These three theses on the relationship between a legal political party (L.P.P., or No. 2. in the documents below) and the underground Communist Party (C.P. or No. 1). represented different currents at the coming Bridgman Convention. That 1922 Michigan gathering (which ended in the disastrous arrest of most participants) brought together at the demand of the International the United Communist Party (the former Communist Labor Party, plus Ruthenberg’s faction of the old Communist Party) with the majority of underground Communist Party of America to form the Unified Communist Party. With many still in jail as the raids, arrests, and deportations of the movement’s first years took a heavy toll, legal vs. illegal work and organization was a very live issue. The first theses might be called the majority theses and was drafted by Robert Minor, steering a middle course between the ‘Anti-Liquidators’ envisioning continued underground life, drafted by the C.P.A.’s Israel Amter and Abraham Jakira, with the ‘Liquidators’ favoring a fully legal orientation presented by Charles E. Ruthenberg and Max Bedacht. While the Convention did not vote, it would be the view of the ‘Liquidators’ that would, over time, prevail as the April, 1923 convention of the legal Workers Party formally disbanded the underground C.P.

‘Above or Below Ground: Three Theses on the Communist Movement’ from The Communist (Unified C.P.A.). Vol. 1 No. 9. July, 1922.

Theses on Relations of the C.P. to an L.P.P. by the Central Executive Committee of the C.P. of A. Section of the Communist International.

I. Necessity of a C.P.

All experience in the modern class struggle proves that the working class can emerge victorious only after developing an organ of leadership in the form of a highly disciplined Communist Party, thoroughly conscious of revolutionary principles and tactics. The first task of communists is, therefore, to develop such a party.

II. Action of Masses.

While the C.P. is the organ of leadership and bears the heaviest brunt of the fight, the revolution is an action of broad masses of the exploited sections of the population extending far beyond the limit of the numerical strength to which a highly conscious, disciplined party can be developed. The final struggle for power by the working class is not the result of a revolutionization of the minds of the masses through merely theoretical propaganda, agitation and education. It develops out of the irreconcilable conflict of the interests of the classes. This conflict is first shown in the minor struggles of the workers for their existence. The minor struggles clarify the fundamental conflict of class interests, thus bringing class consciousness and leading toward the major struggle for power. Education and propaganda, though necessary to build the revolutionary party, would if taken alone, build a sterile sect, utterly impotent to deal with mass action. The major task of the revolutionary party in regard to the broad masses of workers is, therefore, not abstract propaganda and abstract theoretical education, but participation in all the struggles of the workers as the most active force.

III. Contact With the Masses.

The leadership of the masses of the exploited can be attained only by directly engaging in all their struggles, together with the masses of the workers. In a country where political conditions permit the possibility of mass political organizations of the working class, the revolutionary party cannot secure leadership without securing a powerful, and finally dominant position among such mass political organizations of the workers. This essentially implies public contact with the masses. In America, it has become the most urgent immediate task of the Communists to secure a public, open, so-called “legal” existence as an organization.

IV. A Legal Party.

A truly revolutionary (i.e. Communist) party can never be “legal” in the sense of having its purpose harmonize with the purpose of the laws made by the capitalist state, or its acts conform with the intent of capitalist law. Hence, to call a Communist Party “legal” means that its existence is tolerated by the capitalist state because of circumstances which embarrass the capitalist state’s efforts to suppress it. The revolutionary party can avoid suppression into a completely secret existence only by one or both of two means:

a) By taking advantage of the pretense of “democratic forms” which the capitalist state is obliged to maintain. By this means the communists can maintain themselves in the open with a restricted program while establishing themselves with mass support.

b) (Later stage.) By commanding such mass support among wide masses of workers that enable them to proclaim publicly their final object in the revolutionary struggle and manouver openly to attain this object regardless of the desire of the capitalist state to suppress it.

