Draft programme

The Communist Party of Great Britain was founded on July 31 1920. Our CPGB resulted from a process of communist rapprochement directly inspired by the October 1917 revolution in Russia and the example of Lenin's Bolsheviks.

Despite its early limitations and later failures, as an organisation the CPGB is undoubtedly the highest achievement of the workers' movement in Britain. The history of the CPGB has been the history of the attempt to form the workers in Britain into a consciously revolutionary class.

The CPGB is the advanced part of the working class in Britain. It is not an exclusive ideological sect. Nor is it a pseudo-socialist extension of narrow trade unionism.

This is the draft third programme. The Party's first programme, For Soviet Britain, was adopted in February 1935 at the 13th Congress. Within four years, this centrist mishmash - revolutionary in word, reformist in orientation -was officially deemed outdated. In 1939 a Draft programme was produced. Suffice to say, the outbreak of inter-imperialist war in that year rendered it irrelevant in practice.

The British road to socialism, the second programme, was published in draft form in 1951 and was officially adopted at the 22nd Congress in April 1952. Its underlying theme was that socialism would be achieved through transforming parliament and via a series of Labour governments. In 1958, 1968 and 1977 this programme was 'updated'.

Both previous programmes and their various revisions and editions marked successive shifts to the right by the opportunist factions then dominating the leadership. As a result Marxism was effectively replaced by Fabianism. Inevitably the conclusion of this political liquidationism was reached when between 1988 and 1991 the opportunists organisationally liquidated the Communist Party.

In 1981 Leninists publicly announced their open, disciplined and principled struggle to reforge the Party. A revolutionary rebellion by, its very nature bound up with equipping the working class with a revolutionary programme. Informed by this understanding, the 4th Conference of the Leninists of the CPGB, meeting in December 1989, agreed to prepare a draft programme for the consideration of all workers and all communists, which in due course would be presented to the refoundation congress of the CPGB.

Genuine communists never accepted the right of opportunists to deprive them of their Party membership nor Party duties. The wrecking activity of the opportunists actually greatly increased the responsibilities of the revolutionary wing. Hence the 5th Conference of the Leninists of the CPGB, meeting in 1991, elected the Provisional Central Committee in order to revive Party work and rally new, healthy forces. The publication of this draft programme under its auspices is a milestone in respect to its sole, defining task - that is, the fight to reforge the CPGB.

The draft third programme of the Communist Party is made up of six distinct but logically connected sections.

The first section outlines the main features of the epoch, the epoch of the transition from capitalism to communism. Then comes the nature of capitalism in Britain and the consequences of its development. Following on from here are the immediate economic and political measures which are required if the peoples of Britain are to live a full and decent life in the here and now. Such a minimum programme is, admittedly, technically feasible within the confines of present-day advanced capitalism. In actual fact though it can only be genuinely realised by way of insurrection.

From these radical foundations the character of the British revolution and the position of the various classes and strata can be presented. Next, again logically, comes the workers' government in Britain and the worldwide transition to communism. Here is the maximum programme of the communists. Finally the inescapable need for all partisans of the working class to unite in the Communist Party itself is dealt with. Our essential organisational principles are stated and show in no uncertain terms why the Communist Parry is the most powerful weapon available to the working class.

1. Our epoch

The present epoch is the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism. The main contradiction in this our epoch is between decadent capitalism and imminent socialism.

As imperialism superseded the period of competitive capitalism at the dawn of the 20th century, the world as a whole became ripe for socialism - that is, the first stage of communism. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism and in the drive for profit it globalises production and creates an international division of labour and its own grave digger, the working class. In this way capitalism lays the material basis for socialism and, despite itself, human freedom.

The October 1917 revolution in Russia marked the beginning of the epoch. Socialism was transformed from the realm of theory to that of practice. However the workers' state in backward Russia was, fatally, left isolated. The workers could not exercise direct control. Under these famished conditions bureaucratic deformation was inevitable. The eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 confirms that there are no national roads to communism nor any sustainable alternative between capitalism and genuine socialism. Socialism is international and democratic or it is nothing.

1.1 Global economy

The world capitalist economy is an organic hierarchy based on exploitation and force. Depending on where they stand in the pecking order, countries play different roles within the imperialist system.

Though they remain viciously exploited, the backward and medium developed countries now occupy a significant place in the world division of labour. And not only as suppliers of raw materials and agricultural produces. Such countries now produce a wide range of industrial goods. As a result the working class objectively exists globally, and subjectively has the possibility and self-interest to become a consciously international class.

A prerequisite for the final victory of the international working class is winning socialism in the main advanced countries. Only here has capitalism fully proletarianised the mass of the population and socialised production to the point where real socialism is immediately realisable. The working class can come to power in backward or medium developed countries. But such gains will prove short-lived unless revolution follows in the advanced capitalist countries. The decisive battles will be fought in the heartlands of imperialism not its periphery.

Capitalism develops through a series of booms and slumps. With the global economy, the massive extension of the credit system, state regulation and intervention the period between boom and slump tends to grow ever wider. Yet in direct proportion to the height and duration of the boom slumps prove ever more devastating and protracted. Once the boom peters out seemingly permanent reforms obtained by workers during the period of prosperity become subject to sustained and unremitting attack- Revolution comes back onto the agenda in the advanced countries.

1.2 The danger of war

War is the continuation of politics by other, violent, means. War is a sustained conflict on an extended scale. War is the produce of class society. War, and the potential for war, will only end with the ending of class society itself.

The main source of war in our epoch is imperialism. Imperialism has incorporated war into its economic cycle of boom, stagnation and slump. For imperialism war is an attempt to escape from socio-economic problems it cannot solve by means of mass slaughter. The existence of imperialism therefore means the danger of war.

Under capitalism peace is only a period of ceasefire. It is only the freezing of the division of spoils arrived at through war.

Capitalism goes hand in hand with uneven development. Hence there is an increasing pressure for the redivision of spoils. Rising 'have not' powers sooner of later challenge the existing imperialist hierarchy and seek to offset their own crisis at the expense of foreign rivals. When diplomacy and trade wars fail, military might eventually decides. Trade blocs become military blocs. So imperialism means the preparation of world war.

Capitalism possesses weapons capable of destroying the whole planet. The struggle to end the danger of war by the working class is therefore a struggle for the survival of our species and its culture.

Under communism the word for 'war' will become redundant. So will the word for 'peace'. The absence of war will gradually render obsolete its opposite as humanity leaves behind its pre-history.

1.3. Why not capitalism?

The world economy and the tremendous dynamic of capitalism makes the existence of countries and borders thoroughly reactionary. Capitalism however cannot contain the wealth it creates either within the nation-state or itself as a system.

The continuous accumulation of capital means the social nature of production becomes ever greater and cosmopolitan. In contradiction the ownership and control of capital is increasingly international, institutionalised and concentrated.

Capitalist accumulation in no way implies the development of a rational system. Under capitalism production becomes production for its own sake. Capitalism never rests, driven as it is by the unquenchable vampire-like thirst for surplus value. It is a system of chronic overproduction that knows no intrinsic limits to the exploitation of labour power. It is a system where dead labour turns against living labour, where money and profit are primary and need is incidental. It is a system of extreme alienation that de-humanises every human relationship.

As the capitalist class accumulates more and more wealth workers suffer relative pauperisation. Compared with capital, wages and state benefits shrink. As the world of things becomes ever greater, the world of people becomes ever more insecure and atomised. Capitalism, despite the abundance of its commodities and the wonders of technology, is unable to allow human beings to fulfil themselves as human beings. Work is a clock-watching torture - a daily drudge, not life's prime want. Much hyped though it is leisure is no more human. These pinched moments of passive recovery, so-called hobbies or wild hedonism are used by capitalism as just another marketing opportunity.

Moreover during periods of stagnation and crisis, through unemployment, wage cuts, intensification of labour, longer hours, temporary contracts, etc, capitalism assaults the existing cultural level of the masses - meagre and impoverished though it is. Hard won wage rates, trade union rights and legal restrictions imposed on exploitation are damned as economic heresy by the high priests of the dollar and the pound, the yen and the mark- Hence capitalism threatens the workers even as a slave class. The more capital accumulates the more antagonistic it therefore becomes to humanity.

