First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 29, July 25, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The Call staff recently held extensive study and discussion aimed at evaluating our work in the last period and charting the tasks and goals ahead, now that the Communist Party (M-L) has been founded.
Some of the main goals set include the expansion of The Call to 20 pages by October 1, 1977, an increase in our readership by 50% within the year and the stepping up of mass activity around The Call at every level.
Looking back on the previous year, The Call has been successful in meeting its most important tasks. The newspaper functioned well as the scaffolding for the construction of the CP (M-L) and played a leading role in uniting the communist movement.
On every political question The Call drew a sharp line of distinction between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. The newspaper boldly brought the principles of communism to life. It reached thousands of workers and oppressed minorities and won many to the cause of socialist revolution.
With the formation of the CP (M-L), the period characterized by small circles and many scattered centers has come to an end.
The period ahead is one of strengthening the Party organizationally and raising the ideological level of its membership. It must root itself ever more firmly in the workers’ movement, especially by building up factory concentrations. In this way, the Party will become the actual and recognized vanguard of the working class.
In carrying out these tasks, emphasis must continue to be placed on propaganda work. Hundreds of advanced, revolutionary-minded workers have been brought to the doorstep of the Party. Now they must be won to the Party’s ranks and trained as communist leaders.
For The Call, this means taking every point of the Party Program in a living way to the masses of people. Particular stress must be placed on comprehensive propaganda articles that explain the true character of the imperialist system, clearly demarcate Marxism from revisionism and win the people to the leadership of the Party. This propaganda should continue to be closely combined with lively agitation.
While The Call has succeeded in developing a good proletarian style and an effective combination of agitation and propaganda in the past period, we must still strive to make the newspaper more popular.
In order to do this our articles must get rid of all vestiges of stereotyped and formalistic writing. We have to become much better at speaking the language of the people and taking up many more issues of concern.
Several hundred more worker correspondents from the factories and communities must be won to write for The Call on a regular basis. With even more news of the class struggle coming directly from the shops and communities, the newspaper will become more closely tied to the lives of the people.
To reflect this broad picture of the class struggle and adequately combine in-depth articles with shorter ones from different angles, the newspaper must continue to expand its size.
The development of a more popular newspaper is closely related to the task of expanding the mass influence and circulation of The Call. Though our circulation is beyond that of most other left papers, it must be expanded in order to increase the Party’s impact on the developing working-class movement. The primary form of distribution–the secret factory network system, already encompassing several thousand workers in the plants–must be strengthened and consolidated. The Call staff set the goal of increasing the circulation of the paper from 13,000 to 20,000 weekly within the year.
Key to the success of our work in the next period is the correct practice of the “mass line.” This means seeking out the opinions and mobilizing the enthusiasm of the masses of people, concentrating their ideas into communist leadership and then uniting the people behind a correct program of action.
As in all other fields of Party work, the expansion and improvement of The Call must rely on the masses and not on a few individuals in a newspaper office to carry out the work. In this regard, The Call staff summed up the significance of the struggle against the revisionist Martin Nicolaus, who preached that the workers were “too backward” to grasp Marxist-Leninist propaganda.
Continuing to fight the Nicolaus line in practice, The Call Committees must expand their work as revolutionary newspaper bureaus among the masses. Consistent weekly coverage must be done on the class struggle in each city. Of special importance is the recruitment of several hundred more working-class and minority fighters to The Call Committees and their training as skilled propagandists and agitators.
The factory and community networks around The Call must be expanded to encompass several thousand more readers, worker correspondents and distributors of The Call. This expansion, however, can only be based upon the continued effort at consolidating a core of activists in the networks, and on the recognition that these networks must be secret from the capitalists and their spies. We should have no illusions that the capitalists will permit the open and “legal” distribution of The Call forever.
The entire system of Call Committees, Call study circles and Call networks must be bolshevized–transformed into a finely-tuned instrument for building The Call and organizing the people for the coming revolutionary battles. Through these forms of organization around the newspaper, the people will receive training for the coming insurrectionary battles.
In addition, The Call’s work in other languages must be expanded. Although our Spanish-language work has been a model for upholding the equality of languages, this work can be improved. Work must also begin in both The Call and in other Party publications to translate into minority languages widely spoken in the U.S., such as Chinese, French, Arabic, Tagalog and others.
To meet all these goals in the next period will require the active participation of tens of thousands of people. We call on all our readers to send us comments and suggestions, and to take part in this campaign in the following ways:
–Join The Call Committee in your area and contribute on a regular basis to our coverage of the class struggle in every locality and every field.
–Build The Call’s circulation by subscribing, or by taking a bundle of papers each week and distributing them to fellow workers.
–Join one of The Call study circles or networks in your factory or community and study the science of Marxism-Leninism and the Program of the CP (M-L).
–Become a worker correspondent for The Call and send us news of the class struggle right as it happens.
–Support the Party and its press financially. Only the contributions of the masses can allow The Call to expand to 20 pages and the Party to increase the scope of its activities.
We are confident that, with the support of the people, The Call will meet all of its goals in the coming year.