It is now fourteen years since the foundation of communist parties in Russia - the Russian Communist Workers' Party (RCWP) and the Revolutionary Party of Communists (RPC), who set forth the task of: overthrowing the bourgeois regime, of establishing the political rule of the working class (i.e. the Soviet. power), of resurrecting socialism and the USSR.

Those were the hard years of struggle characterized by ideological splits, by the disappointment of the working class masses in the ideals of communism. Measures were undertaken by the regime to remove communists from the political arena.

But because they did not succeed, because communists had managed to unite themselves into the ranks of RCWP-RPC, this signifies that the working class in Russia has not been defeated, that one day it will regain its strength and will become the gravedigger of the capitalist order.

In these conditions it is very important to foresee clearly the main direction of the struggle, the strategic course to achieve our ultimate aims. We have to note that a substantial part of our comrades has come to terms to addressing the everyday tasks without relating it to long-term action. This can be explained by the underestimation of the importance of the tactical plan for the party organization, and, ultimately, by setting too low priorities to developing the revolutionary struggle strategy.

Whereas the reasons above determined setting forth the task of popularizing the party strategy, which were, in general terms, formulated in the Party Programme and the decisions of the Unification Congress, it was directly stimulated by the discussion within RCWP-RPC on the question of fully implementing the revolutionary struggle strategy at this time.

The revolutionary wing in our party was led by Comrade Anatolii V. Kriuchkov (1944-2005). Sharing its views, the speaker has made an effort to stick to outline his own views on the strategy and tactics of struggle by the revolutionary party. Though the talk generalizes the experience of struggle of our party, we believe that this presentation will draw interest of all the delegates and will be understood.

The Russian Communist Workers' Party – the Revolutionary Party of Communists (RCWP-RPC) is the party of the working class guided in its activity by the Marxist-Leninist doctrine. This means we see the social revolution, not reforming the existing order, as the way of resolving the antagonism between the main classes in the contemporary society.

This social revolution, which springs from the Great October, has now spread throughout the globe, which is suffocated in the jaws of imperialism, the terminal and moribund stage of capitalist production and exchange. The uneven economic and social development of different countries under capitalism stipulates the great variety of struggle methods amongst different detachments of the world's working class. RCWP-RPC is an inherent part of the world communist movement striving to make the working class of Russia become the vanguard of the revolutionary international working class again. Our Party Programme states,

"In the fundamental interests of the working class, of the exploited sections of peasantry and intelligentsia, RCWP-RPC declares:

• Life itself defies the attempts to exhaust revolutionary capacity
• The immediate strategic aim of the party is the Socialist revolution – the re-establishment of the Soviet power, i.e. the establishment of the political rule of the working class (the dictatorship of the proletariat), replacing the political power of the bourgeoisie (the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) which is currently in place in Russia."

The position that distinguishes RCWP-RPC from the array of parties calling themselves communist (CPRF et al.), is that we recognize the transition to socialism through a revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois order and through the dictatorship of the proletariat.

However, some comrades are unwilling to conclude from our claim to be the party of proletarian revolutionaries that it is our task to get ready for the revolution.

They assert that because the revolutionary situation in Russia has not yet arrived, the party work should be limited to our current affairs without correlating it to a revolutionary perspective. They say that the working class in Russia is not yet ripe for revolutionary struggle; our party has not forged in itself a powerful political force. So any calls to radicalization of political actions are allegedly not timely and provocative (which could allegedly harm the labour movement and our party). This includes rejection of the necessity of forcible counteraction with the authorities, suggesting that under no circumstances should we put forward any revolutionary slogans or get involved in any work that may be qualified by the authorities as work towards forcible changes of the State.

Of course there is a rational kernel in our comrade's ideas. It is based on the well-known experience of our party's participation in October 1993 events. It would be very sad if the strategy or tactic of revolutionary adventurism would take over in our party. Some time ago our party detected this kind of danger in the propaganda by Igor Gubkin and his supporters.

