1995 Leadership Resolutions on Leaders and Leadership:

Part I: The Party Exists for No Other Reason than to Serve the Masses, to Make Revolution

(Read Part II: Some Points on the Question of Revolutionary Leadership and Individual Leaders)

On the occasion of the party's 20th anniversary, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, released the 1995 Leadership Resolutions on Leaders and Leadership which Revolution is proud to present for our readers. Part I: “The Party Exists for No Other Reason than to Serve the Masses, to Make Revolution” addresses the Party and revolutionary leadership. Part II: “Some Points on the Question of Revolutionary Leadership and Individual Leaders” addresses a number of questions about the need for revolutionary leadership and how communists view the qualifications for leadership and the relationship of leaders to the movement as a whole.

More than anything, we need proletarian revolution: we need to overthrow the bourgeois class in power by defeating their armed enforcers through revolutionary warfare, smash their whole state apparatus, and begin to build up a new and radically different society in which the masses of people will take center stage.

There is no way to accomplish that without seriously applying the basic principles and scientific methodology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), within each country and on a world scale. Historical sweep and vision and concrete analysis of the ever-changing social conditions must be combined and consistently applied in order to guide revolutionary practice and correctly resolve the practical problems of the revolutionary movement.

All this takes more than good ideas and good intentions. It takes real revolutionary organization, and a real revolutionary leadership which is solidly grounded in those basic principles and that basic methodology. A leadership which can, at all times, keep strategic objectives firmly in the forefront of revolutionary practice. A leadership which can consistently and effectively keep the revolutionary movement from straying off course and which can recognize and take advantage of openings for action and advance.

Our Party was birthed through the struggles of the revolutionary-minded people, quite a few years ago. Over the years we have learned a great deal, and we have persevered on the revolutionary road. Today our Party continues to be an evolving expression, distillation, and concentration of the strivings of the masses of people for revolutionary change.

The Party exists for no other reason than to serve the masses of people, to enable them to make revolution and transform the world. And the masses of people themselves are really the roots and the lifeblood of the Party. Without the masses the Party would be nothing.

Our Party is a collective organization, not just a collection of individuals. We decide things collectively and we act collectively. Our power resides in our collectivity--this enables us to correctly link with, unleash, and lead the initiative of the masses and give it its most powerful revolutionary expression in conformity with the fundamental interests of the masses. This collectivity is expressed and realized through the collective functioning of the units of the Party on the various levels, and through the Party's chain of knowledge and of command up and down throughout the Party.

Our Party is organized on the basis of democratic centralism, a method which allows us to combine a high degree of individual input and initiative (from individuals and from units of the Party on all levels) with a high degree of unity of will and action and enables us to fight the enemy in an organized and disciplined way. It makes possible the functioning of the Party's chain of knowledge and of command in a way that links the Party with the masses to lead them in fighting for their revolutionary interests. Democratic centralism is an organizational expression of mass line.

Both aspects of democratic centralism are essential to the application of the mass line, the process through which we call forth and draw from the varied ideas, experiences and contributions of the masses of people (both inside and outside the Party) and bring these together with the summed up lessons of history, and the most sweeping vision of what the future could be, in order to concentrate the best of the masses' collective knowledge and experience over time and return it to the masses in the form of revolutionary line and policies and practical revolutionary guidance. And we do so while maintaining the strongest possible wall of unity and discipline which is difficult for the enemy to breach.

All our Party members are revolutionary leaders in their own right, of different abilities and levels of development. All of them are invaluable: they serve the people and should be supported and defended from attack.

Inside the Party, comrades share the good and the bad, and look out for each other: this too is an expression of our collectivity and our revolutionary outlook. Inside the Party there is (and should always be) much collective discussion and wrangling over what to do, over right and wrong in the development of the revolutionary theory and practice to which all comrades contribute.

The Party organization consists of various small groupings and units, each with its own leadership, which funnel into various higher leading bodies. The collectivity of the Party as a whole is most concentrated, and best represented, in our Central Committee.

Like all Party bodies, the Central Committee functions collectively. Composed of comrades of proven dedication to the masses and to the revolutionary cause, who are themselves well-grounded in the fundamental principles and basic methodology of MLM, the Central Committee collectively recognizes that individual leader who is best suited to lead the Central Committee itself, and through it the entire Party.

Bob Avakian Is This Leader of the Leaders of our Party

Of all the leaders of our Party, Bob Avakian is the individual leader the Central Committee deems:

• best able to lead the collectivity of the Central Committee and its Standing Bodies and, in this way and through the collective structures of the Party and its leading bodies, lead the Party and the masses.
• best able to draw on the Party's collectivity to distill and concentrate what has come up from below, from the masses of people inside and outside the Party.
• best able to distill and concentrate the lessons of history and of the revolutionary struggle of the international proletariat in particular.
• best able to distill and concentrate the most fundamental political, ideological and organizational principles of MLM to date, and to lead in applying them.
• best able to grasp and consciously wield the key scientific method that is dialectical and historical materialism with regard to every sphere of social practice and theory, in order to chart the uncharted path and continually bring revolutionary work into closer concordance with the objective interests and overall strategic objectives of our class.
• best able to combine and connect great historical sweep and vision and a developed ideological and methodological grounding with a real sense of the sentiments of the masses and a deep understanding of the problems of the practical revolutionary movement.
• best able to lead the revolutionary forces of our Party in two-line struggle against revisionism and opportunism and in going against all incorrect tides.
• best able to set a standard for genuine proletarian internationalism and to lead our Party in carrying out its internationalist responsibilities as one contingent of the international communist movement, as one part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.

The greater collectivity that is the RCP's Central Committee considers that the individual who best meets these criteria--and who has proven this over and over again, including at critical junctures in the history of our Party and the international movement--is clearly Bob Avakian.

Comrade Avakian is the complete opposite of a bourgeois leader: he is known for being extremely principled and having tremendous personal and political integrity; he has put serving the people above all else in his life, living and breathing for the masses of people; he has been a model in applying the MLM method of criticism and self-criticism; he has remained steadfastly revolutionary in the face of great personal risk; he has played a crucial role in grasping and propagating the science of MLM and charted new ground in its application to revolutionary practice; he has led the Party in seeking out the roots of, learning from, and correcting errors; he has shown himself to be very capable of drawing from, concentrating and wielding the collective power of our revolutionary organization; and he has never even lost his sense of humor! In short, he is a highly developed revolutionary communist comrade!

The Central Committee of the RCP hereby enthusiastically reaffirms its respect, love, and firm support for Comrade Avakian and his role as Chair of the Central Committee of the RCP,USA.

As part of stepping up our collective struggle to better meet the challenges and opportunities of these times, the Central Committee hereby urges all Party members and revolutionary-minded people to further ponder and discuss what exactly constitutes genuine revolutionary leadership, and to reflect on, and learn from, the particular role and contributions of the Chairman of our Central Committee in that context.

The Central Committee also hereby reaffirms our determination to prevent the enemy from silencing Chairman Avakian's crucial revolutionary voice or denying the revolutionary masses his revolutionary leadership, and our renewed determination to ensure that his guidance and methodology will reach an ever widening audience.

The Central Committee of the RCP,USA hereby urges all revolutionary-minded people to join us in this dedication.

Central Committee of the
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 1995

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