Sentiment and Will: The Qualities that Distinguish the Communist

The party’s text No. 1, The Communist Party in the Tradition of the Left, is, in many ways, the fundamental text of the party. It draws together all of the historical lessons of the numerous events that had occurred to the party up until 1974. Right off the bat, we can say that this lesson was nothing more than the confirmation of assumptions that were already contained in our historical doctrine. In 1974, just a few months after a painful split that had reduced the party’s membership to a few sections, it was deemed necessary to retrace the path of study of our tradition. We found, in that tradition, the confirmation that we were on the right path: the path for all time. Most of the quotations that we utilize are taken from this text, which is considered “the fundamental party text.” This is not just to boast about orthodoxy, but rather to help comrades and readers deepen the points that we merely touch upon. If we refer to it as fundamental, this is because it brings together the entire written tradition of the Left in more than 200 pages of quotation. It is then joined by a commentary that is itself the flesh and blood of our doctrine, which clarifies and synthesizes what is set forth in those quotations.

Nothing in the party is ever taken for granted as far as adherence to tradition is concerned, and it is the task of comrades to continuously return to the roots of doctrine. This is both to find continual confirmation that they are on the right path, and because with successive generations such work is the indispensable training ground for the revolutionary communist militant.

The very reference to tradition is indicative: party doctrine is more than historical experiences, theses, and organizational precepts. The party’s mode of existence is also, and above all, made up of a series of behaviors that are not easy to classify. Nevertheless, they constitute the backbone of the party, its guarantee to not slip, through disregard for tradition, into behaviors that are not our own. In time these behaviors can, almost inevitably, lapse into improper theorizing.

This is why our doctrine always makes references to categories which are inadmissible, incomprehensible, or otherwise inapplicable to class society, such as “tradition” or “fraternal consideration among comrades.”

Unfortunately, improper theorizing can occur over time, and over the course of a century there have been some. The most critical point is always the tactical field, when choices are foreshadowed that seem obvious and advantageous, but instead fall precisely outside doctrine and tradition. These are the attitudes, theorized or not, that we have called opportunism. From deviation to its theorization, the step is short, if not countered. “With the Left we know for certain that the party alters under the impulse of its own action; we know that indiscriminate use of tactics corresponds to changes in the organisation. Inevitably, then, any ’model’ of the party gets shattered into a thousand pieces.” (The Communist Party in the Tradition of the Left, ed. 1986; Foreword 1974. Below will be only “The Communist Party…”).

It was this domain that was “the starting point for some of the party’s most dangerous deviations. Many party structures founded or re-founded on very solid doctrinarian and organizational bases, and even on the wave of a victorious revolution, have been distorted out of all recognition in the space of a couple of years because they thought that possession of ‘sound principles’ made the use of any maneuver permissible, or worse still, that a ‘strong and disciplined’ organization made any tactical about-face permissible. That the painful corollary of such a tactical ’dégringolade’ is that it is then inevitably accompanied by a degeneration of relations within the Party, by the appearance of fractionism from above, by methods of organizational coercion and by out and out political struggle; this is something the century old history of the ‘Party’ class organ has taught us; and it is a definitive lesson.” (The Communist Party…)

Thus the party is constantly under attack from outside, subject to attempts to divert it, to have it deviate from its path, attempts often made in good faith (“the road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” as Lenin put it), but nevertheless dangerous to its existence. Not for the physical existence of the organization (although often those who left the party were short-lived), which may very well survive. The problem is its survival as a party of the Left, as a revolutionary communist party, the sole heir of the uncorrupted revolutionary tradition that we synthetically represent as an unbroken line from Marx-Engels, to Lenin, to the Left founder of the Communist Party of Italy, to the Fraction Abroad, to the organizational revival of the Party in 1951. Perhaps a unique case in history, the party that is publishing Il Partito Comunista, a continuation of the Il Programma Comunista since 1974, has existed for more than 70 years without changing a comma of its positions, its way of working, or its tradition.

