Leninist Party Faction

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Some thoughts on LPF tactics for the rest of the year

John Percy – June 1, 2007

The Leninist Party Faction is a principled faction, with a clear, well-defined platform, and a specific goal, and we intend to set an example for the future on how a principled faction should function in a Leninist party, and can win.

The charge that the LPF is an “unprincipled clique”, as Peter Boyle stated in his May 2006 NC report, adopted by the majority, and Dick Nichols repeated at a recent NE, is laughable. In fact, we function in a much more principled manner than the majority combination, which encompasses quite varied political positions on many of the issues that have been in dispute, and which does resort to cliquish behaviour, functioning partly as an apparatus gang.

At this stage of the struggle I thought it might be useful to set down some thoughts about our tactics for the rest of the year, and some general points about tactics in a faction fight like this. I’d appreciate feedback, criticisms, and further suggestions or ideas, so that we go into the second half of the year finely tuned to maximise our possibilities in the debate and at the DSP Congress.

Planning to win

The LPF’s actual line of march is one of winning this political fight in the DSP, and reclaiming the party for a principled Leninist perspective, winning our party back. This is the line set out in the LPF platform, it’s what we’re constituted around.

Furthermore, it’s not just a question of the theoretically best course, or what we hope happens. Having this mindset, letting our real perspective influence and permeate all our large and small decisions and tactics, is a positive contribution in itself. It helps us make the right decisions, have the right attitudes, makes our task easier.

We constituted ourselves as a faction around a very clear platform, developed in the PCD and elaborated at the Congress, and elaborated further at NC meetings since the Congress, to win the party back. That goal is still some way away, but the faction has been successful from the perspective of elaborating and defending our platform, and the program of the DSP, and also successful from a number of organisational points of view.

We also constituted ourselves as a faction to prevent our expulsion or exclusion. And we can point to concrete examples of how this has been successful so far, slowing down the efforts of the majority to exclude us, and slowing down the process of drift of minority comrades who were especially disgusted with the majority politics and actions.

We constituted ourselves as a faction also to keep up morale, to work against any individual comrades getting demoralised and wanting to drop out, or strike out on their own.

Party loyalists

Another way of saying all this is that we are party loyalists. The central point of our platform is that we’re staying in, to win.

We are loyal to the party. We’re especially loyal and supportive of our party program, and our history. In times when our program is getting threatened, and the lessons of our history disregarded, we want to be seen as the best defenders and promoters of the party, whether in informal discussions, of by offering to do talks and classes on such issues, and in practice.

Party loyalty we know is good in itself; it’s natural in the workers movement. It reflects healthy working class instincts and lessons about the need for unity in order to fight and win. But party loyalty is even more powerful when it’s combined with a thorough political understanding, and the operation of a critical facility.

We’re getting a better understanding of party loyalty itself as a result of our experiences fighting for our faction’s objectives. We can see how it’s operated to ensure the current leadership a majority – there were many who voted for the NE majority because they were their immediate organisers or branch secretaries, or the comrades visibly directing their work. And there were also inactive comrades who voted for the majority with no understanding at all of any of the issues being debated. That “loyalty” is not party loyalty, but its antithesis. Party loyalty can only consist of conscious involvement in the party’s activities and discussions of its program and tactics. This points to some of the weaknesses that had been developing in the party even before the entrenchment of the SA-as-our-party line and the outbreak of the internal struggle.

So our tactics in this factional struggle do have to take account of party loyalty, the healthy side of it in a Leninist party, as well as the weaknesses shown in a party that had probably slipped quite a bit from the ideals of our Leninist norms.

Disciplined in our tactics

We should be disciplined in all aspects of the fight inside the party, just as we should be disciplined in the class struggle as a whole. We don’t want to hand any easy points to the ruling class, and in the same way we have to maximise our chances inside the party, not giving the majority leaders any free points.

In the course of the 17 months during which the faction has been functioning, we’ve had quite a few experiences, different debates, different examples of what works and what doesn’t, what helps convince comrades of our ideas and line, and what turns them off, and gives easy kicks to the majority.

So at this stage of the struggle, before the opening of PCD before the Congress, it could be useful for us to review and assess our tactical perspectives in the fight. Most importantly, we have to be clear about the major tactical questions that confront us – our goals in the faction fight, our immediate goals in the debate, what issues to focus on, which layers in the party might be most receptive. It’s also helpful to pay attention to what might seem like minor issues, for example questions of tone, stance, language etc.

