The key is the party, which represents the ideological alternative to capitalism. —The Party is the mirror of the new society. The Party represents the politics of modernization, —In order for the U.S. proletariat to play its historic rote, it is led by a party of revolutionaries, organized on the basis of democratic centralism, guided by the science of the proletariat, the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The party is able to apply these teachings to the specific conditions of the U.S in order to import class consciousness into the spontaneous struggles of the proletariat —No political party can possibly lead a great revolutionary movement to victory unless it possesses revolutionary theory and a knowledge of history and has a profound grasp of the practical movement. —Lenin fashioned concrete principles for the nature and functioning of the vanguard party as a disciplined detachment of the proletariat, practicing criticism and self criticism. —In the land where the dictatorship of the proletariat is in force, no important political or organizational problem is ever decided by our councils and other mass organizations without directives from our party. In this sense, we may say that the dictatorship of the proletariat is substantially the dictatorship of the party, as the force that effectively guides the proletariat. —Socialism means political power in the hands of oppressed people. We who constitute the vanguard social force in this country possess the necessary governmental machinery to express our needs and aspirations.
The organization of the idea, that means the movement, has to embrace only so many people as are absolutely necessary for the occupation of the nerve centers of the State involved. —To have a centralized party requires a centralized leadership tested in practice, specific individuals with the understanding and the ability to unify and guide the movement in the face of new problems and be right most of the time. —The leadership develops the organizational forms that have made the people and their armed forces the most invincible fighters against imperialism. The leader knows when to seize an opportunity and when to forego an advantage. He has a long view of the struggle that can help him set priorities for a current moment. His is also the ability to separate a 'main enemy' from a future or past one and often make them hostile to each other to the
94
