To begin the brief outline of our tasks in the workplaces and neighborhoods, I would like to give a brief definition of the difference between the Communist Party (CP) and the masses, the Party organizations and the mass organizations.
The Party is the vanguard organization of the working class, it concentrates in it the workers with the highest degree of class consciousness and aims to become the real leadership of the masses, e.g. not only its ideological but also its organizational and political leadership. The fact that we are currently far away from achieving this in most countries should not discourage us from holding on firmly to this orientation.
The mass organizations of the working class are primarily the trade unions, but really any organization in which the working class is organized irrespective of its ideological convictions. While many organizations outside of the trade unions lack a distinct class character in their social composition, the simple fact that the vast majority of the Finnish people are workers, makes various organizations of the people – such as popular organizations (environmental, Palestine-solidarity), organizations on the basis of locality (kylälaiset), sports-clubs, recreational groups, etc. – de-facto gathering places for workers, were common class experiences are exchanged and can be tackled. The absence of communists from these spaces means that the common root of the various experiences in the labor-capital contradiction are not sufficiently understood.
In the trade unions we can find workers with social-democratic, liberal, conservative and even right-wing views, who have nevertheless understood the need for collective organization. We have to be sure in this regard to overcome the bourgeois political compass, which differentiates only between left and right and not between labor and capital, and is therefore unable to pose the question of the orientation of mass organizations. The question of “class-against-class” or “class collaboration” is therefore not even raised in the first place.
During the sharpening of the class struggle political “beliefs” of many workers increasingly fall by the wayside and give rise to “naked”, i.e. material class interests. Just because social-democratic and even reactionary views currently dominate the labor movement does not negate its role as the only real revolutionary class in society. The current attack on workers’ livelihoods – in an attempt to stabilize profit rates – leads to revealing the anti-people character of the capitalism and the state. It is critical that we intervene in this favorable environment and make sure that this leads to a spreading of a revolutionary orientation at the center of life of the working people – at their workplaces and in their neighborhoods.
It becomes clear from this understanding that all of our work in the mass organizations has to proceed from the economic interest of the working people and that our political struggles have to be explained as an extension of this economic interest, by raising it from a narrow individual, trade, sectoral interest to a national and international class interest, which can only be realized through a political struggle. Specifically it has to defend the interests of the proletariat in the nationwid political struggle – for example against social cuts in the current period (e.g. especially since Covid-19) – and ultimately has to raise the question of which class holds power. This is the central question in which all our educational-political work has to find its concentrated expression; the theoretical and practical preparation of the working class and its vanguard party (subjective factor) for the seizure of power.
It further follows from this understanding that independent mass activity, even if it emerges independent of the CP is objectively a good thing, because in the course of the class struggle itself the workers learn of their strength as a political force and of their antagonistic interests with the capitalists and their representatives in the bourgeois parties.
It is only on the basis of connecting of separate struggles with each other that the overarching need for a socialist revolution becomes apparent. Only through communists work in the mass organizations will the CP be able to positively influence the struggles of the working class by giving them the needed orientation in confrontation with capital, developing them to their full potential and through this elevate the consciousness and militancy of the masses.
Our theoretical efforts are not in separation from the mass struggle, but are meant to provide the much needed revolutionary orientation that these struggles are lacking. Our theoretical work can thus not exist in separation to the mass movement, but always has to circle back to answer the most pressing questions of the movement, without falling into the short-sightedness so characteristic of reformism. Only thus can the unity of theory and practice be achieved.
Our revolutionary orientation brings us into sharp conflict with all other non-communist forces in the labor movement, whose objective world outlook is at odds with Dialectical Materialism and its application to our contemporary world. There can thus be no compromise on the matter of principles with non-communist forces. We can have no illusions about the “progressive” character of various “leftists” and “reformers”, who may even use revolutionary or Marxist rhetoric as window-dressing. Instead we have to expose them for what they objectively are – agents of the bourgeoisie in the labor movement. Only in form can our criticism vary, depending on who it is directed at.
The freedom of criticism by the CP is an indispensable precondition in any mass work. A “tactical cease fire” between the revolutionaries and reformists can only ever serve to obfuscate the real role of reformism in the labor movement and thus strengthen the reformist pole. The idea of reaching purely formal agreements with other supposedly “progressive”, “peace-loving”, “leftist”, etc. forces (e.g. only from above), is harmful, because it does not take as a point of departure the raising of consciousness of the masses.
The danger of reformism lies precisely in a hundred small “compromises”, in losing sight in the everyday struggles of the final aim.
hese “compromises” then compound into a full-blown failure of the leadership in the revolutionary crisis. The validity of this assessment has been borne out in the rich historical experience of the labor movement. Its antidote is the orientation of each struggle, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, to gather forces and prepare them ideologically for the decisive struggle for power.
We have to sharply reject the explanation of “a few bad apples” – e.g. individual, conscious saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries in the movement – in favor for a materialist analysis of the causes of the opportunist degeneration of workers’ and communist’ parties, historically and also today. The struggle against individuals has to be carried out on this bases, which understands them as representatives of a reformist or adventurist trend in the labor movement.
The struggle for the overthrow of capitalism is impossible without the struggle against opportunism, which finds a broad social base among the Labor Aristocracy – those better-off workers, which receive part of the appropriated surplus created by the world working class.
In summary it can be said that the distinction between class and vanguard is essential to formulate a correct approach towards raising the activity and the class consciousness of the mass movement. To adequately fulfill this task the vanguard has to understand its role as the instrument of the working class for its self-emancipation and internalize the notion that it is the rising mass movement itself that will renew the ranks of the vanguard. The changing forms of the class struggle raise increasingly complex demands on the vanguard to maintain its role as such.
The struggle against opportunism is an indispensable part of the CP to dispel reformist notions in the labor movement, and to show the masses through their own experience the validity and importance of revolutionary theory. The active participation of the CP in the mass struggles, is a necessary precondition for the realization of its historical task. The CP can in turn only reach theoretical maturity in organic connection with the masses and by guiding their daily struggles. Our immediate task in Finland is thus to strengthen our presence in the labor movement and to explain to the masses why socialism has become a historical necessity