Dear comrades and friends,
It is the 90th anniversary of October Revolution; the revolution that changed the world. This is precisely the reason why we cannot deal with October simply as a historic event, even if it is considered great and significant. We should deal with it as a CURRENT political issue.
The way we define the current problems of the world and the respective solution we believe is correct, defines our standpoint towards October.
Our estimation of October Revolution affects, in its turn, resolutely on the way we deal with the current problems.
Certainly not all of us do this with the same way. Each one of us does this in connection with the class, ideological and political viewpoint they deal with things.
That is why every analysis, position, meeting on the occasion of October Revolution, deals with it in a completely different way. For, they deal with current reality, in a different way.
Let us see it in regards with a main ideological, political current issue; the prevailing view that capitalism is “one way”.
Bourgeois and capitalists declare in every possible way that: yes, capitalism is a “one way”. Because this is what they want it to be. Because they wish to exclude the search for another way than the one that ensures their rule and the unrestrained exploitation and oppression of peoples.
The working class, the wretched of the earth refuses this “one way”, they seek their own ways, they fight against the capitalist-imperialist system, they look forward to overthrow this system and they look forward to a new –socialist- society.
The petit bourgeois and every kind of “middle strata” are milling about, uncertain all the time and seeking their “socialism” within capitalism, actually subjugated in the capitalist “one way”.
Respective is the way they deal with October. For the exploiters and the oppressors of the peoples, October was a “crime” because it is a crime for them every move that challenges and sets obstacles in their capacity to exploit and oppress the people. For, they could deal with a Revolution that set obstacles to their crimes against mankind, only as a “crime”.
For the every kind petit bourgeois reformists October went beyond the “permissible limits” and the “decent” change of things. The change, that would give them the “appropriate” position and the role they deserved. October by overthrowing along with feudalism and the bourgeoisie put aside simultaneously the every kind opportunists and raised in first stage the working class and the revolutionary forces. This is what they could never forgive to Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
For the working class, the peoples of the earth, the people of labor and struggle for living October was the lightning that illuminated their world. It was the thunder that crashed their oppressors. It was the Revolution that opened the door of History to the wretched of the Earth.
So, what was and is October? What role did it play in the course and development of class struggle; in the course and development of History? In October, 1917, the red worker guard of Petersburg, the revolted soldiers and sailors seized the Winter Palace. And nothing was the same any more. Because, behind them started moving the millions of the wretched of the Earth, determined to participate in this leap to the skies. And a whole world crossed vehemently the front door of History. It was a liberating movement of global dimension that formed new realities in the world.
It was the emergence of the masses in the front stage of History; it was their rise into an active subject of the historic development, it was an overthrow of catalytic character. It turned useless every acceptable given fact, every factor and rule under which the world functioned until then. The developments were moving in a completely new field and they were formed on the ground of completely different conditions than before. The world was different.
The forces of the system never accepted this development. They fought against it and continue to do so.
This is exactly what they are trying to accomplish today.
They try to marginalize the peoples; without conscience of their substance and their rights.
They try to crash every mood and capacity for resistance and struggle.
They try to turn them into a dubious, inactive and obedient mass.
They try to form overall the conditions of a modern “Dark Ages”.
These are the aims of the capitalist, imperialist system and on this ground various “historians” deal with October Revolution and socialism, the new society that this revolution paved the way. This slandering campaign is not mainly concerned with the past. Their aim is the CONTEMPORARY PERIOD. They try to “delete” October, they try to “obliterate” from mankind’s history its socialist period, not because they wish to rewrite in some books the history of the past –“amended”. They want to affect the formation of the conditions that define the contemporary and future development. Because, despite the capitalist restoration and the defeat of the communist movement, October’s legacy and socialist building continue to hinder their current designs.
No, this system isn’t invulnerable, powerful and invincible as they try to present it in their attempt to ensure the subjugation of the peoples.
October Revolution has already proven this by crashing the power of the whip and at the same time it crashed the age-long awe towards the rule of the masters. The dozens of revolutions that followed its shining example continued proving it.
No, it isn’t a vain effort; it isn’t a dead-end attempt for the people of labor to seize the power. And that something like that, can only happen as a coincidence, as an instant “capriccio” of History. The Russian workers and poor peasantry proved that they could hold this power against encirclement, embargo and imperialist interventions. Above all they proved that they could generate new realities.