And it’s also useful to stop and think and return to some of the original documents, reports and PCDs from the end of 2005, to refresh our memories about how the issues were seen then. Otherwise we can tend to get bogged down only in the most current outrage or debate, and lose the big picture. It’s also extremely useful to go back and re-read some of the reports and documents from before our SA turn, to remind us of both the political perspectives the party leadership presented at that time, and the organisational goals and achievements of the DSP before we wandered into the SA swamp. This complete, broader picture can be important, helpful for all of us, as we all should be preparing in advance some contributions for the future PCD.

Stage of class struggle in Australia

Our tactics of course aren’t independent of the overall state of the class struggle, in Australia and the world.

We’d have to recognise that the tempo here is slow, very slow. OK, it can speed up quickly, but there’s no sign of that at the moment. OK, In Latin America, in the Middle East, things are moving much faster, the temperature of politics is much hotter. But we’re not crucial to significant political outcomes in Australia at the moment (no matter how much the SA-as-our-party fantasists kid themselves). The immediate task is to get a healthy party, recruit and train cadres.

If in fact there was the possibility for rapid development, for mass growth of socialist forces, then some comrades might be tempted to argue that we should stake all on a new tack, strike out on our own, run up our own flag and sharp political program. This is what the MSN/DA comrades had visions of.

But “SA as a permanent tactic” itself was initially based on such an overestimation of the stage and direction of the class struggle in Australia – it was based on expectations of a continuing class struggle upturn, an ongoing upsurge in the radicalisation process. (The majority have since moved to widen their theoretical justification for this permanent tactic, to the permanent need for a half-way house, a “broad party”, left reformist party, for all times and places.)

We know that this was and is false, and the majority have persistently refused to face up to this reality about Australian politics, hyping about the IR campaign, to squeeze it into their schema of SA. We counterpose a sober analysis of the state of the class struggle, and propose a tactical approach that is realistic.

Our tactics in our internal factional struggle must likewise be based on a sober analysis of the state of the class struggle.

I think we can safely say we’ve seen the refutation of the MSN tactic in practice in the past year. Since the six of the comrades led by Jorge and Roberto left a year ago, they haven’t had the anticipated flocking to them of all the forces they claimed were out there waiting. They haven’t been able to lead an upsurge in the movements. It seems they haven’t been able to recruit even a single new member outside the DSP. (In fact they seem to have turned their main hopes for growth on splitting off a comrade or two from the LPF!)

Some of them now probably regret their split, and would not repeat their stupid resignation from the DSP and from the LPF. Apparently there has even been an explicit admission about this from at least one of the DA comrades.

So in clear counter position to the line of the MSN/DA, we should be reaffirming our perspective of aiming to win back the DSP.

Tenacity

In fact, the necessity for this perspective is reaffirmed by our experience since the last congress, and our observation of political developments internationally.

Our mascot should be the pit bulldog – hanging in there, not letting go of the DSP, not letting the SA dreamers off the hook, not letting them get away with changing the DSP’s constitution, not letting them slip away from the mess they’ve made without making a political analysis and drawing the lessons. But it should be a pit bull with a friendly smile!

We have to make the price they pay for further political and organisational degeneration too high. Time is on our side… in the sense that the political consequences of their wrong line will only get worse, and there’s unlikely to be a magical new development that will rescue them from the mess.

In any case, to take advantage of major new developments if they happen, SA is an increasingly tarnished tool, a blunt instrument. A cadre party like the old DSP is more likely to be able to respond to new political developments, and we’d need the flexibility to try new tactics and new vehicles.

So we either win, and reclaim and rebuild the DSP. Or they make the DSP’s name totally mud, by expelling us, or outlawing the right of factions, consigning the DSP, with its proud history of past struggles, to a sect existence like the US SWP – which still exists, and has large assets, but is totally isolated from any real struggles in US politics. The April NC meeting indicated the direction of the majority’s thinking about outlawing the right of factions in the DSP. They’re still hoping to do it by paying lip-service to the right of factions (although banning tendencies as they have already done) but making “interpretations” so that a faction was not allowed to meet, not allowed to discuss, not allowed to have a discussion list etc., or perhaps banning factions outside of a PCD period, and making it the “norm” (or even a constitutional rule) that a faction should/must dissolve once the DSP congress has voted on the disputed issues (until PCD is opened again).

Outlawing the right to organise a faction in the DSP is going to look rather funny to anyone who wanders into the SA Potemkin Village – the so-called “broad party”, the partisan of left unity and pluralism! But this has been done by left groups who have tried to prop up such “broad party” halfway houses at other times or in other countries. Eg, the old CPA’s restrictions on its broad party; the British SWP’s undemocratic control of Respect; the British Socialist Party’s control of its counter to Respect, the “Campaign for a New Workers Party.” These fake broad party efforts don’t fool anyone – they are still run by the originating party trying to masquerade as something broader.

So even though the political idiocies, the organisational factionalism, even the personal vileness and provocations from the majority have been and will be hard to bear, our watchword should still be tenacity. Hang in there. The odium – in Australia and internationally – must be on them for any final break.

Any unclear split or expulsion will create a very confusing situation on the left, leaving long-term obstacles for the successful construction of a revolutionary party in this country. And apart from the question of the material assets that all of us have contributed to building up over so many decades, and which would be a disaster if grabbed by a degenerating sect, there’s also the question of the political assets that we don’t want to relinquish. The DSP’s program, its tradition, its heritage will be vigorously defended by us.

Patience required

We need patience as well as tenacity. There’s a responsibility on us as the LPF and as individual LPF members not to respond to majority idiocies and provocations.

This has the longer-term importance referred to above, but it’s also important for maximising the possibility of us reaching out to new members of the DSP, and to the serious experienced comrades still in the party.

Let the odium for factionalism fall on the majority. Let Dick Nichols behave like a mad dog, fine. Let him be seen as the image of the majority. The behaviour of LPF comrades will be a stark contrast. We’ll be comradely, polite, serious – political! And inwardly we’ll smile – we’ll gain the high moral ground as well as the high political ground.

We’ll doggedly defend the traditions and the democratic principles of the DSP against every new assault on them by the majority, explaining patiently, politically. But not allowing us to be provoked into any responses that can be seen as non-political, personal, and emotional.

As the LPF grows in numbers, and as we make more political progress, we should be prepared for the majority to lash out in frustration more often. We have to be calm in response, deflect their factional outbursts.

We have to make it psychologically possible for some of the majority to switch, to be convinced politically. It’s easy, and lazy of us, to put up barriers, to inject personal feelings, so it becomes harder, almost impossible, for political switches to happen.

Remember, we want to win. This will mean convincing some of those supporting majority positions, even some of those who’ve behaved most factionally.

We want to win, on the basis of politically convincing comrades, not necessarily on the basis of making everyone buddies, or everyone being “nice”

Compare with the wider situation – we also hope to win over politically many in other political organisations, politically win them, away from state capitalist, or Stalinist, or whatever, prejudices and traditions. We want to win over workers who have illusions in capitalism. If we can do it with them, we can do it with DSP comrades who’ve been fervently supporting the SA dead end, who’ve been conned by the “broad party” strategy – they haven’t gone as far off track as people on the left in other organisations who we’ll eventually have to convince.

Names and language

The right mindset fundamentally rests on having a clear, principled political platform on which the LPF is based. But it can also be helped by small issues, such as language and names, what words we use, and what words we avoid.

OK, “majority” has the disadvantage of implying that’s a permanent state, so perhaps we can add in “current majority” every now and then. Also, we know that the “majority” are not homogenous, and we shouldn’t include in their ranks neutral comrades, comrades who haven’t made up their minds. So perhaps sometimes a reference to the “majority leadership” can counteract that.

Some of us have fallen into the habit of referring to them as the “Socialist Alliance Partyists”, but that has the decidedly tempting disadvantage of an acronym, SAP, that could become disadvantageous to us if its usage became known. So let’s wean ourselves from this term also. “Socialist Alliance Dreamers” is not quite so bad, but we should probably not get into the general habit of using the SADs acronym either.

We also need to take care regarding surnames, and perhaps step back from an approach we’ve been slipping into. Our bitterness about the rotten course of the current majority leadership can encourage us to refer to them differently now than when we were on a common course, more contemptuously, by their surname rather than their first name. But this can lead us to make slips, and repel comrades we are trying to convince.

