Road to Revolution IV: A Communist Manifesto (1982)

Under the banners of its revolutionary communist party, the working class must arm itself and fight to win power. After the Party has led to the seizure of power, the working class must remain armed. To win and hold power, the working class must develop its own Red Army. After workers win political emancipation in one area, the bosses and their agents there and elsewhere will attempt a comeback. Workers need this Red Army to take the offensive against the bosses and crush them. When workers' militias, which will exist everywhere to defend the revolution, need help, the Red Army will provide it.

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Communist Parties are the Custodians of the Future (1982)

The lively debate that will surely take place in the wake of Road to Revolution IV should help propel the party forward. Ideological struggle that leads to sharper class struggle and sharper struggle for the allegiance of the working class is The lifeblood of a communist party. The questions raised by Road to Revolution IV hold vital interest for billions of people, both subjectively and objectively. Many workers and others already think seriously about the sort of society they want to live in and look in various ways for an alternative to the present system. Furthermore, history has shown that communist parties are indeed custodians of the future because the future depends primarily upon the line that communists win workers to carry out.

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On Democratic Centralism (1982)

The Party is organized on the basis of democratic centralism. The Party is divided into cells, or clubs, which meet regularly to evaluate members' work and to make suggestions about how to improve it, and to evaluate the Party's positions and make suggestions for change. These suggestions are taken by the club leader to section meetings (made up of the club leaders and other leading comrades in an area, and by section leaders to the Central Committee. Based on the collective experience of the Party, the leadership decides on new positions (a new line) which all Party members are then bound to put into practice. Only if all of us put the same line into practice can we find out if the line works; if each of us goes our own way, we will never have the common strength of a united Party.

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Fighting Racism: A Key Struggle (1982)

The fight against racism is one of the major aspects of the fight for an egalitarian society, and should be seen as central to the struggle for communism. Racism is not an "accidental ' or "incidental" aspect of capitalism, but an essential one. Nowhere has there been, or will there be, a capitalist society which is non-racist. Capitalist relations of production created historically and maintained everywhere to the present day, the material basis of racism. At the same time, racism, closely linked with anti-communism, is a major aspect of bourgeois ideology.

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Reform and Revolution (1976)

We participate in reform struggles in order to get the opportunity to put forward communist ideas and goals. These communist ideas cannot be drawn from the reform struggle itself. Workers do not come to Marxist-Leninist conclusions merely from working on the assembly line. These ideas must come from outside the reform struggle and are directly opposed to reformist goals or working within and building capitalism. Communist ideas have always been brought to workers from outside the reform struggle itself, from Marx to Stalin to the present day.

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Build a Base in the Working Class (1968)

Just to say that the system is bad is not enough. It's good to say this, it's decisive to say this, but it's not sufficient. It's only the first step. We have to fight the class struggle within the movement and within our party. Not because we're trying to dance on the head of a pin, but because we're trying to make the movement and the party stronger, and defeat those obstacles that prevent us from moving ahead. That's why we try to carry on struggle from within.

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What You Do Counts (1986)

Our Party is at war now. The war is between the ruling class and the working class. This is class war! Our war is far more difficult and long-range than any other war in history. In order to win this war, we have to win an endless string of battles. We have to overcome limitless obstacles.

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Criticism and Self-Criticism: Deepening Roots (1966)

The seed of revolution has been sown again in our land, and our Party can feel some sense of achievement in the part we have taken in this planting. We are still young and small but we have made a strong start. We have done more than scratch the shiny surface of the U.S. ruling class; we have begun to rip away its mask, to expose its ugliness--and to get under its skin.

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I Have Seen the Future...and it's Now! (1986)

At the concluding discussion of a recent training school of our party, a young Latin American woman got up and said: "I have been in and out of jail. I have been beaten. But I feet sad when I look around the office. I see many copies of Challenge lying about. In my country it is passed from hand to hand, until there are only smudge marks left on the paper, or the paper is in tatters."

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