They proved that exploitation isn’t determinism; unemployment isn’t the objective necessity. The “flexible labor relations” (“flexibility of labor”) isn’t directed by the “laws of economy” but by the capital’s avid thirst for profit. Namely the constraint of the workers to seek a second and a third job –uninsured- and offer thus more profits to the capital.
Socialism proved it when it ensured stable work for everyone and established 90 years ago, in a poor and backward country the 8hour, the 7hour and the 6hour in the heavy and unhealthy jobs.
No, the secureness of pensioners isn’t an “accounting” problem of management. The miserable conditions of health care for the people’s strata aren’t due to “fund deficit”. The starvation and the diseases that affect millions of people across the planet aren’t due to “lack of assets”.
The peoples of Soviet Union and China proved that education and science, art and culture isn’t do not concern only an elite.
Socialism has proved some it decades ago by accomplishing an educational revolution within the Revolution, eliminating illiteracy long before the developed and allegedly civilized capitalist countries started facing this issue. Socialism set this issue on a completely different base, opened the doors of science, art and culture to the millions of labor people.
No, the wars, these slaughters of peoples do not happen due to “the blind powers of universe”. Colonialism was not an operation to “civilize the savages”. The imperialist interventions that slaughtered millions in the past and slaughter today as well were not “peace making operations”. They were and remain the conscious choices of a system founded on force that survives and feeds on the sweat and blood of the peoples.
October Revolution has proved this because it was the factual answer of the peoples to this barbarism.
The overthrow of those who wish to be presented as the only qualified and capable to manage the affairs of society, isn’t utopia; it isn’t the negation of the “natural order of things”.
The workers and the mujiks that undertook to build socialism proved in action that production, economy and society could function and develop when they put aside the exploiting ruling class.
No, the liberation of peoples form the iron exploiting net of the capitalist and imperialist system isn’t an impossible dream.
The huge liberating wave that October fired in global scale has proved it. The struggle of the working class that acquired new and greater impetus has proved it. The crash of the Nazi raid that resulted in the formation of the socialist camp has proved it. The dozens revolutions that shocked and changed the world, following the example of October have proved it.
No, capitalism isn’t a “one way”.
The workers communist movement has already proven it; by accomplishing October Revolution, by building socialism, by paving new ways for mankind. And that is why they rage against October. Because the workers communist movement was the greatest threat, ever emerged in history, for the oppressors of the peoples, for the ruling and privileged classes. Precisely because October proved that it had the unnegotiable will and the capacity of the overall and factual alternative.
That is why they do not stop cursing and slandering:
Marx, who founded the connection between the workers movement with the socialist-communist ideology.
Lenin, who led the revolution that overthrew their rule.
Stalin, who established and consolidated the first socialist state.
Mao, who, by leading revolution in China, formed a new global balance of power and later he tried to pave new ways with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Yet, they try in vain. The “ghost”, they are trying to exorcise, acquires substance every day, within the “new” reality they are attempting to form.
This reality includes the attack of the capital against the working class aiming the re-establishment of its class domination in the most absolute way.
It includes the raid of imperialism against the peoples aiming the re-conquer, re-colonialization of the world.
It includes the fierce rivalry among the imperialist powers for the re-distribution of the world and the dangers this implies for mankind.
It includes the interventions, the wars and the slaughtering of peoples. It includes the intensification of workers’ exploitation, the pauperization of millions of people, the modern slave trade (trafficking). It includes the accumulation of the wealth in a minority of countries and the devastation, the desertification of whole nations.
This policy is generated only by the very nature of the capitalist, imperialist system; by capital’s avid thirst for profits. It is generated by the uncontrollable tendency of imperialism for expansion. It is generated by the criminal features, these tendencies form, and due to the overthrow of the previous balance of power, these features develop unrestraint.
That is why the system cannot be improved. It cannot be reformed. It cannot change. It can only be overthrown.
This is the only real way out for the peoples who suffer from the system’s barbarism. And this is what connects the current reality with October and the socialist way it paved. This is what renders the need for a new October.
This doesn’t mean at all that history is repeated. At least, not in the same way.
The new October, maybe March or December, will pave its own ways. It will have its own shape. It will answer, basically, the same problems, but in its own way. It will be the “same” and at the same time it will be different.
We won’t even try to “describe” it.
It is clear for us that the way out for the peoples cannot be sought anywhere else than within the current reality; within the current contradictions, within the forces that get shaped and develop on the ground of these contradictions. It is within class struggle and the conditions this struggle shapes.
