The Party of Labour of Austria (PdA) sees itself as the Marxist-Leninist party of the Austrian working class. Against this background, it must fulfil certain functions and tasks, which are to be understood as characteristics, guidelines and objectives. They result from the findings of party theory, from the lessons of practical activities and class struggles since the beginning of the organised labour movement and from the analysis of today's requirements. We want to outline the corresponding significance of the Marxist-Leninist party in the revolutionary class struggle in the following six points.

The workers are the oppressed and exploited class under capitalism. At the same time, they are the only revolutionary class. Their historical mission is to overthrow capitalism through the social revolution of the working class, to establish their own rule and to open the way for humanity to the classless society of communism. To this end, the working class must organise itself in the Marxist-Leninist party - it is the highest class organisation, the tool and weapon of the working class. The party ensures the all-round enlightenment, mobilisation, training and organisation of the class and the creation of socialist consciousness. It connects the working class with scientific socialism. In doing so, the party must also organically become a workers' party. The Marxist-Leninist party as an independent class party cannot be replaced by sub-organisations or factions in parties of a different character, nor by alliance structures.

The Marxist-Leninist Party is the party of scientific socialism. Scientific socialism is the world view, the analytical tool and the guide to action for the organised working class. It utilises the theoretical insights of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and other theorists of scientific socialism, applies them in practice and creatively develops them further. At the same time, the Marxist-Leninist party defends scientific socialism against revisionist distortions, right-wing and left-wing opportunism and the strategic aberrations of reformism. Scientific socialism provides the working class organised in the Marxist-Leninist Party with an understanding of the functioning of capitalism in its imperialist stage, of the bourgeois state and the bourgeois society, but above all of revolutionary strategy and tactics and the construction of socialism.

The Marxist-Leninist party puts the working class in a position to lead the class struggle against capital ideologically, economically and politically. It is the task of the party to make and maintain the working class mentally and physically capable of fighting. This requires ideological and theoretical foundations, materially appropriate structures from the basic organisations in the factories, educational institutions and residential areas to the central leadership and its operative apparatus, in accordance with the principles of democratic centralism, suitable front and mass organisations, agitation, propaganda and media work, constructive experience in all forms of labour and political struggle, from neighbourhood and factory work to the general strike, in parliamentary and non-parliamentary struggles, in alliance politics in order to strengthen the struggle of the working class together with the popular strata, and in clandestine work. The integral climax of the class struggle of the working class is the socialist revolution.

Under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party, the organised working class undertakes a revolutionary uprising and raises the question of power. This cannot be a voluntaristic act, but it will be necessary for the subjective and objective conditions and prerequisites to coincide. This means that, on the one hand, the party must actually be able to take the lead through its own strength, to organise a qualified, conscious and advanced, but also in quantitative terms the numerically necessary part of the working class for the revolution. At the same time, there needs to be an intensification of the contradictions so that a revolutionary situation arises objectively: The bourgeoisie can no longer carry on as before, the working class no longer wants to carry on as before. Only when these subjective and objective conditions come together can the revolution triumph. It overthrows the capitalists with their system of oppression and exploitation and smashes the bourgeois-capitalist apparatus of rule. In its place comes the socialist state, which can necessarily represent nothing other than the dictatorship of the proletariat, the exercise of power by the working class organised as the ruling class. Only this makes it possible to suppress the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary forces, only this allows the development of socialist democracy - and only this makes it possible to solve the central question of property: private ownership of the means of production is abolished and transformed into social property.

The exercise of power by the organised working class and the socialisation of the means of production mark the two central points of the socialist revolution. They are prerequisites for the construction of socialism, during which the class struggle is carried out under the new circumstances. There will be no other way to achieve socialism, not through bourgeois elections and parliaments, not through a chain of reforms and a creeping transformation. The construction of socialism in the dictatorship of the proletariat requires, in addition to the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, the spread of socialist consciousness, the planned management of production and reproduction and the increase of productivity, in the sense of the basic law of the political economy of socialism for the satisfaction of people's needs, the bringing of the material-technical basis, the relations of production and labour itself closer to communism. - This is socialism according to the laws of the communist mode of production or the communist socio-economic formation. There is no other form of socialism, such as one based on special national rules.

The Marxist-Leninist party is inevitably an internationalist party, committed to and supporting the struggle of the working class at international level. It forms a common front with the communist and workers’ parties of the world, cooperates with them and at the same time contributes in its own country to the creation of the conditions of the single revolutionary strategy for the development of the class struggle. Mutual exchange, international debates, conferences and relations, solidarity support and assistance, but also joint worldwide actions and struggles are formed on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles and the necessary ideological-political struggle against opportunist deviations. Which concrete structures or even institutions co-operations produce in the communist movement can vary historically. The absolute necessity of a powerful international communist movement is, of course, beyond question.

