Concept of programme - additional comment

["Jurriaan Bendien" <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:

"... if I cannot specify what I mean by socialism to the operators of the
programme, then implementing the programme may not lead to socialism, purely
in virtue of the absence of that specification".

I should add, that in my philosophy "implementing a programme"  is not the
same as asserting the programme. The question of how to implement a
programme is a separate task. If I just assert the programme, then all I am
effectively doing is advertising my goal as desirable or worthwhile. But, of
course, politics is about getting people to work for the achievement of the
programme, and by just asserting what the goals should be, I would not
achieve that very much; that would be like a soccer coach in a soccer match,
who points at the goal posts behind the opposing team as a means of
directing and encouraging his team.

"How to implement a programme" refers in the first place to a strategy. The
strategy refers in the first instance to a link from the programme to a set
of political policies, to be practically implemented in an organised way,
based on an assessment of where people subjectively are at in broad terms,
the environment we are working in, and the direction in which the world is
objectively moving. If the goal is socialism, and we specified what it is,
then we also have to specify a way of moving towards that goal, in the
situation we are in, for the foreseeable future. This is a medium-term
thing. After a while, we re-evaluate the strategy, asking "how far have we
come in relation to our goals ?" and we adjust or change our strategy as
required.

In the second place, "How to implement a programme" refers to tactics, which
links different components of the strategy to specific contexts within the
total situation. The programme is rather durable, the strategy is more
flexible and less durable, and tactics are very flexible, but there is a
systemic, non-arbitrary relationship between them, so we know where we are
going.

You might ask, why say all this ? Either it is self-evident, or it is purely
abstract and useless. Well, why I thought I would say it is because a great
deal of confusion reigns in leftwing circles about the role of a "programme"
in a political organisation, preventing any logical or practical discussion.
David Schanoes admits this. Which is just to say that there is no agreed
political method, never mind a method which goes from success to success.

For example, in Trotskyist circles, people had the idea that politics
consisted in winning people to the Marxist programme, defined in numerous
ways, for example, a heritage, a tradition, a political stance and so forth.
But this could be done in any number of ways and there is no systematic
framework for evaluation. This really meant that "asserting the programme"
became the political method, in other words, programme, strategy and tactics
are conflated into one entity. In Marxist-Leninist circles, you have this
idea that we have to win people to the Marxist-Leninist theories. In that
case, it is often no longer clear as to how this advances us towards the
socialist goal, which is often not even specified in achievable terms. It
boils down to converting souls, winning souls, a bit like a missionary,
partly through preaching, partly through exemplary practice. Then there are
yet other people who vent all sorts of organisational panaceas, a bit like
management guru's, but people do not want organisational forms imposed on
them, they want to see the why and how. Lastly, there are the people who
think "another world is possible", but they cannot specify what world
exactly (programme), steps to get there (strategy), and what people
specifically have to do (tactics).

The overall result is that people cannot really learn systematically in a
collective sense from experience, in which case, all sorts of weird
political evolutions occur, but it is not even clear as to why these
political evolutions occur, things get personalised and arbitrary, and you
get centrifugal tendencies, any reasonable relationship between means and
ends is lost. The specification of programme, strategy and tactics is a
science and an art, which provides all aspects of political activity with an
appropriate place within the organisation, rather than impose a political
straightjacket on people. Discipline is then created by the fact that we
know what job each needs to do, why and how we have to do it, and how it
fits into the broader scheme of things.

In my opinion, the only way to get out of the left-wing political mess is
therefore by going "back to basics" and get clear about basic concepts from
the point of view of operationalising them. No fancy language or
literary-historical references, just straight talk about aims, events and
practices. If people want to talk Marxism or what books they've read, that's
fine, but the project here is different: it is about how to get to socialism
in practical reality, and how we can fit these activities that people want
to do into that project. And we don't get there, without a clear idea of
programme, strategy and tactics, because if we don't have that, we just end
up saying to people "your activity is wrong or not valid, you should be
doing something else", rather than allocating the activity they are engaging
in and are capable of, within our grid of "programme, strategy and tactics",
making a place for it, provide a role and a task for it.

People don't want to hear that what they are doing is wrong or not valid,
they want to hear that it is valid and important, and the only point of
joining an organisation, is to give what they are already doing, more
effect. If joining an organisation doesn't mean your activities and ideas
have more effect, there is little point in joining it, other than for
sentimental reasons, social reasons, sympathies and suchlike. We want to get
better and more effective at what we already do, rather than constantly
fighting over the validity and importance of what we are doing, or planning
to do. The idea is that if we work together within an organisation of any
sort, that we get better and more effective results, in a more efficient
way. If that isn't the case, there is no point in joining an organisation.
Constant challenges about the validity of what so-and-so is doing, prevents
a rational, effective method of working.

So then to conclude, the important things to know first are "what is
actually required for a good programme, a good strategy, good tactics" in
order to specify that. This is different than assuming that these things
have been resolved once and for all already by various Gods in the Marxist
pantheon. That sort of attitude is best relegated to the area of pop music.
Only when these questions are seriously asked and resolved, can you devise
organisational forms which fit with what is really necessary. An
organisational form is itself a strategic implementation or a tactical
implementation, depending on what level we are discussing it; if it turns
out that it no longer serves the implementation of the programme, you change
the form.

Jurriaan