4. Programme

Fascism has been the main means that the landowning and finance oligarchy has used to submit the popular masses and to carry out the economic development of the country through the monopolist via. This double character, monopolist (imperialist) and at the same time fascist, is the main characteristic of the Spanish State.

With the development of the big industry, the capitalist agriculture, the large-scale trade, the transports, etc., and with the merging of all the economic sectors with the bank and the State put at its service, the oligarchy has created the material conditions necessary for the realization of socialism; it has also made the proletariat grow and educates it in the school of the almost permanent civil war.

According to the abovementioned general considerations, the pending revolution in Spain can only have a socialist character. In our country there is no intermediate revolutionary stage, no missing link in the historic chain, previous to the socialist revolution. Therefore, the strategic objective pursued by the Party is the destruction of the fascist State, the expropriation of the finance-landowning oligarchy and the establishment of the People's Republic.

The proletariat is the most exploited and oppressed class, the best organized and the most revolutionary of the population and, due to that, besides being the class called to lead the other people's sectors, it constitutes the main motor force of the revolution. Together with the working class, the small peasants and many other workers and semiproletarians (small haulage contractors, employees, self-employed workers, etc.), the peoples of the oppressed nationalities and the progressive intellectuals can take an active part in the struggle for the overthrowing of capitalism or remain neutral.

Among those sectors, the closest to the proletariat are the semiproletarians and small peasants who are charged with debts by the banks. In the perspective of their future interests, all those sectors are objectively interested in the socialist revolution although they hesitate continuously between the consistent democratic and revolutionary positions of the proletariat and the bourgeois reformism. The tactics of the Party seeks to attract them to the side of the proletariat, with the aim of overthrowing the finance and landowning oligarchy by force and winning the petty bourgeoisie or trying to neutralize it.

The Party cannot aim at leading the working class directly from the present situation to the seizure of power. For this it is necessary to count with certain inner and external conditions, with a powerful organization and with many political experiences, both on the part of the masses and on that of the Party itself. All this will have to appear or will be created in the course of the revolutionary struggle and in the very process of overthrowing of the capitalist regime.

With the establishment of the People's Republic a new period is opened which goes from the overthrowing of the fascist and imperialist State to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This period covers a short transition stage that can also be considered as the beginning of the socialist restructuring, which will have to be presided by a provisional government acting as the organ of the ample masses of the people in arms. The main mission of this government will be to crush the violent opposition of the big bourgeoisie and other reactionary sectors and to guarantee the calling of really free elections to a Constituent Assembly. This Assembly will draw up a Constitution and will elect the new democratic government.

The Programme of the Party for this stage of transition can be summarized in the following points:

Only a revolutionary government formed by the representatives of the people's organizations acting as the organ of the victorious people's insurrection, will have the strength and authority necessary to organize the elections to an assembly of representatives of the people. Under the new government the complete demolition of the old bourgeois State machine will be carried out; the basis upon which the domination and the privileges of capital are built will be demolished from its foundations (since this is the first condition for any truly democratic and people's revolution); and all the economic and social transformations necessary will start immediately facilitating in this way the establishment of the people's power and, within it, the political hegemony of the proletariat.

Any power that prides itself on being popular must be based on the people in arms and on the political organizations that are authentically democratic. The revolutionary masses will be able to defend their conquests and to exert control upon their Government organizing their own army and the militia and basing themselves on the political organs of power.

The people's masses must be able to elect freely and to revoke, if it were necessary, their representatives. Councils will be elected in each factory, agricultural exploitation, military unit, teaching centre, town, city, district, etc. These will be the organs of decision and execution of the new power, with autonomy and authority to organize and lead any kind of social activities: from labour to sports and from the militia to the administration of justice.

All the communist, independentist, anarchist, anti-militarist, anti-imperialist and antifascist prisoners will be immediately released. This is nowadays a deep aspiration which cannot be delayed. However, it will be necessary to make justice with the counter-revolutionary torturers and criminals. Those who had stood out in the repression will be arrested and exemplarily punished, which will be in charge of the People's Courts. This will not be done for a desire of revenge but for a political need since the reactionaries, even after the revolution, will still try to recover power and the lost privileges; for this reason, the revolution will have to defend itself from them, repressing and dissuading them.

The revolution will carry out the nationalization of the fundamental means of production. It is not a question of expropriating the savings nor the small property legitimately acquired through the personal or family work and effort, such as the land of the small peasants and all those objects of personal or domestic use (like houses, cars, etc.). The new power will fit out the uninhabited houses for the homeless families and people. Besides, the nationalized capital and big companies will depend on the State and will be controlled by the Workers' and People's Councils or Committees. In this way, the workers will become the effective owners of the nationalized economy putting it at their own service.

The principle of self-determination is a universally admitted right of the political democracy which the new State born out of the revolution in Spain must put into practice. In the shortest period of time possible, a referendum will be held so that the peoples of the nationalities will decide on their own if they wish to separate to establish a different State or if they want to remain united at a level of absolute economic, political and cultural equality. In any case, the new government, the political parties and the people's organizations will have to respect the decision freely expressed by the peoples of the nationalities and to facilitate the exercise of all their rights.

