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Letter from Afar to an African Vanguard Party of the Working Class
The twin brothers If we follow Lenin (State and Revolution, 1917, Chapter 3) where he says: “anarcho-syndicalism… is merely the twin brother of opportunism”, we would want to say that it makes little difference whether the “second workers’ party” is posed as a left alternative, or whether it is otherwise openly reformist. The error of rushing to create a rival to the existing working-class party comes about because of misunderstanding of the nature of the vanguard party of the proletariat. This misunderstanding is natural. It arises out of the reformist nature of the mass organisations of the working class (trade unions), and from the fact that the ideology, under a bourgeois ruling class, is bourgeois. It is a normal part of capitalism for workers to combine so as to improve their wages and conditions of work through collective bargaining in the capitalist labour market. To this extent, trade unions are always reformist, and never revolutionary. They are institutions of capitalism. It is also normal for workers, having combined and seeing the possibilities apparently consequent upon their large, organised numbers, to think that they could proceed, just as they are, towards socialism. These two typical responses are not opposites, but are two sides of the same coin. Reformism and syndicalism, workerism and economism are all extensions of the same spontaneous urge. But spontaneous urges are not sufficient for revolution. A “workers’ party”, whether founded on the consciousness of one or other of the “twin brothers”, will either way be equally weak and useless. History shows this. The reformist parties (social democrats) have never overcome the capitalists; the syndicalists have achieved even less: actually, nothing. Revolutionary practice requires revolutionary theory. Revolutionary theory does not automatically arise out of the consciousness of the masses, even when they are well-organised in large numbers. “Quietness” But organisation of the masses is necessary, and it is these masses who are “unquiet”, and who battle their opponents in large formations. The vanguard (communist) parties also have some mass, but their numbers are not their crucial aspect. Sometimes, as Lenin wrote in one of his last published pieces of writing, it can be a case of “Better Few, But Better”. In any given locality, hard-working communists are bound to be in the minority, if only by virtue of their own organising work among the non-communist masses. It hardly ever happens that the communist parties receive free assistance from the bourgeois press. Whereas the social-democrats and the syndicalists will enjoy seasons of high favour, while the populists and the demagogues can be the darlings of the sensationalist bourgeois media for years at a time. But at other times, even enormous mass demonstrations (such as those in Athens and in Tripoli in recent days) will go unreported. Who is “quiet” and who is not “quiet” is not in the hands of the revolutionists, in bourgeois society. It is in the hands of the bourgeois mass media of communications. The work of the communists is not to substitute for the actions of the mass formations. But the individual communists do not shirk their part in the actions of the mass organisation that they help to build. Often they are among the most active, whether or not they are the most prominent. Sometimes syndicalism can be found within the ranks of the communists themselves. Inexperienced communists can be found who start out thinking like this. But the communist party is always a party of a special type, and it cannot behave like a mere detachment of the mass organisations. The communist parties have to resist the tendency of the mass movements to reduce their party into just another mass formation, because of their lack of understanding of the party’s nature and its role. To pander to this immature craving would be a betrayal of the very people who are pressing us. “Movement of revolutionary activists” In the midst of these our deliberations, we now have a new phrase thrust in front of us, not in your country but in ours: “movement of revolutionary activists”. It appears that the second “workers’ party” has gone out of style, along with “civil society” and “social movements”. This new phrase does not illuminate the distinction between mass and vanguard – it avoids it altogether. Nor does the phrase “movement of revolutionary activists” effectively differentiate between reform and revolution, even though it pretends to do so. Paulo Freire opposed activism, calling it “action for action's sake” and “sacrifice of reflection”. A “movement of revolutionary activists” is bound to sacrifice revolution in favour of an empty “revolutionism”, which will in practice either be noisy, “tjatjarag” reformism, or else it will be impotent, noisy syndicalism. As such, the imaginary “movement of revolutionary activists” is not different from the imaginary “second workers’ party”. The so-called “revolutionary activists movement” is nothing else than the “twin-brothers” party smuggled back under cover of a different name. Way forward The new way forward is the same as the old way forward. The communists must work to establish, and grow, mass democratic organisations, including but not limited to, trade unions. In our country we also build the national liberation movement (the ANC), because that organisation is the site of unity-in-action between classes (as opposed to mere unity-in-action between structures). We should also build the women’s movement, and voluntary democratic organisations for international solidarity, among others. We should not get drawn into a war with foreign-funded or domestically-funded NGOs, even though all of them are hostile to the revolutionary cause. We should also take care not to lend NGOs the legitimacy that our mass democratic organisations have, because they will certainly pervert it and abuse it. Coalitions with NGOs are harmful to the health of mass democratic organisations. In our country the work of completing the democratisation of the country through mass democratic organisation is called the National Democratic Revolution. Some syndicalism and reformism is a natural consequence of such a process, but overall it is the mass democratisation and the consequent socialisation of the country at the national level which will in due course present us with a different and more favourable set of circumstances for our next revolutionary advance. In Brussels, in 1845, Karl Marx was involved in democratic organisations of the same three basic types that have been mentioned here, and which exist in South Africa. Marx was involved in (1) a vanguard party, (2) the mass organisation of workers, and (3) in a united-front class-alliance organisation opposed to the Belgian autocracy. Marx was not involved with any NGOs - not then, or ever. If Marx was to come back today, it is unlikely that he would recommend any different arrangement. No doubt these three forms of organisation - vanguard, mass and popular front - exist in some form in your country. After securing their existence, the vanguard party must continue to educate, organise, and mobilise. More sources: Karl Marx faced the “twin brothers” of reformism and syndicalism from the beginning, first in the persons of Weitling and Proudhon, and then later of Lasalle and Bakunin. He responded with “The Poverty of Philosophy” (1847), “Value, Price and Profit” (1865) and the “Critique of the Gotha Programme” (1875). Lenin faced the twin brothers, which he sometimes called “economists” and “opportunists”, and dealt with them in “What is to be Done?” (1902), “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” (1904), “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Proletarian Revolution” (1905), “The State and Revolution” (1917), “Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder” (1920), and many other, shorter works, speeches, letters and pamphlets. Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution?” (1900) was a major contribution to this debate, as was her “The Mass Strike” (1906); and there are more, because there has never been a time when the nature of the vanguard party was not in dispute. In this context, we could also mention the rise and fall of the “one big union” movement in the USA (the “International Workers of the World”, also known as “The Wobblies”) and that of South Africa’s “one big union”, the ICU. VC -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . |
