By Alex
However necessary a vanguard party is, the Left as a whole is currently confused and disoriented because not only is there no vanguard, but the whole idea of a vanguard has become muddled and distorted by the degeneration of the workers’ state in the USSR and the flat-out non-existence of the workers’ state in other “communist” nations.
The massive amount of misconceptions that came out of the October Revolution of 1917 will be difficult to clear up, but it is possible.
Unfortunately, the main reason those misconceptions have NOT been cleared up at this point is because of the countless cult-like organization where Marxism and Leninism have been converted into a sort of religion. These groups denounce the failures of the USSR and other regimes on the surface, yet they turn around and throw phrases at us like “democratic centralism” and “dictatorship of the proletariat” without understanding what those phrases actually mean.
These organizations claim to support democracy and genuine workers’ rule, but when asked the tough questions like “will one party hold a monopoly over political power?” they cannot answer! When asked about the need for the entire working class to have CONCRETE democratic rights of free speech and organization, they cannot answer! When asked about whether the workers will have direct control over their vanguard organization, they will not answer!
This is extremely confusing for people on the Left and it has led to the complete theoretical bankruptcy of nearly all 21st century “Marxist” thought.
We have to be clear that classes are led by parties. I believe that history has demonstrated that a vanguard party in some form will be a necessary tool in mobilizing the masses.
However, if we want to create a successful vanguard capable of mobilizing the masses and ending bourgeois rule, I believe there are several things that have to be done:
1. This organization must implement the principle of COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY. Workers need to be able to see what goes on behind the curtain and provide input, or else it’s not really their organization is it?
2. We must dare to talk about our goal. We must make clear that workers’ rule WILL NOT look like the degenerated police state of the USSR. Further, we must also drive home that even workers’ rule is not our ultimate goal. Stateless, classless society with peace and abundance is our long-term goal, with the necessary precursor of workers’ rule as a short-term goal.
3. We must make clear that in a post-revolutionary situation, the vanguard party CANNOT be the ruling party. If there is one party that maintains a monopoly over political power, it must suppress all that oppose it to maintain this position. This includes the suppression of those who expose the possible corruption, hypocrisy, and degeneration that may exist within the party. Thus, a monolithic party-state will lead to degeneration (this is what has happened every time to date) and is contradictory to the concept of workers’ rule.
4. Above all, we have to be clear that workers will have concrete democratic rights of free speech under workers’ rule.
We have to be sure not to separate democratic rights from popular support, however. Revolutions like the Hungarian revolution ultimately failed because the revolution did not have popular support.
If the vanguard party does not have the popular support of the masses before and after the revolution, it cannot allow democratic rights of free speech and organization because the unhappy population will go along with anyone who opposes the vanguard, and thus the bourgeoisie will be able to manipulate the masses and retake power.
However, workers’ rule will be suffocated and in its place will arise a corrupt bureaucracy if such democratic rights of free speech do not exist.
So, we had damn well better make sure that the vanguard party has the support of the masses.
Many Leftist organizations insist that one party (the “real” Marxist party) will have to maintain a monopoly over political power because they are the only “real” representatives of the class, and that socialism cannot afford “breaks in the ranks.”
But if the “real” Marxist party has the popular support of the masses, it will not need to suppress democratic rights, and thus, workers will be able to expose any potential corruption from within the party and deal with it. In short, workers’ rule will be successful.
Further, the key to gaining the popular support of the masses is to assure them that true workers’ rule will not have to suppress democratic rights. So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: if we gain popular support, workers will have democratic rights of free speech and workers’ rule will be successful; if we assure the masses that they will have democratic rights and workers’ rule will be successful, we will have popular support.
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Appendix A: On Centralism
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One of the reasons for the rejection of the concept of a vanguard party is that it has a tendency, many claim, to become a corrupt group of elitists who do not really represent the class. They assert that such a party is naturally undemocratic. It is true that vanguard parties in the past have has this problem, but this is no reason to reject the entire notion of a vanguard party. The Left in a state of confusion and disarray, and a vanguard in some form will be a very usefull and, I believe, necessary tool in organizing the masses. Unfortunately, this issue is not being resolved because of the prethera of “Marxist-Leninist” groups that continue to assert that centralism is a necessary feature of a vanguard party in the 21st century.
Lenin’s ideal vanguard organization was one that would have been completely transparent, where the “entire political arena is as open to the public view as is a theatre stage to the audience.” In this way, elitism and corruption that could emerge in the party would be exposed, and the masses would be able to assert genuine control over the vanguard organization. In short, transparency would allow such a party to belong to the working class.