Surely there is nothing like it in the landscape of far-left parties, not even in those most apparently similar to us. No one else has remained so stubbornly attached to the tradition and theoretical positions of the Left. Not to mention, of course, the hodgepodge of “communisms” that go out of their way to lure the working class under their banners.

The most important duty in this historical moment, when the revolutionary assault to power appears to be objectively distant in time, is to keep intact the theoretical patrimony of the Left. We must make it available for the class when the conditions will be adequate. “From then [1951] on, the party’s task has been to preserve this sentiment, and this science of subversion. In the amorphous present, the party’s task is to seek the confirmation of its theorems in contemporary and past events rather than trying to find new exceptions to them…. [K]eeping the conscious proletarian organization alive is both the most important revolutionary action of all, and a scorching theoretical defeat for our enemy towering above us.” (The Communist Party…) A preservation that cannot be merely the preservation of sacred texts, of unchanging positions, like Vestal Virgins perpetuating the sacred fire. The task of the party is, yes, to preserve its theoretical, tactical, doctrinal heritage, but this task, which our masters taught us, cannot be accomplished by sprinkling books with rat-poison, nor by endlessly republishing the sacred texts. Certainly, our heritage must be safeguarded. But in order for it to be a weapon and not a mere collection of concepts, it is necessary for the party to keep it a living doctrine by the continuous work of studying it, of reconfirming it in the light of historical events, and of transmitting it between generations. This work does not change the substance, but makes it alive and current, work that we call “sculpting.”

Although we are in the age of Artificial Intelligence, no machine, no matter how educated, can replace the passion, the sensitivity, the dialectic of the revolutionary working on our huge body of texts, the result of generations of militants.

That is why the party, if it is to survive in the sense we that we have described, must secure a continuous and uninterrupted turnover of men and women, of militants who learn the art of revolution.  These militants must apply themselves to the work of studying and sculpting the doctrine.

“The party cannot and must not restrict its activity either to conserving the purity of theoretical principles and of the organizational collective, or to achieving immediate successes and numerical popularity regardless of the cost. At all times and in all situations, this activity must incorporate the following three points:

“a)     Defence and clarification of the fundamental programmatic postulates in the light of new facts as they arise, that is to say of the theoretical consciousness of the working class;
b)     Assurance of the continuity of the party’s organizational unity and efficiency, and its defence against contamination by extraneous influences that are opposed to the revolutionary interests of the proletariat;
c)     Active participation in all of the struggles of the working class, including those arising from partial and limited interests…” (Lyon Theses, 1926)

It follows that the process by which, in this historical period, the party strengthens itself or simply ensures a physiological turnover with new militants is simply vital. It is paramount among its various activities.

Thus proselytizing and propaganda of the theory and program are necessary and permanent tasks of the party. The party directs its propaganda toward individuals of all classes, in all circles, and by all means.

In deciding on the methods, channels, and the proper proportion of our forces to be engaged in proselytizing, the party must not forget that the extent and timing of the healthy numerical growth of the party, a social-natural phenomenon, are independent of its will. Therefore, no significant numerical increases in the party’s membership are to be expected in the absence of a resumption of extensive economical struggles of the proletariat.

The party’s propaganda consists in presenting itself to the outside world, its strict continuity in the fields of doctrine, practical directives for action, modes of relations, and internal work.

Since the adherence of individuals to the party is always determined more by needs, intuitions, and feelings than by individual consciousness or comparison between the history of the parties and their doctrines, the best propaganda is that which approaches by the call of militia and disciplined communist work, not opinion. In the case of the proletarians, this is further enforced by stating the right directives for immediate action. The sequence for individuals could be formulated as follows: you see, you join, you listen and work, and in time you will understand something.

Experience with militating in other “left-wing” groups is not an advantage for those who approach the party and ask to work for us. If anything, it may be an obstacle to be overcome.

The target of party propaganda is individuals and not groups of any kind. Party membership will always be on an individual basis, and we will never admit pre-established groups.

Who are the militants that the party accepts to organize in its structure?

