The most important element of successful working of the Party
Committee--the one on which during the checking of its work the
most serious attention must be concentrated--is the question of
connections of the Party Committee with the higher and lower
Party organizations, especially with the factory cells and the
fractions of the mass non-Party organizations. This question now
has a decisive importance, especially in the legal and semi-legal
Communist Parties. The illegal Communist Parties have already
worked out a whole number of measures and methods in order to
keep their communications with the lower organizations and with
separate members of the Party, in spite of the severest police
repression. But with the legal and semi-legal Parties there is
bad work all the time along this line. In Austria during the
last Fascist rising, the C. C. lost connection with the Vienna
Committee, and the Vienna Committee lost connection with the
enterprises. In Paris on the 6th March 1930, the C. C. lost
connection with the Paris organization for six days. Such a state
of affairs is absolutely impossible and the most important task
of each of our Party organizers, of every instructor going to the
locals to check the work of the Party Committee is above all to
check how the connections between the Party Committee and other
Party organizations are organized, and especially these with the
lower Party organizations, and the factory cells. It is perfectly
clear that the Communist Parties will not be in a position to
organize any mass actions of the Proletariat or mass strikes,
or mass street demonstrations, if the Party Committees at sharp
moments of struggle lose connection with the factory cells and
mass non-Party organizations.
Which are the most important methods of communication it is
essential to foresee? It is essentially important to have a
well-laid out live communication. Live communication is kept going
by the help of the system of so-called appearing or reporting
places. What is a reporting point. A reporting point is this: the
Party Committee establishes special addresses of flats or other
places where on certain days and at certain times representatives
of the cells and fractions of the mass organizations must appear.
There also representatives of the Party Committees appear. The
representative of the cells and fractions makes reports on what
has happened in the factory, what the cell has done, what it
proposes to do and so on, and the representatives of the Party
Committee, having received the report, advises the cell how it
should act, passes on to it the directions of the higher Party
organs and so on. This system of appearing places must without
fail be established in all Parties without exception, legal and
illegal whilst in the legal Parties a double system of reporting
places must without fail be established--a system of legal and
illegal appearing points. Legal reporting places in the legal
premises of the Party Committee and illegal appearing places in
case the legal premises of the Party Committee are closed, or a
police ambush is sitting there, in order quickly to re-establish
connection with the lower Party cell in another way through the
illegal reporting place. For the latter, appearing points should
therefore be prepared beforehand. In Germany, in Belgium, in
France, Party meetings in cafes were at one time very widespread.
This is a very bad habit because there are always spies in cafes
in countless numbers and it is difficult to get rid of them. It
is necessary to go over more quickly to the establishment of
appearing places in safer localities. If the Party has already
more or less seriously and fundamentally gone over to underground
positions, and the shadowing of leading active Party members has
begun, and Party members are being arrested in the streets, then
it is very important that special signals should be established
for the appearing flats, showing; in the first place, the safety
of the flat, second, showing that exactly those people have
come who were expected and that these comrades who have come
are talking with exactly those comrades whom the observer is
coming to see. In order to show that the reporting places are in
working order, in Russian conditions, for example, a flowerpot
was placed in the window, the comrade came, saw that the flowers
are there, knew that it is safe, and entered. It is necessary to
say that these reception signals were very quickly learned by the
police and that they therefore, when visiting any flat, carefully
searched for signals before fixing an ambush. If they saw that
flowers are in the window and the person whom they have come to
arrest has tried by all means possible to take these flowers away,
the police insisted on putting them back in the place where they
were. So, when arranging safety signals for reporting places, it
is necessary to arrange them in such a way that they don’t strike
the eyes of the police and that they can be taken away without
being noticed by the police.
For verifying those who come to the reporting places, a system
of passwords is established. The comrade comes to the reporting
place, and he says some agreed-upon sentence. They answer to that
agreed-on sentence by some other agreed-on sentence. So both
comrades check each other. In Russian underground conditions
very complicated passwords were sometimes used in the central
appearing places. This was called forth by the circumstances that
different workers passed through such reporting places; rank and
file workers from the cells, district and Central Party workers.
Accordingly, one password was fixed for the rank and file worker,
a more complicated one for the district worker and still more
complicated one for the central worker. Why was this necessary? It
was necessary for conspirative reasons, since only certain things
could be said to the rank and file worker while perhaps other
things could be said to the district worker, whilst you could
speak with full frankness about the whole work of the illegal
organization to the representative of the Central Committee.
Therefore, passwords were, as they used to say at that time of
“three degrees of trust.” This was done in this way. The first
degree of trust: a comrade comes and says an agreed-upon sentence
and is replied to by an agreed-upon sentence. The second stage:
the comrade who has come in reply to the agreed-upon sentence
spoken to him, says another agreed-upon sentence, in reply to
which yet another agreed-upon sentence is spoken to him. The third
stage of trust: to the second agreed-upon sentence the comrade
replies by a third agreed-upon sentence. Then the keeper of the
appearing place also replies to the third agreed-upon sentence.