We probably won’t be able to stop ourselves completely from using some nicknames for majority comrades, especially ones that might be appropriate and amusing, but we should be careful not to generalise the usage, and certainly not use any in print, or to comrades not in the LPF.

Relating to DSP members

Even though the majority factionalists will try to ostracise us, and cut us off from the DSP and Resistance ranks, especially new comrades, we must resist this. Don’t accept their isolation tactics, do all we can to talk to and work alongside other comrades.

For example, volunteer for selling GLW with new comrades, Resistance comrades, giving them confidence and teaching them selling techniques. Go on paste-ups etc with comrades. This builds solidarity, and is a natural lead-in to pub chats afterwards. Help with the integration of new comrades at forums, seminars, or Resistance camps. It’s important work in itself, and when the majority later tries to badmouth the LPF and LPF comrades to these new members, it will seem sectarian and factional, it will fly in the face of their actual experience of working alongside us, and learning about Marxist politics from us.

Of course, the youth as always will be key in building a revolutionary party. In spite of the crippled perspectives of the DSP led by the current majority, young people will still come around us; they’ll be attracted by Green Left, or Resistance, or the DSP’s publications, and the prospect of joining a Marxist party. We should be confident that healthy young activists are going to find the revolutionary Marxist perspectives of the LPF – the “old” DSP – naturally more attractive than the perspectives of the SA-as-our-party comrades. It’s quite stark the contrast with SA events, the absence of youth, the dead boring atmosphere – young activists have no attraction at all. On the other hand young people are naturally more attracted to the perspectives the LPF would like to see in place – solidarity with the Venezuelan Revolution, learning about Marxism etc. There have been some encouraging signs in the last six months of Resistance activists wanting to find out about the perspectives of the LPF without us pushing ourselves on them.

In a general sense we have a duty to provide political education and orientation to all new DSP members, otherwise the dangers of alienation, demoralisation will set in

We also have a responsibility to relate to the tired older layer of DSP comrades whose passivity and retreat is an objective basis for the “SA as our party” line. Even the half of the DSP membership who mostly don’t come to branch meetings, and who mostly don’t sell GLW, can’t just be left at the mercy of the current majority, who’ll go and collect absentee votes from them when it comes time to elect Congress delegates again. There are many ways we should be thinking about how to neutralise this layer at least. For example, retain friendship ties where they had existed, so the majority finds it harder to demonise us. Make sure not to needlessly alienate them, avoid language and terms that the majority can twist to claim we’re attacking this layer in the party. Let them understand that there’d still be a place for them if we were leading the party, and leave open the possibility of reviving and re-inspiring some of these comrades about revolutionary politics with a revived and renewed DSP.

LPF comrades’ political life

With this central tactic of staying in to win, of tenacity, we also have to be conscious of the negative side. As well as all the provocations and insults that we’ll have to bite our tongue over, the majority will try to isolate us, to prevent us having a political role.

But we need to get satisfaction from our political life, from our political activity, from our intellectual activity. We can make allowances for a special period for so long, but as the struggle extends over time, this becomes more important.

We’re in a minority, and political restrictions, unnecessary restrictions, are being imposed by a factional majority. They try to curb our political activity, even in areas where there’s no political disagreement. It’s vindictive, it’s factional, it goes totally against the interests of the DSP. But there are still avenues for political activity for us no matter how hard the majority tries to limit us.

This is especially the case with writing. And with the huge growth of the internet, with blogs, and email discussion lists, restricting our possibilities for political expression is harder, almost impossible, for them.

The majority are increasingly factional in the way they solicit and edit articles for Green Left Weekly, but they still have not closed this avenue off for us completely. Apart from the three LPF comrades on staff, other LPF comrades can write and submit articles for GLW. Often we’re the comrades with skills and expertise and contacts, and the majority are desperate to replace LPF comrades with their own people. But write and submit, and if they reject articles, there are other places we can get them circulated, in print, or on the web.

They’ve still left us a little role on Links (although the majority is planning to shut it down), and LPF comrades should be thinking if they can contribute an article for Links. Many LPF comrades have unique knowledge and expertise so that we can still force the majority to accept them as Links authors. LPF comrades can also be thinking about articles for other left publications, on issues that are part of the DSP’s program, not necessarily related directly to the debate in the party.

