The “Five Primary Tasks” of the CPMK and their meaning for us

The CPMK has recently published an article on the website of the Progressive International which is a pre-print of the soon to be published book “Building the Vanguard Party in Kenya”. What it contains are “Five Primary Tasks”. They are not only valid for the Kenyan communists, but for us Ugandan communists as well. Let’s take a look at them:

“As a vanguard party, the CPMK has five primary tasks:

1. It builds cadre consciousness through Marxist-Leninist education, so that every party member becomes a thinker, organiser, and agitator.
2. It organizes, establishing cells in factories, schools, farms, universities, informal settlements, and diaspora communities.
3. It agitates, carrying on the political line into every mass struggle — from housing and hunger, to gender oppression and landlessness.
4. It unites, building a shared front of progressive forces, without diluting the working class leadership of the movement.
5. And it prepares for deeper crises, for greater repression, and for future insurrection.”¹

On Point 1: Every communist party needs class-conscious cadres that are educated in Marxism-Leninism and are capable thinkers, organizers and agitators. For that purpose, reading circles have to be held and collective events or actions to be organized to increase knowledge and discipline as well creating a common identity as a communist party. Of course the degree of skill will differ but there is a certain standard that needs to be applied to the members and especially the leading cadres. Leading cadres lacking such qualities and skills cannot be tolerated and must be replaced.

On Point 2: Communist parties are rooted in democratic centralism. The basic organizations are the cells on the ground level. The more local cells with active members can be formed, the more vital and ready for action is the party as a whole. The cells are the roots that reach into the masses. Mao said: “We Communists are like seeds and the people are like the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them. Wherever our comrades go, they must build good relations with the masses, be concerned for them and help them overcome their difficulties.”² That is the task the party cells have to fulfill.

On Point 3: The communist party is the highest form of organization for the working people as their vanguard. Therefore it plays the leading role on all fields of class struggle and building up organizations of the working people, such as trade unions for the workers and cooperatives for mainly the peasants, but also small merchants and craftsmen. A women’s league and youth league under the umbrella of the party will also be vital to boost female and young cadres for our cause.

On Point 4: The communist party is the vanguard of the working class and the working people. But a vanguard is like a spearhead: A spearhead alone makes no spear; it needs a shaft appended to it. Lenin said: “A vanguard performs its task as vanguard only when it is able to avoid being isolated from the mass of the people it leads and is able really to lead the whole mass forward. Without an alliance with non-Communists in the most diverse spheres of activity there can be no question of any successful communist construction.”³ The communist party needs a trade union federation, a cooperative association, a women’s league and a youth league closely related to it as mass organizations that give the party its mass basis. But there will be parts of the working people that cannot be turned into communists, though they might support the gist of our policies. Therefore we have to also find allies that are not subordinating themselves so directly under the party but rather a people’s front with the party on top. That can be parties of the petty bourgeois stratums or even the national bourgeoisie or organizations of bourgeois intellectual circles for example, as long as they share the goals of the National Democratic phase of the revolution with us. But she shall never compromise our goals and Marxist-Leninist principles in an opportunist way just to gain some people temporarily. That would just cause harm in the long run and disorientate our cadres and the masses. The result would be gaining a few at the cost of losing everything.

On Point 5: The communist party must be prepared for the intensification of class struggle. The 2024 retail strikes in Uganda were such an obvious outburst of class struggle in Uganda. They were, of course, repressed. The Ugandan bourgeois state works a lot with instilling terror to oppositionists by threats and by brutal repressions,just as the recent elections have shown. The party must prepare to have an intact organization even when facing repressions by the state organs by preparing measures to go underground when necessary, to have alternate members for the leading organs in case some get put into custody and at best having comrades outside the country as a backup. Speaking about more than these general principles in public would be not just unwise but even dangerous.

What the CPMK teaches us here is not new in principle, but a very good summary of the Marxist-Leninist set of most vital tasks of the communist party. The CPMK has experience in building a communist party under African conditions from which we as the CLU can still learn from.

We shall study the experience of the CPMK to become a staunch vanguard party of the working people after their role model!