Communist Writers who reject the 'conscious' party

[Zanthorus]

It seems to me that a big assumption underpinning a lot of ideas that the 'left' has about 'the party' is that it has something to do with the organisation of 'conscious' socialist militants. Without going into the details (Since that is not the purpose of this thread), I think there is an alternative case to be made that Marx and Engels at least saw 'the party' as simply the organisation of workers in defence of their own interests - a union of the class as opposed to the unions of individual trades. I am just interested if their are any other writers who have had a similar idea. I vaguely recall Dauvé saying something similar with regards the Arbeiter-Unionen in his book on the Communist Left, but I can't seem to find it now.

[jake williams]

Are you actually wanting to discuss the proposition? At any rate I'm not sure what you mean - are you implying that class politics doesn't entail class consciousness? If it does, then I don't see why you object to the former definition in place of the latter.

[Zanthorus]

Are you actually wanting to discuss the proposition?

No, the point of the thread was just to find thinkers who wrote along similar lines. That's why it was originally posted in 'learning'. We can discuss if you want but the idea is not something completely developed in my head, just something that grew out of a few disparate things.


At any rate I'm not sure what you mean - are you implying that class politics doesn't entail class consciousness?

What I am implying is that a worker can be aware of the need for their class to take power and that workers as a whole can be organised for the general purpose of defending their interests independently of other classes without needing any kind of socialist consciousness. The Communist Manifesto mentions the problem of the relation between the 'proletarian parties' and the 'communist party', and then states that the two have no seperate interests but fight for the same goals, namely the defence of the interests of the working-class and the raising of the latter to the level of political ruling-class. Lest there is any doubt, when Marx and Engels referred to the proletarian party, they were referring in Britain to the Chartist movement, of which only a minority centred around Ernest Jones and George Julian Harney were even vaguely socialist.

The Paris Commune and the June insurrection of 1848 were also both referred to by Marx as the acts of 'our party' yet neither was actually led by an organised socialist group. In the former the majority of delegates to the municipal council were Jacobin republicans.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Times have changed. Back then there wasn't much development of mass institutions. I'm leaning towards this word rather than "permanent organizations" since even class parties have a time limit re. new modes of production.

[Lyev]

If we're just recommending writers: I am fairly certain that Monsieur Dupont (they're two people apparently) could be considered as "reject the conscious party".
Many pro-revolutionaries argue that there can be no revolutionary
attempt without the significant input of a revolutionary
consciousness, but we are not so sure. In fact we are so unsure
that we cannot grasp the precise meaning that they project onto
the terms 'revolutionary consciousness' and 'working class
consciousness'. We are also unsure whether these pro-
revolutionaries really have a grip on the concepts they perceive to
be indispensable. We try to keep an open mind about the events
that will make up the revolution but we fail to see a revolutionary
role for any form of political consciousness, revolutionary or
otherwise. Quite the contrary, when we consider past
revolutionary attempts and pro-revolutionary organization and their
political interventions we see in the function of consciousness only
an inhibiting influence.

[...]

Consciousness is a political category. A world-wide or even
national conscious proletarian identity would involve a high degree
of [I]organization, which is another word for consciousness. There is
no objectivity existing, separate sphere of revolutionary
consciousness and certainly none that is owned by a particular
section of humanity; the working class especially do not own
consciousness, they do not own anything (except their
playstations). So, if revolutionary consciousness does not exist
objectively, that is, as an immediate determination of the material
base, then organizations must bring it into the world. Organization
carries consciousness into the world; as consciousness is not
present 'naturally' it must be transmitted by and organizing agency,
but which organization?

It is the pro-revolutionaries themselves who contribute
consciousness to the revolution, but unless we understand pro-
revolutionaries as being an objective expression of the negation of
capitalist society then we are bound to see both their antagonism
to all aspects of the existing order (and not just to some political
issues) and their role of transmitting to the working class values
that transcend existing conditions, as being more than a little
subjective and therefore fallible. Most pro-revolutionary groups
view themselves as being objectively constituted by the need of
society to overthrow capital and therefore they see themselves as
qualified to prescribe values and strategies to the proletariat. We
completely refute this assumption; all pro-revolutionary groups are
subjective bodies, created by the subjective will of their
participants, their perspective therefore never escapes their
subjectivity (if this were not so, then there world not be many small
pro-revolutionary groups competing against each other, but only
one organization. Of course, most pre-consciousness
organizations have a tendency to see themselves as the one true
faith, and on this basis launch their critiques of each other). Pro-
revolutionary groups are not the historic party, they have not
been thrown up by the economic base, they are not an
inescapable result of capitalism's contradictions. In most cases
pro-revolutionary groups are created in response to purely political
events and have little connection to workers' struggles. Those who
argue for the transmission of revolutionary consciousness to the
working class by pro-revolutionaries see their role, effectively, as
one leadership. It is interesting for us to observe how those who
argue for the 'transmission of consciousness' model do not
practically escape from the confines of their milieu and do not
reach the working class, they seem content to exhort each other to
be more realistic, speak in a language the workers will understand,
etc etc. But nothing ever happens, if these activists were any good
then they would surely be locally recruiting five or more new
adherents every week. The fact that the message is not getting
through is, for us, the final critique of the concept of 'messages'.
To see in advance what ideological requirements are to be met by
the proletariat, despite all experience of the failure of this method,
is putting the cart before the horse and is a good example of
impatience, this is as true for 'councilists' as it is for vanguardists.A lot of the text 'nihilist communism' is along a similar vein. I find some of their stuff pretty hard to read though.

