revolution against capitalism and the socialist
reconstruction of the old world can be accomplished only through conscious,
collective action by the workers themselves. The vanguard party is the highest
expression and irreplaceable instrument of that class consciousness at all
stages of the world revolutionary process. In the prerevolutionary period the
vanguard assembles and welds together the cadres who march ahead of the main
army but seek at all points to maintain correct relations with it. The vanguard
grows in numbers and influence and comes to the fore in the course of the mass
struggle for supremacy which it aspires to bring to a successful conclusion.
After the overthrow of the old ruling powers, the vanguard leads the people in
the tasks of defending and constructing the new society.

A political organization capable of handling such colossal tasks cannot arise
spontaneously or haphazardly; it has to be continuously, consistently, and
consciously built. It is not only foolish but fatal to take a lackadaisical
attitude toward party-building or its problems. The bitter experiences of so
many revolutionary opportunities aborted, mismanaged, and ruined over the past
half century by inadequate or treacherous leaderships has incontestably
demonstrated that nonchalance in this vital area is a sure formula for
disorientation and defeat.

Lenin's superb capacities as a revolutionary leader were best shown in his
insistence upon the utmost consciousness in all aspects of party-building, from
capital issues of theory and policy to a meticulous attention given to small
details of daily work. Other parties and kinds of parties are content to amble
and stumble along, dealing empirically and in a makeshift manner with problems
as they arise. Lenin introduced system and planning into the construction and
activity of the revolutionary party on the road to power, not only into the
economy such a party was later called upon to direct. He left as little as
possible to chance and improvisation. Proceeding from a formulated appraisal of
the given stage of the struggle, he singled out the main tasks at hand and
sought to discover and devise the best ways and means of solving them in accord
with the long-range goals of world socialism.

The vanguard party, guided by the methods of scientific socialism and totally
dedicated to the welfare of the toiling masses and all victims of oppression,
must always be in principled opposition to the guardians and institutions of
class society. These traits can immunize it against the infections, and armor it
against the pressures, of alien class influences. But the Leninist party must
be, above all, a combat party intent on organizing the masses for effective
action leading to the taking of power.

That overriding aim determines the character of the party and priority of its
tasks. It cannot be a talking shop for aimless and endless debate. The purpose
of its deliberations, discussions, and internal disputes is to arrive at
decisions for action and systematic work. Neither can it be an infirmary for the
care and cure of sick souls, nor itself a model of the future socialist society.
It is a band of revolutionary fighters, ready, willing, and able to meet and
defeat all enemies of the people and assist the masses in clearing the way to
the new world.

Much of the New Left, imbued with an anarchistic or existentialist spirit,
denigrate or dismiss professional leadership in a revolutionary movement. So do
some disillusioned workers and ex-radicals, who have come to equate
conscientious dedication to full-time leadership with bureaucratic domination
and privilege. They fail to understand the interrelations between the masses,
the revolutionary class, the party, and its leadership. Just as the
revolutionary class leads the nation forward, so the vanguard party leads the
class. However, the role of leadership does not stop there. The party itself
needs leadership. It is impossible for a revolutionary party to provide correct
leadership without the right sort of leaders. This leadership performs the same
functions within the vanguard party as that party does for the working class.

Its cadres remain the backbone of the party, in periods of contraction as well
as expansion. The vitality of such a party is certified by the capacity to
extend and replenish its cadres and reproduce qualified leaders from one
generation to another.

The vanguard party cannot be proclaimed by sectarian fiat or be created
overnight. Its leadership and membership are selected and sifted out by tests
and trials in the mass movement, and in the internal controversies and sharp
conflicts over the critical policy questions raised at every turn in the class
struggle. It is not possible to step over, and even less possible to leap over,
the preliminary stage in which the basic cadres of the party organize and
reorganize themselves in preparation for, and in connection with, the larger job
of organizing and winning over broad sections of the masses.

The decisive role that kind of party can play in the making of history was
dramatically exemplified by the Bolshevik cadres in the first world war and the
first proletarian revolution. These cadres degenerated or were destroyed and
replaced after Lenin's death by the totalitarian apparatus of the Soviet
bureaucracy fashioned under Stalin. The importance of such cadres was negatively
confirmed by the terrible defeats of the socialist forces in other countries,
extending from the Germany of 1918 to the Spain of 1936-1939, because of the
opportunism, defects, or defaults of the labor leaderships.

