"Party for a Working Class Party"

[synthesis]

Obviously this whole thing is half-joking - I don't think that what the working class needs is more fucking acronyms and hilariously small organizations, but I was just going back and reading some of the stuff about the "Workers Party of America" that a (former?) member here started and I just wanted to try my hand at this whole "creating another unnecessary party" thing.

But I have to admit that I also like the idea of there being some sort of middle ground between feeling like you're unable to be active within an organization that you feel is "significant" on the one hand, and feeling like you're stuck having to defend the historical and ideological baggage of whatever three- or four-letter group you decide to work with, not to mention the actions and politics of people you don't even know, on the other.

I guess I'm just trying to "workshop" this idea I have in my head, and I just hope other people want to run with it.

So here would be my tenets - the "PWCP Manifesto," whatever:



Don't promote the PWCP. The PWCP, by definition, cannot be an end in itself. The goal isn't to promote the PWCP, at least not outside of dedicated Marxist/anarchist milieus; it's a group for communists to organize in promoting the concept, within the broader, not-necessarily-leftist working class, of the working class being a class-for-itself.
Don't squabble with other organizations. Challenge the ideas and politics of a person or their organization, not the person or organization itself. If someone criticizes the PWCP, you defend your politics to the best of your abilities if it's a meaningful criticism, or you ignore them if it's not, then either way you move on.
Don't try to govern or centralize the PWCP. The point of the PWCP is to be a group comprised entirely of leaders. Organizationally - obviously not politically - al-Qaeda has the right idea: if you have to have a "face," make sure they're just a figurehead for people to get behind (OBL) and not someone with any real authority. The "cell" structure is also a good model for PWCP activity. If you see someone trying to centralize the PWCP, call them out on it.
Don't be a dick. Nobody gets kicked out of the PWCP; it's just the role of other PWCP members to ostracize people who are promoting, for example, bigotry, imperialism, nationalism, class collaboration, any form of capitalism, or anything opposed to revolutionary working class politics. Disagreements should be isolated and resolved so as to prevent factionalism.
Don't monopolize the PWCP agenda. If an individual or group wants to work with these tenets, but doesn't want to call themselves PWCP, be cool about it. It's not factionalism, it's putting personal agendas aside to best promote working class politics and consciousness.
Don't get hung up on history. Aside from your own personal interest in historical matters, the only relevance of history to the PWCP is in negative lessons - things we shouldn't do - as opposed to the things that we are destined to repeat. (This is kind of the essence of the structure of this piece.) Nostalgia is the enemy of progress.
Don't lose sight of class politics. As long as members of the PWCP act in the interest of working class hegemony, everything else is up for discussion. If you're promoting an agenda that divides the working class, or you're promoting collaboration with other classes to achieve short-term political goals, you are acting inimically to the spirit of PWCP.
Don't try to define the PWCP politically except as outlined here. Again, as long as you're promoting revolutionary working class politics and consciousness, you should be open to pluralism about everything else. Avoid centralism, but at the same time "democracy" is irrelevant to the structure of the PWCP itself, as it contradicts the "cell structure" described above.
Don't turn the PWCP into another god damn social club. The purpose of the PWCP is not to meet like-minded people to get drunk and/or show up at protests with, it's to get together to find ways to spread the communist agenda among the working class.
Don't treat the PWCP like a fucking religion. This might be the distilled essence of the idea behind the PWCP. These rules are really just principles that you can use to guide your own political development, activity and consciousness. These aren't your father's Ten Commandments.



There are a few things taken for granted here: I'm assuming people who like this idea would also include internationalism and non-substitutionism among aspects of their politics. There are also aspects of my own politics that I didn't include, such as a dislike for the collaborationist attributes of anti-fascism and anti-imperialism. Finally, nothing here is set in stone; even the name is sort of supposed to be funny and/or make a point more than anything else, and if someone suggests a change that I like, I'll change it.

Strictly in a direct sense, this piece was prompted by my discovery today of this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/interested-psl-t181765/index.html) - as amusing as it is to see leftist organizations trolling other leftist organizations, I would also like to see some kind of alternative that is satisfying to me personally. In a broader sense, it's inspired by what I like about the ideas behind both the ICC/ICT and RAAN, and the (subjective) issues I've seen that have made me hesitant to fully get behind them or reject them entirely, respectively. I'd like to find a brand of non-substitutionism that works for me. Yes, I know that sounds like a shitty TV ad. (If I'm being honest, there's also some of the things I like behind the idea (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick) of Wikipedia that subconsciously wormed their way in here.)

If this thing doesn't take off, or remains restricted to a couple people on RevLeft, I'm happy with that; this was more about putting these ideas out there so I could discuss them. I'm open to the idea that this whole thing is redundant. If people do like it, that's great for my ego in a writerly sense, but I'm not trying to be another little mini-dictator or add another stupid acronym to the list of organizations clogging up the left. Use these ideas as you see fit.

Finally, if everyone hates it, then I was just joking.

[MarxSchmarx]

My issue with groups like this is that it's all well and good to call for "promiting the concept... of the working class being a class-for-itself" or "find ways to spread the communist agenda among the working class" but I don't find these to be practical or concrete proposals upon which people can act. Exactly how do you propose to implement these lofty objectives? So you are against getting drunk and protesting (at least on the latter I agree) but I'm not sure what material alternative you are offering.