However, the implementation in Russia was quite different. The extremely harsh political conditions led Lenin to believe that the vanguard would need a more centralized and secretive structure. Members of the party had to distribute pamphlets and newspapers in secret, as they were illegal, and they often had to avoid Russia’s secret police. Further, such a centralized structure can be useful in terms of military effectiveness, as it was understood that in Russia, such military discipline would be necessary in order to effectively confront the powerful Czarist regime.
The first thing we have to understand is that this centralized structure comes with a fairly large number of problems. Centralization and secresy, which was intended to keep the Russian government “out of the loop,” in many cases kept the workers “out of the loop” as well. And organization can also be so secretive that members of the party don’t know what’s going on. Although this ensures that no one will leak any information, it can lead to huge misunderstandings in a time when clarity is needed. Moreover, if the workers cannot see what goes on behind the curtain, corruption, hypocrisy, elitism, etc. can all go unchecked.
The second thing we have to realize is that the centralization of the vanguard party in Russia was a measure designed for Russia specifically. Russia was an extremely backward society. It is wrong to believe that such measures will be necessary in a stable, modern society like the United States, for example. And the risks of centralism today far outweigh its benefits.
It is necessary for vanguard organizations in the 21st century to adopt a much more transparent program similar to that which was advocated initially by Lenin in “What is to be Done?” The workers must be able to see what goes on behind or else it’s not really their organization.
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Appendix B: What about counter-revolutionaries?
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This came up in a discussion when I mentioned that the vanguard party cannot be the ruling party:
>not necessarily. The revolution may need to defend itself and thus need to
>defend the workers. a party of opposition may be to the state a party of counter-
>revolution.
Indeed. But first of all, it is not practical or necessary to suppress such parties for this reason:
The authority to decide what is acceptable, healthy, or unhealthy in culture must be given to the working class and not a centralized point of control.
Frank (founder of the CVO and a proponent of single-party rule) argues:
> To even gain power and therefore have democratic rights
> like freedom of speech the proletariat is going to have
> to deny such freedoms to others.
This is simply not true. In capitalist nations, the bourgeoisie firmly hold power, but the workers still have democratic rights of free speech even though what they say goes against the very existence of the bourgeoisie [this is why we are able to have this discussion 
]. But no one who truly understands how our society works would say that the workers rule.
Similarly, the democratic rights of those who oppose workers’ rule will not need to be suppressed for the workers to rule.
Secondly, if the vanguard party has the popular support of the masses, it will have nothing to fear from allowing democratic rights. Specific, corrupt individuals may have something to fear from it, but workers’ rule, as a whole, will have nothing to fear. On the contrary, workers’ rule NEEDS these democratic rights.
Further still, there is a major difference between closing a bourgeois TV station that exploits its workers and limiting the ability of people to organize in the streets and distribute leaflets, etc. The first would be completely acceptable. But the second is extremely dangerous and such suppression has led to the degeneration of every single workers’ state to date.
The fetish with centralized control over politics and economy that has infected a large portion of the Left comes from a misunderstanding of what happened in the USSR. The suppression of democratic rights in the USSR didn’t start with Stalin. It started with Lenin. But the fundamental difference between these two people was that Lenin made clear that the limitations on democratic rights and the merger between party and state were temporary emergency measures. Lenin knew it was a gamble but in Russia there were two options: a) Hand over power to the bourgeoisie, or b) temporarily suppress democratic rights to allow the Bolsheviks time to repair the shattered economy, so that there might be a chance that workers’ rule would be possible in the future.
But Lenin was incapacitated and Stalin took over. Stalin turned these temporary emergency measures into supposedly necessary and essential features of socialism. And although most organizations on the Left denounce the Stalin of the 1930s that murdered a huge portion of the working class, they do not denounce the early Stalin that asserted that the suppression of democratic rights was essential to socialism. And this is where the Left is crippled theoretically.
It is completely backward to assume that such measures, which were recognized by Lenin to be temporary emergency measures that were necessary specifically in Russia, will be necessary in a stable modern society.
In fact, such suppression will not only be dangerous to the emergence of genuine workers’ rule, but it will be detrimental to the economy. Suppression of democratic rights will necessarily mean the censorship of the internet to some extent. And since so much of the economy has gone digital, this will mean that limiting the internet will cripple a modern economy’s ability to function and sustain itself. One only has to look at China to discover the impracticality of censoring democratic rights.