We consider as a fundamental condition the “anew” re-organization of the working class to a “class for itself”. For, only a class can overthrow another class.
We also consider as fundamental condition the re-building of the communist movement – in dialectical relation with the previous condition – on the ground of the demands of our era. For, as it was proven by History and reality continues to show it, the connection of the workers movement with the communist ideology was the factor that built the “body” of the overall and stable rejection of the capitalist system. It comprised the power of the capitalist system overthrow. It comprised the social-political base for the passage to socialism.
A decisive condition is also the restitution and re-projection of the socialist way out; of the socialist prospect in peoples’ consciousness. For it is the only actual and comprehensive way out for the peoples. And at the same time, because it can interpret and unify the peoples’ struggle.
This re-building can be realized only in the field of class struggle. Anything else would only be “map manoeuvres”. Only in class struggle with the vanguard participation and activity of the communists, with their connection with the people; their problems and struggle, the attempts to re-build the communist movement may acquire real substance. Precisely for the same reasons, a fundamental pre-condition of this direction is the critic assessment, the induction of the necessary conclusions for the reasons and the conditions of capitalist restoration; of the defeat. In order to be able to connect, to include our conclusions in the contemporary line and struggle.
It should be clear for us that the organization of the proletariat to “a class for itself” requires as a basic element the consciousness of its historic role as the bearer of the revolutionary overthrow and the building of the socialist society. But this cannot happen unless we have essential and persuasive answers about the reasons and the conditions of the capitalist restoration and the defeat. We cannot pass over such decisive historic development as if it never existed. We cannot ignore the catalytic consequences, this development has influenced the consciousness of the masses, the questions it has generated, and the reason is because we are going to face them again and again. Certainly, class struggle never stopped and it isn’t going to stop. However, the question is what directions it will take; whether it will form conditions of perspective or will it lead to dead ends. And this is connected with the answers of the questions that have been set forth and whether these questions will be answered.
There is a whole literature on this issue from every aspect. It is the need to re-assess, to re-define, to re-establish, to self-criticize etc. This is based on the class and political viewpoint of every aspect. It is the bourgeois propaganda with countless means and thousands penholders who talk constantly for the “failure of the attempt”; for the “dead end” it led things, for the “utopian” side of the thing.
It is the reformists’ aspect, in order to promote the social-democrat model and justify their conciliation with the system and their participation in the capitalist “one way”. It the revisionist aspect with “self-criticism” that are actually the negation of every self-criticism as they pass over the most essential problems that have been set forth. For, exactly an essential study and assessment of these issues would reveal their own responsibilities. But above all it would reveal their adherence to the same distorted, long gone by and impasse direction. It is the petit bourgeois intellect and the opportunists or every kind who whirl self-contentedly around themselves, ruminating old-fashioned metaphysical “assessments” in a post-modern wrapper aiming in “justifying” their “obsessions” and their vanity.
Towards all these, the question is that critic assessment which organizes the working class; the assessment that will forearm the working class and make it capable again to move to the direction of fulfilling its historic perspective. This is the resolute criteria. And this is the basic task the communists have to undertake. It is a task that the Chinese communists have already tried to face when with Mao in charge realized the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It was an attempt that –regardless its final outcome- has left precious consignment to the world proletariat. At the same time it is a task to which the communist movement must respond today.
What is our object?
Our object in this direction is socialism. It is the socialism that existed; and exactly as it existed. All the questions are in this field, in this “body”; the tremendous capacities that rose from its existence. And at the same time it is the weaknesses, the shortcomings and the mistakes. It is the disputes that developed to contradictions. It is the social forces that became the bearers of those disputes and contradictions. It is the questions and the fields they confronted each other. On this ground, it makes no sense to discuss about whether “theory was applied correctly”. A discussion that would focus on “mistakes” and judge what has been conduced in regards with some ideal model. A discussion that would simplify the “interpretation” of such an overthrow” to the “treason” of some leading cadres makes no sense.
In the early ’50s, in Soviet Union a crucial overthrow took place. The revisionists prevailed and they turned Soviet Union to a course that its end was the complete capitalist restoration. This overthrow was connected with –not by chance- Stalin’s death. However, if Stalin’s physical end eliminated the last obstacle for the revisionists’ plans, the real question had been set forth before and regardless of it.
