Mass parties?

I wrote this down in an attempt to understand our slogan for mass parties more indepth. While it gives some examples from the Dutch situation, I think the main point is quite clear. Feel free to give your opinion (no, really, I need feedback on this!):

Preamble:

In a discussion I had with someone about the vanguard party I realised that we as CWI have an inconsistent, or worse, wrong stance: namely that about our call on new mass workers parties. I'll try to explain my reasoning step by step and in a question/answer form. I wonder if I'm making a mistake in my reasoning somewhere or that we may have a bigger issue. But lets start at the beginning...

The Problem:

We as CWI hold the analysis that after the transformation of the old social-democracy into open bourgeois parties in the period of the late '80-ies, early '90-ies, the working class was politically homeless. We're clear so far. But from this we conclude a dual task for our organisation:
1.Building our revolutionary organisation. This is pretty obvious and doesn't need explanation.
2.Rebuilding the workers movement. In countries (like the Netherlands) where there is an alternative left of the old social-democracy, we participate in it. In other countries where this is not the case we call for a (new) mass party most of the time.

I'll try to proof that this dual task is in contradiction with itself. But first, let's clear out some premises:

What is a vanguard party?

The working class has, as we know, different layers. One layer is more politically aware and active than the other. The most militant layer is what we call a “vanguard”. In more modern day language you could just as well call them militants or activists. Despite the fact that the working class in general carries out the revolution, it's the activists that are in the front row of all class struggle by leading it, organising it, etc.

The vanguard party (or if you will activist/militant party) is here the conception that we need to organise the militants in s political organisation to gain political clarity inside the vanguard and thereby for the workers movement.

Now, the vanguard is almost by definition a minority of the total working class (the big exception of course being periods of intense class struggle, like a revolutionary period). A vanguard party is thusly by definition a party of a small minority. This creates a paradox: what is the relation between the party ans the rest of the class and how do you prevent isolation? But more on this later. First...

What is the character of the mass party?

If we look into the history of mass workers parties we see an obvious problem: none of these parties have ever played a revolutionary role. Why is that? I could of course digg into the history books and talk about the German SPD, but our current day Dutch SP is a fine example aswell (although this party obviously represents a much smaller mass). If we look to the membership of the party we see that only 2 or 3% of the party is actually active in a more or less sense (mostly the latter) in the partylife. That isn't very strange, because we just stated that the vanguard is certainly not a majority within the working class, so within a mass party activists will also be a minority. But there are other reasons. The most important one I think is perhaps the very low barrier to become a member... If we look to the organisational principal of democratic-centralism, we see quite clearly why this is a problem.

Democratic-centralism implies, among other things, a balance between a central leadership anda democratic counterbalance from the membership. Important here is of course that the members are actively engaged in party life, because else the centralistic tendencies get the upper hand. And this is exactly what we see (in an extreme sense) in the SP: the party leadership can do whatever it pleases. And when members do want to get active, this is immediately suppressed, else members will look on the leaderships' fingers and that's not what the leadership wants of course. A classic bureaucratic reflex is to discourage normal members from actively participating in the party life as much as possible.

The consequences are obvious. When the revolution happens, the mass party plays a reactionary role. Indeed, the SPD is the classic example in this. When the workers needed them, they played an openly counter-revolutionary role.

The first important conclusion is then obviously: a mass party is because of its inherent character anti-revolutionary, or anyway a revolutionary mass party can be very easily couped by a rightwing leadership in times of low class consciousness.

Now we have that paradox again: If we try to achieve as big a unity among the working class as possible, how can we then organise it if not inside a mass party? How do we prevent isolation from the rest of the class (and with it the vanguard)?

The classic answer is: the union. Despite the fact that the union suffers from the same disease as the mass party (that is: an anti-revolutionary leadership), it has the great advantage that she's not organised around political but economical struggle. That is to say, it is an advantage for us to find activists to build our activists party and to keep in touch with the rest of the working class and to be able to give political leadership to it.

So, does this mean we don't have anything to gain from existing mass parties?

Sure we do. But I think we have a strange tradition here aswell. When Trotsky proposed the tactic of entrism he meant to work inside political formations for a short period to convince as many militants as possible to our program, and then move on. It's a tactic of primitive accumulation of activists.

Militant had its roots in a completely different situation. Ted Grant wasn't in favor of entering the Labour party at the end of the '40-ies. He much rather defended an independent organisation. However, the majority left for Labour and so did he. From this grouping Militant (and us) later arised. But the entrism of Militant had a completely different character than proposed by Trotsky and went beyond the tactic of primitive accumulation of activists. It became a goal in itself to remain active inside Labour. This later became the main reason for the split between the CWI and the IMT, but that's a different discussion.

