Cash-or-kind

Induction, Part 6b

Cash-or-kind

To repeat: The Party must live off the land, raising its means as it goes along.

In this item, we will look at who the people are in the community who have money.

Let us presume that the working class is organised, in trade unions, in the Party, and in other mass organisations. We have dealings with them through their mass organisations, as described earlier in this part. We ask them for support and we do get support from the Mass Democratic Movement. To the extent that they have structures at local level, we can do the same.

The other people who have money in the community, at local level, are the local business people. These are the petty-bourgoisie, and the locality is their home and the place where they are nurtured and reproduced.

A mature local communist party will be in touch with the petty-bourgeoisie, will know them personally, and will be known by them in a frank and friendly relationship.

The petty bourgeoisie is not the main class we represent, but nor is it the main class that we oppose. The communists have to be the leaders of the whole society. In the process of building socialism now, we have to be able to form alliances with other classes.

In the past, and in the liberation struggle in particular, some shopkeepers and small business producers did support the liberation movement. They have their own reasons for wanting to do so, which the communists should learn to understand. If we are not getting at least a small amount of support from them, we are probably not doing everything right.

Therefore the communists should not rule out approaching the local business for assistance. They should make a point of doing so, in order to learn what is possible in the relationship between themselves and this class that has its full field of operations in the locality.

We should begin to make it a habit, even if the beginnings of this relationship are slow and difficult. In the process we should listen carefully, so as to find out what this class of people, potential allies, think they can get from us. This may be advocacy, even a campaign, but it may also have an intellectual, or ideological nature. We should be ready to respond.

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