It is necessary at the present time (and circumstances make it the most urgent immediate need) to resort to the first of the before-mentioned methods of open contact with the working masses: which means to maintain an open political party with a modified name and a restricted program. The second of these two conditions must be reached by the Communist Party of America. We seek to have an open Communist Party as soon as this can possibly be attained.

As to whether a “legal” Communist Party is possible, the test is whether the full Communist program (including the principle of mass action and the violent overthrow of the capitalist state), together with affiliation with the Communist International, can publicly be maintained without the Party being suppressed.

V. L.P.P.

A legal political party with the before-mentioned restrictions cannot replace the Communist Party. It must serve as an instrument in the complete control of the Communist Party, for getting public contact with the masses. It must mobilize the element of workers most sympathetic to the Communist cause with a program going as far toward the Communist program as possible while maintaining a legal existence. It must, with a course of action in daily participation in the workers’ struggle, apply Communist tactics and principles and thus win the trust of the masses and prepare them for the leadership of the Communist Party. It must organize the sympathetic workers into a framework that will later become the framework of an open Communist Party, taking care systematically to educate the workers in the “legal” party in principles, tactics and discipline, so as to fit them–to become members of the Communist Party. Thus the building of a legal political party with a modified name and program will prepare the field for an open Communist Party strong enough to stand in the open and capable of leading in the revolutionary struggle.

VI. Future Suppression.

The overthrow of the capitalist system can only come through the violent overthrow of the capitalist state. To accept this view is to accept the certainty that the capitalist state will find itself in violent conflict with the masses led by the Communist Party, and that the State will attempt to destroy the Communist Party. While the capitalist state retains the governmental machinery, and as the struggle grows sharper in approaching the final struggle, the capitalist state will inevitably strike again and again at the revolutionary party in the effort to destroy it. After the Communist Party shall have established itself in the open, it must be prepared for, and must expect to be driven out of a “legal” existence from time to time. The Communist Party must at all times be so organized that such attacks cannot destroy it. It must perform its functions of leadership in the class struggle no matter what tactics the ruling class adopts–open as far as possible, secretly as far as it must.

VII. Underground.

The underground machinery of the Communist Party is not merely a temporary device to be liquidated as soon as the Communist Party with its full program can be announced in the open. The underground machinery is for permanent use. It is not a machinery to be used only on emergency occasions. It is for constant use. It must continue to operate not only while a legal party operates with restricted program, but also at all times, before and after the Communist Party with a full Communist program shall exist in the open. There is never a time, previous to the final overthrow of the Capitalist State, when a truly revolutionary party does not have to perform a considerable amount of work free from police knowledge and interference. The Communist Party will never cease to maintain its underground machinery until after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of the Workers Soviet Republic.

VIII. Control.

Throughout the Communist movement of the World, the system of “Presidiums” prevails, by which matters of necessarily secret nature are kept in the hands of the most reliable and most trusted members of the Party. This is a necessary feature of a revolutionary organization. As the Communist Party of America grows to dimensions containing many thousands of members, it will be necessary to maintain this principle. At times when the Communist Party as such maintains itself in the open, the membership which constitutes at present the C.P. within the No. 2 will, with some variations, constitute the older and best known, and most disciplined membership, to be entrusted with the more confidential matters and the illegal work of the party generally. This does not mean that the whole Party membership will not be required to do work that conflicts with the capitalist law, but that the work of the most secret and important nature must be kept in the most trusted hands.

