Leninist Party hoo-ha

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jose writes:

>Political organizational forms are concrete. They flow from the specific
>situation. There is not some ideal form --the "Leninist" Party (by which is
>meant a propaganda sect)-- which history has revealed as "the" form through
>which the working class should organize itself. This concept, which has been
>the cornerstone of all flavors of groups that describe themselves as
>Leninist, marks a complete BREAK with Marxism.


Yes, I think Jose is dead right here.

One of the key points of Marxism is historical specificity.  The Bolshevik
Party was historically specific to its time and place, and we might debate
how well they did their job (I think they it fairly well, given the
circumstabnces; certainly none of their arch-critics on the left have done
better).

However, we are in a different political situation.  'Leninism', or as Lou
calls it 'Zinovievism', is today the refuge of scoundrels.  'Leninist'
self-proclaimed 'proletarian' parties, certainly in the First World, are
simply minor sects, presided over by jumped-up little middle class ratbags,
by and large.  They are neither proletarian, in any genuine sense, nor
Leninist (in the Bolshevik sense).

What is needed NOW is to be as analytical and creative in working out forms
of revolutionary organisation for our time as Lenin was for his.

This is why, while agreeing with the first part of Jose's post, I disagree
with the second part.

It is contradictory, and in fact going in the wrong direction, to on the
one hand (rightly) reject carbon-copying the Bolsheviks and then suggest we
carbon-copy an even earlier version of organisation, that suggested by marx
and Engels in the 'Communist Manifesto'.

If things have changed since 1917, rendering carbon-copying the Bolsheviks
historically obsolete, then things have changed even more since 1848,
rendering carbon-copying that model even more historically obsolete.

When Marx and Engels were writing the manifesto and, later, when they wree
organising the First International, the working class, even in the most
developed capitalist countries, was still in the process of formation.  The
First International therefore incorporated all kinds of working class
organisations, including some very conservative ones.  Marx and Engels and
their supporters, for instance, continuously had to fight many of the
English trade union representatives over fundamental issues, like Ireland,
or even industrial as opposed to craft organisation (I think).

Over the following decades, as the working class was more fully formed, and
political differentiation took place, it became no longer possible (or
necessary) to incorporate such a wide layer of class organisation and
opinion.  So the Second International took on a more 'vanguardist'
character, albeit quite unevenly.

With the rise of imperialism, there was a further differentiation, of
revolutionaries versus left-reformists and centrists and so on.

These splits were the result of *real trends* in society - eg the end of
the progressive phase of capitalism and the development of imperialism;
different trends in the movement taking different sides in imperialist wars
(ie some supporting their own ruling classes, some maintaining a
revolutionary defeatist position); different posiitons on the 'colonial
question' and so on.

It was major structural changes in capitalist society and the class,
incuding deep political differentiations, which rendered old forms of class
organisation obsolete and necessiated new ones, including among
revolutionaries.

Today, we face a situation in which substantial structural changes have
taken place, although we are still (unhappily) blessed with capitalist
exploitation and rule.  But Stalinism has largely collapsed; the old
Stalinist states have gone; most national liberation movements have either
taken power and ended up succumbing to neo-liberalism or, at best,
neo-liberalism's cousin,'third way' capitalism; Labour parties have become
bourgeois-liberal parties by and large; the former 'new social movements'
have largely been incorporated within the power structure, and so on.
Massive defeats have been inflicted on the labour movement and working
class (especially in 80s and early 90s) which may well take a generation to
recover from.

This is the *objective* situation in which we need to work out new forms of
organisation.  We won't find a precedent for these necessary new forms of
organisation in the past - either from Lenin or from Marx.  Indeed, to be
true to their *method*, we will have to do what they did and come up with
forms of our own, forms appropriate to our time.  Instead of living off
Marx and Lenin, we need to be as revolutionary and inventive in our time as
they were in theirs.

It seems to me that is our only hope.

Philip Ferguson



Jose:
>This can be easily verified
>by referring to the appropriate section of the Communist Manifesto.
>
>*   *   *
>
>Proletarians and Communists
>
>In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The
>Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class
>parties.
>
>They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a
>whole.
>
>They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape
>and mold the proletarian movement.
>
>The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by
>this only:
>
>(1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different
>countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the
>entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
>
>(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working
>class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and
>everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
>
>The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most
>advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country,
>that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand,
>theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the
>advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and
>the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
>
>The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other
>proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of
>the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

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