The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-04-14
Progress in the BOIslepisuon of the Communist Party

It means to master all the lessons taught US
by that first Communist Party the most sue
cessful one, created and led to victory by Lenin
and now successfully building Socialism under
the leadership of Stain. It means to become a
party of the masses; to be Party with It's
strongest roots among the decisive workers in
the basic industries; it means to be Party
whose stronghold Is in the ships, mines and
factories, and especially in the biggest and
most important ones; 1t means to be Party
that leads and organizes the struggles of all the
oppressed people, bring them into firm alliance
with the working class; 1t means to be a Party
that answers every question of the struggle
that can solve every problem; it means to be
Party that never shrinks from difficulties, that
never turns aside to find the easiest way; that
learns how to overcome all deviations in its own
ranks-fght on two fronts-it means to become
a Party that knows how to take difficulties and
dangers and transform them into advantages
and victories.
Are we such a Party2 Not yet. We have
strong ambition to become such Party. We
are making progress in that direction. But
when we consider the extremely favorable cir
cumstances under which we work, when millions
are beginning to move to organize, to fight,
when only our program can solve their prob
lens, then we must say that we are moving
forward entirely too slowly. Our task is to win
the majority of the wordngclass to our program.
We do not have unlimited time to accomplish
this Tempo, speed of development of our work,
becomes the decisive factor in determining VIC
tory or defeat.
The Bolshevik method of work necessary in
this period was concretely outlined for the
Party in the Open Letter of the Extra ordinary
Party Conference last year. 1t called for con-
centration of our forces upon the most i'm
portant tasks, upon the workers in the basic
industries upon the biggest factories. It set
certain minimum, practical tasks to be accom-
plished within certain period; it called for pc
riodical re-exanination, check-up and control
on the execution Of these tasks.
This 9th Convention of the Party must make
such check-up and control for the entire
Party. We must review the work of our Party
since the It'll Convention and especially since
the Extraordinary Conference, and establish
what we have succeeded in accomplishing.
Where have we failed, and where are our weak
nesses? Upon this basis we can then correctly
set ourselves the control tasks for the next
period. We must forever put behind us that
time when we wrote resolutions and set ourselves
tasks on paper, then took this paper, carefully
locked it up in the drawers of desk, forgot
about it and proceeded to drift along as best
we could according to the exigencies of the
movement without plan, without direction, and
then write another resolution like the one we
wrote before and proceed to forget it like we
forget the other one. When we write resolu-
ton, this is the most serious binding of our
selves to carry it out. If it is not carried out we
must know wbV and in the oYt resolution
write we must take all necessary measures to
guarantee that the resolution will actually be
put into execution.
In 1880. at the 7th Convention, our Party had
just emerged from a long period of relative
stagnation and even retrogression, resulting
from protracted inner party factional struggles,
and the domination Of the opportunist policies
of the Lovestone leadership. The It'll Con-
vention consolidated the unifcation of the
Party, confirmed the throwing off of the oppor-