 Contrary to the opinions of some other students of his remarkable career, I
believe that Trotsky's most valuable contribution to the world revolutionary
movement in the struggle against Stalinism and centrism was his defense and
enrichment of the Leninist principles of the party, culminating in the decision
to create new parties of the Fourth International along these lines. Trotsky was
from 1903 to 1917 opposed in theory and practice to Lenin's methods of building
a revolutionary party. It is a tribute to his exemplary objectivity and capacity
for growth that he wholeheartedly came over to Lenin's conceptions in 1917, when
he saw them verified by the developments of the revolution at home and abroad.

>From that point to his last day Trotsky never for a moment wavered in his
adherence to these methods of party-building. After correcting his mistake in
that department, he became, after Lenin's death in 1924, the foremost exponent
and developer of the Bolshevik traditions of the vanguard party in national and
international politics.

Most people think that Trotsky's genius was best displayed in his work as
theorist of the permanent revolution, as the head of the October uprising, or as
creator and commander of the Red Army. I believe that he exercised his powers of
revolutionary Marxist leadership most eminently not during the rise but during
the recession of the Russian and world revolutions, when, as leader of the Left
Opposition, he undertook to save the program and perspectives of the Bolshevik
Party against the Stalinist reaction, and then founded the Fourth International
once the Comintern had decisively disclosed its bankruptcy in 1933. The purpose
of the new International was to create and coordinate new revolutionary mass
parties of the world working class.

Trotsky summarized his views on the momentous importance of the vanguard party
in the transitional program he drafted for its founding congress in 1938. He
asserted that "the historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the
revolutionary leadership." The principal strategic task for our whole epoch is
"overcoming the contradiction between the maturity of objective revolutionary
conditions and the immaturity of the proletariat and its vanguard (the confusion
and disappointment of the older generation, the inexperience of the younger
generation)."

He pointed out that the vanguard party was the sole agency by which this burning
political problem of the imperialist phase of world capitalism could be solved.
More specifically, he stated categorically: ". . . the crisis of the proletarian
leadership, having become the crisis in mankind's culture, can be resolved only
by the Fourth International," the World Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Have the major experiences in the struggle for socialism, since this was
written, spoken for or against Trotsky's pregnant political generalizations? Has
the crisis of mankind, or the crisis of the proletarian leadership, been
overcome?

The fact is it has grown ever deeper and more acute with the advent of nuclear
weapons and the failures of the established parties to overthrow capitalist
imperialism and promote the progress of socialism.

In the revolutionary resurgence in Western Europe opened by Mussolini's
deposition in July 1943, which signalized the eclipse of fascism, to the ousting
of the Communists from the coalition cabinets in France and Italy in 1947, the
Stalinist and Social Democratic parties repeated their previous treachery and
impotence by refusing to pursue a revolutionary policy directed toward the
conquest of power in a highly revolutionary situation. These defaults and
defeats permitted capitalism to be restabilized in the second most important
sector of that system.

In the colonial countries from 1945 on, Communist leaderships, handcuffed or
misled by Kremlin diplomacy, have been responsible for many setbacks and
disasters. These have stretched from the compromise of the Indochinese
Communists with the French imperialists in 1945 to political subservience to
such representatives of the "progressive" bourgeoisie as Nehru in India, Kassim
in Iraq, Goulart in Brazil, and Sukarno in Indonesia. The terrible reverses of
the colonial freedom struggle, culminating in the Indonesian butchery of 1965,
owing to such false leadership, provide powerful evidence that the need for new
and better leadership is as urgent in the "Third World" as elsewhere.

The conquest of power by the Communist parties of Yugoslavia, China, North
Korea, and North Vietnam has induced not a few radicals and ex-Trotskyists to
assume or assert that Lenin's teachings on the party, and Trotsky's
reaffirmation of them, are out of date. These developments prove, they argue,
that it is a waste of time, a useless undertaking, to try to build independent
revolutionary parties of the Leninist type as Trotsky advised, since the
exploiters can be overthrown with other kinds of parties, especially if these
are supported by a powerful workers' state like the Soviet Union or China.

What substance do these arguments have? It should first be observed that Trotsky
himself foresaw and allowed for such a possibility. In the "Transitional
Program" he wrote:". . . one cannot categorically deny in advance the
theoretical possibility that, under the influence of completely exceptional
circumstances (war, defeat, financial crash, mass revolutionary pressure, etc.),
the petty-bourgeois parties including the Stalinists may go further than they
themselves wish along the road to a break with the bourgeoisie."

