The Struggle over the Proletarian Line – some basic Issues of Party Building Revolutionary Way 4+5

“Subsequent to the breakdown of the petty-bourgeois student movement in 1968-1969, many intellectuals recog- nized that, without the striking power of the working class, the capitalist exploitative system cannot be eliminated. What was to be done?

The KPD/DKP (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands/ Deutsche Kommunistische Partei – Communist Party of Germany/German Communist Party) had degenerated into revisionism and wrote the ‘peaceful road to socialism’ on its pink banner. Therefore, the building of a revolution- ary workers’ party was an urgent necessity and was justi- fied due to the revisionist betrayal. Groups emerged which set themselves the task of party building on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. These germs of a revolutionary party were invaded by the petty-bourgeois students to ‘take over leadership of everything’ and to carry into them a petty-bourgeois political line. They got into contradiction with the class-conscious workers advocating a proletarian line.” (Foreword to Nos. 4+5)

These two issues of Revolutionärer Weg showed how the proletarian road of party building under worker leadership was able to prevail against the petty-bourgeois students’ claim to leadership. They take a position on many basic issues of party building: orientation to the working class, democratic centralism as organizational principle, or the relationship of the Marxist-Leninist party to the revolu- tionary youth league.

In 1972, in a situation with countless splits in the socalled “Marxist-Leninist movement,” the unification of KAB(ML) und KPD/ML(RW) (Revolutionärer Weg) into the KABD (Kommunistischer Arbeiterbund Deutschlands – Communist Workers’ League of Germany) was a signal of seminal importance! Now the task was to comprehensively create the prerequisites for the founding of a Marxist-Leninist party.

With this aim in mind, the purpose of Revolutionärer Weg, No. 10, Some Basic Issues of Party Building, was to clarify basic issues of party building and determine the fundamental aspects of party building. It is an excellent introduction to Marxist-Leninist party building in its five fundamental aspects:

• Marxism-Leninism, the ideological basis of the party.

• The program, the political line of the party.

• The organization, the instrument for practical party work.

• Democratic centralism, the organizational principle of the party.

• Criticism and self-criticism, the law of development of the party.