The 'New Communist Party'
(NCP) -- officially the 'New Communist Party of Britain' (NCPB)
-- was founded in July 1977 by former members of the 'Commmunist
Party of Great Britain' who had come to regard that party as
'revisionist'. The report of the party's 1997 Congress speaks of
"the old revisionist Communist Party of Great Britain which
we parted company with in 1977".
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 11th National Congress; London;
1997; p.26).
Thus, the 'New Communist Party' was
formed as an anti-revisionist move.
The party's 1997 Congress report speaks
of ". . . the revisionist 'British Road to Socialism"
which we rejected in 1977.
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 11th National Congress; London;
1997; p.26).
Since the 1980s, the party has regarded
the basis of modern revisionism as having been laid down at the
20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956: "The basis of post-war
revisionism was laid down at the 20th Congress of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)". <
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 11th National Congress; London;
1997; p.26).
The attack upon Stalin made by
Khrushchev at this congress was basically false anti-communist
propaganda: "The vicious personal attack on Stalin by Nikita
Khrushchev . . . opened the door to Trotskyite ideas which, until
then, were confined to small groups drawn from the middle strata.
. . . In the international communist movement. . . . it
reinforced the tendency towards accepting the social-democratic
strategies and attitudes".<
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 11th National Congress; London;
1997; p.26).
The party holds that after Stalin's
death, ". . . revisionist and corrupt elements who had
wormed their way into the leadership began by attacking Stalin's
record and then moved to attack what had been built during his
leadership. They paved the way for hidden traitors to rise to top
and lead 'the counter-revolution which destroyed the Soviet Union
in 1990".
(Andy Brooks: 'Stalin',
in: 'New Worker',No. 1,130 (22 December 2000; p. 7).
The party rejects as revisionist
deception the concept of a parliamentary road to socialism, as
put forward in the CPGB's 'British Road to Socialism':
"Unlike the revisionists and ultra-leftists, we spurn the
'parliamentary road' and electoral politics. . . . Working people
have never achieved state power through elections.
Social-democracy has never led to socialism and revisionism has
only led to the destruction of communist parties,
counter-revolution and the destruction of socialist states".
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 12th National Congress; London;
1997; p.26).
The NCP takes its stand on the
necessity for the working class to smash the machinery of the
capitalist state and establish the political power of the working
class, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. It upholds ".
. . the necessity for the working class to smash the capitalist
state machine and take power itself, in order to exercise. what
he (Lenin-- Ed.) called the dictatorship of the
proletariat".
(Eric Trevett: Opening
Speech at 12th National Congress of the NCPB, in: 'Documents of
the 12th National Congress of the NCPB; p. 9).
In the field of foreign affairs, the
party regards China, Cuba, DPR Korea, Laos and Vietnam as socialist
states: "People's China, Democratic Korea, Vietnam, Laos and
Cuba continue to advance along the revolutionary path charted by
their communist parties, which are applying the principles of
Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions that exist in their
countries."
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 12th National Congress; London;
1997; p.15,16).
The party regards Scotland and Wales as
nations entitled to self-determination: "The New Communist
Party . . . has long recognised the rights of the Scottish and
Welsh nations to full national self-determination."
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 12th National Congress; London;
1997; p.34).
The NCP opposes Britain's membership of the
European Union: "The New Communist Party has always opposed
the European Union. The New Communist Party's opposition is
founded on the principle that it is a strategy designed to
further strengthen monopoly capitalism in Europe on a
supra-national basis".
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 11th National Congress; London;
1997; p. 10).
The party stands for the withdrawal of
British troops from Northern Ireland and supports the ". . .
struggle for Irish national independence and self-determination.
The NCP demands a united sovereign Ireland free from all outside
interference. . . . The NCP acknowledges the role of Sinn Fein as
the vanguard force in the struggle for national liberation".
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 12th National Congress; London;
1997; p.32, p.34).
The Party opposed all imperialist aggression against Argentina, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. It fully supports the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
The NCP favours co-operation between
parties and organisations which regard themselves as
'Marxist-Leninist' on issues on which they are in agreement:
"We have always recognised that there is the possibility of
co-operation on certain issues, such as peace, anti-racism or the
wages struggle with these parties and others which have sprung
from the British communist movement. There is certainly the need
to exchange views with all of them on a regular basis. . . . Our
own proposals for a communist round table are . . . for a
communist liaison committee which would allow for the regular
exchanges of information and views between the various communist
parties in Britain at a leadership level. It would be a
non-voting, non-executive body".
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 12th National Congress; London;
1997; p.35).
The NCP advises working people to
boycott European elections, but, in general, to vote Labour in
national and local elections: "We are advocating a boycott
of European Elections. We should continue to vote Labour
everywhere in general and local elections. . . . In certain
circumstances we should consider voting for unofficial
candidates".
(Eric Trevett: Opening
Speech at 12th National Congress, in: Documents of the 12th
National Congress; p. 28).
The NCP opposes proportional
representation:: "Proportional representation . . . is the
chosen method of the European ruling class for disarming and
splitting working class parties into small factions while
encouraging opportunism and patronage at every level. . . . Its
elevation now is designed to further weaken the Labour Party and
create the conditions for continuous right-wing led coalitions of
smaller parties. . . . Working people have nothing to gain from
proportional representation Its introduction will lead to greater
Liberal Democrat representation at the expense of the Labour
Party, while reinforcing the idea amongst the masses of a
'democratic' parliament. It encourages the false hope amongst the
revisionists and Trotskyites of the creation of a parliamentary
'left' alternative to Labour. It will certainly increase the
likelihood of the entry into Parliament of racist and fascist
parties effectively excluded by the current system".
(New
Communist Party: Documents of the 12th National Congress; London;
1997; p.31).
The New Communist Party does not stand candidates in elections and calls on its supporters to vote Labour (New
Communist Party: Documents of the 15th National Congress; London;
2006.).
The Party is an affiliate of the Labour Representation Committee.
The New Communist Party publishes the
NEW WORKER weekly. Despite political differences with the
Morning Star, the party regards this daily newspaper as a broad
daily newspaper of the left, which should be read and supported
in spite of its revisionist political line.
The General Secretary of the NCP is
Andy Brooks.
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