Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 11:09:29 -0600
From: Neil Fettes <fettesn-AT-cadvision.com>
Subject: AUT: Party & Class



I'm glad that several people have responded to the article I posted by the
APCF last week, but unfortunately due to other commitments I haven't had a
chance to comment on some of the postings. 

Re-reading the contributions I'm reminded of the idea that the working class
tends to create organizations to suit its needs. Thus the trade unions and
the mass workers parties corresponded to a certain stage of the development
of the working class. Today those organizations serve a purpose quite
different from the ones for which they were originally built. While it is
still possible for trade unions to get a better deal for their members
(although this seems to be less and less true) the primary function of
unions today is as an agent of social control.  

One of the things I thought was valuable in the article (and this is why I
posted it in the first place) was that it critiqued a particular
organizational model but did not simply disappear questions of organization.
In dealing with questions of party and class I think it is useful to reflect
back upon the Leninist position, which I believe serves as a bad example.
Lenin and the heirs to his tradition, including the Trotskyists, of which I
was once a part, believed that the working class was only capable of
achieving a "trade union" consciousness i.e. economic struggles. It would
require a proletarian party, led by people like Lenin, in order to focus
their energy (Trotsky uses the analogy of a steam piston) to seize state
power and set up a socialist society. This scenario has not generally taken
place. In Russia the Bolshevik party did take power, but quickly a new
oppressive regime was enstalled. While the development of the Russian
revolution after October cannot simply be traced to the Bolsheviks (a civil
war will disrupt even the best made plans), it is true that each regime this
century headed by a "Lenininst vanguard party" began or quickly became a
state capitalist entity. Marxist-Leninism serving as the ideology of a new
capitlaist class. 

In fact if we look at any number of revolutionary movements in this century,
the majority (Hungary, Paris, Poland etc.) have not been under the auspice
of a party structure, but have occured as spontaneous revolts against the
capitalist state structure. The vanguard parties have had to scramble to
make up ground. Even in Russia Lenin was honest enough to admit the
Bolsheviks adapted themselves to the radicalized masses not the other way
around. 

Does this mean then that there is no point to organization and we can calmly
await the revolution? Even arguing the above position I'm not sitting
patiently. I publish my own newsletter as do many on this list. Yes,
revolution requires organization. In fact even in the case of "spontaneous"
uprisings there is a good deal of organization taking place and having taken
place, but these structures are not the result of vanguards, but of
pre-existing social relationships. 

Without wanting to resort to appeals to authority, I'm reminded of an
exchange that Pannekoek had with Cornelius Castoriadis, then of Socialisme
ou Barbarie. The question had been posted about what to do about if word got
out about one radical party about to seize power and supress others. Should
a revolutionary organization try and beat them to the punch. Pannekoek's
belief was that the only solution lay in the hands of the working class. If
it was was active then would defeat the threat. If not, no matter what the
intentions of the second group, they could only end up administering a form
of capitalism. I am not entirely comfortable with the above situation, but
what is important is that idea about the working class and self activity.
Without that, we will not have socialism. If the working class is not
revolutionary, neither are we. If they are, so are we. (Incidently I am
planning to translate and publish the exchange for a future issue of "Red &
Black Notes")

Part of the problem I have with the "party" tradition is a belief in the
organization as some kind of "organized expression of communist
consciousness." This seems to suggest a a disembodied consciousness which
could exist independently of the working class, and can lead into the kind
of substitutionist models that the Leninists and their descendents often
lapse into (I should state here, I am not accusing any of the participants
in this discussion of this kind of substituionism, merely suggesting that a
possibility).  Either we believe that consciousness (how I hate that word),
is  possible without the intervention of a party, or we don't. Given the
smallness and isolation of ALL of the left I can only hope it is the latter.


For those comrades who haven't yet seen it, I would recommend the latest
issue of Collective Action Notes (and also the Discussion Bulletin) which
reprints an exchange between Kammunist Kranti and the Communist Workers
Organization on much the same topic as this discussion.

CGs

Neil Fettes

Calgary, AB





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