A bridge to the masses¶
Core Argument¶
A Bridge to the Masses
This chapter argues that the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) must urgently construct an organisational and political bridge to the organised working class, particularly through the Labour Party, as revolutionary conditions ripen. The core narrative thrust is that the RCP’s previous isolation is giving way to a period of opportunity, but only if the party abandons sectarian stagnation and adopts flexible, penetrating tactics.
The text makes several key claims. First, that the transitional programme of demands will become a powerful mobilising weapon as capitalist crisis deepens, drawing in new layers of the oppressed—women, who will move from subordinate roles to the front rank, and crucially, youth. The youth, the chapter asserts, are unburdened by the cynicism of older workers betrayed by Stalinists and reformists, and the Fourth International in Britain is already attracting young workers with no prior political affiliation. Second, the chapter insists that the RCP is no longer as isolated as a decade ago; it has sympathetic contacts among the best workers in the labour movement and is winning proletarians from Stalinism. Its press has stable circulation among left-wing workers in industrial areas.
The historical and theoretical context is the post-war conjuncture of 1944-45, where the Labour Party is experiencing unprecedented growth, particularly among youth, and a left-centrist wing is emerging. The chapter draws on the classic Trotskyist tactic of the United Front and the strategic orientation toward the Labour Party as the mass party of the British working class. It reaffirms the 1944 Fusion Conference document that prioritises building the independent revolutionary party and raising the RCP’s banner directly before the workers, subordinating all factional work to that end.
Notably, the chapter contains a significant polemical tension within its own ranks. While reaffirming the primacy of independent organisation, it immediately opens the door to the opposite tactic: entryism. It warns that stagnation, isolation from militant workers, and Labour’s growth could “immediately pose anew” the task of throwing the party’s weight into the Labour Party, even “illegally,” and that the party may have to temporarily liquidate its open organisation and press. This is a direct argument against those who would cling to open work at all costs, and it frames the choice not as a matter of principle but as a practical problem to be decided by conference as the struggle develops. The chapter concludes by calling for the party to rise to its historic tasks, penetrating all strata of toilers and learning with the masses to build the mass Bolshevik Party capable of conquering power.