In short, we need new paradigms that apply to modern societies like the ones in which we currently live and are applicable to the 21st century. And to be able to mobilize the masses and guide them to victory, political organizations will have to make this point clear; they will have to physically go out an tell people that complete democratic rights will be essential to workers’ rule, instead of just “implying” it the same evasive way that people use to justify the corrupt Soviet and Chinese regimes. Because without doing this, the masses will remain confused and will be turned off by the increasing cultishness of mainstream Leftist organizations.
The party can lead the class, but the party is not the class. If one party rules, the class does not. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
“The proletariat cannot achieve the socialist revolution unless it is prepared for this task by the struggle for democracy; victorious socialism cannot retain its victory and lead humanity to the stage when the state withers away unless it establishes complete democracy.” — V.I. Lenin
1 response so far ↓
Ben Seattle // February 15, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Hi Alex,
Apologies for the delay in responding to your essay on how vanguard parties may look in the 21st century.
Your article is timely inasmuch as the question of the party is central to any effort of activists (and the working class) to overthrow the system of bourgeois rule and to build a better world of peace and abundance for all.
So, just to get started, will the vanguard party be a “party” and will it be a “vanguard”? And what do these words mean anyway?
“Vanguard” basically means “leader”. I am not sure when the term “vanguard” became popular–but today this term is associated with cargo-cult Leninist parties that imagine they are leading (or will lead) the working class but which are not capable of leading themselves.
Because of the strong association of this word with clueless cargo-cults — my guess is that when a vanguard party emerges–it will not call itself a “vanguard” party. Rather, it will simply act as one — ie: it will give leadership to activists and to the working class.
So how about the word “party”? What does this word mean?
The word “party” often refers to an organization which presents itself to the masses as being capable of running society. It implies that the organization is sufficiently large and experienced and has enough support among the masses to run whatever country it is in.
This word has another meaning also: it is sometimes used to refer to an organization which sees itself as capable of growing up to be a real party — as soon as enough activists and workers wake up and join its ranks (when they discover its ability to lead).
Further–the word “party” implies that a certain amount of sorting out of political trends has taken place: that the party includes the “good” activists and excludes the “bad” ones (where the definition of “good” and “bad” varies but often means _consolidation_ around a particular set of politics or beliefs — including sometimes particular beliefs concerning the practice of Trotsky, Mao or some other well-known revolutionary leader).
In the mid to late 1970’s a number of revolutionary groups in the US that emerged from the antiwar movement (in the period following 1968–when mass recognition of the nature of the Democratic Party and the imperialist nature of the society we live in led hundreds of thousands of activists to revolutionary conclusions) declared themselves to be parties. For example, the “Revolutionary Union” declared itself to be the “Revolutionary COmmunist Party” and the “Central Organization of U.S. Marxists Leninists” (which I supported) declared itself to be the “Marxist-Leninist Party”.
And sometimes the word “party” is used interchangably with “revolutionary organization”.
What is common to these definitions (in the context of a revolutionary party or organization) is that the goal of the party (or organization) is to take power (or have the working class take power) from the bourgeoisie. So the idea here is that the party or organization is not simply for the purpose of stopping the war (ie: whether the war in Vietnam in the 1960’s or the war in Iraq and Afghanistan today) or of assisting in various mass struggles — but in one way or another is committed to _ovethrowing_ the system of bourgeois rule and _replacing_ the economic system of capitalism with something that will, presumably, work better.
I sometimes use the word “party” in my writings to refer to a revolutionary organization that corresponds to the first definition (ie: an organization large enough and capable enough and with enough support to run the country). And sometimes I use the term in a way that includes elements of the second and third definitions (ie: an organization which is not large enough to run the country — but is intent on becoming so — or to imply that a large degree of consolidation and clarity has been achieved concerning what is healthy and unhealthy in the progressive and working class movements) — but I usually try to avoid this since it can create unclarity. Different readers will have different definitions in their heads concerning what is meant by the word “party”. When we write, we do so for an audience, and we want to do our best to reduce unclarity.
And I have also used the phrase “party of the future” to refer to the _project_ of building a genuinely revolutionary mass party or to refer to this party in a generic sense (ie: it is the party we will build in the future and it is the party that will make the future a reality — rather than “the party of the future” being the _name_ of this party). I began to write a series named “How to Build the Party of the Future” in 1997 (it has remained unfinished since I suspended work on it nearly ten years ago–but I intend to complete it). And the email lists we use (ie: POF-100, POF-200, POF-300 and others that are reserved for future use such as POF-400 and POF-600) are named after “the Party of the Future”.
To reduce confusion, however, I often, instead of using the word “party”, simply refer to the creation of “revolutionary organization”. And sometimes, I will add (in parentheses) “or system of revolutionary organizations”.
