American Party of Labor
Our Program
PROGRAM OF THE AMERICAN PARTY OF LABOR
Introduction
The American Party of Labor is a Marxist-Leninist organization whose
purpose is to dismantle the capitalist-imperialist system of the United
States and build a socialist republic under proletarian democracy, in
which all power is vested in the workers. To ensure that a correct line
is maintained, that the Party effectively communicates to the working
class and its organizations, and to all marginalized and oppressed
peoples our aims, our ideology and general line, we do hereby establish
this document as our Party Program.
Our General Line
1. The American Party of Labor comes from and represents the American working class; it has no interests aside from those of the working class and the workers’movement as a whole. As such, the Party champions and defends the peoples’struggle for progress and liberation. To that end, the Party participates in mass and popular struggles for social justice, peace, and democracy.
2. The American Party of Labor maintains that value in society is produced by human labor through the consumption of labor power. The working class, having only their labor power to exchange for sustenance, make production possible but receive only a fraction of the value they produce, while the owners of private property appropriate the rest. The Party therefore demands the abolition of private property and for all means of production to be under the democratic control of the working class.
3. The American Party of Labor asserts that profit under capitalism is extorted from the working class and constitutes theft by the capitalist ruling class. This relationship constitutes the oppressive dictatorship of private property. We advocate a socialist system where the working class will keep the full value of their labor, expressed through a democratically planned economy.
4. The American Party of Labor demands the abolition of the so-called
commonwealth system in all U.S. possessions. The socialist republic
which will be constructed on the remnants of the United States, will
give all oppressed nations and peoples within its boundaries, including,
but not limited to Indigenous peoples of North America, Chicanos, Native
Hawaiians, Guamanians and Puerto Ricans, the opportunity to vote on
independence or union with the socialist republic. If they opt to stay
in the socialist republic, they will have the autonomy to democratically
determine the form of their relationship with it.
5. The American Party of Labor is an anti-imperialist party. We oppose
imperialism, wars of aggression, and the machinations and intrigues of
capitalism in all of their forms. We call for the immediate withdrawal
of all U.S. troops from overseas, an end to all imperialist wars, for
nuclear disarmament, and the conventional disarmament of the imperialist
powers. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all occupied peoples and with
all nations living underneath neo-colonial regimes. We call for the end
of military aid to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, the Philippines, and
other outposts of capitalist and imperialist aggression.
6. The American Party of Labor is an internationalist party. All peoples
around the globe struggling for emancipation from their own systems of
exploitation are our allies. We extend our hands to all revolutionary
organizations guided by Marxism-Leninism worldwide and to national
liberation movements of exploited peoples of all countries, for our
cause is one and the same.
7. The American Party of Labor demands the U.S. withdrawal from NATO and other imperialist alliances.
8. The American Party of Labor stands fully against the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Party supports the full rights of immigrants and the ending of neo-liberal policies in other countries, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Party demands the cancellation of all debts exacted on countries subjected to super-exploitation by U.S. imperialism. These loans were not made with the intention of helping the people of these countries, but rather to enslave them with debt.
9. The American Party of Labor recognizes that climate change caused by
human activity threatens the very existence of life on this planet. This
global warming has been accelerated by capitalism through waste, the
burning of fossil fuels, and environmental destruction tied to the
profit motive. We demand the reorganization of production on an
environmentally sound and sustainable foundation.
10. The American Party of Labor has a more extensive list of our demands
and positions in our Party Platform.
Revolution
1. The American Party of Labor understands that so long as we limit
ourselves to electoral politics, socialism can never be constructed in
the United States. The U.S. is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, run by
the capitalists who own and control what is produced, the media, what is
advertised, who runs for office, and who is elected. Although
contradictions exist between various groups within the ruling class, we
understand that the purpose of periodic elections between Republicans
and Democrats is to create the illusion of choice. The reality is that
both parties serve the same ruling class.
2. The only solution is socialist revolution in the United States. Our
Party is based on Marxism-Leninism, the theoretical writings of Karl
Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin; defended by
Enver Hoxha, and enriched by the experience of figures such as Che
Guevara and Ho Chi Minh. Further, we draw inspiration from our own
history of rebellion and resistance, including Osceola, Nat Turner, John
Brown, Harry Haywood, William Z. Foster, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and the
countless other revolutionaries who have dedicated their lives to the
struggle for liberation from oppression.