The New People's Power will carry out the expropriation of the counter-revolutionaries, of all those who had actively collaborated with the counter-revolution, even if they are small owners. The rest, those who are on the people's side, will be helped by the State in an effective way through low or non-interest-bearing loans, paying just prices for their products, providing them with technical support, etc. These measures will be in accordance with the political and economic interests of the revolution.

After the overthrowing of the oligarchy, the main means of printing, distribution, mass media, etc. will be controlled and managed by the people through their representative organizations. Only in this way can be secured the exercise of the right of expression and the right to a true and objective information, as well as to a truly democratic culture.

As regards to the right of strike we must take into account that we will be in a transition stage in which a certain type of small and medium-size private property will still exist. Under these conditions the New People's Power will have to guarantee the rights of strike and demonstration both to prevent the unfair measures of the government and, mainly, to struggle against the arbitrariness which will unavoidably appear on the part of the small and middle industrialists.

Together with the application of the principles of peaceful coexistence, the new State will give all its support to the struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations and will give priority in its relations to the countries liberated from the imperialist yoke, strengthening the tides of friendship and cooperation. In this way, it will contribute to the cause of the world revolution isolating and weakening imperialism.

5. Political line

5.1 The main objective of the political action of the Party

When carrying out our general task, we have to take into account that the masses do not constitute a homogeneous whole since in them we can find different degrees of political consciousness and organization. We could say that the mass movement is formed by three main sectors. First, the syndical struggle of the workers, the protest and citizens' vindications and other kinds of sectorial struggles. At a higher level we find the groups and organizations which carry out the denounce of State terrorism, the solidarity with the political prisoners, the struggle against imperialism and militarism, etc., and which put forward several political demands to the Government. This can be described as the intermediate level, since it has a higher degree of political consciousness. Above this level we find the organized political movement of resistance; this movement does not limit itself to the economic and social struggle, nor does it merely denounce the abuses and outrages of power, but besides, it aims at overthrowing it and makes constant preparations in all fields to achieve it. This is the most conscious and best organized sector; it constitutes the vanguard and it is formed, mainly, by the Party and the guerrilla.

In its greatest part, the working and people's movement is not conscious of the need of overthrowing the capitalist State, even if it is openly confronted to it and struggles against it. This situation imposes the Party the task of raising the level of political consciousness of the masses in order to make them assume its Programme and organize themselves to carry it out. With this aim we must, before anything, link the most advanced sector to the leadership of the Party so that, leaning on it, we can attract the intermediate sector, raise the level of the most backward one and win both for the cause.

This important task cannot be separated from the general struggle against the capitalist system and, in particular, from the political struggle. In this field the Party pursues today, as its main objective, the political and social isolation of the regime with the aim of being able to concentrate against it all the revolutionary forces in order to destroy it. With this aim it organizes and advocates for the boycott to the State, to its institutions and laws, to its electoral farces as well as to the parties and trade-unions that support it. In this sense, it is necessary to make clear that our boycott tactics obeys to the nature of the political regime of Spain. This is a general tactics, but the Party does not consider boycott a question of principle; and it cannot be discarded that under specific political circumstances we could advocate for the participation in the elections if this contributes to isolate fascism, and finally, to raise the revolutionary consciousness of the masses and to organize them for the struggle for the seizure of power.

The Party does not recognize nor complies with the Constitution, which legalizes the monarchical fascist regime imposed by Franco and the Army and which establishes the system of capitalist exploitation and the national oppression. The Party calls upon the masses to oppose this regime in the most resolute way, to organize independently of it, to spread the protest, the civil disobedience and to use all means of resistance. At the same time as it organizes and encourages this movement, the Party must explain to all the workers the importance of the struggle for the democratic rights and liberties and, specially, of the struggle against State terrorism, against the special laws and courts of repression and against the systematic application of torture to the political detainees and prisoners.

5.2 Strengthening the independent organization of the working class

It is specially in the big factories that concentrate the largest, the most combative and best organized nuclei of the proletariat, where the Party must centre its forces promoting, wherever it is present, the most advanced forms of organization and methods of struggle which have already been tested or that have been created by the very mass movement.

It is necessary to develop the independent syndical movement of the working class, organizing it on the basis of assemblies and commissions of delegates elected in them through democratic procedures in order to act united against the economic and social policy of the Government (against the restructuring, the reduction of the social security services, etc.) and against the extenuating paces of work, the degrading rules and other abuses of the employers.

The economic struggles and those for immediate improvements for the workers are one of the most important forms that the class struggle adopts in the bourgeois society. The Party has the mission of organizing, heading and leading those struggles, since, besides counteracting the gradual empoverishment of the masses, they help to raise their consciousness and to organize them to end with the capitalist exploitation. For that reason, the Party encourages and helps the workers to create any kind of organizations (syndical, cultural, of self-defence, etc.).