“The party organizes those militants who not only have chosen to struggle for the victory of the revolution, but who are also aware of the objectives that the party is pursuing and know the methods that are necessary for their accomplishment.

“This does not mean that individual consciousness is a condition for admission to the party, which we rule out absolutely; nevertheless this fundamental and principled thesis implies that every organic party relationship ceases to exist when explicit, or worse, diplomatic methods of physical coercion are used within its ranks, which we rule out before, during and after the revolution. This thesis also demonstrates that the members of the party should be considered not as raw material that should be subjected to propaganda and agitation, but as comrades with whom a common effort for the common revolutionary preparation is carried out.” (The Party’s Preparation for Revolution Lies in its Organic Nature…, 1985).

The party has always made a distinction among the men and women orbiting it, according to their degree of involvement in various activities, since its origins in the old Italian Socialist Party. We have information about these categories in our party press from throughout the past century. We also have experience of comrades who have stayed with the party throughout much of that century, and who still (2024) militate in this very party today.

The first figure is the reader. A person who is interested in the party, who buys and reads its press, who attends rallies, conferences, and various events organized by the party. He does not necessarily share its aims and methods, and avoids any involvement in its activities.

An evolution of the reader is the sympathizer. They manifest sharing in the party’s goals and methods, may participate in some party activities – including theoretical meetings open to sympathizers, dissemination of leaflets and newspapers, drafting reports suitable for publication, etc. They may even contribute financially through extemporaneous or regular payments. Contact with the party allows the sympathizer to understand what the party is about, and for the party to assess the characteristics a militant must have. The sympathizer cannot belong to other parties or other schools of thought.

In the past, the figure of the candidate was also mentioned, which today isn’t normally distinguished from the sympathizer. The candidate is a sympathizer who, having acquired some knowledge of the party, decides to commit themselves as a militant. They express a willingness to be organized and let the party know that they are willing to perform all related duties.

If the party deems that the sympathizer/candidate possesses the suitable characteristics, it welcomes them as a militant. This means participation in all theoretical and practical party activities, as well as committing themselves to pay a regular fee that they determine according to their own situation.

Not only that, the sympathizer, like the militant, must also agree to discipline themselves to the party. This is how it was described in the Communist Party of Italy:

“The bourgeois concept that the militant of a party merely pledges his ideological adherence and political vote and pays a periodic fee in money is replaced by the concept that those who join the Communist Party are required to continuously give their practical activity according to the needs of the party. This is accomplished by the organizing of all members… militants or candidates.” (Il Comunista 21/07/1921)

“Military preparation and action demand discipline at least equal to the Communist Party’s political discipline. One cannot obey two separate disciplines. The Communist therefore, as well as the sympathizer who feels truly attached to the Party (and those who do not militate in the Party because of ‘disciplinary reservations’ do not deserve the definition of our sympathizer) cannot and must not accept dependence on other military-type organizations.” (Il Comunista 14/07/1921)

So not only full party members, but also sympathizers and candidates, were bound (even before joining the organization) to the discipline, including military discipline, of the party.

The party organizes public meetings for readers and sympathizers, and sometimes also for a less qualified audience. In these meetings, it addresses topics of more or less general interest, approached with its particular and unique perspective and key of interpretation. This presentation is assisted by leaflet dissemination, poster sticking, and nowadays infographics. These are events in which the party expounds its way of interpreting facts and history, and in which no debates are allowed. However, the speaker may answer questions aimed at better explaining the concepts expounded.

What characteristics must an individual possess to qualify for the role of militant, full party member, and how does the party regulate itself in this regard? The question is not simple, and it involves the very essence of the party and the role of the militant.

Certainly not on the basis of greater knowledge of the doctrine of revolutionary communism.