In the postwar years these exceptional conditions in the more backward countries
have been the prostration and collapse of the most corrupt colonial
bourgeoisies, the weaknesses of the old imperialist powers in Europe and of
Japan, and the mighty upsurge of the indigenous peasant and proletarian masses.
Certain Communist leaderships were confronted with the alternatives of being
crushed by reaction, outflanked by the revolutionary forces, or taking command
of the national liberation and anticapitalist struggles. After some hesitation
and vacillation, and against the Kremlin's advice, the Communist leaders in
Yugoslavia, China, and Vietnam took the latter course and led the proletariat
and peasantry to power.

In its resolution on "The Dynamics of World Revolution Today," adopted at the
1963 Reunification Congress, the Fourth International has taken into account
this variant of political development as follows: "The weakness of the enemy in
the backward countries has opened the possibility of coming to power with a
blunted instrument."

However, this factual observation does not dispose of the entire question, or
even touch its most important aspects. The deformations of the regimes emanating
from the revolutionary movements headed by the Stalinized parties, and the
opportunism and sectarianism exhibited by their leaderships since assuming
power, notably in Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, and China, demonstrate that the
need for organizing genuine Marxist parties is not ended with the overthrow of
capitalist domination. The building of such political formations can become
equally urgent as the result of the bureaucratic degeneration and deformation of
postcapitalist states in an environment where imperialism remains predominant
and backwardness prevails.

This was first recognized in the case of the Soviet Union by Trotsky in 1933.
That political conclusion retains full validity for all those workers' states
governed by parties that fail to uphold or foster a democratic internal regime
or pursue an international revolutionary line. The experience of the Polish and
Hungarian uprisings of 1956, and restriction of the de-Stalinization processes
in the Soviet Union, alike demonstrate the need for an independent
Marxist-Leninist party to lead the antibureaucratic revolution to the end.

The keynote of the reunification document is that "the building of new mass
revolutionary parties remains the central strategic task" in all three sectors
of the international struggle for socialism: the workers' states, the colonial
regions, and above all in the advanced capitalisms.

If Yugoslavia and China are cited to show that any party will do in a pinch, the
example of Cuba is often brought forward as proof that no party at all is
required in the struggle for power, or that any kind of improvised political
outfit will do the job. First of all, this involves a misconstruction of the
political history of the Cuban Revolution. The July 26 Movement had a small,
close-knit nucleus of leaders, subjected to military discipline by the
imperatives of armed combat. They had to construct a broader leadership in the
heat of civil war against Batista. Once the Cuban freedom fighters had become
sovereign in the country, they found not only that they could not dispense with
a vanguard party, but that they desperately needed one. They have therefore
proceeded to construct one along Marxist lines and are still engaged in that
task nine years after their victory.

Wouldn't their difficulties have been lessened before and after the taking of
power if they had been able to enter the revolution with a more powerful cadre
and party? But the default of the Cuban Stalinists foreclosed that more
favorable possibility. Moreover, it should be recognized that, since the Cuban
experience, both the imperialists and their native satellites under Washington's
direction are much more alerted and prompt to take repressive measures to nip
rebellion in the bud.

The circumstances of the struggle for power in the highly industrialized
countries are vastly different from those in colonial lands, where the native
upper classes are feeble, isolated, and discredited, and where the impetus of
the unsolved tasks of the democratic revolution reinforces the claims of the
wage workers. It would be foolish and fatal to hold that the workers in the
imperialist strongholds will be able to get rid of capitalism under the
direction of the bureaucratized, corrupt, and ossified Social Democratic or
Communist parties, or any centrist shadow of them. Here the injunction to build
revolutionary Marxist parties is absolutely unconditional.

The difficulties encountered by the Trotskyist vanguard over the past three
decades show that there are no easy or simple recipes for solving the multiple
problems posed by this necessity. The major obstacle to building alternative
leaderships in most of these countries is the presence of powerful and wealthy
Labor, Social Democratic, or Communist organizations which exercise bureaucratic
control over the labor movement, but for traditional reasons continue to exact a
certain loyalty from the workers, Under such conditions it is often advisable
for the original corps of revolutionary Marxists to enter and work for extended
periods within such mass parties.