[Zanthorus]

Since a few people seemed to be interested in the original post I should also point out that, although the language is quite different, some similarities can be found in the later works of C. L. R. James and Martin Glaberman.

[Old Mole]

Well, I dont know if this is what youre asking for but some italians (some operaists, autonomous marxists) thought that the proletariat is revolutionary in itself. Hence they meant that the "party" was not meant to impose some grand socialist consciousness on the working class, rather, the party should coordinate the struggles of the working class and change according to the needs of the workers instead of changing the workers.

[Vanguard1917]

The 'economist' movement in Russia is an obvious example of an attempt to limit activist struggle in the workers' movement to giving 'assistance to the economic struggle of the proletariat' (the Credo) -- a strategy which, of course, quickly led to outright liberal reformism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Just look at the co-opting of the World Social Forum and ATTAC:

Hard Questions for the Left: Democracy or “Smart Globalization” (http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/05/hard-questions-for-the-left/)

[Zanthorus]

I'm sorry, but what do debates which Lenin had with marginal currents in the Russian workers' movement, or the World Social Forum, have to do with this thread? I am neither proposing that we limit our activity to the 'economic struggle' of the proletariat, nor am I promoting 'anti neo-liberal' or 'counter-hegemonic globalisation' politics.

[El Burro]

I get the feeling that a lot of this stuff is a new, refreshingly pessimistic, spin on the ideas of older councilists like Cajo Brendel. I feel like it's a lot more provocative now that it has shed all of the quasi-religious "communism is inevitable" baggage.

[black magick hustla]

I get the feeling that a lot of this stuff is a new, refreshingly pessimistic, spin on the ideas of older councilists like Cajo Brendel. I feel like it's a lot more provocative now that it has shed all of the quasi-religious "communism is inevitable" baggage.

that is basically nihilist communism. what a shitty name for such a great work. i think everybody should read it and engage it especially the most activisty types

[Die Neue Zeit]

Real utopianism at its finest; literally, the word means "going nowhere."

[black magick hustla]

Real utopianism at its finest; literally, the word means "going nowhere."

oh shutup we arent the ones pushing for a mass labor party in the us (lol)

[Die Neue Zeit]

You're calling for political (not electoral) abstentionism, which means going nowhere before a revolutionary period and really means "workers councils" going down quickly during a revolutionary period.

[black magick hustla]

You're calling for political (not electoral) abstentionism, which means going nowhere before a revolutionary period and really means "workers councils" going down quickly during a revolutionary period.
what are you talking about? im not a nihilist communist. i dont think you can build "the party" before revolutionary periods tho

[Android]

And to think this thread started off so well!

[Jose Gracchus]

You're calling for political (not electoral) abstentionism, which means going nowhere before a revolutionary period and really means "workers councils" going down quickly during a revolutionary period.

Sounds like what you really think about socialism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't have illusions in workers councils that aren't explicitly internal party organs.

[caramelpence]

Real utopianism at its finest; literally, the word means "going nowhere."

No, this is not what utopianism literally means. The term utopian was developed by Thomas More by adding a Latin ending to the Greek noun for place, which ended up with a word that means nowhere with connotations of a happy or fortunate place, or a society that does not exist, or at least does not yet exist. Utopianism therefore literally means something like the doctrine of a happy place that does not yet exist. It is not evident why this is an appropriate term for the perspective outlined by the OP and if you Marx's more limited application of utopianism it is even less appropriate because Marx describes as utopian those thinkers who go into a lot of detail in their descriptions of the future society and this is probably the opposite of what people like myself would do.


I don't have illusions in workers councils that aren't explicitly internal party organs.

Uh, this ignores the entire historical meaning of workers councils. The meaning of a workers council is that it is a product of the spontaneous struggles of the class and reflects the ways in which intense struggles across multiple workplaces produce the need for forms of political organization that bring together large numbers of workers and encompass a wide range of organizational tasks, depending on the requirements of the specific context in which workers councils emerge. They are organizations of the class as a whole, which means they represent an incipient form of dual power and bring together heterogenous political forces. It is their spontaneous character that deserves to be emphasized, in that they emerge in struggle whether parties want them to or not. On that basis alone, it makes absolutely no sense to say that workers councils should or can be "explicitly internal party organs" because parties are permanent organizations that, on many accounts, represent the most advanced section of the working class. You presumably just don't get what words like "workers councils" mean or you want to impose a new meaning that bears no relation to how the concept has historically been used, and how it is currently used in ordinary language.

It is just about sensible to argue that a revolutionary party should take the lead in establishing workers councils but there the objection would be strategic and political rather than logical, because when parties have done this, the result has always been mere shadows of genuine workers councils, in the form of institutions that are isolated from the main body of the class and easily repressed, as in the case of the Canton Commune of 1927, which was set up in a substitutionist way by the CPC during a period of defeat. However, the fact that you talk of "internal" workers councils suggests that your mistake is not solely or not mainly political - it is logical, in that you just don't get what a workers council is!