“Our thesis is that not only are rational comprehension and action inseparable from one other, but, as far as the individual is concerned, action always comes before understanding and consciousness. And so it is for individuals who join the party too…Consciousness doesn’t reside within the individual person either before or after they join the party, or even after a very long time as a militant, but in the collective organ which is composed of old and young, educated and uneducated, and which performs a complex and continuous action in line with a doctrine and a tradition which is invariant. It is the organ ‘party’ that possesses class consciousness, because this possession is denied to the individual, and this consciousness can only exist in an organisation which is able to align its every act, its behaviour, its internal and external dynamics to the pre-existing lines of doctrine, programme and tactics, and which is able to grow and develop on that foundation; which is accepted en bloc even without having been preventively understood. Having a ‘mystical’ side to joining the party is a notion that only scares the Enlightenment influenced petty bourgeois, convinced, as he is, that everything can be learned from books.” (The Communist Party…)

“The basis of discipline comes in the first place from the ‘class consciousness of the proletarian vanguard,’ i.e., of the proletarian minority gathered in the party; Lenin then immediately goes on to draw attention to the qualities of such a vanguard using ‘passionate’ rather than rational language, by pointing out, like in many other of his writings (What is to be Done?) that the communist proletarian joins the party instinctively rather than rationally. Such a thesis had already been defended by Italian socialist youth back in 1912 against the ‘immediatists’ (who like the anarchists are always ‘educationalists’) in the battle between the culturalists and the anti-culturalists, as they were called at the time. In this battle the latter, by requiring faith and passion from young revolutionaries rather than exam results, proved to comply with strict materialism and with the rigour of party theory. Lenin, who’s holding an enlistment rather than teaching in an academy, refers to qualities of ‘devotion, tenacity, self-sacrifice, and heroism.’ We, his distant pupils, have recently, with dialectical resolve, dared to openly refer to the fact of joining the party as a ‘mystical’ occurrence.” (“Left-Wing Communism”: Condemnation of the Renegades to Come, 1961).

“Within the party, ideas are understood and clarified by participating in the complex collective work, which is carried out on three levels: defence of and ‘sculpting’ of theory, active participation in mass struggles, and organisation. Comprehension and understanding cannot be attained without participating in the actual work of the party. Inside the party we engage in a continuous work of theoretical preparation, of close examination of the party’s programmatic and tactical features, and of explanation, in the light of the doctrine, of events taking place in the social arena, and contemporaneously and seamlessly we carry out the practical, organisational work of penetrating the proletariat and battling alongside it. The militant learns from actively participating in this complex work and by becoming totally immersed in it. There is no other way to learn, and our theses have always asserted how deadly it is to place theoretical and practical activity into separate compartments, not only for the party but also for each individual militant.

“Having described the way in which the party-organ transmits its revolutionary theory and revolutionary traditions from one generation to the next, and allows itself to be permeated by said theory and tradition, we can see that it is plainly incompatible with the type of educational scheme according to which young people drawn to the party should first of all be indoctrinated as quickly as possible by expert teachers of Marxism and invited to attend ‘short courses’, and only after that move on to become party militants and participate in real battles. We envisage instead a collectivity, that studies whilst it fights and fights whilst it studies, which learns in the study and on the battlefield; we envisage, that is, an active collectivity, an organ whose survival depends on partaking in a complex and varied activity whose various aspects are inseparable the one from the other. And young people are attracted to and become committed to this complex work, become immersed in it, and, organically find their role within it, precisely by getting involved and taking part in it. Nobody needs a degree either before or after they join, and neither need they sit any exams: everyone is tested instead by the work they do, which selects individuals in an organic way for particular tasks.

“To join the party it requires more than a ‘Marxist’ education and a personal knowledge of our doctrine; it requires those gifts that Lenin described as courage, abnegation, heroism and a willingness to fight. It is through verifying these qualities that we come to discriminate between the sympathiser or prospect, and the militant, the active soldier of the revolutionary army; and we certainly don’t define the sympathiser by the fact he doesn’t yet ‘know’, whilst the militant does. Were this not so the entire Marxist scheme would collapse, because during times of revolutionary tumult the communist party is an organisation which has to organise millions of people who don’t have time to attend courses on Marxism, whether short or not, and nor do they need to; they will join us not because they know, but because they feel, “in an instinctive and spontaneous way, without attending even the briefest of brief courses of study which mimic educational qualifications”. And it would not only be anti-Marxist but just plain stupid to consider that these “late arrivals” should serve as “rank-and-file” whilst only those who had had time to “learn” and “prepare themselves” should be leaders. You get yourself ready in one way, and one way alone: by taking part in the collective work of the party. As far as we are concerned you don’t have to know all about the doctrine and programme to be a party militant; a party militant is someone who “has managed to forget, to renounce, to wrench from his heart and his mind the classification under which he is inscribed in the registry of this putrefying society; one who can see and immerse himself in the entire millenary trajectory linking the ancestral tribal man, struggling with wild beasts, to the member of the future community, fraternal in the joyous harmony of the social man.”  (Considerations…, Il Programma Comunista, no.2/1965, point 11)