As automation is developed in the big companies and factories, the number of specialised workers diminishes and that of technics and cadres increases. This tendency to the growing separation between simple and complex labour and to the continuous wage hierarchy is opposed to the egalitarian aspirations that have always existed among the working class. In general, this sector of technics and cadres, in favourable periods, behaves as an alien caste to the working class and identifies itself with the regime of the bourgeoisie. But with the outbreak of the crisis it becomes conscious of its wage-earning condition and tends to confront the employers and their State. The Party must, above all, attain to the vindications and claims of the most exploited workers, that are the immense majority, developing among them the unitary organization and struggle, which will force that other sector to choose sides.

5.3 Organizing the people's resistance movement

Starting from this principle, the PCE(r) advocates for the unity of all the people's forces and sectors which are opposed to fascism, monopolism and imperialism; at the same time, it works actively to develop different kinds of collaboration with those sectors. In this field, experience has proved many times that unity is not reached by making pacts or alliances around the table and even less by making any political and ideological concessions for that reason. The necessary unity of the people's forces can only be reached through the struggle. In the first place, carrying out an independent struggle against the oligarchy and its State; but also, at the same time, denouncing the hesitations and inconsistencies of the democratic petty-bourgeoisie and other intermediate progressive forces.

The hostility sometimes found in those sectors cannot discourage us in our determination. We have to be able to unite even with those who disagree with us since, on the contrary, what sense could it have to speak of unity? This does not exclude but implies the mutual criticism on all the aspects of the political activity.

Among all the people's sectors that are opposed to the monopolies and to fascism we highlight the peasantry. The peasantry is one of the most exploited and oppressed sectors of the population and is only one step behind the working class, whose ranks it joins constantly. For this reason it is capable of joining the struggle for socialism and, in fact, it has been openly confronting monopolism for some time. But the owner consciousness is so deeply rooted in the peasants that a persistent task of propaganda will be necessary to convince them of the inevitability and the advantages of socialism, of the superior character of the collective forms of production and of the absolute necessity of a tight political alliance with the working class.

Another important sector encouraged and supported by the Party is the one formed by the revolutionary movements of the oppressed nations which are openly confronted to the Spanish imperialist and fascist State and which make a consistent defence of their national rights.

The Party supports and encourages the struggle for the democratic exigencies that answer to the needs of the people's masses. In the struggle for the achievement of these vindications we must make an effort to reach the greatest confluence with all the sectors of the population who are interested in them; these include the anti-militarist movement, that of the students, the women who fight for their rights, the youths belonging to the people's classes and layers, that of the progressive intellectuals and, in general, all those who suffer in their flesh and conscience the consequences of the capitalist blights: unemployment, exploitation, racism, environmental deterioration, drugs, repression in all its forms, discrimination, exclusion, etc.

We must group around the working class all those forces in order to stop the constant deterioration of the living conditions and the suppression of the democratic liberties, lean on the common struggle and form a powerful antifascist and anti-imperialist people's resistance movement. In this way we will be able to win the ample masses for the cause and we will advance towards the achievement of the socialist and communist objectives of the revolution.

5.4 The struggle of resistance

The present capitalist States, due to the experiences that they have accumulated, will not allow the revolutionary working-class movement to accumulate and concentrate its forces in a peaceful way, since these States are the permanently organized counter-revolution. Today, we are not in the time of the free economic competence nor in the time of the democratico-bourgeois dictatorship, when it was still possible for the working class -as Engels pointed out- to organize itself and to use the bourgeois institutions to fight against those very institutions. The establishment of forms of power of a fascist and police type in almost all the capitalist countries has ended up by ruining and making useless the old methods of peaceful and parliamentary struggle which on the other hand has not avoided the appearance and progressive introduction of other new methods.

In Spain, during the last decades, the working class and other exploited and oppressed sectors of the population have not only received the fascist lead and spilled their blood dozens of times, but they have also combated and harassed the repressive forces with all the means at their reach; they have set up barricades and used all the violent forms of struggle inflicting them a high number of dead and wounded. This has been accompanied by strikes, by the imposition of open assemblies in the neighbourhoods, universities and working places, by the commissions of delegates, the formation of pickets and by many other methods of democratic struggle of the most advanced type.

Within this general situation, and coinciding with the beginning of the aggravation of the economic and political crisis of the regime and the intensification of the repression, the armed struggle reappears in our country in the late 60s under the form of urban guerrilla carried out by small groups or armed detachments. From that moment, the combination of the guerrilla armed actions with the strikes, demonstrations, sabotages, etc., stands out as the main form of struggle of the working-class and people's movement.

This combination of different methods of struggle forms a vast movement of new type that we call people's resistance movement.

