Organization of a Revolutionary Party

["Macdonald Stainsby" <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"Forwarded from Anthony" on Marxmail:

> If you look at the left in the United States since the Civil War you will
> find a huge selection of organizational forms that were tried and ALL FAILED.

Actually, both Lou and Anthony are *close* to correct, but they are too hard on 
us in
general. We have an obligation, as revolutionaries, to push for just that-
revolution. That does not mean that we are to blame each and every time that
revolutionaries are unsuccessful. Where do North Americans live (and I refuse 
to draw
a tactical or theoretical difference between Canadian and American on 
possibilities
for success)? The very heartland of institutionalized reaction and Imperialism-
basic, right? Yet we tend to forget this in our critiques of the homegrown left.
Anthony is right to mention political conditions, but I think he doth not put 
enough
emphasis on this!

The point of this thread developed out of our desire to get an understanding of
whether or not the hyper-Leninist models of small sects are appropriate. I 
argue they
are born by the fact that there is no *immediate* revolution for
"r-r-r-revolutionaries". What revolutionaries have a duty to do with activists, 
both
reformist and revolutionary who are not of the exact same program is prove 
through
deed in the small struggles that they are worthwhile comrades to listen to. 
This is
too long a route for people who "know" what is needed for the revolution to be a
success. The result is several people (as a conversation I had on the phone 
reminded
me recently, who says the only delusional paranoid people are on the far right?)
gathering together where nothing is happening and coming up with a full 
program, and
maybe some signs, slogans and the obligatory newspaper. But it doesn't do much. 
In
fact, it puts people off quite fiercely, and can be a hinderance. If no one will
listen, then these people turn fire on one another. Then gets born statements 
as to
what the peasants in the Democratic Republic of Congo should be doing in 
response to
the assassination of Kabila. It becomes a game, *because* there is not much 
else for
these people to do, since they refuse to "collaborate" with social democrats,
indigenous groups and/or (heaven forbid) "misled" Marxists. The 4th 
International
model (for but only one example) allows for a heck of a lot of mental 
gyrations. It
kills the time beautifully.

However, this same wretched existence that promotes this "line" also falls off, 
like
a flea being scratched, when things start rockin'. This curse, the down-time of
revolutionaries without a revolution, slips away as events unfold. The ones who 
are
stuck in this headspace when a real situation happens are not to blame then, 
for they
don't get any influence. They just aren't there as people are discussing what 
ails
them. Real programs are not written by anyone, no matter how brilliant, unless 
there
is an actual struggle taking place and the program pertains to "the Burning 
Questions
of Our Movement". Until then, as Marx spoke of the Communist League, all our
pronounciamentoes are "farts in the bathtub".

José did a great service by quoting the lines from the beginning of the 
Communist
Manifesto about us never being seperate from the Workers Movement. That also 
does not
mean we blindly follow what is happening either. We attempt our influence.

But the best influence that I have ever seen is that which is borne out by being
right at the forefront- within- the current situation. The problem so many 
comrades
get into is one where they believe a false dichoctomy- do we speak of the need 
to
build a Leninist Party and build it, or do we `liquidate' into the mass 
movements (or
would-be-mass-movements) around us? One does not need to pick (and in fact, the
revolution will go nowhere if one does). "The Party" will be a bunch of the 
better
comrades we have in the country, from many of the currently "competing" 
tendencies
proving their worth through leadership in struggle. This perhaps was far easier 
to
imagine when the unions were in struggle, within far larger industrial 
factories and
leaders could emerge there.

When there are tangible realities building up to a swell and revolution (not 
simply
the pre-revolutionary situation comrades here might recall in the 60's) is right
there, in your bloody face, on the agenda of the day- at that point every good
comrade will mentally be referencing much of what they have learned from books 
and
works such as "State and Revolution", yet none of the serious comrades will 
quote a
word. The factions based on such matters simply become a part of the past- not 
as
Louis envisions, after the socialist society is constructed, but during the 
"final
conflict" and the last great march on the very spirit and culture of the state 
that
represses us. Our most bizarre actors (like the Hoxhaists mentioned by Anthony) 
are
an almost inevitable result of the kind of bourgeois individualism and culture 
we are
fed in isolation from reality and struggle.
-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby

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