[Die Neue Zeit]

You're promoting the same old, tired, illusory canard of growing political struggles out of economic ones, specifically mere labour disputes. There are comrades here sympathetic to the idea of instituting workers councils in the here and now that have mandatory financial and other logistical support for members, and this is a much bigger step forward, however short it might be relative to a party-movement, than what Marxist-Humanists have typically called for (too much affection for Arendt).

[caramelpence]

You're promoting the same old, tired, illusory canard of growing political struggles out of economic ones, specifically mere labour disputes.

The fact that you refer to "mere" labour disputes is quite telling, but no, I'm not promoting a "canard" of that nature.


There are comrades here sympathetic to the idea of instituting workers councils in the here and now that have mandatory financial and other logistical support for members

This wouldn't be a workers council though - not because I think that the term "workers council" has some kind of inherent metaphysical meaning, but just because the way you are using the term "workers council" bears no relation to the way that term has been deployed historically and the way it is generally deployed in political discourse today. Not to put too philosophical a point on it, the issue is one of ordinary language, and more specifically your desire to reject ordinary language and to adopt your own idiosyncratic understandings of concepts that otherwise have determinate meanings. An association that is set up in a planned way and with a definite membership, and which demands support from its members, is possibly a mutual-aid association, or an intentional community, perhaps, maybe even a trade union, because of how vague and general your description is, but it is not a workers council, because the concept of a workers council refers to something specific and to something different from what you are referring to.


however short it might be relative to a party-movement

I've never come across the term "party-movement" so it's probably another term you've made up, and like "workers councils that [are] explicitly internal party organs", it strikes me as another term that makes fundamentally no sense - how can something be both a party and a movement? A party may be a major part of a movement, it may lead a movement, a movement may lead to the development or growth of a party organization, but a movement refers to something spontaneous, involving a multiplicity of political forces and demands that interact with one another in complex ways - I can't see how a "party-movement" could ever be a sensible concept.


Marxist-Humanists have typically called for (too much affection for Arendt).

If "Marxist-Humanists" even constitute a unified theoretical grouping, I don't know of any Marxist of that kind who looks to Arendt as a major source of theoretical inspiration, and I doubt you've read Arendt, judging by that comment.

[Zanthorus]

I think by 'Marxist-Humanists' DNZ is referring to the tradition that evolved out of the Dunayevskaya side of the '53 split in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, which today would be the groups around the International Marxist-Humanist Organisation plus the Marxist-Humanist Initiative. On 'too much affection for Arendt', he could be referring to the fact that many Marxist-Humanist publications toss around the world 'totalitarian' when talking about the fSU, PRC and so on. Although I think that is probably more the result of uncritically taking up popular terms to describe those societies than any serious analysis (Even Trotsky talked about 'totalitarianism'). I don't see how it relates to their lines on spontaneity or workers' councils though.

[Jose Gracchus]

DNZ doesn't think the class exists without the party.

[Paulappaul]

I don't have illusions in workers councils that aren't explicitly internal party organs.

Neither do I of Workers' Councils which are explicitly Party organizations. With your knowledge of Social - Democracy I would expect you to know that Workers' Councils which are not transcendent of the Party Form are doomed to reformism. Let us recall the Workers' Councils in German Social Democracy which layed the way for formation of Republic and consequently into their own death.

The relationship between Workers' Councils and the "Party" - not in the formal sense of the word, but in the Historical and Broader aspect of the word (the organization which best resembles and represents the working class movement at large) - is one where the later takes on the practical duty of unwavering propaganda and defense.

Workers' Councils are the higher form of the party, but inhibit it's basic principles that of which being the formation of Class in and for itself on the road to Communism.

[RED DAVE]

I don't have illusions in workers councils that aren't explicitly internal party organs.WOW!

So it all comes down to party organs. I could say something about party organs, but I'd hate myself in the morning. :D

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

Neither do I of Workers' Councils which are explicitly Party organizations. With your knowledge of Social - Democracy I would expect you to know that Workers' Councils which are not transcendent of the Party Form are doomed to reformism. Let us recall the Workers' Councils in German Social Democracy which layed the way for formation of Republic and consequently into their own death.

The relationship between Workers' Councils and the "Party" - not in the formal sense of the word, but in the Historical and Broader aspect of the word (the organization which best resembles and represents the working class movement at large) - is one where the later takes on the practical duty of unwavering propaganda and defense.

Workers' Councils are the higher form of the party, but inhibit it's basic principles that of which being the formation of Class in and for itself on the road to Communism.

A number of posters who have posted in this specific thread, yourself included, already know that there's a broad spectrum of workers' councils that I'm talking about. At a very basic level:

A la 1970s Portugal, 1905 Russia, 1920s China, Arendt's council theories, etc. (all characterized by non-permanence, non-institutionalization, and an illusion that could have easily emerged in 1968 France) <----- 1917 Russia, 1919 Germany, etc. <-----> Membership-based Workers Councils (i.e., with mandatory financial and other logistical support, never tried before but suggested in Greater Toronto Workers Assembly discussions) -----> Councils replacing "committees" within a party-movement (i.e., Central Workers' Council replacing the Central Committee)

The "historical and broader aspect of the word," alas, is a slippery slope to under-organized movementism.