Distorted by relations of exploitation and the lust for profit, national economies become not only anachronistic but lopsided.

In the imperialist countries huge numbers are engaged in unproductive labour such as banking, insurance, advertising and marketing. In backward and medium developed countries capitalism's destruction of peasant agriculture leaves hundreds of millions destitute and eking out a precarious existence in sprawling slums and shanty towns.

Thus imperialist capitalism, even during its periods of peaceful development, can only advance the productive forces in a grossly inefficient, wasteful and inhuman way. The full development of humanity's powers requires the direct planning and social control of production, not merely on a national, but international scale.

1.4 The struggle against opportunism

Communists in Great Britain, one of the key metropolitan centres of capitalism, are fully aware that the class struggle cannot be separated from the struggle against opportunism.

Capitalism is objectively approaching communism. Yet achieving communism must be the conscious self-liberation by the working class. Communism needs the truth. Therefore the struggle against opportunism - that is, elevation of short-term or sectional interests over the general interest - is fundamental to the supersession of capitalism. The part must be subordinated to the whole, not the other way round. No country, no party, no trade union, no leader, no section of die working class takes precedence over the world revolution.

Because the communist revolution begins as a political act by an oppressed class its inevitability in no way implies that the negation of exploitation, alienation and unfreedom is mechanically assured.

Though for example the capitalist class is tiny, it possesses huge power - and not only in the form of wealth and the state machine. As the ruling class, its ideas are the ruling ideas. Capitalist ideas are spontaneously generated and in the battle for minds are carefully cultivated by a paid army of permanent persuaders - the media, education, the arts, religion, establishment parties, etc.

In contrast the working class is huge in numbers. It can, like any slave class, economically and politically fight to better its conditions within the existing system. Yet to realise itself as a class for itself, a class with an historic mission to free humanity, it must acquire a scientific world outlook. That cannot be gained except through an open struggle against wrong ideas. This openness must encompass the struggle against manifestations of opportunism within our own, national and international, communist ranks.

1.5 World revolution

World revolution is the fight to liberate humanity. It is a process whereby capitalism is replaced by communism.

The victory of socialist revolution in one or more countries is only partial until the balance of forces has tided decisively against capitalism. That means the socialist revolution must triumph more or less simultaneously in most of the advanced countries if it is nor to suffer deformation and counterrevolution in one form or another.

The struggle for communism is a unified world struggle and must be based upon proletarian internationalism. The revolution must be coordinated and to the largest possible extent centrally planned.

2. Capitalism in Britain

Due to a combination of social, political, economic and other factors, Britain was the first country to be dominated by fully developed, real, capitalism.

By the first half of the 19th century the mass of the population had already been expropriated from the land. Denied any possibility of an independent existence to survive, they had to sell the only commodity they possessed - the ability to work. They were herded into factories, mines and mills and subjected to ruthless exploitation. Aristocratic and mercantile wealth gained from piracy, colonial plunder and the trade in black slaves became capital used to suck the life energy from wage workers. Vast fortunes were amassed.

Initially unchallenged, British capital was able to secure a hitherto unprecedented position in the world marker. Britain truly was the workshop of the world.

Inevitably Britain was chased and then in the 1890s overtaken by its most dynamic rivals - Germany and the United States. Britain was no longer world hegemon. From then on it was simply one of a number of big capitalist powers, but one suffering relative decline.

Increasingly Britain experienced difficulties in accumulating capital To delay socialism the ruling bloc turned to the restriction of competition by way of monopoly and a greatly expanded overseas empire. As part of this process the export of commodities tended to be eclipsed in importance by the export of capital itself. Finance capital evolved.

Britain was first into the field of imperialist expansion. Consequently it experienced little initial resistance, apart from the native peoples themselves. A gigantic empire was built that at its peak covered one-quarter of the earth's land surface and included one-quarter of its population.

The empire was a source of cheap raw materials and army recruits. It was a safe market that could be administratively closed. It spawned a huge bureaucratic-military superstructure staffed by the aristocratic products of Britain's public schools. Furthermore the super, or extra, profits gained from robbing the colonies and returns from the export of capital provided the wherewithal needed to ameliorate class antagonisms at home.

Inexorably Britain's rivals began to experience similar problems and seek out their own expansionist solutions. -By the dawn of the 20th century the world was effectively divided. Inter-imperialist contradictions came to a bloody climax. In two devastating world wars tens of millions were butchered in the interests of capital. Barbarism took on its capitalist form.

Britain saw off the two challenges from Germany in 1914-18 and 1939-45. Bur eventually it succumbed to the USA and the might of the greenback.

After Europe had exhausted itself, so strong was US imperialism that it had no need for an empire and could relatively peacefully go about the redivision of the whole capitalist world. The conditions for the post-World War It long boom were created.

2.1 Social and political consequences of Britain's imperialist development

From the second half of the 19th century onwards Britain's industrial monopoly and then its empire enabled the governing elite to tame the spontaneous working class movement. Being able to bribe directly and indirectly a wide section of the working class it could keep expectations within the parameters of the existing system. The revolutionary tradition of Chartism gave way to the reformist tradition of trade unionism. The consolidation of a trade union bureaucracy - merchants in wage labour - only served to reinforce retrogression.

The revolutionary, communist, militant trend on occasion posed a threat to the stability of capitalism. Despite that throughout the 20th century Labourism and the Labour Party dominated the workers' movement. Labourism has often deployed socialistic rhetoric. It is however a thoroughly reactionary and pro-capitalist ideology. In war and peace, in government and in opposition, the Labour leadership has loyally served the interests of British imperialism. What legislation for reform it introduced was designed to dampen not fire the class struggle.

Britain managed de-colonisation in the midst of an unprecedented boom. There was no crisis of empire. It was moreover able to achieve high rates of economic growth and put in place a social democratic settlement. In a negative and perverted way capitalism anticipated and carried out some of the measures of socialism - cheap housing, healthcare on the basis of need, free comprehensive education, etc.

Nevertheless British capitalism fared less well than its main rivals and dependence on banking, insurance and general parasitism was further exacerbated. Hence relative decline continued apace.

When the post-World War II boom came to an end Britain no longer enjoyed the option it had in the 1930s of cushioning itself through the system of empire preferences. British capitalism had to realign geo-politically and renew the class struggle at home.

A whole swathe of Britain's old industrial base was sacrificed in the attempt to become competitive. The resulting closures and Unemployment was in its turn used as a means to undermine trade union bargaining power. Integration into Europe was, despite that, undertaken from a position of weakness not strength. Britain cannot dominate Europe, neither economically nor politically.

Though it was most spectacularly carried through using the carrot of home ownership and share buying the erosion of the social democratic settlement, beginning in the 1970s, likewise illustrated the weakness, nor the strength, of British imperialism. Transient and individualised crumbs cannot guarantee social peace. Hence to enforce the reversal of the social democratic settlement all manner of authoritarian measures were enacted - laws against trade union activity, laws outlawing squatting, laws curbing demonstrations. The reversal of the social democratic settlement proves yet again that reforms workers gain under capitalism are by their very nature liable to be lost given new conditions.

3. Immediate demands

On the most basic level the development of capitalism in Britain creates the necessity among the workers to struggle against the effects of the capitalist system that confronts them. Even without communist leadership resistance will occur, albeit spontaneously and blindly. This is the unconscious expression of the fact that the workers have nothing to lose except their illusions and everything to gain through the overthrow of capitalism.

To succeed, however, this social movement must consciously oppose every violation of democracy and example of discrimination. Workers must defend every oppressed minority and elevate itself to a ruling class by winning the battle for democracy.

The demands we communists put forward are based on what the masses need if they are to live any sort of a decent life in Britain, They are not based on what the capitalist system says it can afford. Our intention is to provide a plan of action and at the same time make the workers aware of their power to refashion society so that it serves human interests. The formulation of our demands thereby connects today's conditions and consciousness to the aim of revolution and the establishment of socialism.