The point I want to make is this: Conclusion 2: We're in the SP to build our organisation, not to build the SP (see first conclusion on why).

We're not doing this a lot/at all (because of multiple factors, mainly the repressive party bureaucracy). A logical conclusion from this is that political support isn't giving us any extra benefit, in fact it only adds confusion because we're linking ourselves to a mass party.

Is the call for a mass party, where it applies, universal in our international?

Not quite. The Belgian comrades for example call for a syndical party. In the context it simply means a party from union activists. In other words a vanguard party (thusly not a mass party). I think this is a more correct approach than the call for a mass party.

An answer on the problem?

I'm not sure if my logic is wrong at some point, if so I do like to hear why. But I'm afraid that by working towards a new mass workers party it'll be a formula for a new generation of betrayal, rightwing leaderships and more of that what we saw in the last century... What I do agree with is that a cooperation with other organisations can bring us forward. But this has to be specifically under a revolutionary flag (of course still using the transitionary method). A revolutionary workers party and thus a vanguard party.

Clearly a well thought out critque of party policy , if I could rep you I would.

Its always good to hear stuff like this , shows comrades are on their toes .

I can't really post about it because we've already talked about it but anyway, I'd like to see other comrades perspectives .

First things come first. Your attempt to formulate a positive critique of the party's stance towards working class representation is one of the few posts that actually contributes something to this board. I had enough with the Stalin vs. "somebody else than Stalin" crap.

Second, and here are my 2 cents explaining why some my opinions differ from the Trotskyist tradtion of post-WW2, in my opinion you should've started with an attempt to formulate a definition of what a workers' party is. Which means you should have looked back for advice in the Communist Manifesto. A workers' party is a proletarian party.

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

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

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

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.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties [is the] formation of the proletariat into a [political] class [fuer sich], overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

This means that in theory all parties of the First and early Second International were workers' parties. These parties turned a proletarian class an sich into a class fuer sich. The Dutch Socialist Party and the parties of the "late" Second International are not workers' parties because they tend to tie the working class cosely to the bourgeoisie via (participation in) the capitalist state.

The Problem:

We as CWI hold the analysis that after the transformation of the old social-democracy into open bourgeois parties in the period of the late '80-ies, early '90-ies, the working class was politically homeless. We're clear so far.

Because of organic links with the trade unions Lenin used to write that most parties of the Second International were bourgeois workers' parties. In my opinion this doesn't mean that those were/are workers' parties. It's a term for a process of "bourgeoisification" of the former proletarian parties. When the process ends these parties become genuine capitalist parties.

But from this we conclude a dual task for our organisation:
1.Building our revolutionary organisation. This is pretty obvious and doesn't need explanation.
2.Rebuilding the workers movement. In countries (like the Netherlands) where there is an alternative left of the old social-democracy, we participate in it. In other countries where this is not the case we call for a (new) mass party most of the time.

I don't like the concept of the dual task. There's one task and that is the formation of a politically independent working class party. But you could say that both the dual concept and my concept are the same. It might just be formulation

I'll try to proof that this dual task is in contradiction with itself. But first, let's clear out some premises:

What is a vanguard party?

The working class has, as we know, different layers. One layer is more politically aware and active than the other. The most militant layer is what we call a “vanguard”. In more modern day language you could just as well call them militants or activists. Despite the fact that the working class in general carries out the revolution, it's the activists that are in the front row of all class struggle by leading it, organising it, etc.

The vanguard party (or if you will activist/militant party) is here the conception that we need to organise the militants in [a] political organisation to gain political clarity inside the vanguard and thereby for the workers movement.

Now, the vanguard is almost by definition a minority of the total working class (the big exception of course being periods of intense class struggle, like a revolutionary period). A vanguard party is thusly by definition a party of a small minority. This creates a paradox: what is the relation between the party ans the rest of the class and how do you prevent isolation? But more on this later. First...

You should also spend some time to the question of what kind of goal a working class party has. The goal of a vanguard party is to train, guide, lead and educate the proletariat. The proletariat has a historical, revolutionary task to furfill. That's the knowledge communists have. Only it's political organization is sufficient to preserve the legacy of this knowledge. An other part of the definition of the vanguard is it's "dialectical relation" with mass (class) struggles.

