Part 6

The most important element of successful working of the Party Committee--the one on which during the checking of its work the most serious attention must be concentrated--is the question of connections of the Party Committee with the higher and lower Party organizations, especially with the factory cells and the fractions of the mass non-Party organizations. This question now has a decisive importance, especially in the legal and semi-legal Communist Parties. The illegal Communist Parties have already worked out a whole number of measures and methods in order to keep their communications with the lower organizations and with separate members of the Party, in spite of the severest police repression. But with the legal and semi-legal Parties there is bad work all the time along this line. In Austria during the last Fascist rising, the C. C. lost connection with the Vienna Committee, and the Vienna Committee lost connection with the enterprises. In Paris on the 6th March 1930, the C. C. lost connection with the Paris organization for six days. Such a state of affairs is absolutely impossible and the most important task of each of our Party organizers, of every instructor going to the locals to check the work of the Party Committee is above all to check how the connections between the Party Committee and other Party organizations are organized, and especially these with the lower Party organizations, and the factory cells. It is perfectly clear that the Communist Parties will not be in a position to organize any mass actions of the Proletariat or mass strikes, or mass street demonstrations, if the Party Committees at sharp moments of struggle lose connection with the factory cells and mass non-Party organizations.

Which are the most important methods of communication it is essential to foresee? It is essentially important to have a well-laid out live communication. Live communication is kept going by the help of the system of so-called appearing or reporting places. What is a reporting point. A reporting point is this: the Party Committee establishes special addresses of flats or other places where on certain days and at certain times representatives of the cells and fractions of the mass organizations must appear. There also representatives of the Party Committees appear. The representative of the cells and fractions makes reports on what has happened in the factory, what the cell has done, what it proposes to do and so on, and the representatives of the Party Committee, having received the report, advises the cell how it should act, passes on to it the directions of the higher Party organs and so on. This system of appearing places must without fail be established in all Parties without exception, legal and illegal whilst in the legal Parties a double system of reporting places must without fail be established--a system of legal and illegal appearing points. Legal reporting places in the legal premises of the Party Committee and illegal appearing places in case the legal premises of the Party Committee are closed, or a police ambush is sitting there, in order quickly to re-establish connection with the lower Party cell in another way through the illegal reporting place. For the latter, appearing points should therefore be prepared beforehand. In Germany, in Belgium, in France, Party meetings in cafes were at one time very widespread. This is a very bad habit because there are always spies in cafes in countless numbers and it is difficult to get rid of them. It is necessary to go over more quickly to the establishment of appearing places in safer localities. If the Party has already more or less seriously and fundamentally gone over to underground positions, and the shadowing of leading active Party members has begun, and Party members are being arrested in the streets, then it is very important that special signals should be established for the appearing flats, showing; in the first place, the safety of the flat, second, showing that exactly those people have come who were expected and that these comrades who have come are talking with exactly those comrades whom the observer is coming to see. In order to show that the reporting places are in working order, in Russian conditions, for example, a flowerpot was placed in the window, the comrade came, saw that the flowers are there, knew that it is safe, and entered. It is necessary to say that these reception signals were very quickly learned by the police and that they therefore, when visiting any flat, carefully searched for signals before fixing an ambush. If they saw that flowers are in the window and the person whom they have come to arrest has tried by all means possible to take these flowers away, the police insisted on putting them back in the place where they were. So, when arranging safety signals for reporting places, it is necessary to arrange them in such a way that they don’t strike the eyes of the police and that they can be taken away without being noticed by the police.