3.1 Working conditions and wage workers

In circumstances where capitalism is politicising the economic struggle of the working class, the communists demand:

• A five-day working week and a maximum seven-hour day for all wage workers. Reduction of that to a four-day working week and a maximum six-hour day for occupations which are dangerous or particularly demanding. The working day must include rest periods of not less than two hours.
• An uninterrupted weekly break of nor less than 60 hours for all wage workers.
• Equal pay for equal work.
• The abolition of overtime in its present form. In the case of emergencies and other such eventualities overtime must be voluntary, for only short periods and with at least double pay.
• A minimum net wage to reflect the value of unskilled labour power. This to be decided on the basis of what is needed to physically and culturally reproduce the worker and one child. The minimum wage to be used in the calculation of all other wage rates.
• A minimum of six weeks' fully paid holiday leave during the year.
• Insurance and other such payments to be made entirely by the capitalists and the state.
• Occupational training for all workers to be a legal obligation for employers.
• Child labour to be illegal before the age of 14. No more than a five-day week, no more than a two-hour day. Child labour to be banned in any industry harmful to children. Coordination of work and education under trade union supervision.
• All industrial courts, arbitration panels, etc to be made up of at least 50% elected workers' representatives.
• All workers must have the right to strike and the right to join a trade union.

3.2 Migrant workers

There are large numbers of workers who have migrated to .Britain in order to improve their lives. Immigration is a progressive phenomenon which breaks down national differences and national prejudices. It unites British workers with the world working class.

The bourgeoisie of .Britain uses migrant workers as worst paid labour and keeps them in that position by criminalising them through immigration laws, police raids and deportation orders.

The capitalist state in .Britain has an official ideology of anti-racism. That in no way contradicts the national chauvinist consensus which champions British imperialism's interests against foreign rivals and sets worker against worker.

Migrant workers are not a problem. The capitalists who use them to increase competition between workers arc. The reformist plea for non-racist immigration control plays directly into the hands of our exploiters. It concedes the right of the state to bar workers from entering -Britain. Capital moves around the world without restriction. Communists are for the free movement of people and against all measures preventing them entering or leaving countries.

It is in the interests of all workers that migrant workers are integrated. Assimilation is progressive as long as if is not based upon force. In order to encourage integration and strengthen the unity of the working class the following demands are put forward:

• The right to speak and be educated in one's own language. The right to conduct correspondence with the state in one's own language.
• No religious or separate schools.
• The right to learn English for all migrant workers and their families. Employers must provide language courses.
• The right to become citizens with full social and political rights of the country they have emigrated to for all workers who have resided in the country for three months.

3.3 The unemployed

Unemployment is an inevitable by-product of capitalism. Full employment can only be a temporary phenomenon in a system which reduces people to the mere possessors of the commodity, labour power - that is, objects of exploitation.

Especially in periods of crisis millions cannot profitably be employed and are therefore discarded. Maintained at below subsistence levels, the unemployed are used as a reserve army of labour to drive down general wage levels. Unemployment is not due to the policies or coloration of this or that government. The only way to eradicate unemployment is to end the system that causes it.

As part of the working class the unemployed must be fully integrated into the workers' movement. They must be made into a reserve army of the revolution.

The immediate communist demands for the unemployed are:

• The right to work at trade union rates of pay or unemployment benefit at the level of the minimum wage.
• No state harassment of the unemployed. Claiming benefit is a right not a privilege.
• Cheap labour schemes must be replaced by real training and education under trade union supervision.
• The unemployed must have the right to remain in or join trade unions as full members with equal rights.
• To the extent that they operate unemployed workers' organisations must be represented in the trade union movement - from trades councils to the Trades Union Congress.

3.4 Nationalisation

From the point of view of world revolution, programmes for wholesale nationalisation are today objectively reactionary. The historic task of the working class is to fully socialise the giant transnational corporations not break them up into inefficient national units. Our starting point is the most advanced achievements of capitalism. Globalised production needs global social control.

Communists oppose the illusion that nationalisation equates in some way with socialism. There is nothing inherently progressive or socialistic about nationalised industries.

Under definite circumstances, however, nationalisation serves the interests of the workers. Faced with plans for closure or mass sackings, communists demand that the state - the executive committee of the bourgeoisie - not the workers bear the consequences for failure.

Against closures and mass sackings communists demand:

• No redundancies. Nationalise threatened workplaces or industries under workers' control.
• Compensation to former owners should be paid only in cases of proven need.
• There must be no business secrets hidden from the workers. The books and data banks of every company must be open to the inspection of specialists appointed by and responsible to the workers.

3.5 Trade unions

Trade unions limit competition between workers, thus securing a better price for labour power. They represent a tremendous gain for the working class, drawing millions of backward workers into collective activity against employers.

Of course, left to itself, trade union consciousness is characterised by sectionalism and the hopeless attempt to constantly improve the lot of workers within capitalism. Communists openly seek to make trade unions into schools for communism. They do this by always putting forward the general interest, by fighting for workers' unity and by fully involving the masses in decision making.

Bargaining is a specialist activity. Consequentially the trade unions need a layer of functionaries. However, due to the passivity of most rank and file members and lack of democratic accountability, these functionaries consolidated themselves into a conservative caste.

The trade union bureaucracy is more concerned with amicable deals and preserving union funds than with the class struggle. Operating as an intermediary between labour and capital it has a real material interest in the continued existence of the wage system.

Within the trade unions communists fight against bureaucracy by demanding:

• Trade unions must be free of any interference or control by the state.
• No trade union official to be paid above the average wage of a worker in that particular union.
• All officials must be elected, accountable and instantly recallable.
• Workers should support trade union leaders only to the extent that they fight for the long term interests of the working class as a whole.
• One industry, one union. Industrial unions are rational and enhance the ability of the workers to struggle.
• All-embracing workplace committees. Organise all workers, whatever their trade, whether or not they are in trade unions. Workplace committees should fight to exercise control over hiring and firing, production and investment.

3.6 Councils of action

In any decisive clash of class against class, new forms of organisation which are higher, more general, more flexible than trade unions emerge. In Russia they have been called Soviets, in Germany rates, in Britain councils of action.

Democratically embracing and co-coordinating all who are in struggle, such organisations of struggle have the potential to become the workers' alternative to the capitalist state. Communists encourage any such development.

3.7 Workers' militia

Communists are against the standing army and for the armed people. This principle will never be realised voluntarily by the capitalist state. It has to be won by the working class developing its own militia.

Such a body grows out of the class struggle itself; defending the picket line, mass demonstrations, workplace occupations, fending off fascists, etc.

As the class struggle intensifies, the conditions are created for the workers to arm themselves and win over sections of the military forces of the capitalist state. Every opportunity must be used to take even tentative steps towards this goal. As the circumstances allow, the working class must equip itself with the most advanced, most destructive weaponry available.

To facilitate this we demand:

• Rank and file personnel in the state's armed bodies must be protected from bullying, humiliating treatment and being used against the working class.
• There must be full trade union and democratic rights, including the right to form bodies such as soldiers' councils.
• The privileges of the officer caste must be abolished. Officers must be elected. Workers in uniform must become the allies of the masses in struggle.
• The people have the right to bear arms and defend themselves.

3.8 The national question

As a general rule communists do not want to see countries broken up into small nation-states. Ours is the revolutionary call for humanity to shed the flag-waving imagined community of nation-states.

Communists are the most consistent internationalists and unreservedly denounce any tactical pandering to, let alone attempts to exacerbate, national tensions.

Communists want a positive solution to the national question in the interests of the working class: that is, the merging of nations. That can only be achieved through democracy and the right of all to fully develop their own culture.

Communists fight to secure the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination. Every historically constituted people should be able to freely decide its own destiny. They can separate if they so wish. Thereby they can also elect to come together or stay together with others.