However, some comrades then started to see adventurism and provocations in any kind of active resistance to the regime's actions. These views can result in a substantial damage to the party and cause a moral defeat. Propaganda of peaceful forms of work only (the term struggle is not appropriate in this case) is similar to subordinating the working class to bourgeois influence, khvostism, which are visible in current conditions.

When forming the contemporary view on the forms of action by a revolutionary working class party it is useful to refer to the Bolshevik experience.

Confronting opportunism of the parties in the 2nd International in 1916, in his address to the Congress of Swiss Social-Democratic Party, V. I. Lenin noted:

"At all events, we are convinced that the experience of revolution and counter-revolution in Russia has proved the correctness of our Party's more than twenty-year struggle against terrorism as tactics. We must not forget, however; that this struggle was closely connected with a ruthless struggle against opportunism, which was inclined to repudiate the use of all violence by the oppressed classes against their oppressors. We have always stood for the use of violence in the mass struggle and in connection with it. Secondly, we linked the struggle against terrorism with many years of propaganda, started long before December 1905, for an armed uprising. We have regarded the armed uprising not only as the best means by which the proletariat can retaliate to the government's policy, but also as the inevitable result of the development of the class struggle for socialism and democracy. Thirdly, we have not confined ourselves to accepting violence in principle and to propaganda for armed uprising. For example, four years before the revolution we supported the use of violence by the masses against their oppressors, particularly in street demonstrations. We sought to bring to the whole country the lesson taught by every such demonstration. We began to devote more and more attention to organizing sustained and systematic mass resistance against the police and the army, to winning over, through this resistance, as large as possible a part of the army to the side of the proletariat in its struggle against the government, to inducing the peasantry and the army to take a conscious part in this struggle. These are the tactics we have applied in the struggle against terrorism, and it is our firm conviction that they have proved successful."

(Speech at the Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland, November 4, 1916.
Lenin, Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 121-124.)

Has this Leninist view on using forced action by the masses in any convenient circumstances been outdated? No, not a bit. I would want to remind the comrades of a truly pan-Russian scale of heroic resistance by the workers at Vyborg Paper Mill (in the neighbourhood of Leningrad), who had been, with support of our party, withstanding the attempts by the capitalist rapist to knee them.

It is in this relation that our pan-Russian party newspaper Mysl has regular columns covering the protest actions by the working people.

Since there is a big dispersion in the party in the opinion regarding the time of Russia entering the revolutionary change, let us consider the question of forecasting in politics.

Here we are interested in the social science's capacity to predict sharp bends in the social development, first of all, the arrival of revolutionary times. Scientific forecasting of socio-political life, progress and, consequently, of emerging revolutions is not just possible, but is a must for the leadership of a working class revolutionary party basing itself on materialist perception of history.

Data availability on the tendencies of socio-economic development, on the correlation of class forces, enables the politicians to give a sufficiently exact prognosis concerning the development of events.

Forecasting in politics is a probabilistic, not deterministic, forecasting. However, without a balanced assessment of the situation, the political party may face a sudden U-turn in the events unprepared to fulfil its role of the working class vanguard.

A convincing example of a strictly scientific forecasting in contemporary conditions is the prediction by the group of communists at the Initiative Congress and the Marxist Platform in the CPSU. The forecast was announced on behalf of the group by Viktor Tiulkin at the 28th Congress of the CPSU in 1990.

The conclusion in the Programme of RCWP-RPC that "the way out of the capitalist dead-end is only, possible through revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois system and the transition of our society to the socialist way of development" is just as scientific. This conclusion sets for the communists of today the aim of preparing a revolution.

An opinion is outlined that socialist revolution in Russia is the case of a distant future, while today the task for the communist and for the broad opposition is a national-liberating revolution. But we have to pose a question: what class is to lead the struggle at this stage? There is only one revolutionary class in Russia today, the proletariat. Its mission is to carry out the socialist overthrow as it gains its strength and the will to struggle.

This is an important analytical article by the Chairman of the Soviet Society for Friendship and ff will be continued in the December issue of NSC.