The Daily Worker

The Role of the Communist Party

By C. E. RUTHENBERG.

(From "The Liberator," July, 1923.)

What is the goal of the Communist Party? Wherein does it differ from other labor political parties? What is the role of the Communist Party-in this country the Workers Party-in the struggle for the emancipation of the workers?

The Communists accept as their guiding policy that the world imperialist war was the beginning of the decay and disintegration of the capitalist system. Although the capitalists, financiers, and statesmen have striven mightily since 1918 to find a solution to the financial and economic problems brought upon them by the war, the process of disintegration still goes on. At times there are slight improvements only to be followed by worse conditions. Financially and economically, Europe draws nearer and nearer to the brink.

The Communists point out to the working class that the capitalist system has outlived its day, that it cannot be reformed or reconstructed, that the misery and suffering which are the lot of the workers can only be ended by the workers establishing their rule and proceeding with the work of rebuilding the economic system on a Communist basis.

The Communists are under no illusion that this can be done over night. The struggle against the capitalist system may still last for decades, and even after the workers achieve power, will go on for years. The Communists do not attempt to deceive the workers by teaching them that the social revolution is a pink tea affair to be achieved in the legislative halls of the capitalist government. The lesson of the one country in which the workers have attained power-Soviet Russia-shows that after the workers' government is established, an iron dictatorship must rule as the instrument through which the struggle against the exploiters is carried forward there. The Communists recognize the historic truth that no privileged class has ever given up its special position, its power to live in luxury through the exploitation of the oppressed class, without a bitter struggle in which it has resorted to every means within its power to retain its privileged position.

Everything points to the fact that the struggle against capitalism in Europe and America will not differ from the class struggles of the past and that the workers in the fight to emancipate themselves must be ready for this struggle.

In the United States the Communists today are advocating as their chief immediate proposals the amalgamation of the trade unions into industrial unions and the formation of a labor party. While the Communists in the United States are the leaders in the struggle to bring about amalgamation and the formation of a labor party, this does not mean that when this goal is achieved the task of the Communists is at an end.

For the Communists, the amalgamation of the trade unions into industrial unions and the formation of a labor party to fight the political battles of the working masses of this country are but the first steps toward the ultimate goal of the workers' government and the Communist society.

When these means of struggle are achieved there will still remain for the Communists the tasks of bringing to the masses of the workers of this country the realization that the struggle against capitalism must be a struggle to abolish the whole capitalist order. It must teach them that the problem which the working class faces under the capitalist system cannot be solved through ameliorative measures won in the legislative bodies of the capitalist government or through victories won in the fight on the industrial field for better wages and working conditions. The Communists will still have the task of educating the working masses to the necessity of their establishing the rule of the workers in place of the rule of the capitalists. They will still have before them the work of bringing to the masses of the workers and farmers the understanding that the existing capitalist government is an instrument for the service of the capitalists, that it cannot be the form of government through which the workers may rule, but must be supplanted by a government growing out of the experiences and struggles of the workers, that is, a Soviet government. The Communists will still have before them the task of educating the working masses of this country to the need of their establishing a Soviet government and with it the rule of the workers-the Dictatorship of the Proletariat-which will use the government power in the interests of the workers as openly as it is now used in the interests of the capitalists.

It is because, after the first steps in the United States in the form of the organization of a labor party and the amalgamation of the trade unions, there will still remain these great tasks, that there must be a Communist Party-a separate, distinct organization which will have in its ranks the best educated, disciplined, and most militant workers, such as the Workers Party of America.

The role of this Party is to be the battalion at the front leading the working class hosts-industrial workers and farmers-forward against the enemy in spite of all persecutions, in spite of the efforts of the capitalists to destroy it, until the victory of the workers is won.