MLPD Is a Party of a New Type
MLPD - a Genuine Workers' Party. Sixty-five per cent of the membership are blue-collar workers and simple white-collar workers. Work in factories and unions constitutes the Party's firm basis. Forty per cent of the members are working in factory Party groups in large industrial firms. Forty-nine per cent are working in residential area Party groups. Eighty-four per cent of Party members are organized in trade unions affiliated to the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB). Members from the intelligentsia see their future in the alliance for struggle under the leadership of the working class. Party groups are also active at universities and in rural areas.
MLPD - an All-German Party
MLPD and its youth organization Rebell are represented in more than 450 cities, towns and regions, and in Germany's new federal states, too. The MLPD is committed to the unity of workers in East and West Germany. The division into "Easterners" and "Westerners" is aimed at concealing the truth that the working people can improve their situation only if they are united.
After the Betrayal of Socialism, the MLPD Became a Necessity
The MLPD was established in the Ruhr area in 1982. The founding of the Party was preceded by a 10-year period of its preparatory building as Communist Workers' League of Germany (KABD). At the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1956, socialism was betrayed in the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). A petty-bourgeois bureaucracy degenerated into a bureaucratic-capitalist class of a new type. After Mao Zedong passed away, socialism in China was also destroyed. Control over the responsible leaders in the party, economy and state was not sufficient to avert this. The once revolutionary Communist Party of Germany (KPD) followed the CPSU's disastrous path. Thus, the German working class was deprived of its revolutionary vanguard. This made it necessary to build up a revolutionary workers' Party of a new type.
The MLPD Applies Marxim-Leninism to the Present Conditions
of Class Struggle
Social developments have confirmed the MLPD's ideological-political line developed since 1969. The Party's line has developed in close connection with practice and has so far been established in 26 issues of the system embodied in the theoretical organ Revolutionärer Weg (Revolutionary Way). The issue of the mode of thinking, in its various aspects, runs through the organ like a read thread.
Members Set the Course
The ideological-political line is decided by the members. Only local groups are entitled to submit motions to the delegates' conferences. All members, on their own responsibility, creatively acquire and implement the line. Every member involves himself/ herself actively in accordance with his/ her abilities, fitness and family situation.
The members exercise control by means of criticism and self-criticism. Leading committees are accountable to the delegates' conferences. Only local groups may put up candidates for higher leading committees. Functionaries must do practical work. The members of the highest Party organs are evaluated twice a year by their respective Party cells. The independent Central Control Commission is accountable only to the Party Congress. It does control work over the Central Committee. In cases of infringement of democracy, any member can turn to the Central Control Commission.
The Party's system of self-control is based on a trusting, objective culture of debate. It serves to enhance the MLPD's unity and fighting fitness as well as to avoid mistakes.
MLPD Finances Itself
MLPD finances itself through monthly dues, regular campaigns for donations and project-related fund-raising campaigns. Auditing committees on all levels of leadership supervise the correct management of the finances. Full-time functionaries are paid an average blue-collar worker's wage at the maximum.