Revolutionary Party Building: Take Power or Die!

[Julio Pino <jpino@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   "Groupscule politics is not the embryo of revolutionary politics;
it's a substitute for it."---Goren Therborn.
 Louis has posted some interesting articles, dating from the 1950s, on
revolutionary regroupment and what it would take to rebuild the left in the
United States. I'd like to give the discussion a different twist. Comrades
may recall Goren Therborn, the Swedish Marxist who wrote a classic treatise
on the state, "What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?" The comment
above, from an essay composed in the 1970s, was addressed to the
"groupscules" which emerged out of 1968 in Europe, eg, Lotta Continua in
Italy(which still exists, in even more miniscule form, inside Rifondazione
Comunista) and Gauche Proletariane in France (which committed suicide in
the late 1970s). Therborn's point was that revolutionary parties are
children born of crisis, and that they either seize the moment (and the
hour and the day) and win over a large segment of the working class or they
will suffer arrested development. Unless they grow in large numbers rather
quickly oblivion awaits. (Curiously, ever since I can remember, the CPUSA
has claimed a membership of 15,000! The RCP 500, the SWP "less than 1,000"
and so on) I remember one veteran of the 1960s telling me this could be
broadened into a historical law: revolutionary parties that fail to take
state power in their founding generation tend to die. Think about it:
Lenin, Fidel, Ho, Mao, Kim Il Sung, and Tito were all first-generation
revolutionaries. Can you think of a single example of a revolutionary party
that took power having outlived its founders? Of course it can persist, and
even recruit, but when has it ever gotten a second chance to make history?
   What does this mean for us right now? I think going out and building a
party (or group or union or league) in today's political atmosphere would
be next to suicidal.Lenin taught us ("What is to be Done?")that it's the
program that builds the party, and not the other way around. What we need
is not one more organization but a Marxist program for the 21st Century, a
new Communist Manifesto.At the heart of that has to be the dictatorship of
the proletariat, i.e. "what will the working class do when it rules?" The
program must emerge from exemplary actions a la Seattle and Washington DC,
through which people witness Communism in practice. Such practice will in
turn tell us how to proceed further with the program.Youth especially are
drawn to Communism because it proposes a new civilization built on higher
ethical values, not because of economic predictions.
Julio Cesar