“One thing is for sure, those who think you need to know everything and understand everything before you can act, or who see the party as an academy for training ‘cadres’, have wrenched precisely nothing from their hearts or minds. They are still up to their necks in the most putrid myth of this putrefying society: the one which holds that the individual, with his miserable little brain, can learn about, or make decisions about, anything other than that which has already been dictated by those astute manipulators of culture and ideas: the ruling classes.” (The Communist Party…)

…to be continued

We view the party as a “school of thought and method for action”; a school that all comrades attend and all comrades learn, from the youngest to the veterans. Obviously not all comrades are equal, but all learn and study, and differences in ability and knowledge are used by the party to organically assign each comrade to the most suitable function. This aspect is also well made clear in Lenin’s book What is to be done?

The opposite of this way of understanding the party and the militant’s role is to annihilate ourselves in submission to an unquestioned authority, a leader. This “leader” would regularly provide us with instructions and solutions, without ever struggling to find these out for ourselves. We reject this tendency, which parallels the presumption of those who claim to have it all figured out.

“So, our long, tragic experience should have taught us that whilst it is necessary to utilize everyone’s particular skills and aptitudes in party operations, ‘we should not love anyone’; indeed we need to be prepared to chuck anyone out, even if they’ve spent eleven out of twelve months in prison every year of their life. At important junctures, decisions about the course of action to follow have to be made without relying on the personal ‘authority’ of teachers, leaders or executives, and on the basis of rules of principle and of conduct that our movement has fixed in advance. A very difficult concept, we know, but without it we cannot see how a powerful movement will reappear…. Polemics about persons and between persons, and the use and abuse of personal names, must be replaced by the checking and verification of the statements on which the movement, during successive difficult attempts at reorganization, has based its work and its struggle” (Politique d’abord, 1952).

It is obvious that we feel love for each other in the party, a love that flows from the common struggle and the common ultimate goal, but it is certainly not something that can be imposed. It would be infantile to claim that one must regulate such sentiments, even if that were possible in the first place.

All that we have mentioned does not mean that the party has an open door through which anyone can enter by simply professing their faith, like entering a church, synagogue, or mosque. The party has a duty to make an assessment of the individual, denying admittance to figures who might endanger it. Moreover, membership must always, without any exception, take place on an individual basis.

“The party must effect a strict organizational rigour in the sense that it does not accept self‑enlargement by means of compromises with other groups, large or small, or worse still through bargaining over concessions with alleged bosses and leaders in order to win rank-and-file members” (Force, Violence, Dictatorship… 1948).

The danger to the party is not so much physical, vis-à-vis the safety of comrades and the organization (although in certain moments we must also contemplate this possibility), but related to the party’s doctrinal and organizational integrity. Party members are able to assess the passion and sincerity of the sympathizer by working with them for a certain period of time. This is not the definitive criterion, but the senior comrade’s sensibility and experience allows them to get a general picture of the sympathizer, and there are aspects that are not difficult to identify. Ljudvinskaja narrates:

“In Paris Lenin directed all our activity…. Lenin’s harshness and intransigence toward opportunists upset some comrades. One of them said to Lenin, ‘Why expel everyone from the section? Who are we going to work with?’ Lenin replied with a smile, ‘It matters little if we are not very numerous today, because, on the other hand, we will be united in our action, and conscious workers will support us, since we are on the right path.’ He taught us to have a strict attitude, a principled attitude toward the conduct and acts of comrades” (Lénine tel qu’il fut, 1958). Radek, when commenting on the issue of the famous paragraph 1 of the statute, debated at the 2nd Congress in 1903, wrote: “On the question around the first paragraph of the statute of the Social Democratic Party Lenin posed a problem that is no less important than all other political differences with the Mensheviks. Instead, it can be said that this first paragraph of the statute prepared the possibility of the practical realization of Lenin’s political line…. In the rejection of tsarism, which aroused the indignation of the broadest strata of petty-bourgeois intellectuals, there was no jurist who did not shelter himself under the aegis of socialist thought. He who welcomed him into the party on the simple condition that he recognize the program of the proletarian party and provide financial support, put the divided labor movement at the mercy of the petty bourgeoisie.

“Lenin, by making it a condition that only those who were active in the organization of the proletariat be admitted into the party, aimed to limit the danger of the workers’ movement falling under the influence of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. It is true that even those who, by joining the organization and becoming professional revolutionaries, showed that they had broken all ties with bourgeois society, did not give complete assurance that they would remain loyal to the cause of the proletariat. Nevertheless, these choices represented in some way a guarantee” (Lenin, 1924).

Lenin’s attitude on this issue is well understood from the discussion of Paragraph 1 of the Statute at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903. This is particularly important because it raises the broader question of party organization.

Even though the Bolsheviks who agreed with Lenin had a majority at the congress, they did not side with him on this issue. Martov made a different proposal, and got a temporary majority. While Lenin did not make a big deal out of this, it is still beneficial to understand his attitude on this issue.

Lenin proposed a paragraph (number 1, to emphasize the central importance of this issue): “A member of the Party is one who accepts its programme and who supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organizations.” Are you really in favor of a distinction between party and class? Prove it by accepting these conditions.

Below is the report that Lenin later gives of it, which we published in our text Lenin the Organic Centralist. Says Lenin:

“The definition given in my draft was: ‘A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts its programme and who supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organisations.’ In place of the words I have underlined, Martov proposed: ’work under the control and direction of one of the Party organizations’. My formulation was supported by Plekhanov, Martov’s by the rest of the editorial board (Axelrod was their spokesman at the Congress). We argued that the concept Party member must be narrowed so as to separate those who worked from those who merely talked, to eliminate organizational chaos, to eliminate the monstrous and absurd possibility of there being organizations which consisted of Party members but which were not Party organizations, and so on. Martov stood for broadening the Party and spoke of a broad class movement needing a broad—i.e., diffuse—organization, and so forth. It is amusing to note that in defense of their views nearly all Martov’s supporters cited What Is to Be Done? Plekhanov hotly opposed Martov, pointing out that his Jauresist formulation would fling open the doors to the opportunists, who just longed for such a position of being inside the Party but outside its organization. ‘Under the control and direction’, I said, would in practice mean nothing more nor less than without any control or direction” (VII, 27-28).

Martov hoped for a mass party, but in doing so he opened the doors to all sorts of opportunists, and made the party’s limits indeterminate and vague. This was a serious danger, as it was not easy to distinguish the boundary between the revolutionary and the idle chatterbox: Lenin says that a good third of the participants at the Congress were schemers.

“Why worry about those who don’t want to or can’t join one of the party organizations,” Plekhanov wondered.

“Workers wishing to join the party will not be afraid to join one of its organizations. Discipline doesn’t scare them. Intellectuals, completely imbued with bourgeois individualism, will fear entering. These bourgeois individualists are generally the representatives of all sorts of opportunism. We have to get them away from us. The project is a shield against their breaking into the party, and only for this reason should all enemies of opportunism vote for Lenin’s proposal” (Proceedings of the Second Congress, session of August 2 (15)).