This wouldn't be a workers council though - not because I think that the term "workers council" has some kind of inherent metaphysical meaning, but just because the way you are using the term "workers council" bears no relation to the way that term has been deployed historically and the way it is generally deployed in political discourse today.

I think you really think that term does have an inherent metaphysical meaning. I mean, read this:

First National Meeting of Socialist Workers’ Councils Takes Place in Bolivar, Venezuela (http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6216)


President Hugo Chavez first called for the creation of socialist workers’ councils in November 2007. VTV, the state-owned national television station, for example, elected its worker council in June 2010, with 849 workers voting to elect 36 spokespeople that make up the council.

“The workplace has to be linked to the community,” Chavez said as he made the call.

The recently passed Organic Law of Popular Power recognises socialst workers’ socialist among the various popular power organisations, thereby creating a legal basis for such councils. The Network of Socialist Workers’ Councils is also calling for the creation of a special law of workers’ councils.

In February this year workers held regional meetings of socialist workers’ councils, with 50 such councils, represented by 300 delegates, meeting in the greater Caracas region on 26 February.

Now tell me these aren't genuine workers councils at all. :rolleyes:


An association that is set up in a planned way and with a definite membership, and which demands support from its members, is possibly a mutual-aid association, or an intentional community, perhaps, maybe even a trade union, because of how vague and general your description is, but it is not a workers council, because the concept of a workers council refers to something specific and to something different from what you are referring to.

I've never come across the term "party-movement" so it's probably another term you've made up, and like "workers councils that [are] explicitly internal party organs", it strikes me as another term that makes fundamentally no sense - how can something be both a party and a movement? A party may be a major part of a movement, it may lead a movement, a movement may lead to the development or growth of a party organization, but a movement refers to something spontaneous, involving a multiplicity of political forces and demands that interact with one another in complex ways - I can't see how a "party-movement" could ever be a sensible concept.

You just summed up the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD models in a nutshell. :p

Such models are what I'm referring to as a party-movement, institutionally organizing all shades of political action, mutual aid, and cultural life, to begin with.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think by 'Marxist-Humanists' DNZ is referring to the tradition that evolved out of the Dunayevskaya side of the '53 split in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, which today would be the groups around the International Marxist-Humanist Organisation plus the Marxist-Humanist Initiative. On 'too much affection for Arendt', he could be referring to the fact that many Marxist-Humanist publications toss around the world 'totalitarian' when talking about the fSU, PRC and so on. Although I think that is probably more the result of uncritically taking up popular terms to describe those societies than any serious analysis (Even Trotsky talked about 'totalitarianism'). I don't see how it relates to their lines on spontaneity or workers' councils though.

That they toss around the word "totalitarian" was incidental to my critique of the close links between Marxist-Humanists and Arendt, a sorta of ultra-liberal Rosa. Arendt (who admired Luxemburg, btw) also envisioned a system of councils as the ultimate democratic model.

[Jose Gracchus]

For DNZ, "the workers" as such, are nothing and do nothing. Only when party leaders, drawn probably from the petty bourgeoisie, armed with the politics of the petty bourgeoisie, summon them into things these petty bourgeois call "councils" do they count. When they are in fact historically similar not to the workers' councils in the "broad spectrum" he lays out, but instead comparable to the endless list of faux-participation conjured up by populist strongmen who seek to use base-level resentments as a platform for their own power.

No, they're not workers' councils. Chavez declared they should exist, and the PSUV's apparatus declared they've been constituted. So what? Have they challenged state political power centers? Capitalist management?

You use terminology in a shady way that strongly suggests you're not acting in good faith. Renaming party committees workers' councils serves what purpose other than your hope to mislead and mystify revolutionary workers?

[Die Neue Zeit]

For DNZ, "the workers" as such, are nothing and do nothing. Only when party leaders, drawn probably from the petty bourgeoisie

Why are you misrepresenting me here? Party-movement leaders are to be drawn from the working class alone, and you've already read my stuff on party-movement citizenship demographics at every level in the party-movement hierarchy.


armed with the politics of the petty bourgeoisie, summon them into things these petty bourgeois call "councils" do they count. When they are in fact historically similar not to the workers' councils in the "broad spectrum" he lays out, but instead comparable to the endless list of faux-participation conjured up by populist strongmen who seek to use base-level resentments as a platform for their own power.

Forgive me for rushing for my heated reaction above, then. I'd like to know the demographics of the leadership of these Chavez-inspired "workers councils" myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're working-class, like the dynamics of "bourgeois worker"/labour parties (certainly in terms of political orientation). If so, "workers councils" is still an appropriate term.


You use terminology in a shady way that strongly suggests you're not acting in good faith. Renaming party committees workers' councils serves what purpose other than your hope to mislead and mystify revolutionary workers?

It's hardly being dishonest, since other parties use it too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Russia#Structure


In April 2008 United Russia amended Section 7 of its charter, changing its heading from “Party Chairman” to “Chairman of the Party and Chairman of the Party’s Supreme Council.” Under the amendments, United Russia may introduce a supreme elective post in the party, the post of the party’s chairman, at the suggestion of Supreme Council and its chairman.

