The Workers Party in America is the voluntary union of working-class communists in the United States of America fighting for the defeat of capitalist rule and the victory of the working people’s republic. It is a communist party, guided by the theory and method established by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

    The communist party is the highest form of organization for the working class. It unites working people fighting in all areas of society into a single force that can be mobilized against capitalism and its state. The Workers Party, as a genuine communist party, is more than a partisan of the working class; it is a part of our class. It is established and built from among the most class conscious, far-sighted and active members of our class. In this sense, it is a part of the most advanced layers of the working class.

    The Workers Party has no interests separate from those of the working class as a whole. We differ from our brothers and sisters insofar as we possess the advantages of a theory and understanding that allow us to analyze and comprehend the historical development of our class and its struggle against capitalism. Thus, we are able to act at all times in defense of the common and historic interests of our class.

    As class-conscious workers, we understand and accept the necessity of uniting as the Workers Party in America. We believe it is necessary for all class-conscious workers within the political borders of the United States to be organized and united into a single communist party. Such unity at once breaks down the barriers established by capitalism to divide working people. While it may be necessary for some of our fellow workers to come together in caucuses, tendencies and other organizational forms to address specific concerns — inside the Party, among our class and in society as a whole — we are, at all times, one party.

    This unbreakable unity also aids in the fight to build a political movement that can defeat and sweep away capitalism and capitalist rule. Our principal arena for this fight is here in the United States. But the struggle for a working people’s republic here is only a part of, and ultimately subordinated to, the struggle for a worldwide revolution of working people against the rule of the exploiting and oppressing classes.

    The Workers Party in America stands on the principle of proletarian internationalism, best expressed in our motto, “Workers of the world, unite!” It is our responsibility to step forward and fight against those ideologies and doctrines that seek to divide working people and hold back the unity of our class for a communist future. Ideologies like pragmatism, nationalism, protectionism, sectoralism, opportunism and sectarianism are links in a chain that shackles the working class to capitalism hand and foot.

    World capitalism can only be decisively fought on a world scale. This is why the Workers Party in America seeks out like-minded brothers and sisters in other countries and supports their organization into workers’ communist parties (either existing parties or new ones where they do not exist). We believe that a new international working people’s association based on communist principles, and united by a common strategy and platform of action, is the best way to resolve the current lack of worldwide organization, coordination and action.

The central organizational task of communists today is the winning of the majority of our brothers and sisters to the understanding of the need for a revolution to defeat capitalism and establish a working people’s republic. We carry this out through consistent education and agitation based solidly on communist principles, and through necessary action that flows directly from those principles.

    The most important tool in this work is the Party’s press, primarily its Central Organ. The Central Organ is a collective educator, agitator and organizer, expressing the views of the Party consistently. The network of distributors, readers groups and supporters organized around our Central Organ form the backbone of the action we initiate and in which we participate. The Political Journal is a collective educator and facilitator for discussion among Party members, and between readers and the Party. Whatever issues or questions cannot be elaborated fully in the Central Organ is continued in the Political Journal; the understanding developed together in the pages of the Political Journal is brought to the Central Organ as a basis for agitation and action.

    The Unit is the basic organization and backbone of the Workers Party, and the organization in which all members participate. Units are organized on the basis of task, workplace or geographic location, and are designed to allow both maximum participation among members and broadest possible relations with fellow workers. Units have broad autonomy in the areas where they are organized, and are expected to be self-sustaining. Units, and their members, are expected to constantly look for new and creative ways — within the parameters set in our principles and program — to promote the Party, take the initiative for organizing and activity, and educate our brothers and sisters about our views. Units work together to coordinate and professionalize the activity of members, teaching each other the skills needed for specific tasks and the broader struggle against capitalism, and building a dedication among members that can last a lifetime.

    At all times, members of the Party must look to developing stronger ties with other members of our class, not only through chance encounters and occasional public events, but through encouraging fellow workers who are interested in the Workers Party to become supporters and members. Although most will not join the Party immediately, some will express deeper interest. Those contacts represent the future of the Party, and they should be treated accordingly. Building a stronger concentration of members in workplaces and neighborhoods, primarily in areas where we have members now, but also in new locations, is an important task for the members and organizations of the Workers Party in America.

    As for those brothers and sisters who may not be ready or willing to join, it is necessary for members to plant the seeds of struggle in them: to get them thinking for themselves about the world they live in and what they can do about it, to get them talking about the problems, concerns and fears they have, and to get them to draw their own conclusions about what has to be done. They may never join the Workers Party, but they will be with us when the time is right.