Trotsky spoke against Lenin’s proposal, considering it ineffective. Lenin replied to him:

“[Trotsky] has failed to notice a basic question: does my formulation narrow or expand the concept of a Party member? If he had asked himself that question, he would easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov’s expands it, for (to use Martov’s own correct expression) what distinguishes his concept is its ‘elasticity’. And in the period of Party life that we are now passing through it is just this ‘elasticity’ that undoubtedly opens the door to all elements of confusion, vacillation, and opportunism.”

Those unstable elements are the harbingers of uncertainties and deviations, without much work to show for it. The danger can be great: “The need to safeguard the firmness of the Party’s line and the purity of its principles has now become particularly urgent, for, with the restoration of its unity, the Party will recruit into its ranks a great many unstable elements, whose number will increase with the growth of the Party” (VI, 499-500).

On the other hand, where is the danger of a rigorous delimitation of the party, through specific limits to the definition of “Social Democrat?”

“If hundreds and thousands of workers who were arrested for taking part in strikes and demonstrations did not prove to be members of Party organizations, it would only show that we have good organizations, and that we are fulfilling our task of keeping a more or less limited circle of leaders secret and of drawing the broadest possible masses into the movement.”

But the party, a vanguard component of the working class, cannot be confused with the whole class, as Axelrod did.

“It would be better if ten who do work should not call themselves Party members (real workers don’t hunt after titles!) than that one who only talks should have the right and opportunity to be a Party member…. The Central Committee will never be able to exercise real control over all who do the work but do not belong to organizations. It is our task to place actual control in the hands of the Central Committee. It is our task to safeguard the firmness, consistency, and purity of our Party. We must strive to raise the title and the significance of a Party member higher, higher and still higher” (VI, 500-502).

In 1955 we wrote in Russia and Revolution in Marxist Theory, Part 2, §37:

“Apparently it seems that Lenin was distinguishing between mere party militants and the ‘professional revolutionaries,’ whose smaller groups formed the leadership backbone. We showed several times that here we are dealing with the illegal network, and not with the superimposition on the party of a bureaucratic apparatus of paid people. Professional does not necessarily mean salaried, but dedicated to the party’s struggle by voluntary membership, disengaged now from any association for reasons of defending collective interests, although this remains the determinist basis for the rise of the party. The whole importance of the Marxist dialectic lies in this double relationship. The worker is revolutionary out of class interest, the communist is revolutionary for the same end, but elevated beyond subjective interest.”

And in Croaking of Praxis, from Il Programma Comunista No. 11/1953:

“The right wing of the Russian party wants the party member to come from a professional or factory worker group federated in the party: the trade unions were called professional associations by the Russians. In a polemical sense Lenin forges the historic phrase that above all the party is an association of professional revolutionaries. They are not asked: are you a worker? In what profession? Mechanic, tinsmith, woodworker? They may be as well factory workers as students or perhaps sons of nobles; they will answer: revolutionary, that is my profession. Only Stalinist cretinism could give such a phrase the sense of revolutionary by trade, of being salaried by the party. Such a useless formula would have left the problem at the same point: do we hire employees of the apparatus among the workers, or even outside? But it was about more than that.”

For the Bolsheviks, the communist militant is one who accepts the program, without necessarily knowing it or understanding it in detail, and is willing to work at the party’s orders: qualities of self-sacrifice, willingness to fight, that any proletarian can have, even if illiterate. Such an acceptance of the program can be based on an understanding of a few essential aspects, sometimes just slogans, but which coincide with their deepest aspirations, their needs. An acceptance based more on passion than intellect. Understanding will come, in time.

This understanding will never be complete, however. The total understanding of doctrine cannot be of the individual but of the party collective, and is expressed in its press, its theses, its revolutionary tactics.

“Doctrinal knowledge is not the single fact of even the most learned follower or leader, nor is it a condition for the mass in motion: it has for its subject a proper organ, the party” (Russia and Revolution…, Part 2, § 37).

This concept is repeated in the Characteristic Theses of the Party, of 1951:

“The Party is not formed on the basis of individual consciousness: not only is it not possible for each proletarian to become conscious and still less to master the class doctrine in a cultural way, but neither is it possible for each individual militant, not even for the leaders of the Party. Consciousness consists in the organic unity of the Party alone.”

