AUT: The Need for a Revolutionary Party (was Marxism and Councilism)

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I discuss the source and meaning of revolutionary consciousness and the
question of a revolutionary party in my book, We CAN Change the World: The
Real Meaning of Everyday Life (New Democracy Books, 1991). Here are some
excerpts which bear on the exchanges regarding Marxism and Councilism.

Dave Stratman
Editor, New Democracy
<A HREF="newdemocracyworld.org">newdemocracyworld.org</A>
5 Burr Street
Boston, MA 02130
617-524-4073
***********
The Need for a Revolutionary Party

....Revolutionary consciousness consists of workers' consciousness of
themselves as the collective source of value in society and the source of
revolution.
   In revolutionary democracy, political consciousness is not technical
knowledge of the system, but a way of thinking about and relating to other
people. Political consciousness is value-laden and value-based: it expresses
and reflects human relationships based on solidarity and equality. The
fundamental ideas of revolutionary democracy and the relationships in which
these ideas are embedded and expressed are deeply intertwined in the life of
the working class. They consist of an understanding of people and society
inseparable from certain shared goals for human society, certain shared
beliefs in what society should be like. They cannot be the products of
economic "experts" or the property of a political party separate from the
working class. Political consciousness is the organic product of people
working together to create the bases of human life, who then reflect upon the
meaning of their actions.....
   The problem of the working class is not that it does not know enough to
make a revolution, or that it has insufficient or false consciousness. People
collectively know enough now to crush capitalism and to create a new world.
The problem is that the working class does not know what it knows. The
knowledge, insights, and consciousness among people is broken into many
pieces; everyone has at least a bit of the whole truth, but the bits and
pieces of collective knowledge have not been brought together into a critical
mass, a whole vision to transform the world. People remain unsure of what
they know, because what they know contradicts everything that they have been
taught. Because they are not together to confirm the validity of what they
each know and to assemble it into a whole, the earthshaking, world-creating
significance of their knowledge is hidden from view.
   Being fragmentary, this consciousness can also be an inadequate instrument
for practical use: for seeing the connections among issues, or for sorting
out the misinformation and misleading ideas from the useful and accurate, or
for developing strategies for building a movement. Without a developed
movement, conscious of its goals and tasks, the normal state of people's
consciousness is a mixture of ideas, some of them true and revolutionary,
some of them quite contradictory....
   A revolutionary organization is needed to draw together the best of what
people know into a whole vision of society; to further develop an
understanding of society which reveals the revolutionary meaning of working
class values and struggles; and to wage war with capitalist culture for "the
hearts and minds" of the people.
   The role of a revolutionary party is not to bring to the working class a
consciousness from outside, but to uncover and bring together the fragments
of consciousness that are already there, rooted in workers' experience and
their values and social relations. Its role is to make more clear the
significance of these values and relations, to develop them as a vision of a
new world, and to use them as a revolutionary standard with which to judge
every aspect of the world as it now exists.
   A party integrates the experiences of many people, and perceives the whole
of society; it places developments in a historical framework; it develops the
ideas which people bring to it. It is precisely because people have a great
many ideas that a party is able to play a positive role in developing them.
The essential activities in which a revolutionary party would engage, people
already do informally and in piecemeal fashion: people already subject
society and their own experience to analysis, and spread the results of their
thinking, if just on their coffee break or at the local tavern. A party would
also do this work, self-consciously, systematically, and in a sustained
manner, and by doing it encourage wider and wider circles of people to do it
themselves, but with more awareness of the significance of their efforts....
   The revolutionary party crystallizes a revolutionary point of view and
legitimizes revolutionary ideas and values generated by workers against the
hegemonic culture. As it makes people more aware of the significance of their
ideas and actions, it becomes the instrument of the revolutionary
self-knowledge of the working class. It is this self-knowledge which enables
working class culture to become hegemonic; that is, that allows it to see
itself and be seen as the salvation of the human race.
   In this way the revolutionary party is an essential element of a
revolutionary movement. The revolutionary party is not the repository of
working class self-consciousness; this can only reside in the class. But the
party plays an essential role in the development of this self-consciousness,
by articulating and applying to every aspect of class struggle the paradigm
which shows its significance.
   The relationship between the working class and the revolutionary party is
a function of the collective nature of human consciousness and development.
The people taken together always know more than the party, because in their
numbers and variety they comprehend greater class experience. But they do not
always know what they know. The conscious organization and articulation by
the party of its ideas is fundamental to the further development of mass
consciousness. The party leads the working class to the extent that it
articulates and spreads ideas embedded in the class; the party's effort leads
to the greater self-consciousness of workers individually and generally, who
in turn lead the party as they drive it forward to new comprehension of their
experience and new levels of articulation.

