Why a party? (Please read the post)

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Just what the topic asks. Why do we need a 'political/party' line alongside an economic and theoretical one during revolution, as many marxists support?

Does a union not somewhat take the role of a party as its numbers swell, with management of resources and politics during the revolution being done by the very proletarians that forward said revolution? As this is a transformation of an economic system, with a new mold of organisation replacing the old, are revolutionary (stressed) unions nothing more than industrially situated parties?

Most of the communist parties that I've read about, while maintaining a strong worker's current and rhetoric, seemed quite detached from actual proletarian decision-making. This, to me, seems like less and less an actual class movement but more of a liberalesque class-split where the majority of organisation and 'politics' are manouvered by a majoritarian yet isolated and formalised section of the proletariat in which all economic and social structures must not combine with but submit to.


Any feedback on why a union is apolitical and inferior to an economically detached party would be greatly appreciated. Please note that I am still learning, so if anything sets the alarms off then feel free to tell me.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Just what the topic asks. Why do we need a 'political/party' line alongside an economic and theoretical one during revolution, as many marxists support?

Does a union not somewhat take the role of a party as its numbers swell, with management of resources and politics during the revolution being done by the very proletarians that forward said revolution? As this is a transformation of an economic system, with a new mold of organisation replacing the old, are revolutionary (stressed) unions nothing more than industrially situated parties?

Most of the communist parties that I've read about, while maintaining a strong worker's current and rhetoric, seemed quite detached from actual proletarian decision-making. This, to me, seems like less and less an actual class movement but more of a liberalesque class-split where the majority of organisation and 'politics' are manouvered by a majoritarian yet isolated and formalised section of the proletariat in which all economic and social structures must not combine with but submit to.


Any feedback on why a union is apolitical and inferior to an economically detached party would be greatly appreciated. Please note that I am still learning, so if anything sets the alarms off then feel free to tell me.

Well potentially a revolutionary union could play the role you describe, but really that form of organizing is an attempt to synthesize a political (not in the sense of electoral) party and a union. These unions are both defensive organization for the class as well as a potential offensive organization.

The problem in this sense with most trade unions is that they are primarily a defensive organization and this dynamic creates a tendency towards conservativism because for one thing people are only being organized on a sort of basic level of class consiousness (we're at the mercy of the bosses if we try and negotiate induvidually, so let's combine and fight for a say about conditions of our work). This is a weakness for revolutionary aims, but a strength in a certain sense too because since most of the time most people are not revolutionary, any worker can join a union and begin to potentially fight for their class interests. There's also the role of the leadership who will also tend to become conservative in "normal" times when there aren't revolutionary upsurges. With revoltuion not being "a realistic" option, they see their role as negotiating the best deal within capitalism - they also become specialists who will favor their ability to negotiate on worker's behalf. Anyway, there is lots to talk about just on the issue of union beurocracy, and so I'll just leave it there.

The problem in my view with only trying to organize a revolutionary union is that it basically only works when there is an existing militancy in the class in general - people have to already be at a sort of higer political level. So in non-revolutionary times, revolutioinary unions and syndicalist unions tend to shrink and on a practicle non-revolutionary level, they can't compete with the already established trade-unions who are more likely to be able to accomplish short-term (but also short-sighted often) gains for workers.


Most of the communist parties that I've read about, while maintaining a strong worker's current and rhetoric, seemed quite detached from actual proletarian decision-making. This, to me, seems like less and less an actual class movement but more of a liberalesque class-split where the majority of organisation and 'politics' are manouvered by a majoritarian yet isolated and formalised section of the proletariat in which all economic and social structures must not combine with but submit to.
Maybe I'm tired, but I didn't really get what you're saying here. Can you clairify.

It's definately true that many radical groups - and specifically the CP's - had many top-down and undemocratic ways of doing things and have been detached from the class either because of sectarian tendencies or just plain marginalization. But I think maybe if you are more specific about this point above, I can take a shot at giving my take.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Does a union not somewhat take the role of a party as its numbers swell, with management of resources and politics during the revolution being done by the very proletarians that forward said revolution? As this is a transformation of an economic system, with a new mold of organisation replacing the old, are revolutionary (stressed) unions nothing more than industrially situated parties?

