Re: Revolutionary Party Building: Take Power or Die!

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Julio Pino wrote:
> > I think going out and building a party (or group or union or league) in
> > today's political atmosphere would be next to suicidal.

and João Paulo Monteiro wrote:
> Speaking for what I see here in Portugal, I would still prefer to work
> from within a mass party that has a clear proletarian identity, no matter
> how reformist in its general outlook, than in sterile rrrrrrevolutionary
> talk-shops. The problem is, when the moment for historical decision
> comes, you will have to act quickly and decisively, scissioning and
> breaking up this bloated political machine in order to open a way for the
> most determined and conscious fraction of the class move forward.
>
> But certainly things can be very different in other latitudes. Curiously,
> as I say what should be done here in Portugal, I must also stress that
> I'm NOT doing it. I have no patience for political work in the PCP as it
> presently stands. It's beyond me, for reasons of personal idiosyncrasy.

It's very obvious here that different circumstances exist in different
states.

Indonesia is a fine example where a very traditional party building
exercise is both possible and necessary.

The UK is an interesting case, where the Socialist Alliances (and the
Scottish Socialist Party) are examples of the possibilities of extreme,
madder than mad sectarian groupuscules showing some tendency to attempt to
transcend their own limitations, and adopt a more useful politics.

On João, specifically:  we have a problem in Australia that the only party
that can potentially be identified as "a mass party that has a clear
proletarian identity" is the Labor Party, that is, a not-so-mass party that
has a clear liberal imperialist identity!  (Australia, like New Zealand,
was one of the laboratories in which Blairism was developed.)

And of course, the US has the Democrats.

There is also the small organisational problem that the only way to get
radicalising youth into the Labor Party (at the moment) would be with
cattle prods...

The options in Australia aren't very promising at the moment.  Basically,
they are:
1.  Drop out.  This is the most common choice.

2.  Join the ALP (or the Greens, or Australian Democrats), be marginalised,
and occasionally hand out election material for scum and pukebags.

3.  Stay an independent activist.  This is fine, except that most of the
movements in which most of these have tended to operate have died, or
become coopted and bureaucratised.  See option 2 for further details.

4.  Join one of the saner grouplets.  Suffer in the company of friends.

I've gone for 4, with elements of 3 (I live a long way from the nearest
branch), and 1 (I'm lazy at the best of times).

None of these are the way forward.

> Julio Pino wrote:
> > Lenin taught us ("What is to be Done?") that it's the program that
> > builds the party, and not the other way around.
........
> > 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.

Taken at face value, it's a hopelessly idealist conception that the program
builds the party.  The party is the objective reality - the program isn't.
The program is a piece of paper.

But of course, it's what the party actually does - its attempt to actually
implement its program - that builds the party.  In that sense, the program
takes on an "existence" in the real world.

One of the most common idiocies of sectarians is the delusion that because
they have "The program" their day will come, and the workers will gather
around them and bring in the new day.  This stuff is ancient, and long
pre-Marxist, but this is pretty much how many of the dozier sections of
sectarian Trotskyism have tended to carry on.

The relationship between the program and practical activity is cyclical.
The program is a guide to action, but is itself refined and developed as a
consequence of that action.  Or failing that, it was written by Trotsky in
1938.

A final general thought:  there hasn't been a revolutionary crisis in
Australia this century (apart, perhaps, from a moment in the early '30s).
The Communist Party became fairly strong as a result of WW2, but was never
any serious threat to capitalism apart from this.

The majority current in the Australian working class movement has always
tended to be a rather conservative, often racist, trade unionism, with a
strong urge to make its peace with capital, and win comfortable seats in
parliament.  Basically, it's just a more successful version of the AFL/CIO
leaderships in the US.

Pushing past these bastards is not going to be easy.

Alan Bradley
alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx