We resolve to found the Revolutionary Communist Party.
We do so standing on the brink of the most tempestuous years ever faced by British capitalism. The bourgeoisie plan to navigate the rising storm with barbarous attacks on the working class.
Detonations of popular anger are inevitable, but will dissipate like steam unless channelled by proletarian organisations and directed against their root cause: the capitalist system.
‘The Left’ – in its various reformist and sectarian shades – is organically incapable of turning anger into change. They retrace well-trodden tracks of opportunism, ultra-leftism, and identity politics, which have been shown to lead nowhere. They have no revolutionary perspectives for Britain.
We are founding the Revolutionary Communist Party as a clean break from the so-called ‘Left’. We aim far higher, in words and in practice. Our mission is to lead the working class to the overthrow of capitalism in Britain, and to the conquest of power by the working class, as part of the struggle for a world socialist federation.
Recruitment
Our doors are open to workers and youth who are realising that the fight for communism is the only guarantee of our future.
Every party member must use their initiative, as part of their branch’s strategy, to locate these workers and students, in workplaces, schools, and campuses, and recruit them to the party.
Our doors are also open to those who are entering into politics over specific issues, such as industrial action or Palestine solidarity, and drawing revolutionary conclusions.
Every party member must become skilled at linking particular struggles with the general fight for socialism, and recruiting new party members on that basis.
With consistent, skilful agitational and propaganda work and by taking bold campaigning initiatives we can win the confidence of a wider layer of workers and young people than we have ever reached before.
Our task, which is dictated by our small size at this stage, is to patiently explain our ideas and methods to the working class. The ferment in society today means that such explanations will find fertile ground and yield fast recruitment.
For recruitment, The Communist is every party member’s most formidable weapon. We should use it as a banner to attract as-yet unorganised communists; as a handbook of facts, figures, and arguments, linking the particular with the general; and as a demonstration of the revolutionary work that the communists are doing, in Britain and internationally.
Every party member should carry copies of The Communist at all times, use it on recruitment stalls, and utilise it in all our fields of work – whether that be workplaces, universities, or schools. We aim to double our sales by the 2025 Congress.
Doubling our paper’s frequency cannot be understood as a routine, incremental change. This leap is mandated by the accelerating pace of events as well as the pace of our party’s growth. Accordingly, all comrades must step up the rhythm of party activity to meet this historical demand.
Every comrade must view themselves as a correspondent for the weekly paper, and branches must collectively discuss where to sell the paper, how to use it as a party building tool and especially what content to write for the paper every week.
Payments and sale reports must also be submitted accurately and weekly, from branch comrades to their paper organisers and from the paper organisers to the centre.
All comrades should subscribe to the paper and increase readership by reaching out to their periphery to subscribe. By all comrades taking ownership of The Communist, we should at least double our sales by the 2025 Congress.
With party members as intrepid recruiters, we can grow from a small force to a mass organisation on the waves of the coming British revolution.
This congress resolves that every party member should recruit and consolidate at least one new member over the next 12 months. We agree on a target for party membership of 2,000 by the 2025 Congress.
If we do our work properly then this is a modest aim. The 2,000 must be used as a launch pad to 5,000 and then 10,000 members. This is entirely possible and necessary in the next few years.
Every new recruit must be trained in carrying out Party work. Our Party is too small for passengers. We’re not a friendship circle, a charity, or a support group. We’re a cadre organisation of active, pioneering, professional revolutionaries.
Party members must responsibly delegate tasks to new recruits as fast as possible, encourage their ideas and initiatives, and train them on the job. As Trotsky once explained: “revolutionaries grow as their tasks become greater.”
Every branch should have the ambition to build a new branch of the party around a workplace, school, university, or local area, and to educate and train the necessary new members to be able to do so. This Congress resolves that our Party should have 200 active branches by the 2025 Congress.