    The Workers Party in America is a secular organization, and fights for the full and complete separation of church and state, and of church and school. We promote science and culture, and the advance of human, civil and democratic rights without regard to the edicts of religious institutions. Further, we are actively critical of the ignorance, irrationality and gullibility promoted and taken advantage of by religious institutions, and seek to expose the role these institutions play on behalf of the capitalist class in society.

    At the same time, holding spiritual or religious beliefs is no obstacle to membership in the Workers Party. Any worker who accepts the program and constitution of the Party is welcome among the ranks of communists; their personal beliefs are their own concern, and no restrictions on these brothers and sisters functioning as full and productive members of the Party will ever exist.

Being a member of the Workers Party in America means not only the rights of membership, but the responsibilities as well. As communists and as Party members, we hold each other to a higher standard than we might hold others of our class, not in terms of hours spent carrying out Party work or an emotional “commitment” to the Party, but in terms of how we relate to other members and conduct ourselves.

    Honesty is a necessary trait for a communist and member of the Workers Party. When you become a member, you give your word that you accept the political and organizational basis of the Party. It is expected that, from that moment, you will be honest in all things with fellow members, not least of all with yourself. If people cannot believe you, they cannot trust you. If they cannot trust you, they will choose to not work with you. Without trust and common work, nothing can be accomplished.

    If a member makes a mistake, allows some manifestation of the ideology of the exploiters and oppressors to come through, or otherwise betrays the trust of other Party members, they are expected to be honest with themselves and with fellow members. Sometimes, a member will be able to see their mistake right away; sometimes, it may be necessary for another member to point it out. In either instance, it is expected that members will do what they can to constructively address and correct any mistakes, whether they are the ones who made the mistake or the ones pointing it out.

    One of the most common types of mistakes made by members is allowing expressions of the discrimination and bigotry that is everywhere in capitalist society to come through. Just because we are all workers and communists does not mean we are immune from the ideologies of class society. Capitalism, and especially American capitalism, is a society where heterosexual men of European descent dominate the political, economic and cultural landscape. As communists, members of the Workers Party must fight against the cultural manifestations of this dominance within its own ranks.

    Male Party members must make a point to deal with question of sexism, and not expect or wait for female members to say something. The same also holds for relations between white and non-white members, and between heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members, and between any members who are part of a section of the human population promoted above another in capitalist society and those who are not.

    Addressing these cultural and social questions, which are ultimately political questions because of the role that the capitalist state plays in enforcing and promoting them, is part and parcel of the overall task of the Workers Party in America to build a culture of liberation within our ranks and among our class.

    One of the highest responsibilities of a member of the Workers Party in America is respecting the will of the membership as a whole. Members are expected to accept and abide by decisions made by the majority of the Party membership. This does not mean members are expected to keep their mouths shut or blindly accept these decisions, but it does mean that it is the responsibility of Party members to not obstruct or otherwise sabotage Party activity. Indeed, members are encouraged to participate constructively in activities they disagree with, if only to help subject those decisions to the test of history and the class struggle, and prove to themselves and the Party whether or not theirs was the correct position.

    Members have the right to organize themselves as tendencies or factions in opposition to decisions made by the majority of the Party membership, and the right to win over fellow Party members with the goal of becoming a majority and changing Party decisions in their favor. Members also have the right to organize themselves into tendencies, currents and other forms of sub-organization to promote specific doctrines or trends of communist thought. Members organized into such groupings have the right to promote their views among Party members, including in the Political Journal and through a bulletin, internal or public, of their grouping. At the same time, it is expected that all such groupings remain committed to the Workers Party in America and its basic principles.

The Workers Party in America is a living organism, developing, growing and changing with the conditions of society and the working class. There is no singular or eternal blueprint for a communist organization; it must at all times meet the needs and conditions set for it, and change when necessary. As well, there is no linear or smooth path to growth and development; the process is often one that requires making new alliances, and parting ways with old and former friends.

    As we have seen throughout history, there is no wall of separation between legality and illegality for communists and their party. The Workers Party in America is a public, legal organization, but many of our members require added protection from the prying eyes of the exploiting and oppressing classes, and their state. The capitalists and managers will use a worker’s political affiliation as the basis for depriving them of a means of survival. Thus, the Party must make special allowances for members in need of security.

    This understanding extends to the Party’s work in general. Democratic rights under capitalism are conditional, temporary and only exist due to generations of political struggle by workers and democratic-minded people. Our public, legal work extends only as far the material conditions of society, and the balance of class forces within it, will allow. Even in the most “democratic” of periods of capitalist society, terrorism and the threat of terrorism, whether in the form of the police and military, or in the form of private security hired the capitalists and managers, or in the form of the Nazis, KKK and other similar gangs, waits in the wings ready to be called into action against us.