If you ask 99 out of a 100 sect-lets on the left, they'll agree with you that "spreading the communist agenda" and getting the working class to liberate itself is a laudable goal. Sectarianism has its darkside, but one IMO legit reason it happens is because groups of any consequence are forced to think seriously about how exactly we're going to do this stuff. The leads to disagreements, but at least people are (sort of) proposing something even if it's all terrible ideas (and almost all are).

That's a constructive contribution on some level. But merely repeating leftist platitudes, saying we "need to think about it" is in my view kind of like "raising awareness." Yeah who can be against "awareness", but then when you think about how to go from awareness to actually having solved the problem, you're not very far along. People who are working to solve the problem, even if they're ineffectual,and wrong-headed about it, deserve attention far more than the people calling for "awareness."

That's a major reason why I think allegedly non-sectarian groups on some level don't really work. They have their lofty pronouncements, but as soon as they dip their toes into figuring out how to get from here to there, they immediately face the same sort of problems that sectarians face.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

This is probably going to piss you off, but I think you should know that what you've just put forward is a less poetic version of The Invisible Committee's "The Call".

[synthesis]

My issue with groups like this is that it's all well and good to call for "promiting the concept... of the working class being a class-for-itself" or "find ways to spread the communist agenda among the working class" but I don't find these to be practical or concrete proposals upon which people can act. Exactly how do you propose to implement these lofty objectives? So you are against getting drunk and protesting (at least on the latter I agree) but I'm not sure what material alternative you are offering.

I guess I'm not entirely sure what the substance of your disagreement is. It sort of seems you are misinterpreting what the piece is about, because the point isn't that I have all the answers. It's sort of the opposite. I'm not going to call it a "straw-man," but I get the impression that you either may have missed the point, or are attaching aspects to it that aren't there. There's no "easy answer," and any organization that tells you that one exists is lying to you.

I'll try to address the points you've raised as well as I understand them. The goal in my mind is to provide a blueprint for an organization that is structurally designed to avoid what I see as the problems of existing and historical communist organizations - inter-organizational conflict, factionalism/splitting over personal and relatively minor political issues, ideological rigidity, cults of personality, overly centralized leadership, and so on. The actual process of revolution itself is dependent upon conditions, not ideology.

I mean, the whole concept of a "party for a working class party" is to build an organization with the primary goal of building the working class party as Marx defined it. The PWCP would have no other objective.

Finally, I realized that I should have added that this would not be a "left unity" group. One objective is to understand why sects arise and be able to compensate for those factors in a way that minimizes the effect of sectarianism and factionalism on the ability of communists to promote working class politics. In other words, don't try to build a non-sectarian party; just acknowledge that sectarianism exists and will continue to exist and work from there.

[synthesis]

This is probably going to piss you off, but I think you should know that what you've just put forward is a less poetic version of The Invisible Committee's "The Call".

It doesn't piss me off. I'm not an expert on their material, but I'm aware of those ideas, and in my mind I was trying to put forward a "concrete" alternative to something that I see as more conceptual. But MS doesn't think it's concrete enough. This means that it's either well-balanced or completely useless.

But I should have looked into it more, so I could figure out exactly how much of an unintentional "intellectual debt" I owed them. ("Intellectual debt" being a horribly arrogant phrase that I don't know of any alternatives to.)

[The Idler]

I think its great. It's a conception of a party as a means to an end.

[Hit The North]

Are there any "do's" in your manifesto? If not you might as well add an 11th point to it:

11. Don't join the PWCP. It'll be a waste of your time.

[Hit The North]

I think its great. It's a conception of a party as a means to an end.

I might be dense here, but what is the end?

[synthesis]

Are there any "do's" in your manifesto? If not you might as well add an 11th point to it:

11. Don't join the PWCP. It'll be a waste of your time.

I guess - and this is somewhat important to the point of the "manifesto" - I think of the "do's" as something for the individual members to decide. I mean, I have my own ideas about what the PWCP should do, but I would like to avoid limiting the activity of other people who want to participate beyond the extent to which it is limited in the OP, for structural reasons. One facet is to be able to organize with people in a concrete organization while also not having to defend some ideological tenet of that organization which you don't necessarily hold yourself or back down from criticizing the theory or praxis of other members based on "party unity." Of course it will be inevitable that people will be challenged to defend the actions of other members of their party to people from other organizations, but that's all the more reason to try to come to an agreement on the praxis beforehand. I think this also might be a better response to MS's post than the one I gave above.

To a certain extent, it seems like people might not be used to the idea of belonging to a party that doesn't tell them what to do or believe. I would personally like to have the resources and support that comes with having a "concentrated" party while also not being force-fed the party line or compelled to take part in activities you don't agree with or to not take part in activities you do agree with.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Don't turn the PWCP into another god damn social club. The purpose of the PWCP is not to meet like-minded people to get drunk and/or show up at protests with, it's to get together to find ways to spread the communist agenda among the working class.

Fine, are we at least allowed to try to find ways to collectively spread the communist agenda in social clubs outside the party? Or should we give up on a social life?

[synthesis]

Fine, are we at least allowed to try to find ways to collectively spread the communist agenda in social clubs outside the party?

This is kind of what I was hoping people would take from that. I mean, I don't have a problem with people using politics to socialize, but I think there is value in an organization that consciously de-emphasizes that aspect of belonging to a party.

[Hit The North]

Building the historical "working class party" as defined by Marx.

A party that has no program and no central direction. Is this how Marx defined the "working class party"?

[synthesis]

A party that has no program and no central direction. Is this how Marx defined the "working class party"?

The working class party's "program and central direction" would be to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The PWCP's "program and central direction" is, and I admit the way it has been defined here is vague, building that working class party.