View this post on Instagram
Marxist theory
The bourgeoisie smothers society with its ideas and outlook. The so-called ‘Left’ gives these ideas varying degrees of ‘progressive’ cover.
The Revolutionary Communist Party resolves to wage a ferocious struggle for Marxist theory in its ranks, and for revolutionary ideas amongst the working class.
The iron core of our party is the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. It’s the highest responsibility of every party member to perpetually study, conquer, and apply these ideas, with a particular focus on the ideas and methods of Lenin in 2024.
It’s the duty of party members to organise high-quality political education of new recruits, as the basis for the party’s agitational work amongst the working class.
This congress resolves to use the In Defence of Marxism theoretical magazine and and cover-to-cover of The Communist, with a particular focus on the centre pages, as the spine of our party’s political education. We should double the subscriptions to both publications by the 2025 Congress.
A fighting party
We are founding the Revolutionary Communist Party, not as a propaganda circle, but as a fighting Party sinking roots among a broader layer of the working class and youth.
Every Party member is responsible for attending demonstrations, picket lines, and meetings to promote the Party’s programme, under the direction of the branch.
All party members should strive to reflect this activity by submitting reports to The Communist.
Social explosions giving rise to big movements are approaching. Party members must break with the psychology and methods of the past.
Communists must win over the most revolutionary layer of these movements to the party through the bold and skilful use of agitation, alongside an ability to patiently explain our programme and perspectives.
If we grow and educate, our party will be the decisive factor in the coming revolutionary situation. The key to world history lies in our hands.
Finance
The tasks and targets of the Revolutionary Communist Party are ambitious, and require material means to give them material force. This means funds.
We urgently need to raise the subs. All comrades and new joiners should aim to pay at least one day’s wages every month.
All members should take personal responsibility for raising funds from the Party’s periphery in a systematic way.
We resolve to expand the party’s apparatus as fast as possible in line with our financial means. We aim to raise the funds for a weekly paper and a nationwide regional full-time apparatus by the 2025 congress.
Revolutionary audacity
Our relatively untested party will, within the next five or ten years, be hurled into the turmoil of the British revolution.
The target of building, educating, and training our forces is imposed upon us by history. We resolve to meet this historical challenge.
Revolutionary audacity and fearless optimism are key characteristics of Revolutionary Communist Party members.
We are shattering the old mentality of the past period. The RCP is building a force that will lead the working class to the conquest of power. We are raising our sights to this future.
Congress Agenda
Friday
Why we’re founding the RCP: Launching the RCI manifesto – 18:30-21:00
This session will be a rally to present the manifesto of the Revolutionary Communist International, the founding document of a new international.
Saturday
Theses on the coming British revolution – 10:00-17:00
Delegates will discuss these theses and amendments which form the basis of our perspectives and tasks for the coming period.
Financing the RCP: financial report & fighting fund collection – 17:30-19:00
Delegates will review the RCP’s finances and proposed targets. They will vote on the targets and the auditors’ report and be followed by a historic financial collection.
Sunday
How communists are preparing for power in Britain.
Recruiting for revolution – 10:00-12:00
Our biggest priority is to find, convince, and recruit the thousands of potential revolutionaries out there. Delegates will discuss the report and relevant amendments, and contribute reports of their own branches’ recruitment work and growth.
Training class fighters – 13:00-15:00
Delegates will discuss the report and contribute reports of how their own branches’ are connecting Marxist ideas with the movements of the working class.
Learning from Lenin – 15:30-17:30
For the RCP, our political ideas always come first. This session will be a report on our education work and our strategy to educate an organisation of revolutionary Marxists.
Building a Revolutionary Communist International – 18:00-19:30
This session will provide a report on the current state and work of the international, and underline the need to build revolutionary communist parties in all countries, not just Britain).
Monday
How the RCP works: Adopting a new constitution and electing a leadership – 10:00-12:00
In this session, delegates will debate amendments, vote on the party’s constitution (its rules and political structures), and elect our Central Committee.