For verifying those who come to the reporting places, a system of passwords is established. The comrade comes to the reporting place, and he says some agreed-upon sentence. They answer to that agreed-on sentence by some other agreed-on sentence. So both comrades check each other. In Russian underground conditions very complicated passwords were sometimes used in the central appearing places. This was called forth by the circumstances that different workers passed through such reporting places; rank and file workers from the cells, district and Central Party workers. Accordingly, one password was fixed for the rank and file worker, a more complicated one for the district worker and still more complicated one for the central worker. Why was this necessary? It was necessary for conspirative reasons, since only certain things could be said to the rank and file worker while perhaps other things could be said to the district worker, whilst you could speak with full frankness about the whole work of the illegal organization to the representative of the Central Committee. Therefore, passwords were, as they used to say at that time of “three degrees of trust.” This was done in this way. The first degree of trust: a comrade comes and says an agreed-upon sentence and is replied to by an agreed-upon sentence. The second stage: the comrade who has come in reply to the agreed-upon sentence spoken to him, says another agreed-upon sentence, in reply to which yet another agreed-upon sentence is spoken to him. The third stage of trust: to the second agreed-upon sentence the comrade replies by a third agreed-upon sentence. Then the keeper of the appearing place also replies to the third agreed-upon sentence.

Besides flats for reporting points, connecting link flats are also needed for communication by letter, and these flats must in no case coincide. And finally, there must be flats for the sheltering of illegal comrades, comrades whom the police are looking for; comrades who have escaped from prison, etc., etc. For all our legal Communist Parties the question of addresses and flats now plays a role of the first importance. Last year, on the eve of the 1st August, when it was clear that the leading workers would be arrested in a number of countries, comrades did not know where to go, there were no flats. In any case, when it was necessary to shelter comrades hiding from the police in Germany, Czechoslovakia and France very great difficulties occurred, especially in the provinces. It is essential for all Parties to occupy themselves now in the most serious way with the solution of the “housing” problem.

Concerning communications by letter. It is also necessary to give the most serious attention to the problem of the organization of letter communications. In checking the work of the Party Committee it is necessary to consider this question specially: Does the Party Committee have addresses for communicating by letter with the higher and lower Party organizations, and how are these communications put into practice? Now, even for the legal Parties, the firmest rule must be established that all correspondence concerning the functioning of the Party apparatus, must without fail go by special routes guaranteeing letters from being copied in the post. All kinds of general circulars, general information reports on the condition of the Party in legal parties can go through the ordinary post to legal Party addresses, but everything concerning the functioning of the Party Committee even in legal Parties, most now without fail go by special routes. In the first place, the use of special couriers must be foreseen, who will personally carry letters, not trusting these letters to the State post. Here the Parties must make use of the connections which they have with post and telegraph and railway servants, connections with all kinds of commercial travellers for trading firms and so on. All these connections must be used in order that without extra expense responsible Party documents can be transported. Further, every Party should take care that every letter, apart from whether it goes through the State post or by courier should be written in such a way that in case it falls into the hands of the police it should not give the police a basis for any kind of arrest or repression against the Party organization.

This makes the following three requisites. The first requisite: the letter must be in code, i. e., all aspects of illegal work are referred to by some special phrase or other. For example, the illegal printing press is called “auntie”; “type” is called “sugar” and so on. A comrade writes: “auntie asks you without fail to send her 20-lbs. of sugar;” that will mean that the press is in need of 20-lbs. of type or a comrade writes: “we are experiencing great difficulty in finding a suitable flat for our aunt.” That means that it is a question of finding a flat for the illegal printing press.

Second requisite: besides a code, as above, ciphers are used, illegal parts of letters being put not only into code but also into cipher. There are many different systems of cipher. The simplest and at the same time most reliable system of cipher is the system of cipher by the help of a book. Some book or other is agreed upon beforehand and then the cipher is made in this way: simple fractions or decimals are ciphered. The first figure of the first fraction shows the page of the book. Then further comes the actual cipher. For the numerator of the fraction we must take a line counting from above or below; for the denominator that counting from the left or from the right which it is necessary to put into cipher. For example, we need to put into cipher the letter “A”. We look in the book and we see that this letter is in the third line from the top, the fourth letter from the left to the right. Then we cipher 3 over 4 (3/4), that is the third line from the top, fourth letter from left to right. You can agree also on this method; for example, counting the line not from above but from below, then the 3 will not be the third line from above but the third line from below. You can agree to count the letter in the line not from left to right but from right to left. Finally, for greater complexity in order to keep the sense from the police, you can also add to the fraction some figure or other. Let us say the numerator is increased by 3 and the denominator by 4. In this case in order to decipher, it will be necessary first to subtract in the numerator and denominator of every fraction. A whole number of similar complications can be thought out in order to complicate the cipher. The advantage of such a cipher is that it is not only very simple but also that each letter can be designated by a great number of different signs and in such a way that the cipher designation of the letters are not repeated. The book cipher can be used without a book. In place of a book some poem or other can be chosen, learned by heart and the ciphering done according to it. When it is necessary to cipher or decipher, the poem must be written out in verses and then the ciphering or deciphering done and the poem destroyed.