It may feel strange to some that some of the above statements need to be emphasised again today, as they were long taken for granted. However, it cannot be overlooked that the international communist movement is in crisis. On the one hand, this is still a consequence of the counter-revolution in the USSR and Eastern Europe, which in some places led to violation of principles, revisionism, leftist arbitrariness, unprincipled alliances and social democratisation. Elsewhere, however, it also led to renewal on a Marxist-Leninist basis and to the founding of new organisations. The process of differentiation within the communist and workers' parties is far from complete, as recent discussions on imperialist theory, the imperialist war in Ukraine and the assessment of the capitalist course of Russia and China show.

The Party of Labour of Austria sees itself as taking part in the strenuous effort to establish a Marxist-Leninist pole in the international communist movement, through the European Communist Action and the International Communist Review. There is no way around strengthening and expanding the Marxist-Leninist pole in order to regain clout on an international level.

The same applies to national parties in many countries, not least the Party of Labour in Austria. It stands in the best traditions of the Austrian labour movement, the Marxist Social Democratic Workers' Party of 1888/89, the finally Bolshevik Communist Party (KPÖ) of 1918, the armed February struggles of 1934, the anti-fascist and national freedom struggle from 1934 to 1945. Since the complete social democratisation of the KPÖ, it has been up to the PdA, as the Marxist-Leninist militant party of the Austrian working class, to meet the points outlined above, to gain strength and to push the class struggle.

It is no secret that the PdA, as a relatively young and small party, does not and cannot yet fulfil some of the required principles. We consider it necessary to recognise our weaknesses and to name them self-critically in order to work on overcoming them. We realise that this will not be possible from one day to the next, but only with perseverance, through hard, serious, purposeful and sincere work with and in the wokring class. Only in this way will the party acquire the status, skills and opportunities it needs to fulfil its tasks comprehensively. We would like to give examples of where there are shortcomings or difficulties, but where work is being done to overcome them.

It is obvious that for large sections of the Austrian working class, the PdA is not only not a point of reference, but rather even unknown. The two social democratic parties and the leadership of the trade union confederation are doing everything they can to keep the working class passive and under control and to isolate the Marxist-Leninists. The PdA is either ignored or defamed by the state and corporate media. This means that we need to develop and strengthen our direct links with the class and optimise our agitation and propaganda.

The PdA has taken various measures in this regard. These included a partial reorganisation of the (regional) basic organisations where necessary and new platforms to link the basic organisations so that weaker structures can learn from better functioning ones. The basic organisations are the party's direct interface with the working class and are therefore of particular importance for the external impact on the ground. Secondly, we have founded our own youth organisation, which is directly linked to the party. This has significantly improved our access to students and young workers and finally overcome the shortcomings of the opportunistic “Communist Youth” (KJÖ). Thirdly, we have set ourselves a focus on our work within factories - we are still discussing what this should look like in the future, but there is no doubt that we must proceed systematically in this area with standardised, stringent plans. Previously, some things were left to chance and some things were left to inadequate trade union alliances that did not prove successful. - All these measures serve the purpose of having a deeper impact on the class and actually achieving sustainable results. If this does not succeed, it will not be possible to speak of an organic workers’ party.

In the area of enlightening and educating the working class, we have endeavoured to optimise our media work in recent years. The most obvious result of these efforts is our highly visited online newspaper, which is updated several times a day, as well as our professionalised websites and social media presence. Less conspicuous, but no less important, was the relaunch of our print newspaper, the central organ “Zeitung der Arbeit”, which was adapted to the target group in terms of form and content. Regular publication is the basic prerequisite; regular distribution on the streets and in front of workplaces has an organising effect on the aforementioned basic organisations on the one hand, and an enlightening and propagandistic effect on the class on the other, in which we thereby anchor ourselves as a trustworthy and militant party, at least regionally.

Of course, this is far from enough, but it shows how progress is being made in individual areas. In this way, we are moving closer to our own aspirations, which we have outlined above. These principles are not only a self-image, a commitment and a promise, but also - especially in view of the current shortcomings - our major task, which we must accomplish. Only then will we provide the party that is needed. This party - the Marxist-Leninist party - is and will be indispensable if the revolutionary class struggle for socialism and the liberation of humanity is to return to the offensive.