As communists, we have decided of our own free will to declare war on the existing conditions, on the exploitation of man by man. This declaration of war is received by the ruling class, even though our movement may seem weakened and fragmented for the moment. The bourgeoisie and its servants are ready to do anything to suppress and eliminate their mortal enemy – communism – as a political factor.
To reach the victory of revolution under the constant ideological fire and the very practical attempts at integration and suppression by the class enemy is no small goal. It requires enormous efforts and toil. The necessary sources of strength to achieve the goal are numerous and all feed from the collective of communists and the inexhaustible potentials of our class. Probably the most important of these sources of strength, the basis of every communist organization, is its ideology: scientific socialism.
The importance of revolutionary theory
It is no coincidence that the greatest theoretical achievements of our class, such as Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism or the concept of the Leninist cadre party, were always directly linked to leaps forward in the entire socialist movement. Theory became material force as soon as it seized the masses.
Today, the importance of the communist worldview has not diminished. On the contrary, the revisionist betrayal, the restoration of capitalism in the former socialist countries, the developments of imperialism and in bourgeois ideology and science present us with a formidable mountain of tasks in this field. The constant ideological encirclement under imperialism brings with it particular difficulties. It requires a continuous and consistent struggle against its influence on all revolutionaries and the working class. In various questions, from psychology to the science of war, it is up to the communists of today’s generation to take up the respective approaches from revolutionary history. But we must also take up everything useful and valuable that bourgeois science has produced in this respect and criticize its results ruthlessly where it slides into all possible shades of idealism or contributes to the justification of imperialism.
Making ideological work a duty of the whole organization
Above all, we must be concerned with developing Marxist-Leninist ideology and raising it to the height of the times so that it can fulfill its very own purpose: To be a guide to action and revolution. The theoretical work of our organization as well as of the whole communist movement must therefore never be allowed to regress to a preoccupation for a select circle of intellectuals; rather, it must serve the concrete needs and requirements of the revolution. At the same time, all potentials must be exhausted and included in this work.
In particular, it is necessary to theoretically take up the wealth of experience of the revolutionary workers‘ movement and the Communist movement in Germany and worldwide. Countless documents of the communist and workers‘ movement must be sifted through and processed. Above all, however, it is also necessary to use our own experiences and theoretical insights to further develop our ideology: Compared to the demands before us, our organization’s experience is limited. Nevertheless, it is also our duty to share them with the revolutionary movement so that it can benefit from them.
The ideological struggle as part of mass work
It is not only the communists who need revolutionary theory to develop and take steps forward. The working class as a whole also must free itself from the influences of bourgeois ideology in its various shades. It is here that it particularly promotes the passivity and division of our class.
Our own approaches to mass work confirm this statement across the board. If organized communists must already wage a permanent struggle within their own ranks against the influences of bourgeois ideology, this applies all the more to mass work. Only in this way can we create the basis for united struggle as a class for the fulfillment of the most basic needs all the way to socialism.
In the unfolding of our potentials for the further development of scientific socialism lies a tremendous opportunity for the leap forward in party building.