3.8.1 England, Scotland and Wales

The British nation evolved from the gradual bonding of three nationalities - the English, Welsh and Scottish. Drawn together over many centuries by common political and economic experience, they now in me main possess a common language, culture and psychology.

The birth of the British nation objectively was a profoundly progressive development. Nevertheless, because it was carried out under the aegis of a brutal absolutism it was accompanied by countless acts of violence and discrimination.

As post-boom British imperialism was forced to turn inwards, and in the absence of a viable proletarian alternative, resistance in Scotland and Wales often took a national form. A mythologised past was deployed by nationalists, opportunists and Labourites alike to serve their own nefarious purposes.

Communists stand opposed to every form of Scottish and Welsh national narrow-mindedness. Equally we oppose every form of British-English national chauvinism. Ideas of exclusiveness or superiority, national oppression itself, obscure the fundamental antagonism between labour and capital and diverts attention from the need to unite against the common enemy - the British capitalist state.

While communists defend the right of Scotland and Wales to secede, we do not want separation. Communists want the closest union circumstances allow. That can only come about by fighting for full democracy. The peoples of Scotland and Wales cannot decide their own future through the monarchy and the Westminster parliament of the House of Commons and House of Lords. That is why we stand for a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales.

It is the proletarian internationalist duty of communists in Scotland and Wales to defend the right of the Scots and Welsh to remain with and achieve an even higher degree of unity with the English. As an equal proletarian internationalist duty communists in England must correspondingly be the best defenders of the right of the Scottish and Welsh peoples to separate. That in no way contradicts their duty to advocate unity.

3.8.2 Ireland

Ireland is Britain's oldest colony. In 1921 die Irish nation was dissected- A sectarian Six County statelet was created in order to permanently divide the Irish working class and perpetuate British domination over the whole island of Ireland.

We communists in Britain unconditionally support the right of Ireland to reunite. Working class opposition to British imperialism in Ireland is a necessary condition for our own liberation - a nation that oppresses another can never itself be free. The struggle for socialism in Britain and national liberation in Ireland are inextricably linked.

Communists in Ireland also have internationalist duties. They must fight for the closest spirit of fraternity between workers in Britain and Ireland and their speediest coming together. They must be resolute opponents of nationalism.

3.9 Peace

British imperialism has an unparalleled history of war and aggression in virtually every corner of the world. Though no longer the power it once was, it maintains large, well equipped armed forces in order to defend the interests of capitalism abroad and at home. Communists oppose all imperialist military alliances and ventures.

British capitalism is one of the world's main weapons manufacturers and exporters. It has a vested interest in promoting militarism. Communists stress however that the struggle against the military-industrial complex cannot be separated from the struggle against the profit system as a whole.

Communists do not call for this or that percentage cut in military spending. We are against giving even one penny or one person to the capitalist state's armed forces.

Peace cannot come courtesy of bodies such as the United Nations - an assembly of exploiters and murderers. Nor can it come about by trying to eliminate this or that category of weapons. It is the duty of communists to connect the popular desire for peace with the aim of revolution. Only by disarming the bourgeoisie and through international socialism can the danger of war be eliminated.

Communists are not pacifists. Everywhere we support just wars, above all revolutionary civil wars for socialism. Communists will therefore strive to expose the war preparations of the bourgeoisie, the lies of social chauvinists and the illusions fostered by social pacifism. These alien, bourgeois influences objectively disarm and paralyse the working class in the face of a bourgeoisie armed to the teeth.

3.10 Women

Women are oppressed because of the system of exploitation and the division of labour. Women's oppression has existed since the dawn of class society. The abolition of exploitation will mark the beginning of the emancipation of women. Therefore the struggle for both is interconnected.

Women's emancipation is nor a question for women alone. Just as the abolition of class exploitation is of concern to female workers, so is the emancipation of women of concern to male workers. The struggle for socialism and the emancipation of women cannot be separated.

Under capitalism women carry out domestic labour, such as housework, child rearing, etc, which is performed gratis. Given the technical possibilities to industrialise it, such work is enormously time wasting. It is also dull, demoralising and does not allow for any kind of cultural development.

Advanced capitalism has created the material prerequisites for the liberation of women. However, women cannot be fully emancipated until the disappearance of the division of labour without going beyond bourgeois right - that is, right based on work done.

In Britain women have won or been granted formal equality with men. The very existence of the capitalist system makes a mockery of that formal equality. Ac work, at home, in education, before the law, women are at all times faced with inequality, discrimination and oppression.

There has been a rapid increase in women's participation in the economy. Capitalism has an inherent tendency to increase both the number of unemployed and the absolute size of the working population. As a norm therefore women are exploited by capital as cheap wage workers and domestic slaves. Hence they suffer a double burden of oppression.

Women have their own problems and demands. These demands however do not conflict with the demands of the working class but rather they reinforce them. Communists demand:

• Turn formal equality into genuine equality. Socially, economically, politically and culturally there must be equality of opportunity. Open 24-hour crèches and kindergartens to facilitate full participation in social life outside the home: that is, trade unions, political organisations, workers' militia, cultural activities, etc.
• Open high quality canteens with cheap prices. The establishment of laundry and house-cleaning services to be undertaken by the state. This to be the first step in the socialisation of housework.
• Fully paid maternity leave three months before and six months after giving birth (the partner to be provided with six months' paternity leave).
• Free abortion and contraception on demand.
• Provision for either parent to be allowed paid leave to look after sick. children.
• Maximum six-hour working day for all nursing mothers.
• Decriminalisation of prostitution so as to remove it from criminal control. Prostitutes to be provided with special health care and other services to reduce the dangers they confront. Measures to give prostitutes wider social opportunities.

3.11 Youth

Youth are at the sharp end of Britain's capitalist decline. Young workers are in general not protected by trade union membership. Homelessness and unemployment are greatly disproportionate amongst the young. Training on official schemes is notoriously mediocre, designed more to massage government statistics than equip youth with the skills of the future. In the drive to cut costs basic education is under constant attack: with the standard of university education woefully diluted.

Youth are contradictorily fawned upon by advertisers, exploited as cheap labour and blamed for social decay. The system is in fact only interested in youth in terms of the cash register. Every ideal, every artistic talent is judged purely in terms of its ability to generate artificial needs in others. There are many who reject the twisted values of the system. But in despair they often turn to nihilism - itself turned into a commodity by capitalism.

The following demands are of crucial importance for youth:

• The provision of housing/hostels for youth to enter of their own choice for longer or shorter periods when they lose their parents or choose to leave them.
• Compulsory education up until the age of 16 and from then on within a fully democratic system. Education should be free and of a polytechnical nature: that is, rounded to include technical skills as well as academic.
• No religious schools, no private schools.
• Students over the age of 16 should receive grants set at the level of the minimum wage.
• The right of every young person on leaving education to either a job, proper training or full benefits.
• Remove all obstacles to the participation of youth in social life. Votes and the right to be elected from the age of 16.
• The provision of a broad range of sports and cultural centres under the control of elected representatives of youth.
• The abolition of age-of-consent laws. We recognise the right of individuals to enter into the sexual relations they choose provided this does not conflict with the rights of others. Alternative legislation to protect children from sexual abuse.
• The extensive provision of education and counselling facilities on all sexual matters, free from moralistic judgement, is an essential prerequisite to enable youth to develop themselves in all areas of sexuality and reproduction.

3.12 Pensioners and the elderly

People deserve a secure, dignified and comfortable old age. The needs of the elderly should be met fully by the state, and should be available by right. Our old people should not suffer the humiliation and anxiety of relying on means tests or charity.

The aim of these demands is to mobilise the working class as a whole to fight for pensioners' rights.

• No compulsory retirement. Right to retirement from age 60 for all workers - at 55 in unpleasant and dangerous jobs.
• The stare pension should be at the level of the minimum wage, and should be paid to everyone who has retired.
• Old people should have the right to decide how they live. There should be no compulsory institutionalisation. The state must provide what is needed to allow elderly people to live independently if they so wish, for as long as they are physically or mentally capable of doing so.
• Social clubs for the elderly should be democratic and subsidised by the state, nor charities.
• The comfort and dignity of the dying must be ensured at all times. Euthanasia and disposal of the body after death should be carried out according to the wishes of the individual.

