The Third Way. Ota Šik 1972

Twelve
The role of the Communist Party

Intellectual elite

The idea of the Communist Party’s leading role in the political system of socialism also lacked any antecedents in a theoretically elaborated model. Nonetheless, the concept of the Party current in pre-revolutionary times, and its development in practice, played a big, albeit unpremeditated part in shaping the new political set-up. Certain illusions implicit from the outset in theories about the Party, and not dispelled after the revolution, were to have particularly grave consequences as time went on.

Marx was the first to describe the Communist Party as the proletarian elite. It was to be composed of people who, first, were theoretically equipped to understand better than their fellow men the long-term interests of the proletariat in all countries and, second, in everyday politics were the most resolute and consistent in championing the workers’ cause.[1] The Party’s basic aim was to lead the working class to power, to abolish capitalism and make the revolutionary advance to socialism. Recognition of this ‘necessity’ was postulated as representing the true interests of the workers, not merely in an abstract, future sense but here and now. The interests and goals ‘scientifically perceived’ by the communists were declared to be irrefutably correct. The communists alone, being possessed of the ‘true knowledge’, could be the sole custodians of the workers’ genuine interests and, hence, of all progressive social development.

This Marxist doctrine concerning the relationship between party and class, later to be extended to the relationship between the working class and all other social classes and groupings, harboured the fatal error which was ultimately to put the entire ‘socialist’ system in question. Obviously, so long as an individual or group, intent on winning support for a particular theory or set of ideas, has to compete with rival theories, then misguided contentions or false attitudes can do no great harm to the community. After all, no social theory, no matter how logical its ideas, attitudes and conclusions, can ever be wholly free of error, although it may contribute its modicum of truth, possibly an important step in the approximation to objective reality. But, owing either to its own logic or to the failings of the researchers, no theory can overstep the limits set by the perceptive potential at its disposal. Indeed, this is among the basic findings of Marxist theory.[2]

Yet in the equally important matter of the Party’s powers of perception, the implications of this philosophical truth seem to have been ignored. Of course, it is quite in order and a normal feature of political life for the intellectual leadership of a party to endeavour not only to canvass support for its theories among the workers and wider sections of the community, but also to be quite honestly concerned with investigating the forces at work in the society, with defining the position and role allotted to the working class and with suggesting measures of social change, in short, doing everything possible to provide scientific backing for the party’s policies. Given, however, that these theories can be confronted with others, and that people are free to choose from the whole range – for as long as that is the case, the errors that are unavoidable in any set of ideas can be detected by critics or corrected in the course of political contests with the rival theories.

The trouble starts when a political party declares that it alone is capable of perceiving where the true interest of the workers lies and of knowing what changes are required in the society; when it declares that, by virtue of this knowledge, it is endowed with the right to go to revolutionary lengths to reshape things according to its ideas. Once claims of this nature go unchallenged, there is no guarantee that the policies pursued will actually chime with the needs of social progress, not to mention that such pretensions are entirely at variance with the philosophical principles of Marxism. Any party claiming to be the sole receptacle of ‘objective truth’, while all other views are labelled as false, hostile and designed solely to justify the pursuit of vested interests, endows its members with the ‘moral right’ to brush aside all other views and theories and to intervene in social evolution purely as dictated by their party’s policies.[3] The possibility that they may have committed errors of theory, to say nothing of hasty and mistaken conclusions, is not even considered.

Every natural scientist is aware that conclusions which seemed justified in the early stages of a process may, in due course, be disproved by data previously overlooked or indistinguishable at the time. Yet Lenin considered the trends observable in capitalism in the year 1908 to be so clear and to vindicate Marxist theory so completely that all objections and doubts could be nothing less than expressions of class enmity and perfidious, reactionary political attitudes.[4]

Within a few decades it emerged, however, that the impoverishment of the proletariat, far from being the outcome of outlived capitalist relations of production, was a symptom of underdevelopment in the capitalist system; that far from growing more acute with the advance of capitalism, economic crises were no longer typical signs of disturbances in the macro-economic equilibrium; that the concentration of capital had neither halted the process of its fragmentation nor simplified the social structure by giving absolute predominance to the proletariat, as had been envisaged. On the contrary, since the capitalist relations of production had not proved an obstacle to advance by the forces of production, the need to change the social system could no longer be justified purely and simply on these grounds. And although this cannot be said to invalidate the benefits which socialism can offer for human progress, our concept of its nature must be influenced by the accumulated experience. It is no longer possible to regard as essential features of socialism either the dictatorship of the proletariat, with a monopoly of power resting with a single party, nor state ownership of the means of production combined with elimination of the basic market functions.