Within this movement, the struggle of the masses and the activity of the Party play the main role. The guerrilla armed struggle and the military organization are forms of struggle and organization subordinated to the former ones. In Spain, the guerrilla will not be able to accumulate the necessary military force, capable of defeating and annihilating the fascist army on its own. The general insurrection of the masses combined with the struggle of the guerrilla army will overthrow -in due time- the capitalist State. Hence, the main objectives that the guerrilla must accomplish in this stage of politico-military struggle are: to continue supporting the movement of the masses and their organizations, to contribute to create all the conditions (political, economic, organization, military, etc.) for the incorporation of the ample masses to the struggle for power and to secure, at the same time, its own strengthening.

The functions of the armed struggle and the guerrilla organization are not limited by temporary, insurrectional or local conditions (and therefore, of a tactic character) but they are permanent. This is determined by the conditions of the economic and political regime of imperialism as well as by the crisis and the development of the class struggle. In this way, the guerrilla armed struggle becomes an essential part of the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat.

All this forces the Party to consider the armed struggle not only from the point of view of the insurrection and the revolutionary situation in general, but also and mainly, paying attention to the aspects of the organization of the guerrilla army and of the protracted people's war strategy.

The struggle of resistance will unavoidably have a protracted character, since we confront an enemy which counts with a branched and centralized State machinery, with relatively powerful means and a considerable support of international imperialism; besides, we have to discard any possibility of organizing the ample masses through the legal means which, at a given moment, would eventually allow to confront reaction and overthrow the capitalist State through an armed insurrection. This is already outdated. In our time the monopolists will not allow the masses to concentrate their forces nor will they get surprised by the outbreak of a general insurrection at a given time. Besides, under the conditions of Spain fascism will not allow any kind of minimally independent organization of the working class and of other people's sectors; it will not give any chance in this sense. Due to this, the only alternative is the political resistance and the armed struggle, so that when the insurrection breaks out it will have to be preceded by many years of resistance of the people's movement; by a period of time in which many advances and withdrawals will take place, in which the masses will have to learn to use all the methods of struggle and in which the politic and the military will have to be adequately combined.

5.5 Ensuring the political leadership of the guerrilla movement

The guerrilla armed organization is an outstanding part of the working-class and people's movement and it receives any kind of help and support from it. Had it not counted with that support and with the inexhaustible recruiting reserve formed by the masses, it would have been annihilated by reaction long time ago.

The interests of the guerrilla armed organization are not different from those of the people's masses. Therefore, its political aims cannot be others than the overthrowing of the regime of the imperialist bourgeoisie, the expropriation of the monopolies and the re-establishment of the People's Republic. The armed guerrilla actions must contribute to the achievement of these fundamental objectives and answer, at any moment, to the needs of the political movement of the masses; that is to say, they must not be isolated actions.

The guerrilla warfare is a form of civil war which exists and matures every day, -although nowadays in a latent state. Being a war, it requires military analysis and methods for it to be carried out successfully. But we must not forget that the guerrilla war, as any other war, since it is the continuation of the political struggle (although carried out by other means, the violent ones), must be led at any moment by politics, by the Party. The Party leads the gun.

The guerrilla war obeys to deep economic, political, social and historical causes. These causes are analysed by the Party in the light of Marxism-Leninism extracting from their study the general laws of this people's war, its strategy and tactics. The elaboration of the programme and the strategy are not within the reach of the armed organization as such; they are only within the reach of the Party and constitute its main tasks.

On the other hand, it is necessary to keep a strict organization separation between the Party and the guerrilla. The movement of resistance and the Communist Party itself have to fulfil multiple tasks that do not fit, in any way, with the rigidity of an army or a militarized movement. The struggles of the ample masses of workers and toilers need the political leadership of the Communist Party. The Party channels their revolutionary ardour and determination synthesizing the experiences of their struggles and spreading them. The Party, as vanguard detachment and leading nucleus of the proletariat, is the best prepared to fulfil successfully the tasks of a fundamentally political character, and it is its duty to do so. In case it didn't do it, the movement of the ample masses would be easily disorientated and deviated, falling into demoralization. The Party ensures, at the same time, the connection between the guerrilla and the political movement of the ample masses. The establishment of these links allows the Party to give continuity to the guerrilla warfare promoting the incorporation of the antifascist youth to its ranks and nurturing them with experienced and firm communists.

On their part, the members of the Party who develop their activity in the guerrilla organizations defend the consistently democratic and revolutionary positions of the proletariat within them, taking into account the popular character of these organizations and being an example of bravery and devotion. The presence of the communists in the guerrilla and their political and ideological tasks strengthen the inner unity and the discipline of the military organization providing it with a high moral of combat and a wide perspective; at the same time, they guarantee the justness of their actions, as well as the election of the best moment to carry them out and the right means to achieve their objectives.

5.6 The struggle against the national oppression

Assuming the national question and the national vindications that capitalism has left unsolved -and which cannot have a solution under this system-, the working class gives them a socially different content. For the workers, the struggle for the national rights is indissolubly linked to their class interests, to the struggle for the political power, to the struggle for socialism. Hence, the principle of proletarian internationalism, the union of the workers of the different nationalities, is the basis to solve the national question in Spain.

