Marx on the role of the political party?

[Fourth Internationalist]

What are some good texts on Marx's view of the role of political parties, before, during, and after the revolution? Or if you know his views, what were they? Also, did Marx believe that the working class movement have to be a party-based movement? And, how did he envision the dictatorship of the proletariat would be set up (ie would there be a central government, a decentralised federated council system, or whatever)?

Edit: Also, did he ever say anything about economic planning, such as centralized or decentralized planning?

[Sarcosuchus]

What are some good texts on Marx's view of the role of political parties, before, during, and after the revolution? Or if you know his views, what were they? Also, did Marx believe that the working class movement have to be a party-based movement? And, how did he envision the dictatorship of the proletariat would be set up (ie would there be a central government, a decentralised federated council system, or whatever)?

Edit: Also, did he ever say anything about economic planning, such as centralized or decentralized planning?

As for economics, he demanded centralisation of economy under the administration of a state bank, and the nationalisation of other strategical, national resources, again, at the hands of the state.

[Brutus]

The first few paragraphs of this (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm) explain Marx's view on the party.

[Fourth Internationalist]

The first few paragraphs of this (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm) explain Marx's view on the party.
What does this mean exactly?

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties."

[Hit The North]

What does this mean exactly?

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties."

Exactly what is spelled out in the lines that follow it.

[Fourth Internationalist]

So it doesn't mean communists shouldn't form a separate party?

[Hit The North]

So it doesn't mean communists shouldn't form a separate party?

Well he goes on to say this:


The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. So it's definitely implied that communists can organise as a party which is distinguishable from "other working class parties".

How he viewed what kind of organisations constitute "parties" is another question. Remember that at the time of the writing of the CM, even the bourgeoisie had not yet developed the kind of professional political parties that we see today.

[Zukunftsmusik]

How he viewed what kind of organisations constitute "parties" is another question. Remember that at the time of the writing of the CM, even the bourgeoisie had not yet developed the kind of professional political parties that we see today.

Yeah, I think he uses party in the classical sense

[Fourth Internationalist]

Yeah, I think he uses party in the classical sense

What do you mean by in the classical sense?

[Akshay!]

Oh god, not another "Marx was actually, secretly an anarchist" thread. :crying:

[Fourth Internationalist]

Oh god, not another "Marx was actually, secretly an anarchist" thread. :crying:

You need to grow up because no one said that or even implied it.

[Brutus]

Oh god, not another "Marx was actually, secretly an anarchist" thread. :crying:

Once again: the baseless, strawmen attacks against anarchism. The comrade asked a good question, please don't clog up this thread with more of your moronic posts.

[Tim Cornelis]

At this point I'm pretty sure Akshay! is a troll.

[Brutus]

At this point I'm pretty sure Akshay! is a troll.

Or he's just an imbecile.

[Zukunftsmusik]

What do you mean by in the classical sense?

I'm not really sure if there is a definition of a "party in the classical sense", but what I imply is that in the 19th century, as HTN says, there weren't political parties in the sense we have now. They were more of loosely attached groups, organisations and "societies" who agreed on some or most things. So I think it's fair to assume that he talks about the multitude of communist organisations.

[Zukunftsmusik]

From a post on a forum which name we dare not say:


The Party is not necessarily only one organisation, many different organisations can represent The Party. The Party is simply the political expression of the will of the working class to rule, The Party is NECESSARY for Communist revolution.

[...]

Another important point is that the actual form of organisation of The Party/State is not mentioned/alluded to. It is the political content that matters.

[Zukunftsmusik]

This text (http://www.marxists.org/archive/johnstone/1967/xx/me-party.htm) which I have not yet finished might also be of interest:


Moreover, our difficulty is increased by the fact that during the lifetimes of Marx and Engels the whole notion of a political party was to develop and change along with the forms of activity open to it [7]; and, as we shall see, they were to use the term in several different senses, without defining them. It has therefore been quite possible to draw selectively on their activities and above all their writings in support of the most opposite versions of their views.

[TheEmancipator]

Oh god, not another "Marx was actually, secretly an anarchist" thread. :crying:

http://t.qkme.me/3v2gcj.jpg

I figured it would help if Lenin said it.

[Brutus]

No comrade! In Akshay's eyes Lenin is a liberal!

[Sotionov]

One of the few things I agree with Marx is his statement from the preambule of the Programme of the Workers Party which says that in the revolution "universal suffrage" should be "transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation". Concerning the topic, afaik, he never abandoned this position.

