On the Role of the Communist League in the Class Struggle Today

Since the founding of the Workers Party last year, the League has been somewhat adrift as an organization. The reason for this was simple: After the WPA was formed, much of the work of the League was transferred to it; thus a vacuum was created, but nothing filled it.

In our three previous plenary sessions, we tried to figure out what our role was today, especially in relation to the public Party and its work. This work was only made more aggravating when people began to question whether or not the League continued to exist, or just became the Party.

A lot of thought has been put into this question by C.C. members, and it looks like we now have a consensus.

We look at the Workers Party and Workers’ International Industrial Union as the spear and shield of the revolutionary workers’ movement. The Party is the offensive weapon, the spear, while the Union is the defensive weapon, the shield. Our class uses these weapons to parry and strike the exploiting and oppressing classes in our ongoing struggle.

But what is the League? Quite simply, if the Workers Party is the spear, we are the tip of the spear — its leading edge, its fine and sharp point, the first place of contact.

As the Charter Organization of the Workers Party, we are its deadly and compact power. In the battle against the armed forces of the capitalist state, we are what pierces the hard armor and plunges deep into the soft tissues, wreaking havoc and causing mortal damage to our brutal enemy.

Speaking concretely, our role in relation to the public Workers Party is to probe and examine the contours of the capitalist state, to find its weak points and areas that can be exposed, and to develop forms of political work that will destabilize, disrupt and ultimately destroy that system.

The proposed integration of the self-defense structure with the overall League structure is a first step in that direction. But with that agreement comes a need for a sharper understanding of what that unity does and does not mean.

The League is not a guerrilla or terrorist organization, and rejects both methods as counterproductive and anathema to our advocating of the self-liberation of the working class. At the same time, we are not pacifists, and we will defend ourselves, our organizations and our class from any and all attacks by the armed enforcers of capitalist rule.

As the tip of the spear, this self-defense work is our primary task as the League. Our members should seek to learn the arts and sciences of defense, as well as other related fields, in order to prepare ourselves for when our services are needed — whether by our own organizations or others.

It is that last point that must also be stressed. When we speak of defending our class, its movement and organizations, this includes those groups of working people with whom we may have deep and fundamental disagreements.

As much as “an injury to one is an injury to all” is part and parcel of the WIIU and the principles of revolutionary industrial unionism, so too is it a core principle in the self-defense work of the League today. We will defend any working people’s organization or movement, meeting or action, that is under threat from the exploiting and oppressing classes.

Finally, three more points should be emphasized and stressed to all League members: First, the League remains a political organization first and foremost. While our chief task is defense of our movement, arms in hand if necessary, that task is always guided by our organization’s principles.

Attempts to substitute anything in place of our Basic Principles would be tantamount to liquidating the League into little more than a radical version of “fight club.”

Second, while we take this step as the League, we should not let it detract from our work in the Workers Party, the WIIU, the Red Star Society or other organizations. Even though the League is taking on this work, our principle of working for revolutionary transformation as peacefully as humanly possible remains above our understanding of the importance and need for active workers’ self-defense.

Third, and finally, we must never forget that our organization, like the Party, Union and all others, does not exist solely for ourselves. We are an instrument in the hands of our class — a crafted tool, a specialized weapon. Without that interaction and relationship to our class, we are little more than form without content, an empty shell.

Through the pages of a relaunched paper, and in conjunction with our allied organizations, we can secure a place for the League in the class struggle today as a proletarian political organization that seeks to prepare our brothers and sisters for the coming class battles in every possible way.

We are the tip of the spear: hardened but not brittle, sharpened but not harmful to those that wield us.