Now, with hindsight, the claim to be vested with the sole prerogative of representing the workers’ interests proves to have been based, from the outset, on a false assumption.

After all, the knowledge on which the founders of Marxist doctrine could draw was inevitably limited, some of the initial premises and conclusions were, understandably, mistaken; certainly neither its own approach nor, indeed, any historical precedent could justify Marxism in coming forward, with all-embracing ideological systems, in the role of the one-and-only interpreter of society’s future needs. Nevertheless, so long as, in staking their claim to be the sole spokesmen for the workers, the Party’s founders and their heirs were operating in a democratic set-up, there was little danger of actual ideological usurpation. But the seeds of something far more dangerous had been sown; from this false and theoretically unsound beginning grew an ideology which turned the communist parties into intolerant, authoritarian institutions, intent, come what may, on establishing a social order admitting no other political parties but their own.

The oversight can be traced back, largely, to that primitive attitude to human interests that we have already noted, to the lack of any attempt to detect these interests or to appreciate the importance of those democratic conditions vital to their development. True, the founding fathers, and the leaders of latter days, were probably entirely sincere in their belief that they knew where the best interests of all working people lay and how to realize them, yet their attitude gave rise logically to the view – and the sharper the political struggle, the more vehemently it was held – that other political parties were not only superfluous, but actually stood in the way of establishing the ‘earthly paradise’. Consequently, Lenin, too, being convinced in his own mind about what he regarded as the objective imperatives of socialist revolution, became intolerant not only of any deviation from his theories – a characteristic of all communist leaders ever since – but also implacable in crushing any kind of socialist opposition. As the logical outcome of this course, we have the monolithic Party which, in the socialist system, figures as the sole representative of the workers’ ‘recognized interests’.[5]
 

The claim to authority

Orthodox Marxists always reply to criticism of their system by pointing to the opportunities for debate and confrontation of views inside the Party. Yet this argument is symptomatic of their failure to grasp what the problem of interests really implies.

Debate in any political party is never an easy matter, especially when it touches on fundamental questions of theory, because the dissenters are confronted with axiomatic, deeply entrenched ideas which are almost always associated with a universally acknowledged authority. No genuine conflict of opinion is possible in a party whose members have not, from the outset, been nurtured in an attitude of healthy scepticism towards its theories, but have, on the contrary, been consistently led to accept the opinions of those in authority. Even less conducive to debate is the atmosphere in a party constructed primarily as a highly centralized body for militant action.

And since Lenin’s concern was no longer with elaborating the theory and setting the goal, but with putting the irrefutable scientific findings of Marxism into practice, the party’s structure had to be subordinated to the revolutionary purpose. Once it had been accepted that the socialist revolution was not a dim and distant vision, but an immediate goal towards which the proletariat had to be firmly guided, it followed that the Party must be fashioned to serve as the ideological and organizational driving-force. It had to be welded into a compact, highly organized body of members united in their devotion to the cause of revolution, or, as Lenin put it, into an organization of professional revolutionaries.[6]

To be capable of effective action, a party of this kind could not indulge in democratic debate. The goals and the strategy, and tactics of revolution had to be decided at the top, with a disciplined membership bound to carry out the central decisions.[7] The subordination of all party activity to the top leadership was based on what is termed the principle of democratic centralism. While the system required that, at the lower levels, branches should apply the central policies to their own specific conditions, and report back on their actions, they were obliged to adhere to the political line handed down from the top. And, in due course, this democratic centralism became the guiding principle for all communist parties.[8] By its very nature it evolved inevitably into a bureaucratic centralism under which decision-making takes place not through genuine discussion in the Party, nor in the mind of a theoretically competent leader, but in the hands of the faceless bureaucrats in the Party apparat.

In this set-up – with strict centralization of all the ‘expertise’ on social issues, and the stifling of any really serious debate within the Party – it is impossible to get a true picture of the different interests present in the social structure. But supposing that a ruling Communist Party were to allow freedom of discussion and the thrashing out of views among its members, there would still be little chance of discerning the pattern of interests or of observing the differing trends in the complex structure of modern society. With the best will in the world, the efforts of a single party to establish what are, in its view, ‘the general interests’ can be no more than guesswork or a matter of wishful thinking so long as no opportunity exists for the actual interests to assert themselves, to organize and come into confrontation with each other.

This is not to say that one should go to the other extreme of rejecting all research in this field. Both individual interests and those shared by social groups, their momentary dispositions and their trends, can be detected and deserve attention. But even where large-scale institutes and research teams are engaged in such work, the job is a formidable one, and a bureaucratic party apparatus is certainly not equipped to undertake it. Moreover, at best, the academic approach has its limits and sources of error. In short, the research can supplement, not replace, the genuine, living confrontation of interests.