3.13 Homosexuals

Homosexuals have often been scapegoated or persecuted. They can be portrayed as deviants who threaten the family - the basic economic unit of capitalist society. Homosexual rights is therefore a key demand.

Homophobic attitudes divide the working class and aid those advocating the authoritarian state. The working class needs to be mobilised in order to defend and advance homosexual rights.

Communists demand:

• Decriminalisation of all consensual homosexual acts. End police and state harassment.
• Lesbians and gays should be accorded the same rights in society as heterosexuals: that is, state marriages, artificial insemination for lesbians, adoption and fostering. No discrimination in custody cases on the grounds of sexual orientation.
• No discrimination in any area of employment.

3.14 Freedom of information

Knowledge is power. The British bourgeois state has always shrouded its affairs in secrecy. The real class interests and imperialist ambitions of the capitalists are thus kept from the eyes of the working class.

The working class demands openness in all state matters, not least as a preparation for running its own state. Communists demand:

• The affairs of the bourgeois state are conducted incomplete openness in all matters.
• Abolish the 30-year rule and all other forms of secrecy. Public access to all state files, cabinet papers, diplomatic agreements, etc.
• End all forms of censorship, both legislative and institutional.

3.15 Crime and prison

Crime can only be understood in relationship to society. In a class society crime is a product of alienation, want or resistance. Under capitalism the criminal system is an anti-working class, anti-popular system.

Against this communists demand:

• All judges and magistrates be subject to election and recall.
• Fines must be proportionate to income.
• There must be workers' supervision of prisons.
• Prisoners must be allowed the maximum opportunity to develop themselves as human beings. People should only be imprisoned within a short distance of their own locality - if nor, families must be given full cost of travel for visits.
• Prison life must be made as near normal as possible. The aim of prison should be rehabilitation, not punishment. Within prisons there should be a wide range of cultural facilities. Medical treatment must be via the general health service. There must be provision for daily visiting hours and weekly 24-hour conjugal visits.
• Worthwhile prison work. must be made available. It must be paid at full trade union rates and limited to seven hours a day.
• Cells must be self-contained and for one person alone.
• Prisoners must be allowed access to books, newspapers and periodicals of their choice. Incoming and outgoing letters can only be checked for contraband - they must not be read nor censored.
• Prisoners should have the right to vote in parliamentary and other such elections and to stand for election. Votes from prisoners to count within the constituency they actually live, not where they happen to originate.

3.16 Religion

Unlike previous oppressed classes in history religion can play no progressive role for the working class in its struggle against today's ruling class.

Nevertheless, though communists want to overcome all religious prejudices, we are the most consistent defenders of the individual's freedom of conscience and freedom of worship.

Communists therefore demand:

• Separation of the Church of England from the state. End all state subsidies for religious institutions. Confiscate all Church of England property not directly related to acts of worship.
• Freedom for all religious cults. Freedom for atheistic propaganda. Religious organisations and individuals have the right to propagate their ideas and seek. to win converts. Opponents of religion have the same right.
• End all state-sponsored religious propaganda and acts of worship. Religion is a private, not a state matter. Religion can be taught as a subject of academic study, not as a means to indoctrinate children.

3.17 Small businesses and farms

Small business people, including small farmers, form a thin petty bourgeois stratum in Britain. Carrying on an unstable, precarious existence, these people operate in the nooks and crannies of the monopoly-dominated capitalist economy.

Their limited profits often oblige them to work. alone or alongside their employees. A combination of the threat of bankruptcy and the aspiration to become big capitalists drives them to work: longer hours in worse conditions than many members of the working class.

Every downward oscillation of the capitalist economy faces the petty bourgeoisie with financial ruin. While the destruction of this stratum is economically progressive, the working class has a political interest to defend the petty bourgeoisie from the ravages of the anarchic capitalist economy, at the same time helping to raise the working conditions, security of employment and living standards of wage workers in farming and in small businesses.

Communists demand:

• Secure rights of tenure for owner-occupiers, small farmers and small businesses, with low rents.
• Cancellation of debts to banks arising from disproportionately high interest rates. Provision of low interest rates for small businesses.
• Guaranteed prompt payment of bills by big business to small businesses.
• Encouragement for the formation of producers' cooperatives through the provision of scientific and technical advice, research facilities, administrative machinery, grants for capital improvements, etc.

4. Character of the revolution

Britain is materially ready for socialism. To achieve that immediate goal there must be an overthrow of the main enemy, the capitalist state. However it has to be stressed that without the workers as the agency of change there can be no subsequent socialism, no end to exploitation, no human freedom. Only the workers can rally all who are oppressed and through a people's revolution establish a new socialist semi-state. To carry out its historic mission the workers' movement must educate and organise itself as a class. The proletariat cannot become the liberator of society without grasping and fighting for the positive resolution of all contradictions inherent in it.

4.1 Classes in the revolution

The working class is the only consistently revolutionary class in Britain. Of course, left to itself, left to spontaneity, it exists merely as a slave class, capable of being militant, democratic and even insurrectionary, but not hegemonic.

What makes it truly a class is the leadership of advanced workers who have transcended the purely economic struggle and mastered scientific revolutionary theory - that is, communists. With communist consciousness the working class can raise itself to a future ruling class, which by the very nature of its own self-liberation also liberates humanity.

The working class is by far the great majority of the population in Britain. Besides manual industrial workers it consists of workers in the health service, transport, the civil service and local government as well as non-manual workers in industry, finance and distribution such as technicians, clerical and sales workers.

Many of the traditional distinctions between manual and non-manual work. are being more and more broken down by advances in the production process. Despite that if the working class does not elevate itself from being a slave class, it finds its common actions paralysed or limited by opposing competitive interests which divide every section against every other section.

The inspiring and time honoured call for workers' unity can be realised only as unity around the communist programme. Only in the process of this self-realisation can all oppressed sections of the population be won to identify with the working class.

In Britain, as in any other capitalist country, there are contradictions within the bourgeoisie. Capitalist is pitted against capitalist in the marker. But the most important contradiction in this respect is the domination of Britain by monopoly capital.

What does this mean for the non-monopoly bourgeoisie?

On the one hand the non-monopoly bourgeoisie suffers due to its disadvantageous position in the marker and the state. On the other it benefits from monopoly capitalism's global reach and ability to pacify the working class.

All capitalists are united in needing the working class to remain wage slaves in perpetuity. So as well as contradiction there is benefit, which is in fact the main feature in the relationship of non-monopoly capital to monopoly capital. Hence contradiction is secondary.

This is mirrored politically. The non-monopoly bourgeoisie is united behind the monopoly bourgeoisie. It has no real independent voice. It is ideologically narrow-minded and tries to influence society through institutions which are in the main entirely subordinate to the monopoly bourgeoisie.

The task of communists is to break the working class from the influence of all sections of the bourgeoisie. There can be no revolutionary alliance with the non-monopoly bourgeoisie. Individuals from the bourgeoisie can come over to the side of the working class, but never any section of it. However the working class can and should take advantage of the contradictions within the bourgeoisie, not least between monopoly and non-monopoly capital Concessions offered to the non-monopoly bourgeoisie open up fissures in the ranks of our enemy and help to neutralise sections of it.

The middle class, including the petty bourgeoisie - lawyers, doctors, middle management, middle grade civil servants, the self-employed, well paid professionals - is defined negatively by what exists and wavers between the two main classes in society.

As monopoly capitalism relentlessly revolutionises production, elements within the middle class find old privileged positions being dissolved. Such a process gives rise to explosive shifts and through political intervention can speed the process of proletarianisation. Economic crises plunge the middle class into turmoil and into political action.

Workers ought to seek, as opportunities present themselves, alliances with the various organisations and manifestations of this intermediate strata. Indeed the working class must represent the middle class against capital.

The middle class is always open to bourgeois influences and can under no circumstances be regarded a consistent ally of the working class. That said, success in prising it away from monopoly capital deprives our main enemy of a major social prop and adds to the momentum of revolution.