From the point of view of theory there is no fundamental distinction between a single party and a system of parties–if we think of this system of parties as being united around certain core principles. This is because a single party would contain internal groups that would engage in open struggle with one another and this struggle would be more or less equivalent to the struggle of parties in a system of parties.
The cargo-cultists view matters differently–and sometimes focus on the ability of a single party to keep its internal struggles secret from the class enemy and to “keep secrets” in general. The problem with the cargo-cultist view–is that keeping things secret from the class enemy also means keeping these same things secret from the working class. But we need the energy and consciousness of the working class to help resolve the issues which are important–and if we keep the working class in the dark–we will have fucked ourselves.
Of course there are rare instances when important decisions must be kept secret (for example the decision of the bolsheviks to initiate an unprising in October 1917). But, with the exception of these rare instances (related to time-sensitive tactical suprise or manuever) the general rule is that differences must be open and the masses must have unrestricted access to basic information and news on the differences between revolutionary trends.
* * * * * *
There is also a distinction between the workers’ party in the period before bourgeois rule is overthrown and after.
I have written about the party in the period after bourgeois rule is overthrown in my recent reply to Joseph [1]. It is very important to recognize, as you correctly note, that this party will not be “merged” with the state or maintain a monopoly on power–and the working class, however much it may trust this party, will not give this party a mandate to suppress the voice of its opponents. Apologists for bourgeois rule and other reactionaries _will_ have the democratic rights of speech and organization but they will _not_ be able to receive resources from the commercial sector which otherwise (ie: without this restriction) would be used to amplify their voice and give them an advantage in what will be very public struggles over the general direction of society as well as issues of all kinds.
I hope to write (maybe this month–or maybe today) an article dealing with the workers’ party in the period we are in today–before the overthrow of bourgeois rule.
In the meantime I will note that your article is a step forward. We must be focused on our goal and that means that we must think and write about our goal. Not everything we write will be correct or all-sided, of course. But we do not regard ourselves as infallible nor are we concerned with _appearing_ infallible to readers (we are not burdened with that kind of baggage). As we make mistakes–we will also correct them. Over time, others will assist us (in the sense of making their own mistakes and in helping us to correct our own).
With that in mind, I will note that some of your formulations may be somewhat mistaken, one-sided or confusing to readers. These errors are minor in relation to the overall focus and content of your article–but they may be worth mentioning.
You discuss the need for “complete transparency”. I agree–but this phrase may be understood by some readers to be different than we mean it. My experience, in particular, is that cargo-cultists who oppose us will claim that it means that we think there is little or no need for a security culture. A security culture means that we take basic steps to protect our personal identities in our political work. It also means we take steps to make it more difficult for the political police to entrap or frame us, the activists we work with or our political contacts (some of whom may be immigrants and may be extremely vulnerable to harassment or deportation). At this time, it is not possible for most activists to completely hide their identities from the various federal agencies who snoop on us if we engage in significant online activities and choose to conduct our online work from where we live (ie: rather than an online cafe or equivalent). But we can take basic steps, as a matter of professionalism and pride, to make it slightly more difficult for the political police (ie: so that it may take them two hours rather than two minutes to learn our identities) and we can take steps such that our political opponents would find it difficult to learn our real names and potential employers will not find out about our politics by googling our names.
I have used the phrase “political transparency” to help make clear that I support the basic idea of a security culture (ie: what will be transparent will be the politics–not the personal stuff or someone’s identity). If we use this phrase, cargo cultists will still assert that we oppose a security culture–but our position will be more clear to readers.
I wrote about security culture recently in my reply to Ulises on Mike Ely’s blog [2]. The other thing about security culture is that we should not go overboard with it. If we must greatly restrict our political work in order to make it difficult for the political police to track our activity–then they win. It is better to fully carry out the work which is possible and necessary now and recognize that we may face harassment, arrest or other forms of suppression in ten or twenty or thirty years when conditions change and the bourgeoisie may throw aside the first amendment and the rest of the constitution with it. In the meantime, make hay while the sun shines.
* * * * * *
You mention the Hungarian revolution. You are referring to the revolution against the bourgeoisie of 1919 but most readers will think that you are discussing the revolution of 1956 against the revisionist Soviet Union. Many of the leaders of that revolution had aspirations to link Hungary up with Western imperialism rather than with soviet social-imperialism. So the 1956 revolution took place in the context of the cold war with rival imperialists using people like pawns. Many cargo-cults, today, believe that it was correct for Krushchev to send tanks into Hungary and crush the revolt. That’s not my view–I think people in Hungary and elsewhere have the right to determine their own destiny and not be anyone’s puppet. But in any event–this sentence of yours will be understood differently than you intended it.