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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT  SIZE=2>I discuss the source and meaning of revolutionary consciousness and the question of a revolutionary party in my book, <I>We CAN Change the World: The Real Meaning of Everyday Life</I> (New Democracy Books, 1991). Here are some excerpts which bear on the exchanges regarding Marxism and Councilism.
<BR>
<BR>Dave Stratman
<BR>Editor, New Democracy
<BR><A HREF="newdemocracyworld.org">newdemocracyworld.org</A>
<BR>5 Burr Street
<BR>Boston, MA 02130
<BR>617-524-4073
<BR>***********
<BR>The Need for a Revolutionary Party
<BR>
<BR>....Revolutionary consciousness consists of workers' consciousness of themselves as the collective source of value in society and the source of revolution.
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;In revolutionary democracy, political consciousness is not technical knowledge of the system, but a way of thinking about and relating to other people. Political consciousness is value-laden and value-based: it expresses and reflects human relationships based on solidarity and equality. The fundamental ideas of revolutionary democracy and the relationships in which these ideas are embedded and expressed are deeply intertwined in the life of the working class. They consist of an understanding of people and society inseparable from certain shared goals for human society, certain shared beliefs in what society should be like. They cannot be the products of economic "experts" or the property of a political party separate from the working class. Political consciousness is the organic product of people working together to create the bases of human life, who then reflect upon the meaning of their actions.....
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;The problem of the working class is not that it does not know enough to make a revolution, or that it has insufficient or false consciousness. People collectively know enough now to crush capitalism and to create a new world. The problem is that the working class does not know what it knows. The knowledge, insights, and consciousness among people is broken into many pieces; everyone has at least a bit of the whole truth, but the bits and pieces of collective knowledge have not been brought together into a critical mass, a whole vision to transform the world. People remain unsure of what they know, because what they know contradicts everything that they have been taught. Because they are not together to confirm the validity of what they each know and to assemble it into a whole, the earthshaking, world-creating significance of their knowledge is hidden from view.
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;Being fragmentary, this consciousness can also be an inadequate instrument for practical use: for seeing the connections among issues, or for sorting out the misinformation and misleading ideas from the useful and accurate, or for developing strategies for building a movement. Without a developed movement, conscious of its goals and tasks, the normal state of people's consciousness is a mixture of ideas, some of them true and revolutionary, some of them quite contradictory....
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;A revolutionary organization is needed to draw together the best of what people know into a whole vision of society; to further develop an understanding of society which reveals the revolutionary meaning of working class values and struggles; and to wage war with capitalist culture for "the hearts and minds" of the people.
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;The role of a revolutionary party is not to bring to the working class a consciousness from outside, but to uncover and bring together the fragments of consciousness that are already there, rooted in workers' experience and their values and social relations. Its role is to make more clear the significance of these values and relations, to develop them as a vision of a new world, and to use them as a revolutionary standard with which to judge every aspect of the world as it now exists.
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;A party integrates the experiences of many people, and perceives the whole of society; it places developments in a historical framework; it develops the ideas which people bring to it. It is precisely because people have a great many ideas that a party is able to play a positive role in developing them. The essential activities in which a revolutionary party would engage, people already do informally and in piecemeal fashion: people already subject society and their own experience to analysis, and spread the results of their thinking, if just on their coffee break or at the local tavern. A party would also do this work, self-consciously, systematically, and in a sustained manner, and by doing it encourage wider and wider circles of people to do it themselves, but with more awareness of the significance of their efforts....
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;The revolutionary party crystallizes a revolutionary point of view and legitimizes revolutionary ideas and values generated by workers against the hegemonic culture. As it makes people more aware of the significance of their ideas and actions, it becomes the instrument of the revolutionary self-knowledge of the working class. It is this self-knowledge which enables working class culture to become hegemonic; that is, that allows it to see itself and be seen as the salvation of the human race.
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;In this way the revolutionary party is an essential element of a revolutionary movement. The revolutionary party is not the repository of working class self-consciousness; this can only reside in the class. But the party plays an essential role in the development of this self-consciousness, by articulating and applying to every aspect of class struggle the paradigm which shows its significance.
<BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;The relationship between the working class and the revolutionary party is a function of the collective nature of human consciousness and development. The people taken together always know more than the party, because in their numbers and variety they comprehend greater class experience. But they do not always know what they know. The conscious organization and articulation by the party of its ideas is fundamental to the further development of mass consciousness. The party leads the working class to the extent that it articulates and spreads ideas embedded in the class; the party's effort leads to the greater self-consciousness of workers individually and generally, who in turn lead the party as they drive it forward to new comprehension of their experience and new levels of articulation.</FONT></HTML>

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