The essence of the issue was that the course of socialist building had reached to a turning point. Socialism had to face the problems generated by its own development and afterwards an overall course question. All these were recorded in the discussions that opened during the same period. The most significant discussion was about the economic problems of socialism. These discussions did not concern simply the different views of some leading cadres but they reflected and expressed actual disputes and contradictions that had already functioned within the frames of the socialist society. At the same time these discussions reflected and expressed the social and political forces that were confronting each other on the ground of these contradictions and the different choices they were promoting.
To which forces we are referring and how we define them.
The working class, the poor peasantry, the soldiers and the sailors, under the political leadership of the Bolsheviks and on the basis of Lenin’s revolutionary strategy overthrew the rule of the system and seized the power. The same forces faced the counter-revolution, stabilized the soviet power and advanced the initial, basic socialist transformations. To these forces was added the –according Stalin – “worker intellect”, the well known as “red experts”. It was a new social predicament, originated from the people. It contributed resolutely in confronting serious problems of the Soviet Union.
We should understand the existence and function of these forces on a certain basis. It is a dialectically connected net of forces that function on the ground of concrete interrelations and concrete roles for each one of them. It was a relation that wanted the working class as the basic and at the same time leading social force. It wanted the worker-agrarian alliance as the social basis of the socialist transformation. It wanted the communist party as the political expression of the working class. It wanted the worker intellect as a servant relation and the state to their service.
These forces and on the ground of such a relation comprised the force of the revolutionary overthrow and the socialist transformation. Not simply in the sense of forming balance of power but as a relation on the ground, of which the revolutionary direction was being “produced”, promoted and developed. We need to underline that only on the ground of these concrete relations it could carry out this role.
The “detachment” of the factors of this net, the changes in their between relations, the overthrows in roles and “hierarchy” degrades its character and gives us a completely new structure. These overthrows were found on the basis of the formation of the conditions that “prepared” and led to the overall overthrow.
The conditions of the overthrow
The social force that was the bearer of the counterrevolution turn that paved the way to the capitalist restoration process was the intelligentsia (the “worker intellect”) which was politically expressed with the revisionist trend. But, on the ground of which conditions, the “worker intellect” from a social predicament “in the service” of the revolutionary block was formed to a counterrevolutionary stratum and capable to seize the power?
The main and resolute role in this negative development played the gradual neutralization of the working class. It was the “de-activation” of the working class in regards with the position, the role, the function and the capacity of its active intervention in the developments.
The working class comprised the resolute force of revolution and the basic social bearer of the socialist transformation. The working class had a full and active participation, not only in production but in the, generally, economic function; in forming the social conditions and political decisions.
Later, this way of functioning started declining. The “authority” was transferred, all the more, from the working class to other organs and forces of the soviet society (party, state, intelligentsia). It was this shift, this deactivation of the working class that put the working class “hor de combat”; the most decisive supporting factor of the revolutionary direction in the transformation course of the soviet society.
A similar development took place with the function and the role of the party. The Bolshevik party had been built and organized in an all out dialectical relation with the working class and the people’s masses. Its internal structure and function was respectively formed; and they were the fundamental factors that made it capable to lead both the revolution and the socialist transformation process. From a certain point on, this function started declining, too and so did the role of the party. Actually, the conditions of a “separation” were formed. It was a separation between the broad base of the party and its leading staff. The latter, from a certain point on, started functioning as the leading staff of the state than of the party. Therefore, it wasn’t –as many argue- the “subjugation of the state to the party”, but the exactly opposite development. It was an overthrow that negated the dialectical relation between the party and the working class. From that point on, the party was functioning less and less as the political expression of the working class and it functioned all the more as the field of “shifting authority” from the working class to the state (and through it to the intelligentsia).
On the other hand, there was a constant consolidation of its position and role in the various fields it was functioning and activating; in production, in general within the economic and social function and the state. The intelligentsia, all the more, it was formed to the decisive factor that estimated, judged, planned, had the initiative, decided and implemented in “its own way” the central political decisions.
Meanwhile, a concept of the particularity of its role was formed within its frames, an elite ideology. On that ground, the communist direction was taken in as a “compulsion” that prevented the intelligentsia from developing its capacities; a compulsion it had to “get rid of”. Actually it was its class contradiction with the working class and the people’s masses.
