12.10.1995

Communist discipline

From 'The Communist', paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, October 14 1920

THE COMMUNISTS have declared their adhesion to the policy of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, realising that pure and unqualified democracy is not practicable during a revolutionary period or during a time of transition. This abandonment of democratic form for the time being must be carried into Party organisation in order that our forces may be used to the greatest possible advantage. Membership of the Party must be understood to involve rigid discipline, a discipline which is not blind, but which is voluntarily submitted to for the better coordination of our efforts.

A spirit of discipline and devotion to duty has been a characteristic of the Russian comrades, and this willingness to carry out unpleasant tasks in order to achieve the Party’s ends has placed them in their unique position as the advanced posts of the vanguard of the workers of the world.

This must be our standard. Only by voluntary discipline of this description can communists fit themselves for the task of guiding the unthinking masses. If a revolutionary situation arises, with its resulting migration of the mass organisations of the workers to the ‘left’, we should only be able to fully exploit its possibility if the Party acted and spoke as if with a single mind and voice.