More comrades can start up their own blogs. Become a specialist in an area. Max has his blog on Indonesia and East Timor based at Sydney Uni; Kim has her blog from Palestine; Owen’s Venezuela blog with his original translations was very useful, for example. Fred and Duroyan with their Bolivia and Ecuador blogs actually set a good precedent. Other comrades should be thinking of areas they can “claim.” We should also be contributing to discussion lists, although many of these are overloaded with crap.

More of us should also be maintaining and developing contacts, political relations, with serious political activists outside the party. The majority has effectively fenced themselves in to the weird little SA world; we should be reaching out to the wider range of left activists politically and socially.

Focus on the political issues

A general point that we began with which has been reinforced by the experiences of the faction since the Congress is that we should focus on the political issues where we can, and avoid getting diverted by organisational squabbles.

Certainly we should stand up for our rights, and should document and protest each factional move by the majority, and fight every attempt to deny us our democratic rights. But we should avoid organisational provocations. That’s what the majority would like us to concentrate on, so they can portray us as factionalists, as a whinging minority, not giving the majority a fair go to implement its line.

We have a well documented platform, on the tactical and strategical issues relating to the Socialist Alliance, and the challenge to our perspective of building a Leninist party. These are the central issues, the initiating issues, but many other questions relating to the defence of the DSP’s program have flowed from this.

The majority have tried to make an issue of us extending the political questions involved, but it’s been them, for example the varied attempts by individual majority members to retreat from the DSP’s analysis of the Venezuelan state.

So in preparing for the PCD we will have to skilfully elaborate our arguments on the central issues, but also develop contributions on a very comprehensive range of issues. We should be using the time before PCD opens to work up thorough papers, documents, contributions that we can inject into the discussion. When the actual PCD opens, from October 1, we’ll be flat out contributing more topical articles and contributions answering directly the majority documents and arguments.

Our LPF intervention into the PCD should be disciplined and centralised. We want to cover all issues and answer all the majority arguments, but we don’t want to swamp the discussion bulletin with so many contributions that the comrades we want to reach don’t read them. We want to make sure our main documents and PCDs get read. There are also other considerations we will take into account though. All LPF comrades will benefit from actively participating in the debate, it’s a training and educational process for them. And we want to make sure that wavering DSP comrades are made aware of who are members of the LPF, and signing names to PCDs is one way of doing that.

Venezuela solidarity

At the Congress and at NCs we’ve argued that Venezuelan solidarity should be a central priority of DSP activity. The majority leadership opposed this political line. Nevertheless the issue has the potential to divide their ranks and divert them from their SA priority, so they give lip-service support to the issue. But in most branches they refuse to properly build AVSN. For the majority leadership the brigades are seen as the main focus, although these can realistically only involve a tiny number of people.

However, Venezuela solidarity is an issue that LPF comrades can and must involve ourselves in intensively, even where the majority tries to exclude us, with branch organisers and execs refusing to assign LPF comrades to the area. Every LPF comrade should see this as an important area of our work.

We should not accept our exclusion. They can refuse to assign us to the fraction, but they can’t prevent us joining AVSN, and attending all AVSN meetings and forums. Such events should have a full turnout of LPF comrades. We should make a point of attending any other Venezuelan solidarity events in our city, and Cuban solidarity events as well. After a while their refusal to assign us to the fraction will look ridiculous.

All of us should take on responsibility to expand our knowledge and understanding of the Bolivarian Revolution. We should all seek to become experts, to be able to speak and write about the process. Solidarity with this revolution is a long term perspective, and if comrades are in a position to study Spanish, even better.

We should subscribe to the relevant discussion lists and follow the web sites and blogs such as Venezuela-analysis. Stuart and Fred generally are fairly quick to repost interesting material to the GLW list, and the Organisers list, but if they miss out on key documents or articles, LPF comrades should jump in and post it, so we’re seen also as keen followers of developments.

Involvement in this area of work is important in its own right. What use is a revolutionary or a revolutionary party if it can’t provide solidarity with an ongoing revolution, and successful socialist revolutions have not been too frequent. Venezuela is providing such a contrast to the generally bleak political situation in most of the world, and providing inspiration for us all.

But involvement in this solidarity work is also especially important because of the special situation we’re in, as a faction, trying to reclaim our party, and mostly stymied by the majority from doing the political work we know needs to be done. But with Venezuela solidarity work it’s an area that we want to focus on, but an area the majority will have difficulty in really excluding us, so we should throw ourselves in wholeheartedly. It will help us have a political life, to breathe politics, when the majority is trying to smother our political activity.