* * * * * *
> If the vanguard party does not have the popular support
> of the masses before and after the revolution, it cannot
> allow democratic rights of free speech and organization
> because the unhappy population will go along with anyone
> who opposes the vanguard, and thus the bourgeoisie will
> be able to manipulate the masses and retake power.
> …
> Secondly, if the vanguard party has the popular support
> of the masses, it will have nothing to fear from
> allowing democratic rights.
I understand what you mean here. But some readers may think that this implies that the workers’ party and state will be merged. I believe there will be considerable overlap–but it would be the state that would suppress (if there was suppression) not the party. The state has the power of coercion. The party has no power of coercion–its power is based on people voluntarally acting in accord with the principles it promotes. The only _power_ the party has is to expel from its ranks people who fail to follow its discipline.
* * * * * *
> Further, the key to gaining the popular support of
> the masses is to assure them that true workers’ rule
> will not have to suppress democratic rights.
This is not true. Or, it is not true in the sense that many readers may understand it.
Understanding and explaining the nature of democratic rights under workers’ rule is a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition. Workers have democratic rights today, under bourgeois rule. Telling them they will have these same rights under workers’ rule does not therefore, let them know that workers’ rule will be better.
The workers’ party will do lots of work on daily basis to assist (by providing analysis and organization and mobilizing popular support) thousands of struggles of the working class. In this way–the workers’ party will “earn the ear” of the workers. The workers will listen to us because we have shown our ability to understand how society really works by assisting them in their struggles.
But listening to us is not the same as supporting us. If, when they listen to us, workers conclude that what we say is nonsense–then they will not support us. We will promote an understanding of the role of democratic rights under workers’ rule — so that workers will understand that _we_ have a _realistic_ understanding of modern society — so that they will have confidence that a society that is not run by the bourgeoisie is more than a pipe dream of naive do-gooders — but is both possible and necessary. The point is not that they are afraid that “we” will suppress “their” right to speak — but that they need _evidence_ that we understand the conditions of modern society and know what we are talking about. If we have a view that future society will consist of a merged party-state that will suppress the voice of its opponents — then workers will understand that we have a religious (rather than a materialist) orientation. So we talk about democratic rights so that workers will have evidence that we are not wearing blindfolds–that we are materialists.
Many revolutionary activists do not believe or understand that workers are intelligent and informed enough to think and reason at this level. But the point above (ie: that we must give evidence of being materialists) corresponds to how politics (and the struggle of trends) work. We will be accused by our opponents of all kinds of things. We will reply. Workers will watch the action unfold and form their own conclusions. If our ideas are based on religion–this will become clear: it cannot be hidden.
If religious people tell you about a better world–you will be inclined to believe it all “pie in the sky when you die” nonsense.
In terms of the work of the workers’ party — creating clarity on the necessity of democratic rights under workers’ rule — will represent less than one percent of our work. The overwhelming majority of our work will be to assist the workers in their own struggles and help them organize for these struggles. But this one percent is vital. A bullet may weigh less than one percent of the weight of the rifle that holds it. But without this bullet the rifle is useless. With this bullet the soldier becomes effective. Clarity on our goal will be the powerful center of our entire system of agitation and will enable us to bring our goal to the hearts and minds of millions.
* * * * * *
Frank is _not_ the founder of the CVO. Joseph is the leader of this outfit. Frank (and others) are the enablers that make it possible for Joseph to be what he is and act as he does.
* * * * * *
> One only has to look at China to discover the
> impracticality of censoring democratic rights.
I believe that China’s system of censoring the internet will eventually break down as the online population continues to grow. Most likely this will happen within ten years. It may be sooner. Or it may be later. But it has not happened yet (except on a relatively small scale and on relatively small issues). So we probably need to be careful here. Many (or most) activists believe that censorship of the internet would be easy (ie: “they will just shut down the internet if they have to”). It is only a smaller section of activists who recognize the various factors (including the evolving role of the internet as the heart of a modern economy) who clearly understand that this cannot go on forever.
Ben Seattle
http://struggle.net/ben/
notes:
——
[1] Powerful Agitation Requires Confronting the Crisis of Theory
http://struggle.net/Ben/2008/126-agitation.htm
(See section 2: “The politics of workers’ rule–Many independent organizations will exist” and the chart labelled “Four scenarios for working class parties following the overthrow of working class rule”)
[2] See comment # 2 (Feb 9 at 5:23 pm) section 1 “serious people” and 2 “Using the net to make ourselves conscious” at http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/ben-seattles-views/