Programmatism

[human strike]

Where can I find the best (and preferably simplest) explanation of programmatism? I need something to reference... :/

[subcp]

If you're referring to the communist programme, it's a document created by revolutionaries, in the class party (the International), in the beginning of proletarian revolution. It serves to unite the experience of the working-class (past revolutionary attempts) with its vision of history (Marxism) with an expression of what 'shape' the revolution is undertaking since it began. In the example of the KAPD programme, they saw the factory committee's (which had at the outset declared their adherence to revolutionary communism) as proto-worker's councils, and described the role of revolutionaries and the party in them and in the revolution in general.

Some currents say that with the crisis of the 'classical' worker's movement from the 1970's-today, it is the 'death of programmatism'- that the proletariat doesn't need a party or party programme in the next revolutionary crisis.

here's some examples:

1920: Programme of the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD):

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/97_kapd.htm

1918: Programme of the Communist Party of Germany

http://en.internationalism.org/node/3824

[garrus]

dear god, not another -ism.

[Ravachol]

Where can I find the best (and preferably simplest) explanation of programmatism? I need something to reference... :/

In addition to what subcp said, I'd check out the texts Much ado about nothing (http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/13) by Theorie Communiste, The history of subsumption (http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/6) by Endnotes and perhaps The fabric of struggles (http://libcom.org/library/fabric-struggles) by Benjamin Noys

[Die Neue Zeit]

dear god, not another -ism.

"Without [a] revolutionary [program] there can be no revolutionary movement."

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Some currents say that with the crisis of the 'classical' worker's movement from the 1970's-today, it is the 'death of programmatism'- that the proletariat doesn't need a party or party programme in the next revolutionary crisis.

I fail to understand the sense in this. The 'logic', seemingly, being applied by these 'currents' seems to be: Worker Organization smashed by Capital = no more need for building a revolutionary workers movement; we just have to wait for the next "revolutionary" crisis.

It seems that these ominous 'currents' -- who take the position that since western Workers' organization has been smashed by the reactionary Capitalists in the last decades, we must consequentially uncritically accept the sad state of the current working class organization, idly stand stand by and uncompetitively watch the remaining 20%-or-so workers unionized continue being trapped in the very same remaining bourgeois labor-bureaucratic unions that permitted the defeat of organized militant Labor! -- these 'currents' are either (if given the benefit of the doubt) very unclear about the all-encompassing strength of today's Ruling Class grip over society (in unions, recreation, film, media, and in ideology), the reactionary-counterrevolutionary potential of the widespread chauvinist and anticommunist sentiment in the working masses; or, they plainly are conscious enemies of Working Class organization and social revolution.

[Ravachol]

I already expected the cosplaying crowd to drop in here. First of all, some links were posted here, go read them before writing elaborate comments which completely miss the point, just a tip :)

No, nobody is saying that because the workers' movement got smashed this implies 'waiting for the next crisis'. There are many approaches to the question of programmatism and whether it is to be rejected categorically or whether it is considered a structural impossibility or both. Since I'm not interested in some tit-for-tat comment throw-around with partybuilding bores, I'll leave it at saying that the hypothesis roughly comes down to (but is more nuanced than, read the actual stuff if you want to see why) the notion that programmatism was the expression of a particular relationship of the proletariat to a particular 'technical composition' of capital. Programmatism found its expression in the possibility of the affirmation of labor (and thus, ironically, the very proletarian condition it sought to overthrow) under capital, a possibility that has been eroded by the decoupling of the wage-demand and the increases in productivity that characterized fordism, by the shift in the composition of capital towards an increasing share of constant capital, excluding more and more proletarians as superfluous to its reproductive needs (and as such, making the social reproduction of those proletarians superfluous or even burdensome to the reproduction of capital, hence their loss of leverage which underpinned programmatism). The restructuring of the wage-relation has changed the composition and structure of both capital and the proletariat (as a category of capital) fundamentally and eroded the historical base upon which programmatism could be erected. It is for this reason that European social democracy is crumbling, it is for this reason the trade unions are losing influence each and every day and it is for this reason that large segments of the proletariat find themselves perpetually (or in fluctuation) excluded from the direct productive sphere and act upon the sphere of circulation (with manifestations such as inner city riots) instead.

There's far more to the matter and the debate isn't set in stone, as some groups hold that programmatism has become a structural impossibility, whilst others hold that it has become extremely implausible, yet that its residual ghost might still resurface from time to time, only to collapse upon its own contradictions. The links I posted above should be a good starting point regarding this debate.

[subcp]

Ravachol describes the critique of contemporary 'programmatism' very well. I'm of the opinion that one can accept the recomposition of the class relation and still defend the party-form and the place of the communist programme in the next revolutionary crisis- but not of the 'neo-Bolshevik' (Stalinist, Trotskyist, etc.) models of the party and programme, or any other that is stuck in turn of the century models. Post-war developments (particularly after 1968) have left a legacy that leads to a reconceptualized vision of the party and its programme. I think the effort to engage with the ideas of groups like TC and Endnotes on the 'death of programmatism' has to be a collaborative effort by communists who do defend the concepts of the International and the communist programme; an article by the PCI in the late '70s is an example of the kind of post-war development of the party-form and programme that should be a part of that debate:

'On the Road to the Compact and Powerful Party of Tomorrow'


http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/prcomi/ropo/ropodtebef.html


they plainly are conscious enemies of Working Class organization and social revolution.No, on both sides of that debate are communists who are trying to apply the methodology of Marxism, lessons of failed revolutions and struggles and communist principles to contemporary conditions- rather than trying to reenact being the Bolshevik Party circa 1918.