Re: [Marxism] The DSP's fresh approach to applying democraticcentralism

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Richard Fidler calls for a sense of balance and perspective in all the
party-trashing going on around here, and he makes a valuable point. It is
hard to be 100% negative, to have absolutely no positive side to what you're
doing. And Richard is probably right that of the "Canonists" the DSP is the
one that has turned out the best, and quite likely one of the best radical
groups in the English-speaking world.

And he adds, about the relatively small size of the DSP: "Perhaps it is
little more than an indication of how limited the objective possibilities
are at this time for building a revolutionary party. A more relevant
question might be, is the DSP standing in the way of other forces that could
build such a party?" 

I have what I consider to be an even MORE relevant question, which is, at
this time, under these kinds of conditions, should revolutionaries construe
their work as being centrally about building a revolutionary party, and
tailor it to that end? 

I ask for two related reasons: 

First, I don't believe revolutionary parties or vanguards are "built." They
EMERGE from the actual social and political motion in society. This doesn't
mean it is automatic, unconscious or anything else like that. But it does
mean that the times one can actually in any direct sense "build a
revolutionary party" or even the beginnings thereof are constrained by place
and circumstance. 

Do the conditions exist in the U.S., or Canada, or Australia, for such an
effort? At least for the U.S., my answer would be no, primarily based on the
lack of a class-political movement or clear motion in that direction, the
divisions within the working class, the crisis of leadership in those
sectors where some motion is visible; etc. I would say that the situation in
the U.S. calls instead for building a viable, visible left pole in U.S.
politics, pushing forward social movements, and propaganda.

Second, your work building "the" revolutionary party may not be "in the way"
of other currents who could do a better job of that, but it could be "in the
way" of a different kind of left political organization emerging that could
make a real difference in a way that "Leninist" groups seem to have been
unable to. 

Perhaps, to begin with, it is no more than something like the Socialist
Alliance. I see from Peter Boyle's recounting, that the efforts of the DSP
to "liquidate" (to use a loaded word) into the SA were unsuccessful quite
simply because the alliance wasn't a group with a sufficient level of
functioning, commitment, etc., to allow it to assume responsibility for the
sorts of institutionalized functioning the DSP wanted to hand over. But
perhaps the group that is wanted is the larger yet "weaker" group, the one
less tightly organized, less demanding of its members, less homogeneous in
its tactics and activities, even if it can't maintain all that functioning
and all those institutions.

We have to ask, in terms of spreading socialist ideas and presenting an
alternative to society as a whole, wouldn't the larger but less tightly
wound group be better? Because such a group could draw together both the
large party of "exes" out there and the other existing socialist
organizations (assuming you could somehow talk them out of their Leninist
Messiah complexes...). 

A single or predominant voice of the left would be much better, I believe,
than the current cacophony ... especially in the United States, but I
suspect/assume also in the other English-speaking "advanced" countries. 

Almost certainly, the creation of such a group would involve relying on
Marx's advice in the Critique of the Gotha Programme of making the points of
unity an agreement for action against the enemy rather than a full-blown
"program," but people would still be free to write about the popular front
in Spain and commemorate July 26 through other efforts even if the common
group didn't have agreement on those issues. 

It calls for a different style and mind set of leadership and organization,
one that is much less hierarchical, that seeks to coordinate rather than
direct, that sets only a very few national priorities or campaigns and
leaves plenty of room for regional, sectoral, local and individual
initiatives, that generalizes political experiences rather than centralizing
them, that can look for points of unity among different trends rather than
emphasizing differences in the name of "political clarity," and many other
things. 

Solidarity in the U.S. has *some* of those characteristics; so did, I
understand from friends though I've not delved into it myself, Causa R in
Venezuela, and my impression is the Bolivian MAS also has some of these
elements.

At any rate, isn't it evident enough that there is a crisis in the socialist
left on ALL levels -- theory, politics and organization -- that calls on all
of us to carry out a re-examination from the ground up of what we are doing
and what we should be doing; or how we are organized and how we should be
organized; of how we conceived of our goals and should conceive of them?

I think one starting point to start overcoming this crisis is to look at the
political tasks -- not from the standpoint of a group of 5, 50, or 500, but
from the standpoint of the social movements and the working class, and the
next major steps forward for the class and the movements on the road toward
a socialist reconstruction of society. From my viewpoint, that next major
step forward of necessity must be reconstitution of a political alternative
at a large enough level that it is readily accessible to the masses. That is
what needs to be built at this moment -- a "left pole" rather than a
"vanguard party" as that concept is usually understood.

Joaquín


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