4.2 The socialist constitution

This section on the socialist constitution outlines the form of organisation of the state and political life. It represents the culmination, embodiment and continuation of our immediate demands.

Incongruous as it might seem, the aim of this constitution is to facilitate its own negation. The socialist constitution will become simply a piece of paper, an historical document, as the state withers away along with classes.

The principles of our constitution are born our of a scientific understanding of the class struggle. Crucially that in the process of smashing the bourgeois state organs of working class struggle become organs of working class state power. Our principles are not gleaming abstractions nor are they a Utopian dream. They reflect historic experience and the necessity for the workers to continue the class struggle even when they are the ruling class.

We communists fight for:

• Supreme power in the state will be workers' councils, composed of delegates who are elected and recallable at any time. These organs will have both executive and legislative functions.
• The pay of full time elected delegates will be no greater than the average skilled worker.
• All parties which accept revolutionary laws will be free to operate. We accept the possibility of one revolutionary party or coalition of parties replacing another peacefully. Minorities have the right and should be given the opportunity to become majorities.
• There must be no financial penalties to inhibit standing in elections. Elections should be on the basis of proportional representation with an open count.
• Local organs of power must have a broad degree of autonomy.
• The principle of openness in state affairs will be guaranteed.
• All international agreements counter to the interests of the working class will be abrogated. Key constitutional, international and other such questions should be put to referendum.
• There will be no censorship. There must be the right of expression and discuss ion of all topics.
• The armed forces and the police will be dispersed. In place there will be a workers' militia that will embody the right of everyone to bear arms. The production and distribution of weapons will be under the control of workers' collectives.

4.3 Economic measures

The workers' state would be wrong to nationalise some pre-set number of companies or list of industries. Nationalisation could be used tactically as a political weapon against those who refuse to co-operate or who rebel. But the full socialisation of production in Britain is dependent on and can only proceed in line with the completion of world revolution.

The immediate task is the systematic extension of workers' control over production. This greatly curtails the power of capital and culturally prepares the workers for the day when the law of the plan finally and completely replaces the law of value.

The scope of workers' control should be gradually extended as the working class "wrests by degrees" power over the economy from the capitalist class and management experts. This will require the raising of the cultural level of the working class, its capacity for organisation and leadership.

This process will continue until full workers' management of production is achieved. At this stage the economy will be fully socialised and will in the main be communally owned: that is, in the "hands of the state - that is, of the proletariat, organised as the ruling class".

In order to facilitate this we envisage the following measures:

• All major decisions relating to management of production, hiring and firing, etc. must be ratified by workers' committees.
• Trade unions are independent from the state and should protect workers' rights and conditions against the state and the remnants of capitalism.
• As part of the process of expropriating the bourgeoisie, introduce a graduated inheritance tax targeted against the rich.
• Abolish income tax for all wage workers as part of the process of simplifying the economic regulation of society.
• It will be compulsory for everyone to do socially useful work - the only exception being those who are unable to do so for reasons of health or age.
• Formulate a national plan of production, based on the widest participation, discussion and decision-making process possible in society. This plan as a whole will be presented to the working class organs that have formulated it for ratification before being implemented. It will then be monitored, analysed and if necessary modified at every stage by the class fighting for its implementation, the working class.

5. The transition to communism

Socialism is nor a mode of production. It is the transition from capitalism to communism. Socialism is the communism which emerges from capitalist society. It begins as capitalism with a workers' state. Socialism therefore bears the moral, economic and intellectual imprint of capitalism; it is the lower stage of communism.

In general socialism is defined as the rule of the working class.

The division of labour cannot be abolished overnight. It manifests itself under socialism in the contradictions between mental and manual labour, town and country, men and women, as well as social, regional and national differences.

Classes and social strata exist under socialism because of different positions occupied in relationship to the means of production, the roles played in society and the way they receive their income.

Class and social contradictions necessitate the continuation of the class struggle. However this struggle is determined by the new alignments brought about by the overthrow of the capitalist state and the transition to communism.

The class struggle can, in the last, analysis go in two directions depending on the balance of forces inside and outside the country and the class policy being followed. It can go backwards to capitalism or it can advance towards communism.

While socialism creates the objective basis for solving social contradictions, these contradictions need to be solved with a correct political line and the development of mass, active democracy. This is essential as communism is not a spontaneous development.

Social strata will only finally disappear under communism.

5.1 The socialist state

In its first stages communism has not reached complete maturity or completely rid itself of the traditions and remnants of capitalism. One of these remnants is bourgeois right which means that the communist principle "to each according to their needs" cannot be applied under socialism.

The concept of 'right' continues under socialism due to relative scarcity. Everyone has the right to receive from society only as much as they give. Right depends on contribution. The abolition of bourgeois right is dependent on greatly reducing necessary labour time.

Socialism transforms the commodity back into a product. It replaces the law of value with the law of the plan. To begin with, social labour can only be measured indirectly by the average labour that is socially necessary. However, through the plan labour becomes directly social.

The clearest indication that socialism is a class society is the existence of and need for a state-an instrument of class rule.

The socialist state (the proletarian dictatorship) is needed in the first place against the resistance of the forces of capitalism. Though this can involve draconian measures it must be emphasised that, as the dictatorship (rule) of the overwhelming majority in society, the socialist state is characterised by the flowering of genuine democracy.

The repressive role of the state is not only connected with overcoming the capitalist class, but also with the division of labour. Until work becomes life's prime want the need for the state will continue. This means laws, courts, the obligation to work. The persistence of bourgeois right expresses the fact that work is based on coercion.

To consider the state as repression against enemy classes is right in the last analysis. However the proletarian state exists over all the individuals in society and it represents a force over the individuals who belong to the class which rules society.

The socialist state dispenses with much of the bureaucratic and military baggage of the capitalist state - it is a semi-state. Beginning when the working class establishes its own rule, it lasts till the higher stage of communism. During this period it undergoes internal changes and its function changes according to the development of the class struggle both inside and outside the country. These changes are the process in which the state withers away.

The world proletarian dictatorship is the moment when socialism becomes fully mature. The state cannot entirely disappear in any country before this stage.

Both the withering away of the state and the disappearance of classes can only be completed on the basis of the socialisation of the productive forces on a world scale. Socialism is a worldwide revolution and has to be worldwide in scope. There can be no socialism in one country.

5.2 Socialism and democracy

Socialism and democracy are inseparable. The rule by the majority is in the first place attained by the truly mass, truly democratic smashing of the bourgeois state and its replacement by the organs of working class struggle, which have become the organs of the new state.

However this is not the end of the matter. To begin with certain functions of the state and administration remain a sphere of specialists. Since the aim is not rule by a strata of specialists (that is, bureaucracy - an alienated form of organisation) in the name of the majority, bur rule by the majority itself, measures have to be taken, not only for the destruction of the old state bureaucracy, but also to prevent the new stare from turning against the people.

Socialism must progressively involve the working class in the administration and running of the state. Democracy cannot be understood as only casting votes. It is a process of the constant forming of ideas and taking of decisions. For this reason, it demands the opportunity for broad discussion in every sphere and at every level. Without platforms and oppositions for the presentation of different views, and in which open discussion is the norm, democracy can only be formal.

Thus we need democracy in the following areas:

• The organisation of the state apparatus.
• The organisation of the political system.
• The organisation of the economy.
• International relations.

The key to realising this development of active, mass democracy, is a radical shortening of the necessary working day. Only when everyone has the time to become administrators will there be no administrators and no division of labour.

5.3 Communism

Socialism in Britain will start from a relatively high level of technique, output and culture. Once the hard task of winning working class state power has been achieved we will advance directly towards communism. The speed of that advance is dictated by the completion of the world revolution and the correctness of the policy of the working class and its communist vanguard.

Through society reabsorbing the functions of the state the need for it withers away. Democracy (a form of the state) negates itself and gives way to general freedom. The higher stage of communism is a free association of producers. Everybody will contribute according to their ability and take according to need. Real human history begins and society leaves behind the "realm of necessity". In the realm of freedom people will become rounded, fully social individuals who can for the first time truly develop their natural humanity.