The third requisite which is also recommended should be observed in correspondence, is writing in chemical inks, that is, with such inks that it is impossible to read them without special adaptations. If a secret Party letter falls into the hands of the police written in invisible ink they must first of all guess that it is written in invisible ink; the open text of such letters must be made perfectly blameless, for example, a son is writing to his mother that he is alive and well and of the good things he wishes her. Not a word about revolution. The police must guess first of all that under this apparent innocent text there is a hidden text. Having discovered this secret the police tumble against the cipher. If they succeed in deciphering the cipher, they stumble up against a code and they have still to decipher that code. But all this takes time in the course of which the police can do nothing. If the police succeed in reading it in the course of two or three weeks, then by that time the Party organization has been able to cover up all the consequences of the question which was written about in the letter.

What kind of invisible ink should be used? Invisible inks exist in a very great number. They can be bought in any chemist’s shop. Finally, comrades must use the latest inventions of chemistry in this direction. The simplest invisible ink which can be recommended and which can be found everywhere, is, for example, onion juice and pure water.

16. PLAN OF WORK OF THE PARTY COMMITTEE

Every Party Committee must have a definite plan of work for the period immediately ahead. In the conditions of the capitalist countries Party Committees cannot work out the same complicated calendar plans as the Party organizations of the C. P. S. U. The C. P. S. U. is a Party in power, the plans of the C. P. S. U. regulate the whole social and political life of the country. In capitalist countries the Communist Parties are the parties of an oppressed class. The bourgeoisie in power uses the whole apparatus of the State power and the full help of the Social-Fascist and other reactionary organizations in order to smash the plans of the Communist Parties. In these conditions the committees of the Communist Parties must systematically reconsider and reconstruct the plans of their work; accordingly, these plans must be very pliable. But plans there must be, without fail. Every Party Committee must have an approximate plan of its work for the period immediately ahead and must group the forces of the Party organization according to that plan, fit the forms of the Party structure to it and also the methods of Party work. The essence of the plan of work of the Party Committee is the adequate catering for the needs of the masses in the largest enterprises, playing a more important role in the territory of the given Party organization. The structure of the local Party organization must be such that the organizations can above all serve these big enterprises. That is to say, that in the first place the Party Committee must interest itself in questions of the work of the factory cells at these big enterprises, must help in the work of these factory cells, seeking to attain that these Party cells should become really strong political and organizational organs of the Party, that they should be in practice connecting organs between the Party and the masses of workers at these enterprises. This idea can best of all be made clear by a concrete example, say as follows: in a town there are two or three big enterprises; railway workshops, a metal factory, a textile factory. Besides these three big enterprises there are two or three dozen small enterprises, and in addition scattered Party members, individual workers, artisans, representatives of the so-called liberal professions,--lawyers, writers, a doctor and so on, as well as a few students. The Party Committee of this town should interest itself above all in what is happening in the big enterprises--in the railway workshops, in the metal factory and the textile factory, how the factory cells are working there and in the first place help the factory cells of these enterprises by all and every means possible, concentrating all their attention and all their forces on this task. In the lawyer’s office and the doctor’s surgery there are no masses which the Party must win over and organize for revolutionary struggle. It is another matter with the big enterprises. Therefore the central question in the work of every Party Committee is the question of systematically coming to the assistance of the factory cells in the big enterprises. A Party Committee which cannot provide serious daily help to such factory cells, a Party Committee which cannot organize factory cells capable of working in the enterprises, is a bad Party Committee and the leading organs of the Party and the mass of Party members should hasten to draw from this state of affairs the necessary conclusions and as quickly as possible make a change so far as such a Party Committee is concerned.

17. MOBILIZATION OF THE FORCES OF FACTORY CELLS