07.12.1995

A leftwing programme for the ILP

From 'The Communist', paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, December 9, 1920

AS THE left wing of the ILP [Independent Labour Party - ed] has no organ through which to express its views, and as it is increasingly evident that large sections of the ILP are anxious to hear them, we have much pleasure in giving publicity to the suggested programme printed below.

Draft programme for the ILP

1. Object: The ILP is a communist organisation whose aim is to destroy the present capitalist system ...

2. Communist administration: Administration will be by independent and social councils, local and national, which will mean administration by the workers engaged therein - manual and technical ...

3. Transition period: The necessary condition for the social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat ...

4. Immediate demands: The experience of the last generation of political activity has shown plainly that advocacy of reformism ... has afforded the governing classes and their special pleaders opportunity after opportunity of obscuring the revolutionary issue and placating discontent by affecting to grant immediate and ‘practical demands’. The ILP therefore declares for an unceasing and relentless attack upon capitalism ... which will cause the governing classes continually to throw out sops ...

5. International: ... The ILP ... seeks immediate affiliation to the Third or Communist International ...

6. Method: The ILP asserts that the best means of affecting a social revolution is for organised workers to prepare themselves to take over the industrial machine ...