Besides flats for reporting points, connecting link flats are also
needed for communication by letter, and these flats must in no
case coincide. And finally, there must be flats for the sheltering
of illegal comrades, comrades whom the police are looking for;
comrades who have escaped from prison, etc., etc. For all our
legal Communist Parties the question of addresses and flats now
plays a role of the first importance. Last year, on the eve of
the 1st August, when it was clear that the leading workers would
be arrested in a number of countries, comrades did not know where
to go, there were no flats. In any case, when it was necessary to
shelter comrades hiding from the police in Germany, Czechoslovakia
and France very great difficulties occurred, especially in the
provinces. It is essential for all Parties to occupy themselves
now in the most serious way with the solution of the “housing”
problem.
Concerning communications by letter. It is also necessary to give
the most serious attention to the problem of the organization of
letter communications. In checking the work of the Party Committee
it is necessary to consider this question specially: Does the
Party Committee have addresses for communicating by letter with
the higher and lower Party organizations, and how are these
communications put into practice? Now, even for the legal Parties,
the firmest rule must be established that all correspondence
concerning the functioning of the Party apparatus, must without
fail go by special routes guaranteeing letters from being copied
in the post. All kinds of general circulars, general information
reports on the condition of the Party in legal parties can go
through the ordinary post to legal Party addresses, but everything
concerning the functioning of the Party Committee even in legal
Parties, most now without fail go by special routes. In the first
place, the use of special couriers must be foreseen, who will
personally carry letters, not trusting these letters to the State
post. Here the Parties must make use of the connections which they
have with post and telegraph and railway servants, connections
with all kinds of commercial travellers for trading firms and so
on. All these connections must be used in order that without extra
expense responsible Party documents can be transported. Further,
every Party should take care that every letter, apart from whether
it goes through the State post or by courier should be written
in such a way that in case it falls into the hands of the police
it should not give the police a basis for any kind of arrest or
repression against the Party organization.
This makes the following three requisites. The first requisite:
the letter must be in code, i. e., all aspects of illegal work
are referred to by some special phrase or other. For example,
the illegal printing press is called “auntie”; “type” is called
“sugar” and so on. A comrade writes: “auntie asks you without fail
to send her 20-lbs. of sugar;” that will mean that the press is in
need of 20-lbs. of type or a comrade writes: “we are experiencing
great difficulty in finding a suitable flat for our aunt.” That
means that it is a question of finding a flat for the illegal
printing press.
Second requisite: besides a code, as above, ciphers are used,
illegal parts of letters being put not only into code but also
into cipher. There are many different systems of cipher. The
simplest and at the same time most reliable system of cipher is
the system of cipher by the help of a book. Some book or other is
agreed upon beforehand and then the cipher is made in this way:
simple fractions or decimals are ciphered. The first figure of
the first fraction shows the page of the book. Then further comes
the actual cipher. For the numerator of the fraction we must take
a line counting from above or below; for the denominator that
counting from the left or from the right which it is necessary
to put into cipher. For example, we need to put into cipher the
letter “A”. We look in the book and we see that this letter is in
the third line from the top, the fourth letter from the left to
the right. Then we cipher 3 over 4 (3/4), that is the third line
from the top, fourth letter from left to right. You can agree also
on this method; for example, counting the line not from above but
from below, then the 3 will not be the third line from above but
the third line from below. You can agree to count the letter in
the line not from left to right but from right to left. Finally,
for greater complexity in order to keep the sense from the police,
you can also add to the fraction some figure or other. Let us say
the numerator is increased by 3 and the denominator by 4. In this
case in order to decipher, it will be necessary first to subtract
in the numerator and denominator of every fraction. A whole number
of similar complications can be thought out in order to complicate
the cipher. The advantage of such a cipher is that it is not only
very simple but also that each letter can be designated by a
great number of different signs and in such a way that the cipher
designation of the letters are not repeated. The book cipher can
be used without a book. In place of a book some poem or other can
be chosen, learned by heart and the ciphering done according to
it. When it is necessary to cipher or decipher, the poem must be
written out in verses and then the ciphering or deciphering done
and the poem destroyed.
The third requisite which is also recommended should be observed
in correspondence, is writing in chemical inks, that is, with
such inks that it is impossible to read them without special
adaptations. If a secret Party letter falls into the hands of the
police written in invisible ink they must first of all guess that
it is written in invisible ink; the open text of such letters must
be made perfectly blameless, for example, a son is writing to his
mother that he is alive and well and of the good things he wishes
her. Not a word about revolution. The police must guess first
of all that under this apparent innocent text there is a hidden
text. Having discovered this secret the police tumble against the
cipher. If they succeed in deciphering the cipher, they stumble up
against a code and they have still to decipher that code. But all
this takes time in the course of which the police can do nothing.
If the police succeed in reading it in the course of two or three
weeks, then by that time the Party organization has been able to
cover up all the consequences of the question which was written
about in the letter.
What kind of invisible ink should be used? Invisible inks exist
in a very great number. They can be bought in any chemist’s shop.
Finally, comrades must use the latest inventions of chemistry
in this direction. The simplest invisible ink which can be
recommended and which can be found everywhere, is, for example,
onion juice and pure water.