During the time when the Communist Party operates, not under its own name and program in the open, but through a “legal” political party with restricted program and different name, the same principle is applied by having full control of such legal party in the hands of C.P. This is accomplished by having a majority of all important committees composed of C.P. members, and by means of regular and compulsory caucuses of all the C.P. members within any legal unit, bound by the unit rule, a principle which will prevail in some effective form when the C.P. is itself in the open. As the membership develops loyalty to the party and respect for its discipline it will be possible to lessen the purely mechanical control and avoid the small friction that is inevitable for the present. There is an unsatisfactory feature in the present condition. Committee members, persons in responsible positions, and all especially active members of such legal party should be, practically without exception, members of the C.P. The Party must make systematic efforts to bring this about. Definite efforts must be made to bring every member of such legal party who shows himself to be equipped with communist understanding and capable of leadership, into the C.P. Every such active member must be tested as to his readiness to accept the C.P. program and discipline, and the decision of the C.I., and upon passing the customary tests, must be brought into membership of the C.P.

IX. Executive Committees.

The Party must endeavor to reach at the earliest reasonable time the condition where all members of responsible committees of an L.P.P., such as C.E.C., D.E.C., Sub-D.E.C. etc., shall be members of No. 1. The personnel of committees of an L.P.P. should consist in its majority of the personnel of the corresponding committees of No. 1. The remainder of the personnel of L.P.P. committees should generally be No. 1 members wherever possible. The organizers and officials of the No. 1 and the L.P.P. committees shall generally not be the same.

Theses on the Relations of No. 1 and 2. by J. Ford (Israel Amter) and A. Dubner (Abraham Jakira)

1. Government is force organized by one class to keep another in subjection. When the subject class becomes conscious of the oppression under which it labors, it organizes to overthrow the class in power. This struggle, of necessity, develops into a struggle of force against force–of the armed force of the oppressed class against the armed forces of the class in power–the Government.

2. This being a phenomenon based on historical fact, it is the task of the Communists to prepare and organize the working class for this struggle against the master class, the capitalists, and against their organized armed force, the government.

3. The great masses of the working classes cannot be consciously organized for this task. Weighted with the burden of false education, prejudice and the terrorization of the master class and the government, they cannot be formed into organization consciously under the control of the Communists.

4. It is the function of the Communists, therefore, as the most conscious, militant revolutionary section of the working class, to organize themselves into a party and by means of this party prepare the rest of the working class for the struggle against the capitalist system and the government.

5. The nature of the struggle the overthrow of one class by another makes it impossible, as history has shown, for a party with this program to carry on its most essential work in the open. The conflict with the government is so brutal and so frequent that the revolutionary organization working openly would be disrupted and ground to pieces by the superior force of the State. The Communists, therefore, are compelled to function as an underground party–the C.P.

6. Work in the underground limits activities, is very cumbersome and does not suffice for the overthrow of the capitalist system. The C.P. is obliged to penetrate all existing working class and semi-working class organizations and to form other open organizations to reach the masses, using these organizations as tools and auxiliary of the C.P. One of these organs is the open political party, consisting of revolutionary workers, not all of whom are real Communists. The program of this party, by its very nature, is restricted, in that it must adapt itself to the laws of the country.

7. This L.P. can by no means replace the real C.P. On the contrary, the underground party must be built ever firmer and stronger; it must guide and control the L.P. through their influence of its membership, through its official organs and all other means of propaganda at its disposal.

8. To perform its function as the directing and controlling body, the C.P. must be made up of only the best, the most advanced, the most trusted, tried and intelligent section of the working class! It must exercise a rigid discipline, removing from its ranks all who merely comprehend the principles of Communism but fail to carry out the work of the party. Not understanding alone, but activity, willingness to sacrifice and to do every kind of dangerous work must determine membership in the C.P.

9. The tasks of the C.P. and all the organizations that it creates must be clearly defined, in order that all may serve their purpose without conflict and waste or duplication of effort. The specific functions of each party may vary at different stages of the development of the class struggle. At the present preparatory period, undoubtedly a large part of the work can be done in many parts of the country openly, leaving for the underground party functions, which, leaving for the underground party functions, which, though limited in quantity, nevertheless are of extreme importance, without which no real Communist movement can be conceived of.