This is what we want to achieve. To win the prize we will overcome all obstacles.

6. The Communist Party

The Communist Party of Great Britain is the voluntary union of communists. It is a Marxist-Leninist party guided by the scientific theory established by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and organised on the principles of Leninism.

The Communist Party is the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat. The Communist Party is a class party, a part of the working class. The Communist Party is formed and built by the self-selection of the most class conscious, most courageous and most far-sighted workers. Because of this it can fulfil the role of the theoretical, political and organisational vanguard of the proletariat.

The Communist Party has no interest other than the proletariat as a whole. The Communist Party differs from the rest of the working class only in that it has the advantage of a theory which enables it to understand the historical path and results of proletarian class struggle. Hence at every stage and turn of events it champions the general interests of the movement.

Consequentially, as advanced workers and true partisans of the working class, the communists understand the necessity of coming together in the CPGB.

The Party of all workers

Communists always support the organisation of the working class in the largest, most powerful and most centralised units. In the absence of objective conditions compelling separate organisation, the proletariat organises as a single party. This is a requirement of proletarian internationalism.

The vanguard of the working class organises in a single parry based on the existing borders of the bourgeois state that is to be overthrown. Those who fail to fight for such organisational unity of the workers have not broken their links with nationalism.

Objective conditions in Britain require the workers of all nationalities to organise in a single countrywide Communist Party.

The CPGB is internationalist

The CPGB stands on the principles of proletarian internationalism. It is a proletarian internationalist duty for communists to make revolution in their own country. However, the struggle for socialism in Britain is subordinated to the struggle for world revolution. Proletarian internationalism renders it compulsory for the interests of the workers' struggle in one country to be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world scale.

Understanding the unity of the interests and aims of the world working class does not arise spontaneously within the national workers' movement. The CPGB has to conscientiously imbue the working class struggle with the ideas of proletarian internationalism and uncompromisingly fight against nationalism. The CPGB sees it as its duty to fight against any trend which harms the unity of the world's working class around communism. We are well aware of the connection between nationalism and opportunism and revisionism.

The CPGB believes that the world proletariat needs a world strategy and world organisation. Without a world communist party the working class is weakened and lacks coordination. The CPGB will do all in its power to rectify this situation.

6.1 Principles of organisation

The foremost and unchanging task of communists is to conduct systematic, all-sided and principled agitation and propaganda. In our conditions this means combating all manifestations of bourgeois ideology and winning the masses to the idea of revolution.

Central organ

The Party conducts propaganda and agitation on the basis of its central organ- The central organ is not only a collective propagandist and collective agitator. It is also a collective organiser.

Organisation around the distribution network of the central organ and education on the basis of the central organ constitute the basis for the continuous action of our Party.

The basic unit

The basic organisational unit of the Communist Party is the cell. The cell is the only unit of the Party in which all members must participate. Established on the basis of task, workplace or locality, the basic unit facilitates the closest and broadest relations with the masses. Cells have autonomy within their sphere of responsibility and should be self-sustaining and constantly striving to take initiatives. Cells work to train their members as professional revolutionaries who have educated themselves, learnt the skills of the revolutionary struggle and dedicated their whole life to the cause.

Concentration

Our Party places the utmost importance on the effectiveness of its members. The membership of the Party must be concentrated, not spread willy-nilly throughout the country as chance decides. We need to concentrate our organisational efforts so as to produce the best results. In this way the Party can impact on the masses and enhance itself. Besides geographic concentration the Parry must direct its members to particularly important industries. Large strategically placed workplaces must become the fortresses of the Party.

Criticism and self-criticism

Criticism and self-criticism on an individual and collective level are the first condition for the unity, development and growth of the Communist Party. The aim is to continually strengthen the Party's ability to serve the working class and humanity.

Criticism in no way implies the undermining of the individual or collective concerned, but improving their contribution to the Party and Party discipline. It shows the individual or collective being criticised why their attitude accords neither with the interests of the class nor the Party.

Bourgeois and petty bourgeois influences constantly manifest themselves in the Party. The Party too lives in a world dominated by the spontaneously generated ideas of capitalism. Hence if the mistakes of individuals or collectives are not corrected they can become a deviation or even embedded amongst the majority of members. Criticism and self-criticism is one of the most effective weapons against such dangers.

Men and women

There must be no discrimination between men and women in the Communist Party. Male communists must practice equality and female communists must insist on it. However given the male-dominated culture we operate in and the need to win women to follow the lead and join the ranks of the Communist Party, every effort should be made to promote women comrades in the Party. In this way, the Party develops its culture and extends its strength for the struggle.

Legality and illegality

Communists make no mechanical division between legality and illegality under the conditions of bourgeois rule. They are not opposites, but different moments in the development of the class struggle.

Democratic rights under capitalism are not granted by the generosity of the ruling class. Nor are they inherent in the system. They have been won by struggle in the face of fierce opposition by generation after generation of working people.

The scope of legal work is determined by the balance of forces between the ruling and working class. Even when bourgeois rule is masked in a democratic form, state terror is always held in reserve.

The Communist Party therefore - even in the most democratic of periods - maintains and endeavours to constantly improve its illegal work. Our Parry must be a combat organisation of the working class.

Thus, we do not build an illegal apparatus for its own sake. We do it to win the freedom to make revolution, an act that no bourgeois state tolerates. A Communist Party is only as free as the struggle it wages for revolution is free from the restrictions of bourgeois legality.

The ultimate guarantee of the freedom of the Party to make revolution is the correctness of its scientific world view and its ability to merge with the broad masses of the class. We guard against state provocation and infiltration primarily through. the open fight for correct politics.

Leadership

The leadership of the Communist Parry is its vanguard in terms of theory, politics and organisation. It constitutes its general staff.

No movement can survive without a permanent body of leaders through which it can ensure continuity. Without authoritative and influential leaders who have been steeled over a long period of time and are able to work collectively together, no class can wage a serious struggle for power. If the proletariat wishes to defeat the bourgeoisie, it must train from among its ranks its own proletarian class politicians who should not be inferior to the bourgeois politicians.

Our Party attaches great importance to the cultivation of leaders, their theoretical knowledge, revolutionary energy and political instinct and experience.

No ready made blueprints

The CPGB applies the Leninist principle of organisation. There are no ready made blueprints for communist organisation. Timeless recipes for the structure and relationship between the various bodies that make up the Communist Parry are the result of formal, not dialectical, thinking. We proceed from the fact that the Communist Party is a living organism. It evolves and constantly changes according to objective circumstances and the struggle to put the revolutionary programme into practice. The CPGB will therefore constantly modify itself organisationally.

The CPGB is democratic centralist

The CPGB is organised on the basis of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism is a form of organisation and a political principle.

Democratic centralism entails the subordination of the minority to the majority when it comes to the actions of the Parry. That does not mean that the minority should be gagged. Minorities must have the possibility of becoming the majority. As long as they accept in practice the decisions of the majority, groups of comrades have the right to support alternative platforms and form themselves into temporary or permanent factions.

Democratic centralism therefore represents a dialectical unity entailing the fullest, most open and frank debate along with the most determined, selfless, revolutionary action.

Democratic centralism allows the members of the Communist Party to unitedly carry our actions, elect and be elected, criticise the mistakes of the Party and self-criticise their own failings without fear or favour. In essence then, democratic centralism is a process whereby communists are united around correct aims and principles.

Communist discipline

Party discipline consists of the duty to voice differences, complete fulfilment of assigned tasks and not withholding financial resources.

Communist discipline develops on the basis of positively resolving differences and successfully developing ties with the masses. Mutual respect and the strength of the working class increases the level of communist discipline.

6.2 Communists and trade unions

Trade unions are basic organisations of working class defence. The Communist Party is the highest form of working class organisation. The Party and the trade unions are therefore different organisations of the same class.