3. With respect to the freedoms that capitalism claims to grant, we
believe that liberty is impossible so long as the system of wage slavery
continues to exist. It is impossible for the majority to pursue life so
long as they are one paycheck away from homelessness, destitution,
starvation, and death. In this system it is impossible to pursue
happiness as long as the workers are subjected to wage slavery and
excluded from necessary healthcare, cultural outlets, and general
personal freedom.
4. In short, so long as the capitalist dictatorship continues to exist,
the inalienable rights mentioned in the U.S. Constitution are mere empty
words. The American Party of Labor calls for socialist revolution to
build a state for the working people of the United States, reorganize
the economy along socialist lines, and to form for the first time on
this continent a government of the people, by the people, and for the
people.
5. To that end, the American Party of Labor sets before itself the
immediate and necessary task of expanding into a mass party capable of
helping to create the conditions necessary for socialist revolution in
the United States.
Our General Strategy
1. The purpose of the American Party of Labor is to combine the working
class movement with the socialist movement. This can be accomplished by
uniting with the most politically conscious workers on the basis of
Marxism-Leninism.
2. The Party seeks to cultivate working class leadership by participating fully in those struggles which can mobilize the broad masses in pursuit of their interests through popular and progressive movements against war, poverty, and social injustice. The American Party of Labor organizes for and with the working class and oppressed against capitalism and for emancipation from bourgeois society.
3. The Party will under no circumstances enter into alliances or working relationships with groups which espouse right-wing or reactionary views clothed in populist language.
4. The Party is led in democratic-centralist fashion, meaning decisions are made democratically, and after a decision is reached, the entire Party, including the minority and dissenting opinions, is obliged to carry out the will of the majority. The role of the Party leadership is to enforce the decisions of the majority and to guide their implementation.
5. The Party presently holds that major tasks for Marxist-Leninists in our country include
a) Combating fascism and;
b) Supporting the struggle against revisionist and reactionary ideology within the movement.
These tasks address the fact that attempts to combine the labor and Marxist-Leninist movement will fail unless the Marxist-Leninist movement is free from counter-revolutionary tendencies and is able to articulate an anti-revisionist line on revolution and socialist construction.
6. We work directly in labor-based groups in order to agitate and lead from where the people are, within the centers of struggle.
7. We support the legitimate and justified right of self-defense against fascist and reactionary violence.
8. Above all, the American Party of Labor shall be where the working
class is, wherever people are oppressed because of their national
origin, wherever people are exploited because of their class and
wherever there is social injustice.
Our Goals
1. Establish socialism in the United States and place all political
power in the hands of the working class.
2. Place all the means of production (factories, land, machines and
implements, etc.) as well as the principal means of the distribution of
commodities in the hands of the workers as public assets, with the
surplus geared towards the common good.
3. Establish agricultural and workers’cooperatives and other forms of
social and collective property to allow workers direct control of the
workplace as part of their political empowerment.
4. Establish a centrally-planned economy working on the principle of
“from each according to their abilities, to each according to their
work,”building towards an economy working on the principle of “from each
according to their abilities, to each according to their need.”
5. Establish a workers’state, with all power in the hands of a
workers’government. The life of the country will be based on proletarian
democracy, which will consist of democratic participation in economic,
political and social life by the working class, including farmers,
youth, women, immigrants, and all oppressed and marginalized peoples.
All historically oppressed nations will have the right to
self-determination, up to and including the right to secession.
6. Establish public and collective ownership over all land, soil,
airspace, minerals and resources for the common good. This public
ownership of resources will be managed with the aim of total abolition
of capitalist class relations and exploitation.
7. Observe an internationalist foreign policy. The socialist state shall
support proletarian and anti-imperialist movements.
The fight for the working people is the force that drives us. Socialist
revolution is the means to our emancipation. Armed with a correct
political analysis and a strong resolve, we will struggle forward to
victory. With the power of the American working class, and the workers
of all countries, we have a world to win.
Onward towards socialism!