The Supreme Council, led by the Supreme Council chairman, defines the strategy for the development of the party.

The General Council has 152 members, is the foremost party platform in between party congresses and issues statements on important social or political questions. The Praesidium of the General Council is led by a secretary, consists of 23 members and leads the political activity of the party, for instance election campaigns or other programmatic publications.


DNZ doesn't think the class exists without the party.

There's no misleading in pointing out the flaws of workers councils, genuine or otherwise, existing as anything but institutional structures within what I should now call the institutional class for itself (i.e., the party-movement).

[Dunk]

It's probably too late for someone to say this, but...if you two would like to argue who's the realest commie around, please do it via PM or on your profiles.

Please, the original topic is much too interesting for this thread to go off track.

[Jose Gracchus]

I must agree, this is just kind of quibbling of the "sky is blue" variety on my part. I yield.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So do I.

[jake williams]

What I am implying is that a worker can be aware of the need for their class to take power and that workers as a whole can be organised for the general purpose of defending their interests independently of other classes without needing any kind of socialist consciousness. The Communist Manifesto mentions the problem of the relation between the 'proletarian parties' and the 'communist party', and then states that the two have no seperate interests but fight for the same goals, namely the defence of the interests of the working-class and the raising of the latter to the level of political ruling-class.
I would disagree in a couple ways. When you get to the end point, if workers are really aware, in all respects, of the need for workers as a class to take power, then that is socialist consciousness.

Non-socialist labour parties can objectively fight for workers' interests to a point - especially in the early capitalist societies which Marx was directly observing. But in the process of politically advancing and developing as the class struggle itself intensifies (if, indeed, they do politically advance), labour parties and the workers in them develop "socialist conciousness", which is exactly why Marxists talk about "communism" as being the movement of workers to overthrow capitalism, take power etc. This doesn't mean that at all points, "labour parties" are revolutionary or pro-socialist, as clearly they aren't. The point is that if labour parties continue to advance the interests of the working class, then they have to become communist parties, because communism is the politics of advancing the interests of the working class by definition.

[Zederbaum]

The meaning of a workers council is that it is a product of the spontaneous struggles of the class and reflects the ways in which intense struggles across multiple workplaces produce the need for forms of political organization that bring together large numbers of workers and encompass a wide range of organizational tasks, depending on the requirements of the specific context in which workers councils emerge. They are organizations of the class as a whole, which means they represent an incipient form of dual power and bring together heterogenous political forces. It is their spontaneous character that deserves to be emphasized, in that they emerge in struggle whether parties want them to or not.
Spontaneous is a bit of a tricky concept. Social and political events must be caused by people. Workers Councils don't just instantaneously spring up in response to intense struggle; they spring up on the initiative of particular people.

But it is a truism that social events are the product of the actions of humans. Does spontaneous in this context mean that the creation of the soviets was an act of non-aligned workers? Or that it wasn't clearly signalled in a party programme?

We should treat such questions as empirical ones. Who, for instance, was involved in setting up the Petrograd soviet in February 1917? What, if any, was their party affiliation? What role did members of political parties play? Etc etc.

It would make for an interesting study to compare the politicization (i.e. the degree to which they raised political demands, sought alliances with others etc) of soviets which didn't have input from members of political parties and soviets which did.


It is just about sensible to argue that a revolutionary party should take the lead in establishing workers councils but there the objection would be strategic and political rather than logical, because when parties have done this, the result has always been mere shadows of genuine workers councils, in the form of institutions that are isolated from the main body of the class and easily repressed, as in the case of the Canton Commune of 1927, which was set up in a substitutionist way by the CPC during a period of defeat. But the Russian soviets of 1917, the classic and probably most successful workers councils in history, were set up on the initiative of the political parties. The right wing socialists (i.e. the future right Mensheviks and Right SRs) pushed for the creation of the Petrograd soviet even more than the Left did.

[blake 3:17]

We should treat such questions as empirical ones. Who, for instance, was involved in setting up the Petrograd soviet in February 1917? What, if any, was their party affiliation? What role did members of political parties play? Etc etc.


A Rosa Luxemburg study group I was a part of last year was going to some sessions on the actual Soviets and how they operated, what power they held, who did what, how ideology or party alignment may have played out, how decisions were made, questions around direct versus representative democracy etc. Anyways we never got there (the G20 protests took over...) but I could send some references if people wanted.

[Zanthorus]

To bring this thread back on topic somewhat, I was already familiar with Engels' 1887 Preface (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1887/01/26.htm) to the American edition of 'The Conditions of the Working-Class in England' in which he discusses the Knights of Labour as the foundation for a working-class movement in the US. Now what I had not appreciated was that the Knights of Labour actually saw themselves as a project to unite the American working-class into a single union. It was quite literally, as I stated in my OP, a union of the class rather than a union of individual trades. This raises all kinds of question about the relationship between Marxism and syndicalism or sort-of-syndicalist politics like De Leonism which may be the subject of another thread (Although I'm sure ZeroNowhere has had the same thoughts years before me).


DNZ doesn't think the class exists without the party.