“Beyond the influence of social democracy there is no other conscious activity of the workers” Lenin says at the Second Congress. We add, “It is heavy, but it is so. Proletarian action is spontaneous insofar as it arises from economic determinants, but it does not have consciousness as a condition, either in the individual or in the class. Physical class struggle is spontaneous fact, not conscious. The class achieves its consciousness only when the revolutionary party has been formed in its bosom, which possesses the theoretical consciousness resting on the real class relation, proper, in fact, to all proletarians. The latter, however, can never possess true knowledge—that is, theory—either as individuals, or as a totality, or as a majority as long as the proletariat is subject to bourgeois education and culture, that is, to the bourgeois fabrication of its ideology, and, in good terms, as long as the proletariat does not win, and ceases to exist. So, in exact terms, proletarian consciousness will never be there. There is doctrine, communist knowledge, and this is in the party of the proletariat, not in the class” (“Russia and Revolution…” Part 2, § 39)

Concluding on the discussion on paragraph 1, it is obvious that there was a difference between working under the leadership of one of the organizations and participating in it, being part of it, in the sense that participating in one of the organizations required a path that not all sympathizers or kindred were able or willing to take. Thus, there was a process of acceptance into the party, which presuppose characteristics that Lenin describes elsewhere, and which we pointed out above that we fully share.

The party does not launch recruitment campaigns, nor does it entice the sympathizer with positions or rewards. Rather, it is the sympathizer who asks for admission. Above all, the party does not go out of its way to grow its numbers “through any means.” In situations where there is no struggle, an abnormal increase in numbers may actually be a sign that something was said or done that should not have been said or done. In this case, it is prudent to go back over the recent history of the organization. All of this was taught to us by our masters.

When determining the criteria for admitting militants, the primary consideration must always be the defense of the party’s theoretical and organizational integrity. Those who join the party bring with them the ideas and habits acquired from previous experiences. If the party is unable to integrate newcomers into its work, these past influences could pose a serious threat to the party itself. The party is exposed to the external environment. It is like an organism that can get sick simply by breathing, inhaling microorganisms that may cause illness. A weak organism with few defenses is in danger if these microbes grow uncontrollably. Compare this to an organism that has developed sufficient antibodies, and continues to produce them. Such an organism has no problem defending itself against the microbes that continuously attack it.

The party’s defenses lie in nothing more than the proper conduct of its life. This must be carried out through theoretical work, the application of its traditional way of functioning, the clarity of its exposition, and the defense of its positions.

Nothing is more important than this last point, and by applying publicly, we already have a selection process for those who approach the party and wish to join it. On the other hand, a vague and sloppy presentation, with overly tolerant tones, will attract not only the uncertain, but also time-wasters, chatterers, and even intellectuals without a party of their own, who seek a platform to pursue the activities they most desire.

Allowing these elements to enter and simply hope they will be detected and neutralized later is not the best course of action. In fact, this process would inevitably lead to rifts, misunderstandings, and disappointments. At worst, it could lead to divisions and factions, and even the loss of good militants.

The party, above all else, values theoretical and organizational rigor. Extreme clarity in stating the party’s positions in all fields is a tradition not only of the Left but also of Lenin. Evidence of this can be found throughout the entire history of our movement: from the Left (not yet the PCd’I) intervening for the 21st condition of admission, accepted at the Second Congress of the Third International, to our subsequent actions within the PCd’I and the International, the 1952 split, and the very insistence on adherence to doctrine that led to our expulsion in 1973. We may be called dogmatic, Talmudic, or accused of suffering from doctrinal schematism. While we firmly reject these labels, we still prefer them to ill-defined attitudes and vague, opportunistic statements that prioritize only immediate benefits.

This tradition must be continuously defended and reaffirmed, especially for the young people who approach the party from countries where the revolutionary communist tradition is less established. The proper transmission of our theoretical heritage is absolutely vital. If we could somehow rank the importance of our activities, this transmission would undoubtedly be at the top.