Tactics of the party¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter, drawn from a party document, sets out the tactical orientation for the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) following a period of overly optimistic forecasting. The core argument is a correction of perspective: the party had anticipated a far more rapid tempo of revolutionary development, leading to an overestimation of its own growth possibilities. This error, if uncorrected, risks demoralising the cadres. The chapter therefore mandates a shift from expecting spectacular gains toward a period of slow growth and entrenchment, focusing on propaganda work, trade union activity, and factory organisation.
The key strategic arena identified is the Labour Party. The chapter insists on maintaining and increasing connections within it, particularly where Leagues of Youth exist. This is not a turn away from independent revolutionary organisation but a tactical penetration of the mass workers’ party, where the bulk of the class remains. The Communist Party is also identified as a crucial sphere of work. The chapter notes that the campaign around the Moscow and Nuremberg Trials has created grave doubts among Communist Party rank-and-file, forcing the Stalinist leadership to soften its characterisation of Trotskyists as “fascists”. This opens favourable prospects for winning over Communist militants, ex-members, and advanced workers.
The industrial field is presented as the ground where Trotskyism has already established itself as a recognised tendency. Trotskyists are respected in the trade unions and factories, and even where workers are not yet ready to join the party, they have the ear of considerable sections of the working class. Similarly, in the armed forces, Trotskyists are known as a revolutionary wing, and the chapter anticipates attracting cadres from this virile section of proletarian youth.
The chapter draws on the Marxist science of perspectives, insisting that the present political lull must be used to raise the theoretical level of the cadres—not only in economics and philosophy but especially in the method of analysing conjunctural developments. The polemic is implicit but clear: against any ultra-left impatience or sectarian withdrawal from the Labour Party and the Communist Party. The party must patiently explain the policy of the Fourth International, participate in and lead real industrial struggles, and organise any left wing that can be developed within the Labour Party. The ultimate aim is to build a serious revolutionary force, ready for the moment when working-class illusions in the Labour Party collapse and decisive struggles open out.