If that was all he was claiming then there wouldn't be much of a problem.


I would disagree in a couple ways. When you get to the end point, if workers are really aware, in all respects, of the need for workers as a class to take power, then that is socialist consciousness.

Not necessarily, I don't see the working-class taking power as being the same thing as socialism. It's imaginable, for example, that the working-class could take state power but the economy could, instead of making a leap in the direction of socialist planning, instead initially maintain the use of various market mechanisms, even with majority socialist consciousness due to the difficulties of immediately replacing the market with planning. We can also imagine a situation in which there is a party which recognises the need for the working-class to take power, which even carries through this demand, but which is not an explicitly socialist party, and the majority of whose members are not openly socialist, even if a vocal minority might be.


But in the process of politically advancing and developing as the class struggle itself intensifies (if, indeed, they do politically advance), labour parties and the workers in them develop "socialist conciousness",

I agree with this. However I don't think there is any specific point at which the party has to become openly and fully socialist except prior to the point which the transition to a fully socialist economy is made. I also don't think that the party means any specific organisational form which has to be rigorously followed everywhere, but rather merely indicates a specific content, that of proletarian political power, which in the present epoch is more likely to take on a form similar to that of workers' councils as opposed to traditional electoral parties. I also don't think that the getting a small socialist nucleus and then trying to accumulate members is a viable way of building a mass socialist party, and if that these groups have any role to play it will be as a part of the proletarian movement, not as groups which try to substitute themselves for the movement.

[Die Neue Zeit]

To bring this thread back on topic somewhat, I was already familiar with Engels' 1887 Preface (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1887/01/26.htm) to the American edition of 'The Conditions of the Working-Class in England' in which he discusses the Knights of Labour as the foundation for a working-class movement in the US. Now what I had not appreciated was that the Knights of Labour actually saw themselves as a project to unite the American working-class into a single union. It was quite literally, as I stated in my OP, a union of the class rather than a union of individual trades. This raises all kinds of question about the relationship between Marxism and syndicalism or sort-of-syndicalist politics like De Leonism which may be the subject of another thread (Although I'm sure ZeroNowhere has had the same thoughts years before me).

Regarding the question of the union, did you read my new post in the Republik thread or Kautsky's third chapter? He wrote that "Marxism substituted the organisation of the economic struggle - the strike organisation, the union - for the peaceful economic organisations of petty bourgeois Proudhonism like insurance institutions, exchange and credit banks, cooperatives, etc."


If that was all he was claiming then there wouldn't be much of a problem.

Um, OK.


Not necessarily, I don't see the working-class taking power as being the same thing as socialism. It's imaginable, for example, that the working-class could take state power but the economy could, instead of making a leap in the direction of socialist planning, instead initially maintain the use of various market mechanisms, even with majority socialist consciousness due to the difficulties of immediately replacing the market with planning. We can also imagine a situation in which there is a party which recognises the need for the working-class to take power, which even carries through this demand, but which is not an explicitly socialist party, and the majority of whose members are not openly socialist, even if a vocal minority might be.

Well said.


I also don't think that the party means any specific organisational form which has to be rigorously followed everywhere, but rather merely indicates a specific content, that of proletarian political power, which in the present epoch is more likely to take on a form similar to that of workers' councils as opposed to traditional electoral parties.

Workers councils tended to be united fronts and not a single "party in the historical and broader aspect of the word" (i.e., a slippery slope to under-organized movementism).

[Paulappaul]

If that was all he was claiming then there wouldn't be much of a problem.*Yawn*, this is the worst part of Bordigaism, this kinda fetish for the party form totally disregards history.



I also don't think that the party means any specific organisational form which has to be rigorously followed everywhere, but rather merely indicates a specific content, that of proletarian political power, which in the present epoch is more likely to take on a form similar to that of workers' councils as opposed to traditional electoral parties. I also don't think that the getting a small socialist nucleus and then trying to accumulate members is a viable way of building a mass socialist party, and if that these groups have any role to play it will be as a part of the proletarian movement, not as groups which try to substitute themselves for the movement.

This however is what I like to hear. Well said. As to the later point of a socialist nucleus, I would agree with Gorter that rather that focusing on the quanity of your organization, you should focus on the quality, as a party that is organically linked to the working class which "is clear as glass, and as hard as steel". See me original post for more.

[Die Neue Zeit]

*Yawn*, this is the worst part of Bordigism, this kinda fetish for the party form totally disregards history.

He's not a Bordigist anymore. Also, Bordiga never accepted the position that real parties are real movements and vice versa. For example, the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD were in and of themselves the German working class for itself.

[That's my boldest assertion in quite a while on the party question.]

[Paulappaul]

I know he isn't a Bordigaist, still a Bordigaist saying. The SPD and USPD were historically oriented forms the working class had taken on, but by the 1918 - 21 period they were more historically oriented in the movement for Workers' Councils and Unions, which in themselves were basically parties, and therefor real movements towards Socialism.

[Jose Gracchus]

No, they weren't. That's a totally empty assertion. By virtue of what argument is that true?

