Contribution of Swiss Communist Party

Contribution of the Swiss Communist Party to the European Communist Action teleconference on 3 May 2026

The tasks of communists in organising the Communist Party in workplaces and working-class neighbourhoods

Dear comrades, 

The Swiss Communist Party extends a fraternal greeting to the delegations from the member parties of the European Communist Action present at this teleconference organised by the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain. Before beginning our contribution, we wish to offer our deepest condolences to the comrades of the Austrian Labour Party on the terrible loss of their General Secretary, Tibor Zenker, on 16 April. We join in paying tribute to his revolutionary determination and his militant trajectory during this period of communist reconstruction, which serve as an example to all communists of our time.

The subject before us today is of central importance. Indeed, the existence, stability and historical continuity of the Communist Party depend on its organisation in the workplace and in working-class neighbourhoods. The contribution of the Swiss Communist Party will focus on the historical context in which the need arises for a stronger connection between the communist organisation and the worker-popular movement, as well as the task of the communists.

Communist and Workers’ Parties in Europe and around the world, following in the historical footsteps of the Internationals but also as the continuation of the international communist movement following the collapse of the USSR, and specifically in the current context of the class struggle, must face a new and highly critical phase of development. Indeed, worker-popular organisations in general, and communist organisations in particular, have been severely weakened in recent decades in many places. From within, reformist, defeatist
and opportunist tendencies have disarmed the working class and the popular sectors in favour of progressive movements of the bourgeoisie. And from the outside, contemporary capitalist governance has carried out a radical restructuring of the world of work by dismantling its autonomous institutions, such as local trade union sections, egalitarian social protection practices, employment contract regulations and class-oriented militant groups.

The development of Eurocommunism, including in its final phase of decline, is a key factor in the gradual abandonment of grassroots communist organisation, in tandem with the parallel development of a strategy of integration into social-democratic capitalist governance.

Throughout its history, the communist movement in Switzerland has been shaped by the issue of communist organisation in the workplace, beginning in the 1920s with the founding of the old Swiss Communist Party. In the 1950s, the Swiss communist movement also was confronted with this issue, particularly in the face of the repression of communists within the trade unions.

In the first period, the old Swiss Communist Party successfully established itself within the worker-popular movement, with varying degrees of success depending on the region of the country, even though the party’s approach later shifted towards an alliance with
social-democratic forces in the struggle against fascism. In the second period, the Swiss communist movement, under the influence of revisionism, opted for organisation in neighbourhoods for electoral reasons, relegating organisation in factories to the background.

For a century, the Swiss communist movement has continually emerged, attempted to establish itself and been reborn from the youth forces of the worker-popular movement, facing the fundamental difficulty of consolidating a stable and permanent Marxist-Leninist
leadership. The Swiss Communist movement’s significant foothold among the working class and the popular sectors in its early days has therefore constantly eroded, in combination with the abandonment of Marxist-Leninist principles.

Factors that are not specifically linked to workplace organisation, yet are not entirely unrelated to it either, have at various levels thwarted efforts to consolidate a revolutionary Communist Party in the 20th century: anti-communism within the labour movement; a lack of theoretical work and organisation based on communist principles; bourgeois-conservative indoctrination of young people through the institutions of school, apprenticeship and the army.

In the current context too, communist reconstruction must take into account both the political-ideological factor and the factor of the social implantation of communist militants. 

Indeed, the Swiss Communist Party develops its strategy for communist reconstruction based on the ideological education of its militants and carries out its activities through the grassroots work of its militants in alternative trade unions and solidarity associations.

The formation of the communist movement cannot be viewed solely as a political phenomenon separate from the social formation of the working class it seeks to represent. The communist movement, although it is built from outside the worker-popular movement, must therefore contribute to the development of the latter with a class-based orientation through strong internal links.

The tasks of the communist reconstruction in workplaces and working-class neighbourhoods are also closely linked to the tasks of communists working with young people, given the significant generational gap between the communist sections that existed in factories in the last century and the current worker-popular movement. Indeed, the re-establishment of the Swiss Communist Party was also the result of political work among a youth shaped by the social struggles of the 1990s.

In this grassroots work, communists face a fundamental task. Genuine communists cannot be passive members of a party that only mobilises at election time. They must necessarily be active communist militants in the organisation of the worker-popular movement, to
prepare for the great class struggle against the bourgeoisie and its capitalist-imperialist system.

In Switzerland, collaborative trade unionism, based on the principles of labour peace, is facing a major crisis of legitimacy, as trade unions have lost a third of their membership over the past 20 years. At the same time, the very large influx of migrant workers during this same period has not been channelled into the trade union movement. In these circumstances, militants from the Swiss Communist Party have contributed in recent years to the emergence of new grassroots trade unions, particularly in French-speaking Switzerland,
in both the private and public sectors, which are genuinely active, defend their members and mobilise in trade union actions.

This new situation presents an opportunity to build working-class organisations based on genuine trade unionism, which defends the class interests of workers, alongside the workers themselves. We believe that the political and practical education of militants, the ideological struggle and grassroots trade union work are essential for rebuilding a class-based alternative. Strengthening class-based trade unionism is of particular importance in order to rebuild a strong, democratic, grassroots and independent worker-popular movement. 

In conclusion, the Swiss Communist Party’s approach to organising in workplaces and working-class neighbourhoods is based primarily on the need to educate, bring together and ideologically and organisationally unite the different generations of communists within the
party, with a focus on youth work, and to build a class-based trade union alternative by incorporating new sections of non-unionised workers. It is by strengthening the worker-popular movement, with a class-based orientation, that we make a decisive contribution to the revolutionary breakthrough and the building of socialism-communism.