Considerations on the party’s organic activity when the general situation is historic

Here is a link.

It's supposed to by "historically unfavorable". Sorry.

...only with the party and with party action the proletariat becomes a class for itself and for the revolution.

I agree with this. Bordiga makes this claim much more elegantly and explains it much better in some of his other works though.

This next quote is basically Bordiga rejecting claims that critics have made of his ideas in a very blunt way, and I really like the quote. It shows Bordiga never actively claimed it didn't matter how insignificant and small the party was as long as it was pure and other shitty arguments.

We don"t want a secret sect or élite party, refusing any contact with the outside, owing to a purity mania. We reject any formula of workerist or labourist party excluding all non-proletarians; as it is a formula belonging to all historical opportunists. We don’ t want to reduce the party to an organisation of a cultural, intellectual and scholastic type, as from polemics more than half a century old; neither do we believe, as certain anarchists and blanquists do, that a party is imaginable which is involved in conspiratorial armed action and in hatching plots.

The next quote is a good rejection of the form of democratic centralism that the Bolsheviks ended up supporting.

It would be a fatal error to consider the party as dividable into two groups, one of which is dedicated to the study and the other to action; such a distinction is deadly for the body of the party, as well as for the individual militant. The meaning of unitarism and of organic centralism is that the party develops inside itself the organs suited to the various functions, which we call propaganda, proselytism, proletarian organisation, union work, etc., up to tomorrow, the armed organisation; but nothing can be inferred from the number of comrades destined for such functions, as on principle no comrade must be left out of any of them.

Well, the writing talks about more things but I would be just repeating other things I said in previous writings on the subjects, so I don't see the point in that. Kind of a disappointing writing.

the party cannot avoid being influenced by the caharacter of the real situation surrounding it. Therefore the big existing proletarian parties are - necessarily and avowedly - opportunist.

I agree with this. And from this fact, Bordiga draws the following conclusion:

our party must not abstain from resisting in such a situation; it must instead survive and hand down the flame, along the historical "thread of time". It will be a small party, not owing to our will or choice, but because of ineluctable necessity.

I also agree with this. In an historically unfavorable situation, the Party should not strive for mass support but should rather seek to conserve the doctrines of revolutionary Marxism (i.e., cotninue to act as the "historical" party). Striving for a mass party in such a situation would render the latter task an impossibility, as the (petit) bourgeois elements infecting the masses would lead the Party into opportunism and revisionism.

We don"t want a secret sect or élite party, refusing any contact with the outside, owing to a purity mania. We reject any formula of workerist or labourist party excluding all non-proletarians; as it is a formula belonging to all historical opportunists. We don’ t want to reduce the party to an organisation of a cultural, intellectual and scholastic type, as from polemics more than half a century old; neither do we believe, as certain anarchists and blanquists do, that a party is imaginable which is involved in conspiratorial armed action and in hatching plots.

I agree with all of these and think that it is important that Bordiga addressed these persistent caricatures and misrepresentations of the Italian Communist Left.

It would be a fatal error to consider the party as dividable into two groups, one of which is dedicated to the study and the other to action; such a distinction is deadly for the body of the party, as well as for the individual militant. The meaning of unitarism and of organic centralism is that the party develops inside itself the organs suited to the various functions, which we call propaganda, proselytism, proletarian organisation, union work, etc., up to tomorrow, the armed organisation; but nothing can be inferred from the number of comrades destined for such functions, as on principle no comrade must be left out of any of them.

I swear I've read this before. Was this taken verbatim from another one of Bordiga's writings?

Anyway, I agree with it.

when, on the basis of Marx’s words we maintain that without a revolutionary and communist party, the proletariat may be a class for bourgeois science, but it is not for us and Marx himself; then the conclusion to be deduced is that, in order to achieve victory, it will be necessary to have a party, worthy at the same time of both characteristics, those of historical party and formal party, i.e. to have solved in the reality of action and history the apparent contradiction – that dominated a long and difficult past – between historical party, then as far as the content (historical, invariant programme) is concerned, and contingent party, that is relating to the form, operating as a force and a physical praxis of a decisive part of the struggling proletariat.

I like Bordiga's distinction between the "formal" party and the "historical" party here. I agree that the class party must be both historical and formal in historical situations that render this possible. (Obviously in historically unfavorable situations, the class party will act primarily as an historical party and not as a formal party.)

the dawning organism, by utilising the whole of the doctrinal and praxis-based tradition – as confirmed by the historical verification of timely expectations – puts it into effect also with its everyday action; it pursues the aim of re-establishing an always wider contact with the exploited masses, and it eliminates from its structure one of the starting errors of the Moscow International, by getting rid of democratic centralism and of any voting mechanism, as well as every last member eliminating from his ideology any concession to democratoid, pacifist, autonomist or libertarian trends.

So Bordiga makes two proposals here regarding the nature of the future class party or International ("the dawning organism"). Firstly, Bordiga says that it will renounce democratic centralism and voting mechanisms. I think the decision-making mechanism to be implemented within the international class party is a question that cannot be answered with recourse to principles but must be answered in accordance with whatever is practical given current material conditions. As thsi is the organic centralist position, I'm sure Bordiga would agree. Therefore, I think that Bordiga was saying that at the time of this writing (1965), democratic centralism would be an impratical basis for a new international class party.

Secondly, Bordiga proposed that all members of this new class party renounce any ideological concessions to democratic, pacifist, autonomist, or libertarian tendencies. With this, I completely agree.

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Overall, while I did enjoy this text, there really wasn't anything new here for someone already moderately familiar with Bordiga's writings. I'd say the best part of this text was Bordiga's discussion of the "historical" party and the "formal" party.