It should never for a moment be forgotten that the prime objective of such a
tactical entry is the creation, consolidation, and expansion of the initial
cadres and the growth of ties with the most advanced elements. It is not an end
in itself. The immediate aim is to transform a propaganda group into a force
capable of influencing, organizing, and directing broad masses in action. The
ultimate goal is to create a new mass party of the working class along this
road.

Experience has shown that there are many pitfalls in implementing an entrist
tactic. As a result of prolonged immersion in reformist work and overadaptation
to a centrist environment, the fiber of the revolutionary cadre may become
corroded and its perspectives dimmed and even lost. Total immersion in such a
milieu has many liabilities and dangers. It is therefore essential that entrist
work be complemented by a sector of open public work through which the full
program and policies of the Fourth International can at all times be made
accessible to the advanced workers.

It is also possible (We have seen such cases!) for entrism to be conducted in an
impatient and inflexible way. Then, when adequate results are not quickly
forthcoming, the group can prematurely revert to an independent organizational
status. If persisted in, such a sectarian course can, under cover of a falsetto
ultraleft rhetoric, lead to self-isolation and impotence. It can help the
reformist and Communist bureaucrats by leaving them in uncontested command of
the situation and narrowing the channels of contact and communication between
the revolutionary Marxists and the best militants in the traditional parties.

Both through independent or entrist activities, as the given situation
warranted, the American Trotskyists have been busy building a revolutionary
Marxist party in the United States ever since they discarded the prospect of
reforming the Communist Party in 1933. The Socialist Workers Party regards
itself as the legitimate inheritor of the finest traditions of the Socialist
movement of Debs, the Socialist Labor Party of De Leon, the IWW of St. John and
Haywood, and the early Communist Party. It has drawn upon and benefited from the
good and bad experiences of these pioneer attempts to create the party needed by
the American workers to lead their revolution.

The history of American communism since its inception in 1919 has been a record
of struggle for the right kind of party. All the other problems have been
related to this central issue.

Everything that has been done since October 1917 for the advancement of
socialism in this citadel of world capitalism and counterrevolution has been
governed by this necessity of building the vanguard party, and whatever will be
accomplished in the future will, in my opinion, revolve around it. The key to
the victory of socialism in the United States will be the fusion of American
power, above all the potential power of its working class, with Russian ideas,
first and foremost the organizational principles of Lenin's Bolshevism.

The Leninist party proved indispensable in Russia, where the belated bourgeoisie
was a feeble social and political force. It will be a million times more
necessary in America, the home of the strongest, richest, and most ruthless
exploiting class. The Bolshevik conception of the party and its leadership
originated and was first put to the test in the weakest and most backward of
capitalist countries. I venture to predict that it will become naturalized and
find its fullest application in the struggle for socialism in the most developed
country of capitalism.

The revolutionists here confront a most highly organized concentration of
economic, political, military, and cultural power in history. These mighty
forces of reaction cannot and will not be overthrown without a movement of the
popular masses, black and white, which has a centralized, disciplined,
principled, experienced Marxist leadership at its head.

It is impossible to stumble into a successful revolution in the United States.
It will have to be organized and directed by people and a party that have at
their command all the theory, knowledge, resources, and lessons accumulated by
the world working class. Its know-how and organization in politics and action
must match and surpass that of its enemies.

Those who claim that a Leninist party is irrelevant or unneeded in the advanced
capitalisms are 100 per cent wrong. On the contrary, such a party is an
absolutely essential condition and instrument for the promotion and triumph of
the socialist revolution in the United States, the paragon of world capitalism.
Just as the overturn inaugurated by the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky in
1917 was the first giant step in the world socialist revolution and renovation,
so the Leninist theory of the party, first vindicated by that event, will find
its ultimate verification in the overthrow of imperialism in its central
fortress and the establishment of a socialist regime with full democracy on
American soil.

Nothing less than the fate of humanity hinges upon the speediest solution of the
drawn-out crisis of proletarian leadership. This will have to be done under the
banner and through the program of the parties of the Fourth International. The
very physical existence of our species depends upon the prompt fulfillment of
this supreme obligation. No greater task was ever shouldered by revolutionists
of the Marxist school --- and not too much time will be given by the monopolists
and militarists at bay to carry it through.

On this fiftieth anniversary of the imperishable October Revolution, which has
shaped and changed all our lives, our motto is: "To work with more energy toward
that goal and win it for the good of mankind."