Communists do not seek to blur the different roles of the Party and the trade unions. When trade unionists attempt to assume the functions of the Communist Parry, they weaken the trade unions and the Party. When the Communist Party attempts to assume the functions of the trade unions it likewise weakens the trade unions and the Parry.

Communists defend the organisational independence of the trade unions and their political dependence on the Communist Party.

Communists fight for internal democracy in the unions and against all forms of bureaucracy.

Communists are confident that sooner or later the trade unions will be won to their views and be made into schools for communism. Communists put forward a consistent perspective which unites not divides the trade unions. Communists fight both sectionalism and splits along economic or political lines in the trade union movement and bring to the fore the common interest. In this way, communists show that they are the best fighters for the day-to-day interests of the proletariat as well as those who look after the interests of the future.

Communists tirelessly work in the trade unions to fight bourgeois ideology. We explain that no trade union demand can be made permanent while wage slavery lasts. All economic, trade union and political demands must be connected with the task of putting society as a whole into the hands of the working class.

6.3 Communists and religion

The Communist Party says that the state should consider religion a private matter. However, from the point of view of the Party, itself religion - whether it be an established cult or a residual belief in the supernatural - is nor a private matter. Our Party cannot be indifferent to the ignorance, gullibility and irrationality religion engenders in the minds of the masses. The CPGB therefore conducts atheist propaganda.

Unless the working class is educated through its own struggle against capitalism, atheist propaganda will only have limited effect. That is why the CPGB leads the struggle of the masses against every form of capitalist ideology and connects its atheist propaganda to the class struggle against capitalism and its state.

The holding of individual religious belief is no obstacle to membership of the CPGB. All religious people who are committed to the cause of the working class and the liberation of humanity should join the communists.

Draft rules

The Communist Party of Great Britain was founded on July 31 1920 as a militant vanguard. It united in its ranks the most politically conscious, most courageous, most organised section of the workers' movement. That made the CPGB the advanced part of the proletariat in Britain.

In its early years our Party undoubtedly suffered from a certain amateurishness and economism. This was a carry-over from the past. Despite that, because of its revolutionary political and organisational principles, the Party was able to take a lead in all the great struggles of the day and considerably deepen and widen its influence amongst the masses.

However, by the late 1920s signs of opportunist decay were all too evident. No doubt with the best subjective intentions many of our leaders began to see themselves as an extension of the Soviet Union's foreign policy.

To serve these ends the leadership as a whole was congealed into a faction and, citing democratic centralism as justification, it began treating the Party as its own property.

The claim to be operating democratic centralism was of course no hanger true. What the leadership was concerned with was not revolutionary clarity, but silencing opposition. Democratic centralism had become bureaucratic centralism.

Things follow their own logic. What began as persecution in the name of the monolithic Party ended as the liquidation of the Party.

In the 1970s the Eurocommunist Marxism Today faction emerged from within the leadership. By the 1980s, craving respectability in the eyes of bourgeois society, it determinedly set about liquidating the Party organisationally.

Minorities, above all the Leninist minority, were barred from 'official' Party publications. Instead, these were given over to liberals, churchmen, police chiefs and reactionaries of all hues. Minorities had no possibility of becoming the majority. Not only were the various opposition trends denied places on leading committees, they were subject to crude bans and expulsions.

The open, disciplined and principled rebellion by Leninists was an important turning point in the life of the Party. It was a rebellion against the bureaucratic centralist regime of the Marxism Today faction. It was also a rebellion against the entire history of opportunism in our Party.

It was understood that the Party had to be reforged. That meant a new revolutionary programme and new Party rules which were actually based on democratic centralism.

These rules have been prepared with the aim of securing the necessary centralism and democracy of the CPGB, if it is to organise around its programme and put it into practice.

1. Aim

Article 1. The aim of the Communist Party of Great Britain is the voluntary union of communists, the overthrow of the capitalist state, the establishment of socialism and the triumph of communism.

2. Membership

Article 2. A member is one who joins the Party, accepting its rules and programme, works in a Party organisation and regularly pays dues.

Article 3. Except in exceptional circumstances application for membership is submitted individually. An applicant must be recommended by a Party committee. Application is subject to the approval by the next higher committee. The proposing committee must supply reliable information on the member being accepted.

Article 4. Party members are required to fulfil all tasks assigned to them by the Party, to fight for the Parry's unity in action and use the Party's material resources in a responsible manner. Party members also have a right and a duty to study the science of Marxism and develop the Party's political positions.

3. Organisation of Party life

Article 5. The organisational principles of the Party are based on democratic centralism. The part is subordinate to the whole, lower committees to higher, all committees to the Central Committee and the Central Committee to the Congress.

Article 6. Except where the rules state otherwise, in all Party committees decisions are taken by the majority of members participating in the meeting. It is the right and the duty of Party members to participate in the meetings of the committee of which they are a member and to openly state their views on all matters concerning the Party. In between meetings the tasks assigned by the secretary must be fulfilled.

Article7. Party committees are established on the basis of task, locality or workplace. Within their sphere of responsibility committees are autonomous.

Article 8. Higher committees have the right to appoint representatives to participate in the meetings of lower committees and establish relations with their members.

Article 9. While fulfilling all directives. Parry members and lower committees can oppose the decisions taken by higher committees. Before and after a particular action they have the right to submit their views to higher committees up to the Central Committee for discussion and to the central organ for publication.

4. Structure of the Party

Article 10. The basic organisational form of the Party are cells. Cells should be kept as small as possible to allow the maximum flexibility and the maximum efficiency. Cells should as a norm meet weekly.

Article 11. The Central Committee has the remit to establish, where it considers necessary, area or city committees which are responsible for directing the work. of at least two cells. The Central Committee can also establish district committees which are responsible for the work. of two or more area committees.

Article 12. The Congress is the highest decision-making body of the Party. The Congress should normally be held every two years. The Congress should be announced by the Central Committee at least three months in advance. The Congress can be delayed by decision of the Central Committee, but the period between congresses should not exceed three years.

Extraordinary congresses can be called by a majority decision of the Central Committee. If more than a third of the membership through their committees demand it, the Central Committee is obliged to convene an extraordinary congress. It should be held within three months. Failing chat, the next highest committees calling for a congress have the duty to set up an organising committee to convene one. Preparation and representation is decided by the committee convening the congress.

Article 13. The Central Committee may invite delegates to the congress who have speaking but not voting rights.

Article 14. The Congress hears, discusses and votes upon all reports, resolutions and matters it considers relevant. Through simple majorities it also decides upon the numbers and composition of the Central Committee, changes in the rules and programme, appeals on matters of discipline, etc

Article 15. The Central Committee is the highest decision-making body between congresses. The Central Committee elects its own officers. If one third of its members so decide, the chair of the Central Committee must convene an extraordinary meeting of the Central Committee.

Article 16. Decisions of the Central Committee are taken by a simple majority of those members participating. The Central Committee has the power to dissolve and re-establish any Party committee or organ. The Central Committee may co-opt new members by a two thirds vote of its full membership.

Article 17. In important or grave situations a Party Conference may be convened by the Central Committee or a majority of district committees. The Conference cannot take the place of the Congress. It cannot elect the Central Committee nor change the rules and programme of the Party.

Article 18. The following are violations of Party discipline: failure to adhere to Party rules; revealing organisational information concerning the Party to anyone outside one's own organisation; trying to discover Party secrets; conducting political relations and activities without the knowledge of the Party; rebutting the Party; behaving in a way that brings discredit to the Party.

Article 19. Any committee of the Party can vote on a motion of censure against one of its members. The relevant higher committee must be notified. Votes by a committee to suspend or expel a member must be ratified by the Central Committee. A member who is suspended has no membership rights, only duties. The comrade's level of consciousness and experience should always be taken into account.

Article 20. The expulsion of a member of the Central Committee must be agreed by a two-thirds majority of its full membership.

Article 21. The Central Committee determines the level of membership dues. Dispensation can be negotiated in particular cases by the basic committees, but have to be ratified by the Central Committee.

Article 22. The rules taken with the preamble constitute the whole.