On this basis leans the revolutionary proletariat to defend the right to separation and independence of Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia and to struggle tiredlessly for its recognition. The focus of attention of the Party in the labour of internationalist education of the workers has to be in the denounce of the Spanish chauvinism and in the advocacy for the defence of the freedom of separation of the nations which are oppressed by the State. But, in order to avoid the use of this activity by the reactionary bourgeois nationalism to mar the class consciousness of the workers, dividing them according to their nation to subordinate them to their interests, the communists in each of these nations, on their part, have to advocate for and make propaganda of the voluntary union, on the basis of an absolute national equality, of all the workers and peoples who are exploited and oppressed by the same State.

Up to this moment, the possibility that, within the frame of the Spanish State, one or several nationalities opted for the independence was something quite improbable. However, due to the sharpening of the crisis of the capitalist system and to the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions and their repercussion in Spain, that possibility cannot be completely discarded. For this reason, the Party, consistently with its defence of the right to self-determination and in order to weaken the fascist State, will not doubt in supporting these peoples in the case they decide to separate from the State and proclaim their independence.

The struggle against the national oppression forms part and is merged to the struggle for the democratic liberties and to the struggle for socialism; they are united and there is no complete solution for none of them separately. For this reason, starting from the national singularity, it is indispensable to integrate them in a single stream of revolutionary struggle capable of breaking all the dams of the division and confusion imposed by the system and to destroy the State. This will be the only guarantee to conquer the political, social and national rights of each and every of the peoples.

5.7 The struggle against imperialism and the danger of war

Imperialism is not a homogeneous whole since its imposition exacerbates and makes the contradictions of capitalism even more complex. This takes place because imperialism is not only essentially characterized by the monopolies but by the monopolies plus the exchange, the market, the small and medium-size production, the competence and the crisis.

In the race to defeat their competitors, the monopolist States take measures of a protectionist type and then they reproach each other about it; they practice dumping, limit the investments, require compensations, etc. Unlike during the first half of the century, when the areas of friction were mainly located in the colonies and semi-colonies, nowadays the axe of the monopolist struggles has moved to the internal markets of the imperialist countries, which gives the competence a greater aggressiveness.

It is true that not everything in the relations among the capitalist powers is based on the policy of force and on the confrontation. There are also alliances and peace agreements that are similar to truces between wars. However, in periods of general crisis as the present one such agreements are only partial aspects that after a few years can be broken or become waste paper. In this way, the agreements and treaties among the capitalist States are left in a second place while the internal struggles, the antagonisms, the old rivalries and disputes take, more each time, the first place.

These rivalries, that in other times were the cause of frequent clashes, conflicts and wars, lead to new confrontations among the imperialist States for the sharing and the plundering of the world. As Lenin said: Under capitalism we cannot conceive other bases for the sharing of the spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., than the general military, financial and economic force (5).

The Spanish State does not stay aside from this conflict and it is ready to participate in the slaughter, sharing and plundering as any other imperialist country. All this, the danger of war, the support of the NATO military-informative complex to the Spanish repressive machinery and army, the military expenses -which fall on the popular classes- and the possibility of using our youth as cannon fodder in the aggressive expeditions of imperialism, are some problems that, among others, affect millions of people. This situation is making up a widespread movement of protest and refusal which counts not only with the participation of the working class and the youth (its true support and driving force) but also of other important social sectors. In this way, the movement against militarism, against the Yankee bases established in our territory and against the NATO, is linked more each time to the whole movement of resistance that struggles to overthrow the regime and the pillars that sustain it.

Within the framework of capitalism we will never be able to prevent its imperialist and aggressive tendencies; before it is necessary to end with the causes and the power that nurtures and originates them. Due to this, if the struggle against imperialism lacked revolutionary objectives, it would not achieve, even at the very best, anything but certain promises snatched at the government. Hence, without discarding the fact that in the course of the struggle it is possible to force the imperialist forces to withdraw, we must take into account that only the overthrowing of the regime of the monopolies will, as a last resort, be able to dismantle the Yankee bases of our country, to separate us from the imperialist bloc and, finally, to weaken the world reaction.

We think that nowadays there are three fronts of struggle against imperialism: the one formed by the socialist countries, that formed by the oppressed peoples and nations and the front of struggle that exists within the very imperialist countries. These three fronts form part of the same general combat against imperialism and reaction and they complement and support each other.

The development of the class struggle in each country, specially the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, is one of the most important factors of the imperialist disintegration. Nowadays, US imperialism and its military instrument, the NATO, are still the main enemies of all the peoples in the world, who therefore, must be alert and concentrate all their forces against them. However, considering the possibility of the outbreak of World War III, the revolutionary proletariat will not make any distinction among the adversary sides, since given the development of the events, it will be an imperialist, unfair and plundering war on both sides.