I disagree. Unions, along with factory councils and other organs of proletariat class rule, are vital decision-making apparatuses but have some problems that can be overcome by a restrictive party. Unions are primarily concerned with the trade, factory, etc. for which they represent, not the proletariat as a whole. The Union also allows any proletariat to join no matter if they are reactionary, etc. We are communists, no workerists, and we fight for the collective interests of the proletariat, not the individual proletariat. The individual proletariat, being a product of bourgeois society can be very reactionary. A restrictive party would allow for reactionary elements to be excluded and the organization of the most revolutionary and class conscious proletariat.

The party can be considered the "social brain" of the class, and we really cannot begin to speak of the proletariat as a class without the context of their class party. Here are some relevant quotes on the topic.


Against the collective power of the propertied classes 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.

This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end -- the abolition of classes.

From The International Working Men's Association, 1872: Resolution on the establishment of working-class parties (http://www.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1872/hague-conference/parties.htm)


The organ of the dictatorship and operator of the State-weapon is the political class party; the party which, through its doctrine and its continuous historical action, has been potentially granted the task, proper to the proletarian class, of transforming society. We not only say that the struggle and the historical task of the class cannot be achieved without the two forms: dictatorial State, (i.e. the exclusion, as long as they exist, of the other classes which are henceforth defeated and subdued) and political party, we also say – in our customary dialectical and revolutionary language – that one can only begin to speak of class – of establishing a dynamic link between a repressed class in today's society and a future revolutionised social form, and taking into consideration the struggle between the class which holds the State and the class which is to overthrow it – only when the class is no longer a cold statistical term at the miserable level of bourgeois thought, but a reality, made manifest in its organ, the Party, without which it has neither life nor the strength to fight.

One cannot therefore detach party from class as though class were the main element and the party merely accessory to it. By putting forward the idea of a proletariat without a party, a party which is sterilized and impotent party, or by looking for substitutes for it, the latest corrupters of Marxism have actually annihilated the class by depriving it of any possibility of fighting for socialism, or even, come to that, fighting for a miserable crust of bread.

From Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism by Amadeo Bordiga (http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/index.php?q=library/fundamentals-revolutionary-communism-part-1-amadeo-bordiga-1957)

[Sasha]

no we dont, praxis has shown that there are apparently only 3 roads for a "revolutionary" party, parliamentarianism, dictatorship (in the state-capitalist sense, not DoTP) or insignificance. unless based on completely basis-democratic principles the revolution cant be managed and organized or it seizes to be a revolution and just ends up being another overthrow of the current bureaucratic class for a new one.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

no we dont, praxis has shown that there are apparently only 3 roads for a "revolutionary" party, parliamentarianism, dictatorship (in the state-capitalist sense, not DoTP) or insignificance.

As for parliamentarianism (reformism) this is why I think making a fetish of "mass parties" is a horrible move and why I, like other left communists, would argue that the party should stay out of bourgeois parliaments and trade unions. The insignificance argument is pretty useless to. Most leftist groupings are insignificant right now, whether it is a union, party, etc. I doubt that you consider the Bolshevik party "insignificant". For the last point, the "state-capitalist" argument, that had much more to do with material conditions than the "evil party". Years of economic collapse, invasion, counter-revolutionary sabotage, failure of the revolution to spread, underdevelopment, etc. had more to do with the success of the counter-revolution, Stalinism, etc. than the party.

[Jimmie Higgins]

no we dont, praxis has shown that there are apparently only 3 roads for a "revolutionary" party, parliamentarianism, dictatorship (in the state-capitalist sense, not DoTP) or insignificance. unless based on completely basis-democratic principles the revolution cant be managed and organized or it seizes to be a revolution and just ends up being another overthrow of the current bureaucratic class for a new one.By the same chriteria someone would argue that there are only three roads for syndicalism: dillution into reformism, abdicating DoTP during a revolution, or irrelevance. This is essentailly the same reasoning M-Ls use to dismiss anarchism or Trotskyism or Left-Coms outright: "They've never accomplished a revolution". And it's not very useful for figuring out what does or does not work or why something failed or suceeded.