10. The main task of the C.P. is to organize UNRESTRICTED Communist education and propaganda, thus insuring that the full Communist message is made clear at all times. The C.P. must carry on all such work as cannot be done openly; it must build and support the L.P. and other open organizations and direct their activities.

11. The C.P. must at least once a month issue its organs, dealing theoretically and analytically with all the problems of the class struggle and of the party. It shall give direction to and formulate the slogans for the work of all open organizations. The attitude of the C.P. to its open organizations and especially the L.P. shall be a favorable and encouraging one. It must, however, always point out the deficiencies in the activities of the L.P. The C.P. shall devise ways and means of reaching the membership of the L.P. with its illegal organ in order to further their education. The C.P. must also issue all such literature as cannot be published legally.

12. The C.P. must issue leaflets dealing with the struggles of the workers in a REALISTIC manner, so that the masses will perceive that the C.P. understands the struggle, but is unable to work openly because of the nature of its organization.

13. The C.P. must constantly make recruits to its ranks from the membership of the L.P., labor unions and other working class organizations. It is one of the main tasks of the C.P. to develop and strengthen its organization.

14. The groups of the C.P. must meet regularly, at least once a month.

15. The C.P. is the section of the C.I. in this country, and is the only body capable of stating the official position of the C.I.

16. The task of the L.P. is to participate directly in the everyday struggles of the workers, endeavoring to develop the struggles for immediate needs into revolutionary mass struggles. It must conduct open propaganda and education, participate in the elections, issue papers and leaflets on the basis of immediate demands, bringing the masses more and more to the Communist position. As far as possible, all editors of the L.P. organs must be members of the C.P.

17. Through the L.P. membership, the C.P. permeates all existing working class organizations, acting as nuclei within those organizations. In the Labor Unions, the L.P. must form a left wing, acting as nucleus and taking the leadership in it.

18. The C.P. shall endeavor to establish the same discipline, wage scale and regulation for all officials on the L.P. as prevails in the C.P. It must always be remembered that the real revolutionary party the American section of the C.I.–is the C.P. of A., and the L.P. is but an instrument which it uses to better carry out the work among the masses. Only through membership in the American section the C.P. of A.–can the American workers become members of the C.I.

19. As organs of the C.P., the L.P. and other open organizations must be under its direction and control. The discipline of the C.P. is SUPREME for members. The convention of the C.P. must be held prior to the convention of the L.P. and determine all policies for the party and all of its open organizations. It is the duty of the committees and of the membership to carry out these policies in the L.P. and all other organizations. In order that the work of the C.P. and L.P. may be conducted properly and the C.P. at the same time be safeguarded from the clutches of the government, the Ex. Com. elected at the convention of the Communist Party shall divide into two parts, the major part becoming the No. 1 department and devoting itself to carrying out in the C.P. the policies laid down by the convention and the Ex. Com., the minor part becoming the No. 2 department and devoting itself to carrying out in the L.P. the policies laid down by the convention and the Ex. Com.

20. This policy of division of work shall be followed in all subordinate committees of the C.P.

21. The functions of organizers of the C.P. and L.P. being different, and the safety of the organization making it imperative, the organizers of the C.P. shall, as a rule, not be the organizers of the L.P.

22. The Communists must seek to control all committees in the L.P. By better understanding of principles and more active participation in the L.P. work, they must win over the membership of the L.P. to the real Communist position.

23. Members of the C.P. must work as a nucleus in the L.P. Although all the policies are laid down in C.P., the activities of the Communists in the L.P. evolving out of these policies must be left to the Communist understanding, better organization and generalship of the members of the C.P.

24. C.P. members act as a caucus in the L.P. nuclei in the Labor Unions. Decisions on all important matters must be made in caucus meetings.

25. As the situation becomes more revolutionary the L.P. gaining the support of the masses, will become more revolutionary in form, character and activity. In such a situation, the L.P. may formally amalgamate with the C.P. and assume its name.