I should note that the workers' councils in Russia were dysfunctional in many instances where they the initiative for their activity and membership came from the top-down, where the executive committee was a creature of the majority faction of social democratic splinters and populists. This was not the case everywhere, though, such as Kronstadt and Helsingfors maintained a "curial" organization where the soviet was composed and organized according to the constituencies by which it was elected, this or that enterprise, army unit, etc. rather than splitting it up among the factional disputes of Russian social democracy or populism.

http://books.google.com/books?id=CXJheeTP-HkC&pg=PA30&dq=Helsingfors+Getzler&hl=en&ei=ULvhTbH-JoPogQfNwMXDBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Helsingfors%20Getzler&f=false

Pages 20-23 in particular. Also the discussion here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-councils-t146374/index.html?) and found in Getzler's Kronstadt 1917-1921: Fate of a Soviet Democracy. I think the left would do better to be more specific on what is a workers' council, rather than employing empty terminology.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, they weren't. That's a totally empty assertion. By virtue of what argument is that true?

Were you addressing Paulappaul here or me? :confused:


I think the left would do better to be more specific on what is a workers' council, rather than employing empty terminology.

True, and hopefully I made an attempt at such with my broad spectrum.

[Jose Gracchus]

I was addressing you.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was addressing you.

OK then, "by virtue of what argument" re. the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD being in and of themselves the German working class for itself?

I harken back to the resolutions of the International Workingmen's Association that "the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes; that this constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end – the abolition of classes."

I used a slight variation of Marx's Parti Ouvrier programmatic re-assertion in posts a couple of months ago on some websites commenting on the "precariat."

[Jose Gracchus]

That simply means that the working-class ought to constitute itself as a "party". Of course, this entire thread is deflating the assertion that this "party" is to be identified with the Kautskyite Social Democracy. In no way, shape, or form, have you proved that this condition was in fact met by the pre-war SPD (a statist party intimately committed into reform and integration of the bourgeois state) or the USPD.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well, the context of Marx's evolving views on the party question went from something that resembled a red union to an anti-party stance after 1871 (understandable in spite of his not-so-innocent role in the dissolution of the IWMA (http://www.revleft.com/vb/if-only-lassalleans-t144446/index.html)) to a critical stance towards the German situation (the Eisenachers and then the Gotha Program) to an institution in the form of the Parti Ouvrier. Engels gave the later Erfurtist institution his blessing.


In no way, shape, or form, have you proved that this condition was in fact met by the pre-war SPD (a statist party intimately committed into reform and integration of the bourgeois state) or the USPD.

The tred-iunion shit (union parity with the party proper) only came about in the mid- to late 1900s. When the USPD commanded greater political support from the working class than all the other parties, it more than signalled its status as the German working class for itself... until the ultra-left yet hypocritical breakaways that turned into the KPD.

[Rowan Duffy]

In no way, shape, or form, have you proved that this condition was in fact met by the pre-war SPD (a statist party intimately committed into reform and integration of the bourgeois state) or the USPD.

The SPD up until 1905 was clearly dominated by a "pure opposition" approach to electoral politics. They were certainly not knee-deep in reformist politics and integrated into the state. The reformists gained the upper hand during the period 1905-1907, but even that didn't immediately lead to integration.

I'd like to see more about what exactly what you think is required to be worthy of being called the party of the working class.

It seems to me that any large party is necessarily going to come into a conflict between reformist and revolutionary currents. If we restrict ourselves directly to only the revolutionists we will recapitulate the micro-sect approach we currently find ourselves in. If we allow the reformists we have the very real possibility of degeneration. The possibility of degeneration seems to me to be a necessary risk, as there is *no* possibility in the mirco-sects.

It's certainly the case that the CNT was not entirely dominated by revolutionary elements at all times. It made many reformist economic demands and reformist political demands in its history. The CNT-FAI eventually had representatives in the Generalitat in 1936. Maybe that was a mistake, maybe it wasn't - but whatever you think about it, the reformist demands and the eventual "integration" can not serve as simple proof against the idea that CNT was exemplar of the most advance section of the working class. It was essentially a party-movement, and was therefor challenged by the necessary tensions between reform and revolution.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Comrade, if you recall comrade Macnair's PDF work, the problem really isn't "reform or revolution," but rather between three to five strategies: mere labour disputes and reform coalitions, strike-isms (fetishes for mass strikes, general strikes, etc. all the way up to workers councils emerging from such actions and "all power to workers councils") and growing political struggles out of economic ones, and institutional opposition from the working class (in both "revolution" and "reform").

That's why, in the Politics forum, I asked for developments in Die Linke. Given Google translations so far, it would seem they've lowered the terms of reform coalition in their draft program discussion, and this is worrisome. BTW, that the CNT-FAI had a presence in the Generalitat would seem to be a mistake.

[Paulappaul]

growing political struggles out of economie onesThe relationship can be dialectical in cases, for example, workers very often can take up political struggles in which relate clearly to the issues within the workplace. Take the latest wave of Austerity Measures i.e. Political measures by the Capitalist class and the working classes' response to them being both economic and political (the attainment of Workers' Rights, Reverse Austerity - what I like to call "proletarian austerity measures"- as well as the demand for Higher wages, better working conditions and lower taxes) you reinforcing those theoretical nuisances which state there is a difference between the economic and political field of struggle, the same nuisances which Marx struggled aganist when he argued that every strike is both an economic and political act.