Importance of LPF education

The current majority can’t be allowed to limit our intellectual life.

The vehemence of their opposition to the idea of LPF educationals was a bit funny – what on earth did they expect, given both the comprehensive nature of their drift from the DSP Marxist program, and the pitiful nature of most branch education programs. LPF educationals make up for lack of a decent DSP education program. They also make up for the vindictive shepherding of talks and classes away from LPF comrades. So we need more LPF educationals, and more LPF comrades giving educationals.

LPF comrades should also have a serious reading program. It’s a noticeable weakness of many of the current majority leadership, they’re not too concerned about reading, about building up a library. Our comrades can help and encourage each other here, lending and sourcing books.

We also need to emphasise the importance of full information being available to LPF comrades, and the LPF list has been invaluable. It’s a multi-purpose list, with shared information from around the country, and from the national persepctive, major reports and articles that comrades mostly won’t get elsewhere, and small items as well. It’s also the place for our own political discussion, elaboration of LPF perspectives, and discussion about Marxist ideas in general.

A comradely, inclusive social milieu

We can improve, but we can already recognise that the comradely relations, the modest social milieu, even with our small size, is better, less alienating, more inclusive, than the majority milieu. It also makes us think about some of the weaknesses in the DSP before the debate developed. We could have devoted more attention to this.

Always primary, of course, is the political basis, we’re united on a political program, and political tasks, we’re not a grouping of friends. But we are conscious about the need to encourage and assist each other for the long haul.

We should be conscious of strategies and little steps to support LPF comrades more. When the majority headkickers are targeting a particular LPF comrade, for example as they did with James Crafti, we should be working collectively to give support and encouragement and back-up.

Thus it’s important that even when we only have a small number of LPF members in a branch that we have regular LPF meetings that have political, educational, organisational, and a social side. With individual comrades in branches or overseas it’s particularly difficult, and the role of the LPF list becomes essential, and those comrades should try to use it more, not just as a source of information, but to contribute as well.

Possible outcomes?

So, assuming we’re tenacious and patient, and don’t give the majority leadership any excuse to easily act against us. Assuming we’re 100% loyal, and 100% scrupulous in not breaking DSP discipline. Peter Boyle is smart enough to know that he can’t just blatantly go down the Barnes path. He’d be discredited in Australia and internationally.

They’re still interested in trying to keep an image of functioning within our tradition, the Cannonist, SWP/DSP tradition. This is still important for their international contacts, and for a lot of the tired DSP members, majority supporters, still hanging on. (Not to mention all the books we’ve published on this, and are still to be sold!) They’re likely to try and disguise their Stalinist or Barnesite moves against us. “We’re not outlawing factions..” (just not allowing them to function.)

So he’d prefer us to leave, or to give him an excuse to easily expel us. So we should do our best not to make it easy for him.

But what if he wants to get rid of us anyway? What if they go the next step further along the path elaborated at the April NC, that everything would be going fine if it were not for the evil LPF? What if the principled LPF, as the conscience of the party, the reminder of how the DSP used to be, becomes too embarrassing, or they find us influencing too many new members?

As part of preparing “the organisational solution” that the majority probably have in mind, they’ll continue to try and demonise the LPF, even if we’re 100% loyal, and they’ll also be looking for issues with which to try to tar the LPF. They’ll be making amalgams, between the LPF and the MSN, for example. We’ll increasingly get blamed for any nasty thing anybody else on the left says about the DSP or SA.

So I’m not ruling out all sorts of factional developments and attacks they might have planned for us, but to repeat, our tactics are that we’re planning to win.

So far we’ve had some modest success. We have recruited to the LPF, countering the MSN loss, and other dropouts. We have developed, educated our comrades, while functioning as a faction. In terms of cadres, we can see that LPF cadres are consolidating, while the majority cadres are diminishing. We can’t say that we’re going to win soon, but we can see progress.

The consequences of our faction being successful, winning our party back, would be considerable. The lessons for building a Leninist party here (and lessons internationally) would be important. Factions have not often been successful. Our success would be a lesson, and perhaps an inspiration. It would be an attraction, an argument in practice that could win others to our Leninist principles.