The Party is opposed to the imperialist war. And in the case that it took place, it must declare itself defeatist; that is to say, it will advocate and will make anything possible to achieve the defeat of the State of our own bourgeoisie and the transformation of the imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war.

5.8 Making the revolution in our country and contributing to its triumph in the entire world

In the situation of generalized crisis of imperialism and of serious danger of war, the unity of the workers and of the oppressed peoples and nations of the entire world becomes more necessary and urgent than before in order to carry out to its last consequences the struggle against the monopolist bourgeoisie and imperialism. Within this ample front of struggle, the working class and the communist parties and organizations stand out as the main and most resolute revolutionary force. The socialist States also play an outstanding role; for this reason they cannot be considered isolatedly, since they form part of the world revolution and they must serve it as an advance party and means to accelerate its development.

It is on the basis of this conception how the revolutionary proletariat has to fulfil the duplicity of its national and international tasks. There is only one effective internationalism -Lenin explained- that consists of devoting oneself to the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle within one's own country, and supporting (through propaganda, moral and material help) this struggle, this line of behaviour, and only this one in all countries without exception (6).

The idea that the workers have not motherland is nowadays more valid than ever. But as long as the capitalist States and the national differences exist, the struggle between the exploited and the exploiters will have a national or State framework. Revolution is a matter of the people of each country and its triumph depends on its degree of political maturity. This fact does not exclude the need of an organization that represents the big army of the international proletariat.

As regards this we consider a positive aspect the aspiration to the establishment of a world revolutionary centre, whose necessity is each time more deeply felt. However, this must not bring about the repetition of old mistakes. As Lenin said, the unity of the international tactics of the communist working-class movement in all countries will require, not the suppression of the variety, not the suppression of the national peculiarities (which is nowadays an absurd dream) but such an application of the essential principles of communism... that it modifies adequately these principles in their details, adapting and applying them adequately to the national and national-statal peculiarities (7). According to this tactics, and following the formula applied by the I International, we advocate for the creation of a central of orientation, communication and international cooperation that allows the mutual support and the exchange of experiences among the communist organizations and parties of the entire world, being capable at the same time of organizing joint actions.

6. General programme of the Party for the transition to communism

6.1 Historical need of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat

The working class cannot merely appropriate the bourgeois State -which is aimed at safeguarding the capitalist private property and repressing the workers- in order to put it at its service (like the bourgeois revolutionaries did with the feudal machinery), but it must destroy the bourgeois bureaucratic and military machinery that supports it and establish through the revolutionary dictatorship its own State of working-class democracy. The State of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which applies the repression and the restriction of the rights of the exploiting minority, means -in opposition to the bourgeois democracy or capitalist dictatorship- the highest degree of democracy and freedom ever achieved by the workers.

The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat will have to be prolonged necessarily through a long historical period, in accordance with the tasks that must be undertaken during this stage of revolutionary transformation of the class society into another without classes or communist. This period will last as long as the classes are not abolished, as long as the ideas that derive from these social relations are not subverted and as long as the class State does not disappear as a form of the past.

In socialism, like in capitalism, society steps forwards boosted by its own inner contradictions. This is a universal law. In socialism the classes and the class struggle, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between the economic basis and the political and ideological superstructure and other contradictions still exist. From all of them, during the whole socialist period the main contradiction in society is the one that confronts the proletariat with the bourgeoisie, although that contradiction may have a different character and adopt different forms.

The Communist Party will have to study the character or nature of each and every contradiction to give them a just solution. In particular, it will have to take into account that in socialism, as Mao Zedong teaches: We are confronted by two types of social contradictions: contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among the people. These two types of contradictions have a different nature [...] The contradictions between ourselves and our enemies are antagonistic ones. Within the ranks of the people, contradictions among the working people are non-antagonistic. Therefore, the contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and those within the people, since they are of a different nature, must be solved using different methods: for the first one the coercive, the dictatorship; for the second: -for the people- the education and persuasion, that is to say, democracy (9).

As long as the socialist historical stage does not end, the working class will have to use the State to exert its dictatorship in order to defeat the exploiting classes which, as Lenin says, will oppose a long, desperate, stubborn resistance and will unavoidably have hopes of restoration, hopes that will become attempts at restoration (10).

At the beginning, after their overthrowing, the bourgeoisie, the large-estate owners, the bourgeois intellectuals, etc., lose their political power, their organized head, but they do not disappear as a class. In socialism, the bourgeoisie continues reproducing itself incontrollably, in the old manner, both in the economic basis (through the small production) and in the superstructure (through the old ideas, the force of habit, etc.); but it also acquires other new connotations since it settles in the bureaucracy of the State and in the Party from where it tries to snatch the leadership and change the revolutionary political line. If this takes place, the socialist development will stagnate and the contradictions within society will become antagonistic in a short term. Due to all this it is indispensable to exert the dictatorship over the bourgeoisie in all the spheres and to carry out the class struggle. With respect to this, Mao Zedong, synthesising all the positive and negative experiences of the construction of socialism, maintained that the leadership of the revolutionary process must always be exerted from the predominance of the political and ideological leadership of the Party.