You can build political struggles out economic ones, and visa versa.


institutional opposition from the working classWhich has alot to do with arm chair intellectuals such as Macnair himself. The fact that you can create institutions and party organs outside the realms of reality and of the working class itself naturally lends to opposition. Institutions need to be organic, appropriate to certain historical conditions and what they demand.

In times such as the ones which we live in, the task of building the mass party is completely inappropriate, the task of building institutions of alternative culture are inappropriate. The Historical moment which produces a World Wide Revolution is at hand, and some Socialists want to move the struggle backward to these kind of institutions! Which are appropriate for the stages working up to the revolution. The task of the revolutionaries at hand, of the Communist Party stand at opposite ends from this.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The relationship can be dialectical in cases, for example, workers very often can take up political struggles in which relate clearly to the issues within the workplace. Take the latest wave of Austerity Measures i.e. Political measures by the Capitalist class and the working classes' response to them being both economic and political (the attainment of Workers' Rights, Reverse Austerity - what I like to call "proletarian austerity measures"- as well as the demand for Higher wages, better working conditions and lower taxes) you reinforcing those theoretical nuisances which state there is a difference between the economic and political field of struggle, the same nuisances which Marx struggled aganist when he argued that every strike is both an economic and political act.

There's a fundamental difference between the "politicist" growing of economic struggles out of a focus on political ones, and growing political struggles out of mere labour disputes. The latter was advocated by Boris Krichevskii.

Also, please note this comrade's post:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-mere-labour-t152648/index.html?p=2074884


What you write - I think - doesn't refute what Jacob Richter has tried to explain. Chartism, although it based its propaganda and agitation partially on the economic situation of the working class, was also a political movement. A political one in the marxist sense. I will try to explain what I mean by political in the marxist sense. But first: what's (mere) political and what's (mere) economic, and where do both go hand in hand?

Obviously you can't simply distinguish one from another. The economic situation determines politics, and politics has a real influence on economics. But bourgeois reasoning forces us to distinguish politics and economics from each other because class societies have turned politics (decission-making) into the lifestyle of a privileged few and the miserable economic sphere (labour) into the harsh reality for the majority of society.

What then is a political movement of the working class? It is a movement with a democratic character. The common people try to organize themselves, step by step, in order to force their own organs of decision-making upon bourgeois society. Lenin called the economists bourgeois ideologists because they based themselves almost solely on the economic, because they only organised the class as a class of wage slaves, because they did not bring the bourgeois sphere of politics any closer to the proletariat, and thus simply because they were not social-democrats.

The question that needs to be solved is "who rules?" Mere economic or labour struggles don't solve the question. They pose the question. So the withdrawal of labour for example is not an answer to capitalist rule. The arming of the people, the creation of their own organs, etc. are partial answers to that question of democracy. Those are political. The case of factory committees shows that the economic can become political in certain nodal points (as once written by Talheimer). But those committees don't suffice. Because you are still left with the question of beating the labour bureacracy (for example).

Chartism based its struggle for political demands only partially on economic struggles. Partially because, although many never intended to, some branches of the Chartist movement armed themselves and the workers. They were threatening with violence. The bourgeoisie was frightened and its rule, so they reasoned, was threatened by the working class. Arming the working class is in essence a political measure. I'll finish with a quote from Engels his military policy: "The more workers who are trained in the use of weapons the better. Universal conscription is the necessary and natural corollary of universal suffrage; it puts the voters in the position of being able to enforce their decisions gun in hand against any attempt at a coup d'état"

BTW:


In times such as the ones which we live in, the task of building the mass party is completely inappropriate, the task of building institutions of alternative culture are inappropriate. The Historical moment which produces a World Wide Revolution is at hand, and some Socialists want to move the struggle backward to these kind of institutions! Which are appropriate for the stages working up to the revolution.

We're not in a politically revolutionary period (The Road to Power). BTW, did I ever tell you that I like your apt signature quote of Bordiga?

[Jose Gracchus]

These marketing gimmicks of yours won't magically get a mass party of left intellectuals to successfully impart socialist consciousness onto a working class that is not developing it organically via its own struggles. The solution is not going to "emerge" from the official left, and any clarion call from it, Macnair's or otherwise.

[Die Neue Zeit]

These marketing gimmicks of yours won't magically get a mass party of left intellectuals to successfully impart socialist consciousness onto a working class that is not developing it organically via its own struggles. The solution is not going to "emerge" from the official left, and any clarion call from it, Macnair's or otherwise.

That's only true if said "left intellectuals" are not themselves working-class. There are, of course, too many of such types.

[Jose Gracchus]

Except that's hardly the choir that Macnair preaches to, and you know it just as much as I do.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Going by Kautsky's infamous quote that needs proper emphasis:

Non-worker intellectual(s): Macnair, Panitch, etc.
Educated proletarians: Cockshott, Q, MarxSchmarx, Uncle Sam, Dean, myself, etc. (and perhaps even Lars Lih himself, at least for being adjunct faculty)
Class movement: Too many names to list, but I'd include the crude likes of RED DAVE

[ZeroNowhere]

Wait, has this started all over again?