[subcp]

Using the Manifesto as the standard by which to judge what Marx and Engels thought of the place of communists and the forms of organization for communists misses their experience of the class struggle and various forms of organization utilized over decades, that suggest that the form for the most advanced faction of the working-class (the minority that is conscious of the mission of the proletariat and the scientific foundation for the abolition of capital) is the class party- but that the class party can't be formed at any given moment, but must be an expression of growing class consciousness and open struggle:



Scientific insight into the inevitable disintegration of the dominant order of society continually proceeding before our eyes, and the ever-growing passion into which the masses are scourged by the old ghosts of government--while at the same time the positive development of the means of production advances with gigantic strides--all this is a sufficient guarantee that with the moment of the outbreak of a real proletarian revolution there will also be given the conditions (though these are certain not to be idyllic) of its next immediate modus operandi [form of action].


It is my conviction that the critical juncture for a new International Workingmen's Association has not yet arrived and for this reason I regard all workers' congresses, particularly socialist congresses, in so far as they are not related to the immediate given conditions in this or that particular nation, as not merely useless but harmful. They will always fade away in innumerable stale generalised banalities.
-Marx, Letter, 1881


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/letters/81_02_22.htm





The International (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/f/i.htm#first-international) was founded in order to replace the Socialist or semi-Socialist sects by a real organisation of the working class for struggle. The original Statutes and the Inaugural Address show this at the first glance. On the other hand the Internationalists could not have maintained themselves if the course of history had not already smashed up the sectarian system. The development of the system of Socialist sects and that of the real workers' movement always stand in inverse ratio to each other. So long as the sects are (historically) justified, the working class is not yet ripe for an independent historic movement. As soon as it has attained this maturity ail sects are essentially reactionary. Nevertheless what history has shown everywhere was repeated within the International. The antiquated makes an attempt to re-establish and maintain itself within the newly achieved form.


And the history of the International was a continual struggle on the part of the General Council against the sects and amateur experiments which attempted to assert themselves within the International itself against the genuine movement of the working class. This struggle was conducted at the Congresses, but far more in the private dealings of the General Council with the individual sections.


. . .


The political movement of the working class has as its object, of course, the conquest of political power for the working class, and for this it is naturally necessary that a previous organisation of the working class, itself arising from their economic struggles, should have been developed up to a certain point.


On the other hand, however, every movement in which the working class comes out as a class against the ruling classes and attempts to force them by pressure from without is a political movement. For instance, the attempt in a particular factory or even a particular industry to force a shorter working day out of the capitalists by strikes, etc., is a purely economic movement. On the other hand the movement to force an eight-hour day, etc., law is a political movement. And in this way, out of the separate economic movements of the workers there grows up everywhere a political movement, that is to say a movement of the class, with the object of achieving its interests in a general form, in a form possessing a general social force of compulsion. If these movements presuppose a certain degree of previous organisation, they are themselves equally a means of the development of this organisation.


Where the working class is not yet far enough advanced in its organisation to undertake a decisive campaign against the collective power, i.e., the political power of the ruling classes, it must at any rate be trained for this by continual agitation against and a hostile attitude towards the policy of the ruling classes.
-Marx, Letter, 1871



http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/letters/71_11_23.htm

Marx and Engels distinguished that in times of rising class struggle, the class party and its programme are necessary to unify the generalizing struggles and work toward the revolutionary movement as a part of the rest of the class. In times of reaction/receding consciousness, the class party is not 'ripe', but communists carry on their work in the revolutionary organization (i.e. the difference between the Communist League and the IWMA/First International. The 'fraction/party' relationship).


But it's a different kind of party (the kind of party the Third International tried to be initially); the last bold line in the quote above articulates how the communists 'Do not form a separate party from the rest of the workers party'- communists are described as an integral part of the working-class, a necessary element to the revolutionary movement for communism, and themselves a product of and symptom of this revolutionary movement. The class-party then is an outgrowth, a natural development of, high class consciousness and at the same time is the weapon and form for the class engaged in escalating struggle (then insurrection, revolutionary transformation, etc).



Herr Heinzen imagines communism is a certain doctrine which proceeds from a definite theoretical principle as its core and draws further conclusions from that. Herr Heinzen is very much mistaken. Communism is not a doctrine but a movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts. The Communists do not base themselves on this or that philosophy as their point of departure but on the whole course of previous history and specifically its actual results in the civilised countries at the present time. Communism has followed from large-scale industry and its consequences, from the establishment of the world market, of the concomitant uninhibited competition, ever more violent and more universal trade crises, which have already become fully fledged crises of the world market, from the creation of the proletariat and the concentration of capital, from the ensuing class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle and the theoretical summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat.
-Engels, The Communists and Karl Heinzen


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/09/26.htm