Now comes a question of mine. A vanguard is a minority. But isn't a mass workers' party also possibly a minority? Especially the active "layers" form a minority. Why should there be a difference between a vanguard party and a mass workers' party? My defintion of the vanguard (or aspects thereof) and my insistance on the independent character of the proletarian party make it useless to differentiate between both the mass and the vanguard party.

What is the character of the mass party?
[...]

Democratic-centralism implies, among other things, a balance between a central leadership anda democratic counterbalance from the membership. Important here is of course that the members are actively engaged in party life, because else the centralistic tendencies get the upper hand. And this is exactly what we see (in an extreme sense) in the SP: the party leadership can do whatever it pleases. And when members do want to get active, this is immediately suppressed, else members will look on the leaderships' fingers and that's not what the leadership wants of course. A classic bureaucratic reflex is to discourage normal members from actively participating in the party life as much as possible.

I ignored the first part because in my opinion the lack of democratic centralism is the reason for the lack of political activity. Why staying active when the bureaucracy thinks for you and private companies work in you place (f.e. during elections)? Genuine proletarian parties are democratic. The RCP(b) was and the SPD was. But shit happens. Capital is the principal enemy of labour and therefor it wants to take over the workers' parties. This happened to the SPD and this also happened to the RCP(b), yet in a totally different way.

The consequences are obvious. When the revolution happens, the mass party plays a reactionary role. Indeed, the SPD is the classic example in this. When the workers needed them, they played an openly counter-revolutionary role.

The first important conclusion is then obviously: a mass party is because of its inherent character anti-revolutionary, or anyway a revolutionary mass party can be very easily couped by a rightwing leadership in times of low class consciousness.

Now we have that paradox again: If we try to achieve as big a unity among the working class as possible, how can we then organise it if not inside a mass party? How do we prevent isolation from the rest of the class (and with it the vanguard)?

The SPD and the RCP(b) of 1917 are examples of what I believe are "mass working class vanguard parties". Yet the SPD made a mistake. It did not have the necessary organizational principles (and theories!) to fight against the threats of imperialism. In short you could say the SPD organized too many layers. It also organized the ones that were defending imperialism. An agent of this layer of workers' aristocrats was Friedrich Ebert. He belonged to the leadership of the unions. After a certain amount of time necessary for the growth of this layer, the labour aristorcrats captured the party's leadership. Old revolutionaries like Bebel were the last obstacle. Bebel died in 1913.

Mass parties are not necessarily counter-revolutionary. It depends on the defence of the political class-independence of the party. The SPD and other parties failed partially because revolutionary marxism only started to formulate an adequate definition of imperialism during the First World War.

The stage of imperialism is one of buying out certain layers of the working class. We cannot incorporate them because they defend the interests of the capitalist class. What a mass independent vanguard party should do however is start a struggle for the united front. The workers' of the independent working class party should unite with the workers of other parties around immediate struggles and demands.

The classic answer is: the union. Despite the fact that the union suffers from the same disease as the mass party (that is: an anti-revolutionary leadership), it has the great advantage that she's not organised around political but economical struggle. That is to say, it is an advantage for us to find activists to build our activists party and to keep in touch with the rest of the working class and to be able to give political leadership to it.

Indeed. Even though the union bureaucracies have the same interests as the capitalist class because of their mediary position the focus on economic struggles (the struggle of labour against capital) makes it possible for revolutionaries to find more active militants in trade unions.

The point I want to make is this: Conclusion 2: We're in the SP to build our organisation, not to build the SP (see first conclusion on why).

We're not doing this a lot/at all (because of multiple factors, mainly the repressive party bureaucracy). A logical conclusion from this is that political support isn't giving us any extra benefit, in fact it only adds confusion because we're linking ourselves to a mass party.

In my opinion the problem with the Dutch comrades it the indirect support for a capitalist party (or at least some sort of bourgeois workers' party). A capitalist party that claims to represent the working class can only have temporary successes.

Is the call for a mass party, where it applies, universal in our international?

Not quite. The Belgian comrades for example call for a syndical party. In the context it simply means a party from union activists. In other words a vanguard party (thusly not a mass party). I think this is a more correct approach than the call for a mass party.

For one reason or another the slogan does not appear in our propagandic work anymore. The call for a (mass) workers' party is again our main focus.

An answer on the problem?