The underground C.P., remaining as an organization within the open Party, continues to be the directing and controlling body. It remains intact and must continually be strengthened. There must be a periodical purging of its ranks and the discipline made more rigid. New blood from the open party and other open organizations must be introduced into the underground organization.

26. Even though the C.P. shall have come above ground and act as the section of the C.I., the underground organization remains as the directing organ of the open C.P. All important policies must first be taken up by the underground organization and its decisions put through in the open party. The underground organization must continually be reinforced, since even when fighting in open, the activities of the open party will depend on the vigor, understanding, strategy and generalship of the underground organization. The open party being a mass organization can not have the discipline and understanding of an underground organization, and will respond to calls to action only in proportion as the underground membership is disciplined and exerts influence. This status will continue up to and through the revolution and to the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Problem of Communist Organization in the U.S.by Damon (C.E. Ruthenberg) and Marshall (Max Bedacht).

The historic role of the Communist Party is through its leadership to marshal the working masses against the capitalist state, conquer and destroy and destroy that state power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Workers Councils and through the power of the Workers’ state transform capitalist production into communist production.

In order that the C.P. may perform this historic task, there are two conditions which it must fulfill:

(a) it must organize in the C.P. the class conscious revolutionary workers and have a clear understanding of the class struggle and the aims of the C.P. It must infuse these workers with an unshakeable loyalty and iron discipline.

(b) through its program of action in the everyday struggles of the workers, through the activities of its members in these struggles the Party must win the confidence and leadership of the masses of the workers. Through the winning of this confidence and leadership in the everyday struggles the Party creates the conditions when it will be able in time of revolutionary crisis to array the mass power of the workers against the capitalist state to overthrow that state.

The Communist Parties organized in the United States in 1919 were made up of a membership of which at least 90% were from the language federations. With the open Party and open work these earnest, loyal revolutionary language groups. which came into the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party would have served as a basis of a movement that would soon attract to its ranks the best elements among the American workers.

The attacks upon the Communist Parties four months after their organization resulted in reducing the membership of the two Communist Parties from 50 to 60,000 to about 10,000 which resulted in cutting down the American element to a still smaller proportion than before. As a result of the various splits, the membership has been still further reduced to about 5 to 6000, among whom it would be difficult to find 500 American comrades.

It is almost an impossible task for the Party as it exists today to fulfill the historic role as outlined above. How can we hope to interpenetrate the life of working masses of the country and have the members if our Party become the leaders in their everyday struggles when a large proportion of our membership is not able to speak the language of these workers and only a very small number are not debarred from active public work. It is true that there are in the basic industries of the country a large number of workers who are of the language groups represented in the Party and though these language groups are of great service to us we cannot hope to fulfill the role laid down in (b) above while our Party is made up completely if its present membership only, nor is there much hope of bringing into that membership the required new elements as long as we work under the organization conditions of the last two years. We need only to ask how many of our members can take an active public part in carrying out our program in the unions, how many of our members can assume positions of responsibility in a strike, to realize that we must achieve a revolutionary change in the character of our organization before we even make the beginning in becoming a force in the class struggle in the United States.

No one will be able to challenge the statement that our Party would have been far in advance of its present position if it had been permitted to develop as an open Communist Party. We would by now have had the Party stronger than the S.P. ever was both in the character of the membership and its numbers. We would have had attracted a large American element. Under the guidance of the C.I. we would have established our organization for underground work as part of that Party. We would have created a machinery which could take the Party underground in time of crisis. Such normal development would have by now made our Party a powerful force in the struggle of the American workers. There has grown in the Party during these two years of illegal existence the belief that a Communist Party must of necessity exist as an underground organization. There is no revolutionary virtue in a Communist Party being an underground organization. It is at all times a bitter necessity against which the Party must fight with all its energies. When the capitalist state forces a Communist Party underground it gains a victory because it increases the difficulties of its tasks; when a Communist Party throws off its underground existence it wins an advantage in the struggle. The aim of the C.P. must, therefore, be to systematically work for its establishment as an open C.P.

