Re: For revolutionary factionalism not sectarian lunacy

[ben <benj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Lause wrote
> If memory serves, they [Marx & Engels--BC] didn't
> even form any organizations on their own at all, and explicitly stated, in
> the MANIFESTO that they advocated nothing distinct from the existing working
> class parties.  ...

Look at
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules.htm>.
This sets out the rules of the Communist League, the first "scientific
socialist" organisation to which Marx and Engels belonged. Don't you
think it has a fairly centralist, even democratic-centralist bent to it?
This is the organisation that published the Communist Manifesto, and
these rules should probably be borne in mind when we read that classic.
I won't go into everything Marx and Engels did to prove or disprove Mark
Lause's comments. The struggles against various sectarians, utopians and
so on like Lassalle that Louis has already referred to are probably a
good place to start looking though. Of course, the actual organisational
form of the Communist League were not applicable to every situation, and
the International was a new phase.
There is some continuity between the organisational methods of Marx and
Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin. It may or may not be because Lenin
studied the rules of the Communist League, it may be just because
democratic centralism seemed an effective method. In fact if you take
away the label, all sorts of organisations use this method, even
capitalist corporations.
That doesn't mean we have to. But if you understand "intervention" to
mean ideologically coherent, Marxist ideas being put to the working
class in an organised way, it seems quite necessary to me. Consider that
the ruling ideas of society are those of the ruling class, that most
members of the society are influenced by those ideas if not uncritical
of them, and we are trying to overthrow that ruling class and its
ideas...
Ben Courtice

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