The most striking feature of the recent CPGB-ML party congress was the growing youthfulness of our organisation. Added to the small band of tried-and-tested communists who founded the party ten years ago is an ever-growing body of young, working-class members, keen to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to serve their class and work towards revoution and a communist future for Britain and for the world.
It is significant in these times of crisis and disillusionment that ours is the only organisation calling itself communist in Britain that is successfully recruiting significant numbers of young people, especially those from the poorer sections of the working class.
There is a simple reason for our increasing appeal to class-conscious members of the class: we are the only organisation that actually believes in the possibility of and strives for the achievement of a socialist revolution in Britain. We are the only party that seriously works to educate its members in the science of Marxism Leninism, and the only one that strives to develop cadres capable of taking that science and popularising it among the masses.
Another striking feature of the congress was the high level of unity amongst our comrades. After a century of hysterical anti-communist propaganda from imperialist media, academics and politicians alike, and particularly in light of the demoralisation that has affected the working class since the blow we experienced when the Soviet Union and eastern European socialist countries collapsed, it is hardly fashionable or popular to become a communist.
What this means for us in practice is that our members have usually had to educate themselves to quite a high level before they are ready to even think about joining us. By the time we hear from potential new recruits, they have very often been following the party’s work – watching videos, reading articles and leaflets – for a year or two already, and have reached agreement with the most important pillars of our analysis.
Our party unanimously endorsed solidarity with Syria, Palestine, the DPRK, China and the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine. Yet all these resolutions would have caused great and bitter controversy in every other ‘left’ organisation in Britain today, given the unconditional support that was expressed for those resisting US and British imperialism.
Even on topics that generated vigorous debate, a level of comradeliness and discipline was in evidence, far removed from the sectarianism and bureaucratic manipulation that have come to characterise most of the British movement. All were allowed to speak freely, and, whatever their views as individuals, all left the congress determined to accept the collective decisions that had been made and to work to carry these out to the best of their abilities.
We may be a tiny and insignificant force today, but we are becoming less so with every passing year, and if we continue to be guided by the correct theory, and to put our theoretical understanding into practice in the service of our class, we will surely succeed in becoming the vanguard revolutionary party the British working class so desperately needs.
Let us do everything in our power to develop deep roots among the masses so that our party in future is capable of harnessing the revolutionary potential and creative energies of British workers in the fight to overthrow the bloodsucking imperialist class that is bleeding us and our planet dry to preserve its parasitic rule.