Once established the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party will have to centre its attention on solving the contradiction that the very existence of the socialist State implies. This contradictory situation becomes evident in the fact that while, on the one hand, the State constitutes the means of the dictatorship of the proletariat to crush the counter-revolution and to organize the new society, on the other hand, it becomes the main bastion of everything old and outdated that remains in society. Hence, the need of marching always forwards, towards communism and the complete extinction of the State; the need that the masses, led by the proletariat and the Communist Party, exert a tight control upon the State organizations and that the masses themselves assume, effectively and not only in theory, the leadership in all the spheres of the economic, political, cultural and administrative life in order to counteract the absorbent tendency of the State and to reduce its functions to the minimum. Of course, this objective will not be completely achieved as long as the classes and the class conflicts that require the existence of the State as a special means of repression do not disappear completely. Only from the moment in which the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes no longer necessary, there will be no reason for the State to exist. The first act in which the State reveals itself as representative of the society in general -the appropriation of the means of production in the name of the whole society- will be at the same time its last independent act as such State. The intervention of the State Power in the social relations will become unnecessary in one field after another, and it will fall asleep by itself. The power upon the people will be substituted by the administration of the goods and the management of the production processes. The State will not be ‘abolished’, it will extinguish (11).

An essential condition for the development of that process of extinction of the State will be the existence of a communist mass movement led and stimulated by a communist party that will keep on acting as a real vanguard and that, for this, will keep an alert attitude as regards the State in order to guarantee the overcoming of the problems and the uninterrupted advance towards communism. With this aim, the Party must exert its action from above (from the organs of the State and the Government, without ever identifying nor subduing to them); it must exert pressure, at the same time, from below promoting the participation and the struggle of the masses and keeping in mind the ultimate objectives of communism. If the Party did not do so, those positions would be occupied by revisionism and by the new bourgeois class that, in socialism, appears from the old relations of production and from the bureaucracy and whose interests are to perpetuate the relations of exploitation and oppression upon the people's masses.

Conscious of that, the Party, as the leading nucleus of the whole revolutionary process, bases its strategy on the movement of the masses and the maintenance of the tightest links with them; it promotes their creative capacity; it calls upon them for the firm and consistent defence of the revolutionary conquests against the restoration attempts of the old and new bourgeoisie and it submits itself to the open criticism of the masses, as an important means to correct its inevitable mistakes.

6.2 The economic policy in the period of transition

In socialism, the social property of the means of production determines the objective need of the planned and proportional development of economy. This is one of the fundamental economic laws of the transition to communism.

The law of the maximum profit, the anarchy in the production and the law of value as factors that regulate spontaneously the economy under capitalism disappear in the socialist economy with the suppression of the private character of the property of the means of production. In socialism it is a question of putting the social property of the means of production in accordance with the social character of production. Upon this basis is established the planned and proportional development of the economy, which makes possible the elaboration and putting into practice of the plans of production and distribution.

The planning covers a series of economic, political and ideological measures that, although they reflect an objective reality, are going to act upon it to transform it. The relative importance and the supremacy of politics upon economy lie in this.

In socialism the same laws of the capitalist exploitation, competence and commerce cannot rule, nor can the market and the capitalist competence determine the prices. In socialism, the true regulators are politics and economic planning -orientated according to the short and long-term interests of the masses. This complies with the degree of development reached by the social productive forces. In the socialist society the economic development cannot be separated from the general social and cultural one; it is an economic, social, political, technological and ideological process that must be accompanied, besides, by the establishment of new international economic relations.

The relations of production do not only include the systems of property, but also the human relations in the labour and the system of distribution. Socialism, as a society of transition, inherits from capitalism the division of labour that is present in the contradiction between the countryside and the cities (in the separation between the industrial and commercial labour, on the one hand, and the agricultural labour, on the other), as well as that between the manual and the intellectual labour. Apart from that, the continuity of the bourgeois law -which is expressed in the principle of distribution to each one according to his labour- and the tendency observed in certain sectors of society to violate it and to create new layers of privileged, compel the State to assume firmly the tasks of avoiding the outrageous application of that principle and regulating the bourgeoisie law until making it disappear. All this cannot be separated from the political and ideological struggle (the struggle against the old ideas, the old habits and customs, etc.). In this way become evident the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production and that which confronts the economic basis with the political and ideological superstructure. Since, although it is true that in socialism the revolution establishes a certain balance or correspondence between them, this factor is only partial and relative, inasmuch as the imbalance is absolute and determines the constant development of the relations of production.

The establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the fundamental premise for the overthrowing of the old relations and their substitution by new ones, but this will only be achieved through a long and exacerbated class struggle; this struggle takes place essentially in the dominion of the superstructure and must cover all the aspects of life. This is so because the producers' appropriation of the fundamental means of production does not provoke automatically the corresponding changes in the new relations of production nor, therefore, in the superstructure which is linked to them; in which the overthrown -although not defeated yet- bourgeoisie has its last hereditary dominion.