This development started acquiring serious substance in the late 30s and it was consolidated during war; particularly when it was obvious that victory was possible and the consolidation of Soviet Union to a global superpower started being shaped. This prospect affected in consolidating all these tendencies and ambition (even chauvinist). At the same time, their contradiction with the working class aggravated sharply as well as their disposition to “get rid of” an ideology that became a “bar” for the realization of those ambitions.
Under these conditions the role of the state was significant. Based on the objective given facts and the conditions of that period, the state concentrated more and more authority. It was an objective necessity, up to a certain point but at the same time it included contradictions, problems and dangers. The state as an organism isn’t something self-reliant. It is built, organized and functions in regards with and in the service of social forces. The soviet state was built from the working class and functioned in regards with and in the service of it. The “de-activation”, in a process, of the working class; the, in a sense, “disconnection” of the state from the working class didn’t mean its transformation to a self-reliant organism. The state wasn’t and couldn’t remain a “neutral” and trans-class organism that simply handled things. The “disconnection” degree from the working class marked at the same time the rates of its transformation to a state of the intelligentsia.
Thus, an overall shift of the soviet society’s metacenter from the working class and the worker-peasant alliance to the new leading intelligentsia stratum took place. It was a stratum that acquired all the more a consciousness of common interests and formed its own particular (revisionist) ideology. It organized and prepared to face the communist wing of CPSU. The latter with Stalin in charge, reacted to these moves. However the way it faced the whole issue is not adequate for the overthrow of a direction that had already taken its course. The revisionists made manoeuvres, avoided the frontal confrontation with Stalin was alive and when he died they passed to the final attack.
On the reasons
Regarding the reasons and the conditions of such a development there are objective and subjective ones.
The passage from a social, economic system to another was never and will never be a “moment” in history. The historic development has proved that it can last for centuries; from slaveholding society to feudalist and from feudalism to capitalism. On this ground neither the passage from capitalism to socialism could (or can) take place at once. It will last for a whole historic period, regardless if we cannot estimate how long it will be. The other basic condition of the problems the fact that the socialist, communist, production, economic, social etc relations should –as Stalin said- be “built from scratch”. This is an objective problem and it is related with the way capitalism functions. It should be noted that capitalism didn’t face or faced it in smaller scale when it succeeded feudalism. The bourgeoisie even within the frames of feudalist system had the ability to form – at least up to a certain point – capitalist production relations. On the contrary, within the frames of capitalism it is impossible to form in any scale socialist production relations due to its way of functioning. The directly active role of the bourgeoisie and the capital in productive and economic process doesn’t allow this because it would provoke a direct, frontal and overall clash. It is clash that could be solved only with the overthrow of the capital’s domination from the working class.
The organization of the working class has a respective character and “limits”. The working class is organized within the frames of capitalism and on the ground of conditions that bring it to a bridgeless and overall contradiction with the bourgeoisie. The working class is organized as a force capable to overthrow the capital’s domination and advance the initial socialist transformations and pave the way for the overall transformation of society to a communist direction.
There weren’t and there couldn’t have been those conditions that would make possible the immediate and complete transformation of production relations, in order to acquire their “final” communist shape.
It is precisely this relation that defines the necessity of a transitional period. During that period the production relations can and should transform constantly to a communist direction. It is a process that can develop only in a dialectical connection with the respective development of the working class capacity and its decisive role in every field and expression of social life, from production to ... culture. This process is neither short nor a “technical” political problem or a matter of “planning”. Mainly it is a question of class struggle, which continues during the whole transitional period, from capitalism to socialism, before and after seizing the power.
From a subjective point of view the worker communist movement was prepared up to a certain point to face the problems that would be set forth in process. The movement was ready to face the issues that class struggle had “prepared” it, within the frames of capitalism.
It wasn’t prepared in the same degree to face the issues the occurred later and during the transitional period. It wasn’t prepared to face the problems that would occur from the transformation it would realize. In other words it wasn’t prepared to “take on” its own creation.
Certainly there were theoretical views that prepared for the new issues that would occur.
These views, objectively, didn’t and couldn’t have full supervision and therefore the respective degree of studying the issues that emerged in a next period.
A basic problem that emerged was facing the transitional period as a relevantly short “political” period. During this period the dictatorship of the proletariat could complete the socialist transformation and drive to communism. Therefore it could be “planned”.
