Last week I received this request:
Louis,
I want to ask you a favor….
I am engaged on a major writing project criticizing the rigid model of
“leninist vanguard party” that was established (and mythologized) in the
1920s in the comintern. And (obviously) it is part of a larger project
of conceiving of new forms of communist organization for now.
I’m well aware that this whole issue has been close to your heart…. so i
want to ask you a favor:
Can you point me toward all your writings and explorations of this? Can
you suggest what other writings I should give a close study? Are there
valuable books demythologizing the Cominterns “bolshevization” campaign?
The Zinoviev decisions of universal party formation? etc.?
Where are creative writings on the other possible forms and conceptions
of communist organization?
I’m hoping that the names of works are at the tip of your tongue — so
that it won’t be a lot of work to share them with me.
Thanks (in advance) for your help and advice.
---
This is a preface to the list of electronic and print resources below
that might help put my response to this request in context.
To start with, I should begin by stating that my interest in Lenin’s
party-building concepts is completely separate from what have been
called “programmatic” questions. For example, I agree with perhaps 90
percent of what the Socialist Workers Party in Great Britain or the
Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia have written about
ecology, the war in Iraq, the labor movement, etc. But I have sharp
differences with them on organizational questions. When I first joined
the Trotskyist movement in 1967, I was told that political and
organizational questions cannot be separated. I no longer believe that.
In particular, I believe that unless revolutionaries really get to the
bottom of what Lenin was trying to do when he built the Bolshevik Party
they will continue to end up with sectarian formations no matter their
best intentions. In my opinion, the following set of overlapping
assumptions that “Leninists” share today have little to do with the way
that the Bolshevik party functioned historically:
1. Democratic centralism must include defense of the party’s analysis of
political questions in public as well as its discipline in actions such
as demonstrations, strikes, votes in parliament, etc.
2. Party members must avoid disagreeing with each other in the mass
movement. In the labor movement and the social movements, the party must
speak with a single voice.
3. Debates in the party must be internal. Prior to conventions, party
members have the freedom to submit resolutions that go against the
current party line but once the convention is over, the debate ends as well.
4. Violations of these “norms” must be punished by expulsion.
5. Deep political differences reflect different class orientations. The
Leninist party is subject to class pressures from outside society and
must periodically purge elements that have caved in to petty bourgeois
prejudices.
This bibliography is organized in chronological order roughly, but it
also follows a certain conceptual framework since my thinking has
naturally evolved over the years. For example, in the very first article
I ever wrote on organizational questions I referred to the ANC and the
Workers Party positively. History has of course rendered its unfavorable
judgment on these two parties, at least from the standpoint of Marxism.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/the-leninist-party-an-annotated-bibliography/
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