Climbing the next peak: A paper each week – 13:00-15:00
As the pace of events increases and the RCP grows, we should set our sights on moving on from a fortnightly to a weekly publication to connect our ideas more widely. This session will explain what needs to be done to go weekly.
Closing remarks – 15:00-15:30
We will draw together the most important threads of the discussions and set out a perspective for building the RCP as we return to our branches.
Brand building reports
We know that there are millions of young people and workers in Britain today who identify as communists: all we have to do is find them!
Wherever you are, you can help us. But you’ll need tools. The communist cell starter pack, which you can get online from shop.communist.red, has everything you’ll need to find other communists, as well as to educate yourself in revolutionary theory.
Don’t delay: if we want to overthrow capitalism, we’ll have to get to work!
View this post on Instagram
Cheltenham
Recently, within the space of a couple of days, we formed a group of four potential recruits in Cheltenham in a WhatsApp group who were ready to build a cell.
The first two had written in. We called immediately and asked: ‘Do you want to help build the RCP?’ When they answered ‘Yes’, they were asked: ‘Do you know any other communists?’
Both of them did. And so we went from two to four, and created a WhatsApp group to plan when we could meet and discuss.
To top it all off, we then found out that there was already a cell of five in Cheltenham that had been up and running for two months!
This means that the branch launch will have somewhere between nine and twelve comrades and potential recruits in attendance.
From nothing in Cheltenham a few months ago, to potentially two branches – this is the kind of explosive growth we can get everywhere!
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
Sheffield
Four Sheffield comrades had a recruitment stall recently outside the Uni of Sheffield SU and sold nine copies of the paper.
What was particularly exciting was that there was a school trip of sixth form students who were desperate to get their hands on a communist paper.
Most of them did not have cash, so we gave away old copies as well as selling new ones. Their enthusiasm was well summed up when one of them said: “Yeah exactly! Smash the system!”
We had a similar experience a few weeks ago where one comrade just stood with the paper and amassed a crowd of around 20 school students listening to what he had to say.
A teacher had to push to the front to see what the hell all the students were looking at. After listening to the comrade speak, she actually ended up buying a paper herself!
It was very funny hearing the school kids got told off for holding up the paper in their school photo.
What both experiences ultimately show is that each year the youth seem to be getting more and more radical!
Liverpool
Branch building is not linear. In fact, building branches, like any process, has its ups and downs.
We recently went through a stale period where some comrades fell out of activity and recruitment was slowing down. So, as a branch, we reflected on what we could be doing better.
After a review of our work, we were able to turn things around quite quickly. We have been able to get people in the door. But we need to keep them there.
This did not involve anything particularly herculean or unique. It simply meant walking before we could run.
We have advised against leading comrades substituting themselves, and are working to transform all comrades into recruiters.
View this post on Instagram
Comrades held recruitment stalls in completely new areas for us, like Birkenhead, and write-ins flooded in.
The results of our new efforts are that we have recruited three new comrades.
Crucially, we have made sure that comrades are following up with new recruits individually and placing initiative for recruitment with them.
Whether it is giving new comrades lead offs, speeches, or encouraging them to intervene, our job is not to leave them on their own, but to coach and help them develop.
Network Rail
I have just managed to sell two copies of Issue 6 of The Communist in my workplace at Network Rail. I have always carried and read the paper at work, and participated in any political discussions, but these are sometimes infrequent.
However, the recent featured article on the partition of India caught the attention of two coworkers, independently of one another.
The first provoked a discussion on imperialism and war, which eventually drew in the whole of the team. The next day, the second coworker asked me about the article and the paper, and we discussed the attitude of communists towards religion for an hour.
Both are interested in communism more broadly, and already asked when the next issue will be.
More importantly, this could hopefully be the breakthrough required to begin engaging the whole depot in political discussions – and eventually recruiting them to the RCP.
