Issuing body: Underground European Conference of the Fourth International
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Supplements to the Statutes of the Fourth International
1. All parties and organizations affiliated to the Fourth International in Europe shall bear the name: Communist Internationalist Party (or group) (section... — name of the country — of the Fourth International).
2. The parties affiliated to the Fourth International are built on the principle of democratic centralism. The Fourth International will be able to fulfil its role only if it is organized in the most centralized fashion possible, while at the same time facilitating permanent joint activity through an equally common and permanent struggle of the whole party. Thus, even in time of illegality, the party insists on the frequent consultation, information, and democratic expression of its militants at every level (internal bulletin, at least annual conference, etc.).
3. All the Communist Internationalist parties carry on the revolutionary combat in the most complete illegality. This situation, common to all the sections of the Fourth International, requires a general definition of their organizational structure: a structure verified by Bolshevik experience and tradition, corresponding to the concrete conditions and the political aims of the present Communist Internationalist struggle. Even should the possibilities of legal manifestation and work return, the party will strictly preserve its illegal structure.
4. The principle of the strictest possible system of compartmentalization must be carefully observed at every level of the party. Each working body must be isolated, each militant cut off from those comrades whom his political tasks do not require him to meet.
5. The parties are organized into regions, sub-regions [rayons], cells, and intermediate organizations, without thereby decentralizing political responsibilities or loosening the control of the central bodies.
a) Cells are constituted on the basis of the enterprise (factory, building site, mine shaft, etc.). It is not the geographical situation of the militants that determines their assignment to a cell, but the tasks they have to carry out in the workplace where the cell is constituted. Cells are formed of three members, four at the maximum; this number must not be exceeded under any pretext whatsoever. Above four militants, cells split into two.
At the head of the cells is a secretary elected by their members. In principle, cells must meet once or twice a week for political discussion, the drawing up of the work plan, the carrying out of the cell's objectives, etc.
b) Sub-regions [rayons] are constituted on the basis of an industrial or geographical sector. Sub-region committees are made up of the cell secretaries, under the responsibility of a sub-region secretary appointed by the central bodies after approval by the cells.
The sub-regions direct the political work of their cells, control their activity, receive their reports, prepare the material and the agitation campaigns within their competence, vet the militants and candidates, propose co-optations, etc. The sub-region committee is in liaison with the regional committee through its secretary.
c) Within one and the same geographical, political, or industrial region, the sub-regions are grouped together into regions, at the head of which stands a committee of sub-regions at a higher level.
6. So that the parties may have a clear view of their own strength and the worth of their apparatus, it is important that comrades be classified precisely into one of the following categories: contact, sympathizer, candidate, militant. This classification permits above all a serious selection of militants and increases the chances of detecting class enemies, weak elements, and petty-bourgeois elements. The rigorous observance of the principle of candidacy prior to the co-optation of comrades as militants is an additional guarantee of security for the parties.
a) Contacts [liaisons] are considered to be those comrades capable of being used by the parties as agents of information, of liaison, as a channel for the distribution of our literature, etc. The network of its contacts with the working class constitutes for the party a position of the highest importance. As a general rule, contacts are kept in total ignorance of how the party functions. They are given only those documents intended for wide distribution. The militant or sympathizer who establishes contact with the liaison must be as evasive as possible about his relations with the party and his position vis-à-vis the organization. It is the duty of militants to develop contacts into a more active sympathy that already commits them to concerted actions with the party.
b) Sympathizers are considered to be those revolutionaries who regard the Fourth International as the guide of the proletariat, are ready to give it their support, and agree to work at their political formation under the direction of its cells. Also considered sympathizers are comrades who show their agreement with the party but who, owing to political or personal weakness, or in consideration of a special situation, etc., cannot be co-opted as militants. Sympathizers render the party important services: information, distribution of the illegal press, prospects for new contacts, etc. Sympathizers must, as far as possible, be incorporated into a group or nucleus (revolutionary study group, workers' group, etc.), under the direction of a militant. Efforts will be made to develop these sympathizer groups until they take on the functions of communist cells, through the definition of work and agitation perspectives in a given sector. Sympathizers are given the theoretical reviews and any document intended for wide distribution, with the exception of internal discussion bulletins. Sympathizers judged to be serious may put themselves forward as candidates for the party.
c) Candidates are those sympathizers wishing to become members of the party and put forward by two militants. Candidates are incorporated into a cell or an auxiliary cell. They are entrusted with political missions designed to allow their worth and particular qualities, and their attachment to the revolution, to be assessed. In order to secure proletarian recruitment and to make access to the parties more difficult for petty-bourgeois elements, the candidacy period is three months for workers and six months for non-workers. These candidates are subject to the same duties and discipline as militants. They are given the internal documents of the parties. They have a consultative voice.
d) Militants are those comrades who have completed their candidacy. Militants are compulsorily incorporated into a cell. Each of them must also lead a group of sympathizers, or carry out a permanent mission controlled by the cell. This active and constant participation in the party's political combat is a sine qua non condition for admission into the ranks of the Fourth International. Once they are party members, militants enjoy their full rights.
Every party must, in its efforts to have only truly active members, require of each of those in its ranks "that he place at the disposal of his party his strength and his time to the extent that he can dispose of them under the given circumstances, and that he always devote the best of himself to the party" (Theses on the Organization of the Party, 3rd Congress of the CI).
In Quatrième Internationale, n° 4-5, February-March 1944