6. 3.Transformation and integral development of man

That further which Lenin refers to covers both the transformation and the complete development of man, for which the formation of a communist mass movement is essential. Only this justifies historically the stage of socialist transition.

The communist Saturdays were the first experiences of this new revolution which Lenin described as more difficult, more essential, more radical and more decisive than the overthrowing of the bourgeoisie, since it is a victory obtained over the very routine and undiscipline, over the petty-bourgeois selfishness, over all those habits that the damned capitalism has left in inheritance to the worker and the peasant (13). Lenin also extracted the essential teachings from those first great achievements of the future of humanity, pointing out among other things that: The ‘communist’ starts only when the communist Saturdays appear, that is to say, the non-paid labour of the individuals non-subject to norms by any power nor State in benefit of society at a large scale (14).

The idea that conceives the development of the new socialist society in terms of development of the productive forces, using for that exclusively the technique and the material incentives, is the conception of the bourgeoisie that modern revisionism has put into practice. We must not be surprised, therefore, that this idea has led many countries to stagnation, to the economic, political, social and moral bankruptcy and finally to the re-establishment of the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Such disaster has taken place because, in fact, revisionism does not represent interests different to those of the bourgeois class and imperialism; it does not aim at ending with exploitation and, therefore, it will never be able to remove the obstacles that appear in the path of the transition to communism.

One of the clearest facts that reveals the bourgeois revisionist policy is the one that makes of the material incentives the main motive for the increase of the workers' production well as the essential motivation of their social and political activities. In the struggle against revisionism, Mao put the emphasis on how mistaken and harmful such policy is, arguing that: even if we admit that the material incentive is an important principle, it cannot be absolutely the only one. There must be another principle: the incentive of the spirit in the politico-ideological dominion. Besides, the material incentive must not be treated only in terms of personal interests. It must also be treated in terms of collective interests, of precedence of the collective interests over the personal ones, of priority of the long-term interests over the immediate ones (15).

The material interest conceived from the point of view of certain individuality only reproduces the division of labour, in which it is based, and far from eliminating the contradictions between one and other sectors of society, it aggravates them even more, since the specialisation, the raising of the knowledges, the study, etc., would have as objective for each person to have greater individual incomes and not to serve the community. The expert, the intellectual and the civil servant separate in this way from the rest of the community to preserve their particular interests, their status, and tend to consolidate the old capitalist relations of production.

Revisionism breaks the relationship between the collective interests and the individual interest, taking the latter as the decisive factor of the production and of the existence of society itself; it also eliminates the political conscience as motor force and motive of the individuals, whose attention should be channelled into the building up of communism. In fact, in this way revisionism renounces to that future beforehand since it does not take into account that the individual is an element of the community and that the individual interests improve as the public interests progress (16).

Although it is true that, in the socialist society, labour does not still constitute the first vital need for everyone, the new relations of production are not going to be created only through the material interest, but through the education and voluntary mobilisation of the masses to do the labour and the communist distribution. Man transforms nature and society through production and the politico-social struggle and, at the same time, he transforms himself. Socialism, abolishing the exploitation of man by man, creates the premises for the formation of the universal personality (which will be reached in communism) upon the basis of the new economic and social conditions, of the ideological, political and moral education. This need made Mao Zedong conceive the Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which constitutes, together with the transformations of the systems of property and the development of production and culture, one of the essential conditions for the transition to communism.

The communist labour and the emulation that put in tension the courageous initiative of the masses and their enterprising spirit, are the indispensable bases for the establishment of the new relations of production. These bases will allow to take other equally necessary steps to end with the social classes, such as the integration of intellectuals, techniques, cadres and workers in manual and intellectual work groups, the rural industrialization that allows the formation of peasant-workers, and the suppression of the contradiction between the city and the countryside. Only in this way can the division of labour be left aside and can the relations of production that correspond to the productive forces of communism be created.

In this way the new man, the universal man, will be born in accordance with the economic transformations that, through the revolutionary via and after the seizure of power by the proletariat, will leave capitalism in the childhood of history consciously made by men themselves.

home CPS José Díaz Joan Comorera

Notes:

(5) Lenin: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
(6) Lenin: On the tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution.
(7) Lenin: ‘Left-wing’ Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
(8) K. Marx: Criticism to Gotha's Programme.
(9) Mao Zedong: On the correct Handling of contradictions Among the people.
(10) Lenin: The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.
(11) F.Engels: Anti-Dühring, quoted by Lenin in The State and Revolution.
(12) Lenin: VII Extraordinary Congress of the Bolshevik CP.
(13) Lenin: A Great Initiative.
(14) Lenin: Report on the Communist Saturdays.
(15) Mao Zedong: Reading Notes of the Manual of Political Economy of the USSR Science Academy.
(16) Mao Zedong: Reading Notes of the Manual of Political Economy of the USSR Science Academy.