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  Organisation and Structure of the Communist Party

Guidelines on the Organizational Structure of Communist Parties, on the Methods and Content of their Work Adopted at the 24th Session of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 12 July 1921
 

VII. ON THE PARTY PRESS 
 

36. The Communist Press must be developed by the Party with indefatigable energy. No paper may be recognised as a Communist organ if it does not submit to the directions of the Party. 

 

The Party must pay more attention to having good papers than to having many of them. Every Communist Party must have a good, and if possible, daily central organ. 

 

37. A Communist newspaper must never be a capitalist undertaking as are the bourgeois, frequently also the socialist papers. Our paper must be independent of all the capitalist credit institutions. A skilful organisation of the advertisement, which render possible the existence of our paper for lawful mass parties, must never lead to its being dependent on the large advertisers. On the contrary its attitude on all proletarian social questions will create the greater respect for it in all our mass Parties. 

 

Our papers must not serve for the satisfaction of the desire for sensation or as a pastime for the general public. They must not yield to the criticism of the petty-bourgeois writers or journalist experts in the striving to become “respectable”.
 

38. The Communist paper must in the first place take care of the interest of the oppressed and fighting workers. It must be our best agitator and the leading propagator of the proletarian revolution. 

 

It will be the object of our paper to collect all the valuable experience from the activity of the party members and to demonstrate the same to our comrades as a guide for the continual revision and improvement of Communist working methods; in this way it will be the best organiser of our revolutionary work. 

It is only by this all-embracing organisational work of the Communist paper and particularly our principal paper, that with this definite object in view, we will be able to establish democratic centralism and lead to the efficient distribution of work in the Communist Party, thus enabling it to perform its historic mission. 
 

39. The Communist paper must strive to become a Communist undertaking, i.e., it must be a proletarian fighting organisation, a working community of the revolutionary workers, of all writers who regularly contribute to the paper, editors, type-setters, printers, and distributors, those who collect local material and discuss the same in the paper, those who are daily active in propagating it, etc. A number of practical measures are required to turn the paper into a real fighting organ and a strong working community of the Communists. 
 

A Communist should be in closest connection with his paper when he has to work and make sacrifices for it. It is his daily weapon which must be newly hardened and sharpened every day in order to be fit for use. Heavy material and financial sacrifice will continually be required for the existence of the Communist paper. The means for its development and inner improvement will constantly have to be supplied from the ranks of Party members, until it will have reached a position of such firm organisation and such a wide circulation among a legal mass Party, that it will itself become a strong support of the Communist movement. 
 

It is not sufficient to be an active canvasser and propagator for the paper; it is necessary to be contributor to it as well. 
 

Every occurrence of any social or economic interest happening in the workshop —from an accident to a general workers' meeting, from the ill-treatment of an apprentice to the financial report of the concern— must be immediately reported to the paper. The trade union fraction must communicate all important decisions and resolutions of its meetings and secretariats, as well as any characteristic actions of our enemies. Public life in the street, and at the meetings, will often give an opportunity to the attentive Party member to exercise social criticism on details which, published in our paper, will demonstrate, even to indifferent readers, how already we follow the daily needs of life. 

 

Such communications from the life of workers and working-class organisations must be handled by the board of editors with particular care and affection; they must be used as short notices that will help to convey the feeling of an intimate connection existing between our paper and workers' lives; or they may be used as practical examples from the daily life of workers that help to explain the doctrine of Communism. Wherever possible, the board of editors should have fixed hours at a convenient time of the day, when they would be ready to see any worker coming to them and listen to his wishes, or complain on the troubles of life, which they sought to note and use for the enlightenment of the Party. 
 

Under the capitalist system, it will, of course, be impossible for our papers to become a perfect Communist workers' community. However, even under most difficult conditions it might be possible to obtain a certain success in the organisation of such a revolutionary paper. This has been proved by the ‘Pravda' of our Russian comrades during the period of 1912-13. It actually represented a permanent and active organisation of the conscious revolutionary workers of the most important Russian centres. The comrades used their collective forces for editing, publishing, distributing the paper. and many of them doing that alongside with their work and sparing the money required from their earnings. The newspaper in its turn furnished them with the best things they desired, with what they needed for the moment and what they can still use today in their work and struggle. Such a newspaper should really and truly be called by the Party members and by other revolutionary workers, “our newspaper”. 
 

40. The proper element for the militant Communist Press is direct participation in the campaigns conducted by the Party. If the activity of the Party at a given time happens to be concentrated upon definite campaign, it is the duty of the organ to place all its departments, not the editorial pages alone, at the service of this particular campaign). The editorial board must draw material and sources to feed this campaign, which must be incorporated throughout the paper both in substance and in form. 

 

41. The matter of canvassing subscriptions for “Our newspaper” must be made into a system. The first thing is to make use of every occasion stirring up workers and of every situation in which the political and social consciousness of the worker has been aroused by some special occurrence. Thus, following each big strike movement or lockout, during which the paper openly and energetically defended the interests of the workers, a canvassing activity should be organised and carried on among the participants. Subscription lists and subscription orders for the paper should be distributed, not only in the industries where the Communists are engaged and among the trade union fractions of those industries that had taken part in the strikes, but also whenever possible, subscription orders should be distributed from house to house by special groups or workers doing propaganda for the paper. 

 

Likewise following each election campaign that aroused the workers, special groups, appointed for the purpose, should visit the houses of workers carrying on systematic propaganda for the workers' newspaper. 
 

At times of latent political and economic crises, manifesting themselves in the rise of prices, unemployment and other hardship affecting great numbers of workers, all possible efforts should be exerted to win over the professionally organised workers of the various industries and organise them into working groups for carrying on systematic house to house propaganda for newspaper. Experience has shown that the most appropriate time for canvassing work is the last week of each month. Any local group, that would allow even one of these last week of the month to pass by without making use of it for propaganda work for the newspaper, will be committing a grave omission with regard to the spread of the Communist movement. The working group conducting propaganda for the newspaper must not leave out any public meeting or any demonstration without being there at the opening, during the intervals, and at the close with the subscription list for the paper. The same duties are imposed upon every trade union fraction at each separate meeting of the union, as well as upon the group and fraction at shop meetings. 
 

42. Every Party member must constantly defend our paper against all its opponents and carry on energetic campaign against the capitalist Press. He must expose and brand-mark the venality, the falsehoods, the suppression of information and all the double-dealings of the Press. 
 

The social-democratic and independent Press must be overcome by constant and aggressive criticism, with out falling into petty factional polemising, but by persistent unmasking of their treacherous attitude in veiling the most flagrant class conflicts day by day. The trade union and other fractions must seek by organised means to wean away the members of trade unions and other workers' organisations from the misleading and crippling influence of these social-democratic papers. Also the canvassing by means of house to house campaign for our Press, notably among industrial workers, must be judiciously directed against the social-democratic Press.