I'm not sure if my logic is wrong at some point, if so I do like to hear why. But I'm afraid that by working towards a new mass workers party it'll be a formula for a new generation of betrayal, rightwing leaderships and more of that what we saw in the last century... What I do agree with is that a cooperation with other organisations can bring us forward. But this has to be specifically under a revolutionary flag (of course still using the transitionary method). A revolutionary workers party and thus a vanguard party.

I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the transitional method formulated in traditional transitional programs. But that's maybe a totally different question.

I hope I didn't make things worse in any way.

Ah, thank you for your post
I'll respond to it indepth later on.

It's something I've been doing research on since March 2008. It's not something I'm intirely sure of, but it is in some way a reflection of my ideas. Most is based on attempts to analyse the history of the 2nd and 3rd International.

As a sympathizer of specifically the CWI's European organizations, I'd like to add to a couple of the comments made on the relationship between "parties" and "movements":

But from this we conclude a dual task for our organisation:
1.Building our revolutionary organisation. This is pretty obvious and doesn't need explanation.
2.Rebuilding the workers movement. In countries (like the Netherlands) where there is an alternative left of the old social-democracy, we participate in it. In other countries where this is not the case we call for a (new) mass party most of the time.

I don't like the concept of the dual task. There's one task and that is the formation of a politically independent working class party. But you could say that both the dual concept and my concept are the same. It might just be formulation.

There are some differences, actually. Q's formulation comes from Left-Wing Communism. At that time, Lenin's formulation of the merger formula - the merger of revolutionary "socialism" and the worker-class movement - was, alas, corrupted (though certainly to a much lesser extent than that of a certain senile renegade).

"How is the discipline of the proletariat’s revolutionary party maintained? How is it tested? How is it reinforced? First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism. Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and—if you wish—merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people"

I am not in the CWI - I am in the League for the Fifth International, but I thought the original post raised a lot of good points of discussions so thought it might be useful to contribute.

Our experience in Britain of the Campaign for a New Workers Party has been frankly disastrous. After a very promising start it simply was not built, the CWI only wanted to use it as a petition campaign, to collect details of trade unionists, and after some half serious initial meetings in various towns and cities simply shelved it as a real campaign.

The campaign, if it was built for properly could have acted as a real point of organisation for potentially thousands of workers and youth looking to build an alternative to the Labour party. we have not had such an opportunity in Britain probably since the end of World war two - but the opportunity was squandered, and has now been replaced by the atrocious left-nationalists No2EU with the Stalinists who are actively in favour of promoting British capitalism against European capital, immigration controls and so on.

The reason why the CWI did not build this campaign was three fold
1. An ontological reason, they already think they are the left alternative to labour (hence the name, the Socialist PARTY).Why build a new left of labour party when they are already it?
2. Other socialist groups joined it and the CWI did not want the hassle of debating them and working with them to build the campaign.
3. The CWI operates a broad left policy in the trade unions, cosying up to tleft bureacrats and refusing to challange them openly, even supporting them when they call off strikes (in the civil service union the PCS for instance). A new workers party would have to be built as a fighting organisation, often in opposition to these leaders, something the CWI was not willing to do.

The CWI also closed down the avenue for debate within the new formation from a very early stage and ensured the new party adopted an explictly reformist programme. Why was this? Why are revolutionaries building a new reformist party? Have the comrades not read Crisis of the French section and Trotsky's argument against Moliniers 'broad left' La Commune paper?

Speaking of the old man, what about this gem of an example of the method that revolutionaries must use in the new workers party tactic.

“A long period of confusion in the Comintern led many people to forget a very simple but absolutely irrevocable principle: that a Marxist, a proletarian revolutionist, cannot present himself before the working class with two banners. He cannot say at a workers’ meeting: “I have a ticket for a first-class party and another, cheaper ticket for the backward workers.”
(Leon Trotsky On the Labor Party in the United States)
taken from http://www.fifthinternational.org/in...4,1133,0,0,1,0

I think this links in with the general confusion that the first poster raised about the attitude of the CWI to the mass workers parties and how to work in them.

The New workers party tactic as Trotsky codified it by 1938 was quite simple. Communists advocate the creation of a working class party (a mass party) where no such body exists or there is a desire by sections of the class for a new party of this kind. Socialists work with reformists to build it, seeking to draw in the maximum number of workers, youth, immigrants and so on. The vanguard party is the revolutionary party or pre party formation. It sees the new workers party as an arena for struggle for communist ideas, not to prematurely force a communist programme onto a new and weak organisation, but to win the battle of ideas in practice inside the new party. This can be a useful tactic (not a strategy!) on the road to a mass revolutionary working class party.