In other words, past mistakes or defeats do not necissarily indicate some inherent flaw. And in this case, I don't think the form of the organization is the fundamental cause for a lot of the crap of the 20th century struggles.

Second, "managing" a revolution is inherently problematic and essentially impossible and, for at least revolutionary bolshevism, not the reason or point of a party (which developed as an alternative to mass parties, not in opposition to spontiaity or working class self-action despite what some anarchists as well as some M-Ls claim). While CPs definately did play an anti-revolutionary role and often tried to mobilize to divert movements and uprisings like in Paris - often quoting Marx and Lenin to justify it - the form of their organization was not the underlying reason for it, the undemocratic way they operated was essentailly a symptom for organizations which had put the interests of the USSR in the place of the interests of the actual class struggle.

[Sasha]

Hence I'm not an syndicalist...

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ You didn't offer any positive alternative to the original poster.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I believe that a party is only necessary if the communist revolution is not world-wide. You then need to deal with other (capitalist) countries. Representation (as i often suggested) would then be needed.
Hopefully we can launch a fullscale revolution, because only then we can full abolish the state!

[Geiseric]

A party to organize any kind of mass political activity is completely necessary. The only groupings of millions of working class militants were communist parties, and unless a workers party forms, the working class will continue to be subserviant to bourgeois parties.

[Prometeo liberado]

It's like my boy Bob Avakian says, "Without a Revolutionary Party You Can't Have a Revolution"(caps his). Call it what you want, an aggressive labor union, Occupy, whatever. They are all inferior in some respect. A huge part of the problem is with the incessant nitpicking and screaming from the stands that so many on the left engage in. Things ain't going to get better unless you get off your ass and make it happen. Change will happen without you of course, so your choice is to either help direct this change or get steamrolled by it as you criticize those fighting the steamroller.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

It's like my boy Bob Avakian says, "Without a Revolutionary Party You Can't Have a Revolution"(caps his). Call it what you want, an aggressive labor union, Occupy, whatever. They are all inferior in some respect. A huge part of the problem is with the incessant nitpicking and screaming from the stands that so many on the left engage in. Things ain't going to get better unless you get off your ass and make it happen. Change will happen without you of course, so your choice is to either help direct this change or get steamrolled by it as you criticize those fighting the steamroller.

Hell yeah!

[Let's Get Free]

I'm not a fan of the "Vanguard Party." A vanguard party is not necessarily democratic either in its internal party structure or in how it relates to the working class as a whole. A vanguard party does not represent the views of the revolutionaries in the population, it represents a sort of amalgam of the views of its leading members. Revolutionaries outside the vanguard party obviously are not represented by it. Also, every vanguard party that has ever gained power has used gerrymandering, intimidation, imprisonment and murder to suppress opposition and makes sure it stays relevant through brute force. The type of organisation needed must be a "mass" organization working to unite all workers in common class struggle. This would be a revolutionary movement, not content to elect a few "friends of Labor" to Congress or the State Legislature, write protest letters, circulate petitions, or other such tame tactics. It would take the examples of the early radical labor movements like the IWW , as well as the Civil rights movement of the 1960s, to show that only direct action tactics of confrontation and militant protest will yield any results at all. It would also have the example of the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion to show that people will revolt, but there need to be powerful allies extending material aid and resistance info, and an existing mass movement to take it to the next step and spread the insurrection.

[Geiseric]

Vanguardism is an inevitability, every social struggle in the past has had some core of active militants who have pushed it forward. That doesn't mean that their interests are in any way contradicting those of the class as a whole, if anything they're simply the most militant, class conscious members of the class. The Anarcho Syndicallists in spain were the de facto vanguard of the Spanish Revolution, but they were unable to complete the revolution since they were against vanguardism in principle. That led to the leaders of the revolution being the popular front of Stalinists and republican liberals.