A basic expression of this logic was in the way they faced the role of the party, the state and in general of the “subjects” of this course. If this process could be planned, this meant that some organs (subjects) could realize (plan-lead) this program. Thus the tendency of consolidating the role of the party, the state and the mechanisms acquired a theoretical basis. But these subjects (like everything else) were not “outside and above” of this historical process and the class struggle that was conducted within its frames. They were within it, they were affected by it and they were formed by this influence.
Meanwhile, it was not understood in time, substantially and in its overall dimension and consequences the fact that such a concept and a respective practice was objectively declining the role of the working class as the basic advancing power, as the “perpetrator” of that transformation. This concept was more assigning to the working class the role of supporting-implementing this planning, the transformation that was to be realized during that “political” transitional period. From this point of view such a concept contributed in the process in deactivating the working class with every negative consequence.
All the aforementioned and other we didn’t refer to were the basic factors that affected in shifting the metacenter of soviet society from the working class to the mechanism, the state and in final analysis to intelligentsia resulting at the negative development we are all aware of.
We believe that humanity remains in the historical period of transition from capitalism to socialism.
It is a period that opened with the transformation of capitalism from a progressive power to a power of reaction.
It is a transition that is advanced by the working class organized on the ground of the communist ideology.
It was a process that reached its highest peak with October Revolution, paving thus new ways for mankind’s future.
The capitalist restoration and the defeat of the communist movement do not negate the achievements that were accomplished in this direction. They do not change the fact that the communist perspective comprised the “horizon” to which the world advanced. However, they set forth imperatively the issue of the critical assessment of that course and the induction of the necessary conclusions.
A basic pre-condition is to include these conclusions in the contemporary organization and line of the communist movement for the effective advance of its struggle and the fulfillment of its great objectives.
We would like to refer to some conclusions we consider as basic.
The revolution, the overthrow of the capitalist system and the bourgeoisie rule is the initial, necessary and indispensable condition for the passage to the socialist-communist society.
The initial socialist transformations are the necessary presumptions to express this overthrow in the economic, social and political field. At the same time they are not sufficient. These transformations correspond to the given level of development and organizing of the ability of the working class, as it has been formed through its struggle against the capitalist system.
These initial conditions (revolutionary overthrow and initial transformations) are the basis for the opening of a transitional period of overall and more advanced transformations but they are not adequate for their completion. For, these steps correspond to the given development level and organizing the capacity of the working class as they have been formed through its struggle in the previous period.
Moreover, it is this relation of things that set the necessity for a transitional period of more advanced and overall transformations to a socialist-communist direction. It is not about a short “political” period but a long term historical period of an overall social transformation, no matter how long it will last.
This transformation is not fulfilled according a model that society should adapt to. We consider that it will be the development of the initial socialist transformation with every contradictory element it would inevitably involve and therefore with conditions of class struggle.
In general, we believe that this historic advance cannot come under any overall planning or any “final” and “integrated” plan of transition. No one can plan history.
On the same ground we believe that there can’t be any political organ that would undertake this “planning” and the leadership of this course from the beginning to its historic “end”. This doesn’t mean that we reject the necessity of move and action plans; the existence of state, economic and political organs and certainly the party.
Class struggle, regardless its forms, will continue being conducted during this transitional period and at the same time it will continue being presented “concentrated” in the political field and expressed also as political struggle.
That means that the organization of the working class will continue having as a precondition its organization in the political level. The working class will continue needing its party.
It will be a party that will be shaped on the ground of class struggle given facts during this period and as long as the working class needs it, in any shape it needs it.
We want to make clear that the any kind political organs are “within this historic process, they are subjugated to its conditions and they are shaped and/or re-shaped on these conditions. There aren’t and there can’t be organs “outside” and “above” this development.
We would like to refer to the issue we consider as the most crucial one and concerns the role of the working class.
It is the issue of the organization of the working class in regards with the problems it has to face; from the immediate problems to the overall perspective. What form and which features this organization will have cannot be determined theoretically. But we should note two things.
The organizing form of the working class to a “class for itself” was formed basically within the frames of class struggle against capitalism and “expanded” during the stage of the initial basic socialist transformation. The organization we refer to regardless how many of the previous elements it will maintain, will be on the basis of the problems and given facts of class struggle within the frames of the transitional socialist formation.
These are, in final analysis the fundamental conditions that determine the essence and the substance of the dictatorship of the proletariat for this period. In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat can only be the concern of the ... proletariat.
Athens 8-12-2007