    Working people as a class, and organized into our own party, are only as free as our struggle for revolution is from the constrictions of capitalist “law and order.” Our clandestine and security structures, insofar as they exist as part of the Party, do not exist for their own sake, but for the sake of continuing the struggle for revolution and the defeat of capitalist rule. The Workers Party in America maintains a solid relationship with its clandestine elements, not because they represent a kind of conspiracy or “hidden agenda,” but because they are needed to defend the integrity and continued existence of our movement.

    The greatest guarantee we have against the destruction of our Party and our movement rests in our organic connection with our class, and in the principles and program that come from that relationship. They allow us to be on guard at all times against infiltration and provocation by agents of the exploiting and oppressing classes, and to remove them root and branch from the Party when necessary.

    Another expression of the living character of the Workers Party in America is in the development of its leadership. Continuous and consistent coordination is necessary for the Party to exist, and developing all members of the Party as leaders, both theoretical and practical, is a necessary task.

    The job of leadership is to train its replacements; this means it is the responsibility of members of the Workers Party in leadership positions to share their knowledge and skills with other members, to prepare them theoretically and practically to carry out the work of the Party when needed, to instill in even the newest member the spirit, energy, knowledge and skills needed to build the Party into a powerful force. Through this process of development, the risk of a “permanent leadership caste” developing within the Party is minimized, if not eliminated, and all members become leaders in their own right.

    Through all members listening and learning from the experience of other members, voicing their opinions openly and honestly, working together to implement decisions of the Party and its membership, resolving differences through frank and honest discussion and a willingness to correct mistakes, supporting the Party financially, and through participating in its work under its direction, we can develop a political movement that is able to out-organize, out-strategize and overtake capitalism on the political battlefield.

The relationship between the political and economic organizations of the working class is like the relationship between the tip and shaft of an arrow: One is worthless without the other.

    The economic organization without the political movement cannot rise above existing conditions, due to its inability to deal with the capitalist state. The political organization without the economic movement has no ability to do anything more than pierce the armor of capitalism, where it would either be removed and cast off like so much a nuisance or be integrated into capitalism’s means of protection.

    The Workers Party in America seeks to build strong, organic relations with the economic organizations of the working class, collaborating with them when possible to create a larger space in which workers can organize and fight while also educating, agitating and organizing for a united political struggle against capitalism and its state. Today, the center of this work involves relations with labor unions.

    Ideally, labor unions are the basic organizations of defense for working people and their common interests. Generally speaking, labor unions are ill-equipped to wage a political struggle, since they do not base themselves on political principles and do not have a platform, program or strategy for fighting the capitalist state. Likewise, the political organization cannot substitute itself for a labor union, since it seeks to include people from all sectors of the working class, including the unemployed, disabled, retirees and children of workers, and its focus is the battle against the capitalist state — a battle in which it does not seek cease-fires or truces. For one to substitute themselves for the other ultimately weakens both.

    In regards to the “official” labor unions, which are more like company unions than anything else, communists fight for their independence from the capitalist class, its state and its political parties, and work to win over the members of these unions to a class-struggle perspective that brings them closer to the Workers Party and their own common interests. A necessary part of this work is convincing members of the “official” unions of the need for the ouster of the petty-bourgeois bureaucrats and officials that dictate the policy and agenda of these organizations.

    At the same time, we do not seek to make a “better” version of the labor unions, or to dictate the content of the daily struggles of workers in unions. Communists, members of the Workers Party, participate in any meaningful action that improves the conditions of our class, but for the purposes of educating and agitating around how those daily struggles are linked to the conditions of capitalist society, and how workers must take possession and control of the economy in their own name.

    We explain that no gain or demand won through a strike or other job action is permanent, and how it takes ongoing and ever-expanding struggle to defend existing gains and win new ones, including action against the enforcers of capitalism’s “order.” We further explain how capitalism, using its loyal “labor” lieutenants in the bureaucracy and officialdom, tries to divide our class through nationalism, protectionism and sectoralism, and how organization into one single union and economic movement, united to a political movement of the working class, is the only way to win lasting victory.

    The Workers Party in America seeks to build an economic movement of powerful, member-led labor unions that are united with organizations that seek to win and administer direct workers’ control of production and distribution in the economy: workplace committees. Workplace committees would serve as a school for communism, educating and organizing workers to empower themselves and take control of their future. We work closely with workers’ economic organizations that share this perspective, even if we disagree on the importance of the relationship between the economic and political movements.

Working Draft adopted by the Central Committee, January 8, 2009