The attacks of 1919 and 1920 which drove the Communist Parties underground arose out of the revolutionary crisis which existed at that time. The Russian workers and peasants had established their dictatorship; Europe was aflame with the spirit of revolution; the whole capitalist world felt insecure. When, therefore, the American capitalists found themselves face to face with a series of great strikes,–the steel strike; the miners strike; the threatened strike of the railroads at the end of 1919; expressing the revolutionary ferment prevalent in the capitalist world, they struck out at the Communist Parties which were the leaders in revolutionary agitation.

These conditions do not exist now. True, there are great strikes and more strikes threatening, but the capitalists do not feel insecure. They feel that they have gained the whip hand; that they are safe. As a consequence they have again assumed the hypocritical mask of “democracy” and tolerate revolutionary agitation which two years ago was put down with an iron hand. The C.P.A. must take advantage of this situation to again achieve existence as an open C.P. There is an element in the Party which holds that the Party can only come into the open when it can advocate as part of its program “the principle of mass action and armed insurrection”. This view is a hangover from that “leftist nonsense” which felt it necessary to preach “armed insurrection” to the workers when there was a street car strike or some other struggle of the workers over wages and working conditions. There is no magic in the words “armed insurrection” which makes it necessary to a program in order that it can be a communist program. The test of a communist program is whether it advocates mass action, the Soviet State and proletarian dictatorship, and includes affiliation with the C.I. To make a test of the possibility of an open C.P. the advocacy of “armed insurrection” by the program is to say that there can be no open CP until the time of revolution, a condition which is given the lie by the greater number of existing open Communist Parties all over the world. Based upon the foregoing discussion, we declare:

(a) that there is no revolutionary virtue in a Communist Party existing as an underground organization; on the contrary in order to fulfill its historic role, it must, if driven, underground carry out a consistent struggle to attain an open existence.

(b) that it is an established necessity for the C.P.A. to again attain an open existence so that it may draw new elements into its ranks on the basis of a full communist program; elements which are needed in order that it may attain the leadership in the class struggle in the U.S.

(c) the formation of the No. 2 must be considered as the first step toward the attainment of an open existence by the C.P.A. The C.P.A. must make use of the No. 2 make a consistent drive to again work itself into the open.

(d) This task is accomplished by extending the activities, enlarging the functions and clarifying the program of the No. 2 step by step; in the degree that the program and activities of the No. 2 take on a communist character the underground loses more and more its character as a separate political party.

(e) Through this process the apparent duality of the No 1. and No. 2. ceases to exist and there is a transformation into an unquestioned entity. This is accomplished through the permeation of the No. 2. with communist understanding and spirit.

The immediate steps to be taken by the coming convention should be

(a) To develop a clear communist program for the No. 2 although retaining its present name

(b) To seek recognition as a sympathetic organization from the C.I. for the No. 2.

During the process of transformation the relationship between the No. 1 and No. 2 should be the following:

(a) All duality of committees and officers should be eliminated as quickly as possible wherever possible. To achieve this end, the best elements of the No. 2. who are not members of the No. 1. must be brought into the No. 1.

(b) The units of the organization of the No. 1. must act as a caucus within the No. 2. Have meetings and discuss questions of policy relating to the actions to be carried out by the No. 2 and act as a unit within the No. 2 committee so long as these are not made up completely of No 1 members. In carrying on its political activities through the No. 2 the C.P. acts as the directing force of the No. 2. The Executive Committees of the C.P. then become the coordinating force of the directing caucus of the C.P. within the No. 2

After the C.P.A. becomes an open party it will maintain an illegal apparatus for the conduct of such work as cannot be carried on openly. It will maintain machinery necessary to carry the party underground in case of renewed attack upon the organization.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thecommunist/thecommunist6/v1n09-jul-1922-com-CPA.pdf