Clinging to the pre-revolutionary idea that the communist parties alone are capable of discerning and representing the workers’ interests is no longer, once the revolutionary takeover has been accomplished, merely a misplaced belief in their own infallibility; especially after the abolishing of private ownership, to allow no opportunity for group interests to surface and confront each other is tantamount to suppressing them altogether. Then the Party, operating as the ‘vanguard of the working class’, decides what shall be the ‘interests’ of all the manifold groups and sectors of the population. But since the people in whose name the decisions are made are prevented from organizing themselves or voicing dissent, it is utterly impossible to ascertain whether these ‘interests’ are truly theirs.

We cannot dwell at any length here on how this system operates. I simply wished to indicate how the idea of the Party’s leading role, conceived in the pre-revolutionary days, has been automatically transferred into post-revolutionary practice, without a thought for the possibility that the Party might not, after all, be infallible, nor for the need to provide democratic means for voicing and asserting interests in a socialist society. In addition to ruling out, as we have noted, even a theoretical insight into the complicated interests structure, the undemocratic, totalitarian system also erects other barriers to which we shall refer below.
 

Moral elite

We have mentioned in passing that the Marxist image of the Party is not only that of a theoretically equipped avant garde of the working class; it also includes the assumption that the members are men and women wholly dedicated to waging the battle for socialism, devoted heart and soul to the cause of the class whose interests they place above all personal considerations. Although not formulated in words, this places a very special moral duty upon members – associated with the idea of an ethically impeccable elite of the working class.

In many passages of the Communist Manifesto, in Lenin’s concept of the ‘professional revolutionary’ and, most notably, in Stalin’s utterances, the communists are depicted as selfless beings, utterly dedicated to the working-class cause and to the socialist revolution.[9] Initially, these could be regarded as statements of the kind customarily used in political propaganda; but whereas there was once some justification for the assumption, it gradually ceased to reflect the reality of things and, especially after the revolution, embodied a yet more dangerous illusion than the concept of the Party as the omniscient brain of social progress.

When revolutionary parties are still illegal or semi-illegal organizations battling against all manner of persecution, membership offers no advantages and no reward. Those who resolve to join and face the hazards of working actively for these parties may be assumed to be motivated by genuine convictions and the will to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the cause. Their allegiance may stem from various sources, often more emotional than rational, and inspiring in many an unbridled fanaticism. Moreover, members will differ widely in their understanding of Marxist theory, ranging from a handful of intellectuals who can master the doctrine and its methods to those who have grasped the basic economic principles of capitalism, the class theory and so on, and, lastly, to the many whose allegiance is based quite simply on faith in the Party as an agent which, by revolution, will banish exploitation, oppression and want. At all events, the majority of rank-and-file members will see in the goals proclaimed by their Party both the prospect of improving their own lot and also of emancipating those with whom they feel bound by the ties of a common fate.

Diversity in intellectual understanding and awareness is matched by differences in ethical attitudes and moral fibre; one will find among communists much the same range of qualities, from the pure altruists to the unscrupulous egoists, as in the community at large. But, as Party members, all are bound to take part in undertakings of political and social consequence, which, to the outside world, creates the impression that all, to a man, are dedicated solely to the common cause. Many, of course, genuinely seek the solution of social problems without having any ulterior motives, but the less public-spirited are motivated primarily by self-interest. They pin their hopes either on reward after the revolution or, in some measure, before that longed-for day. Dominating the minds of this latter category of men are feelings of envy, hatred, the bitterness of their fate, the desire for power and for a social order where they will live as their oppressors live today. Only a small number of socially aware, dedicated members, whose resolve is also founded on a theoretical understanding of the need to tackle social issues by permanently changing the order of things, can be expected genuinely and steadfastly to engage in political activity in the interests of all working people.

This combination of intellectual capacity and moral quality is of paramount importance, especially among the top Party officials. Unquestionably, there will be those who throw themselves into the work not from selfish motives, but with an intellectual conviction combined with a profound sense of affinity with their fellow men. That is to say, he who knows what it is to be exploited, oppressed and persecuted will, on encountering a theory which reveals that his interests are bound up with those of the multitude who share his lot, be the more likely to proceed from his initially purely, emotional response to a wider political commitment. Many will find the strongest attraction in the sense of fellowship in a common cause, in sharing in the Party’s battles, irrespective of whether its aims will be achieved.[10]

But even when times are hard and membership of the Party is no joy-ride, there will be those whose motives for working and acquiring positions in the organization are not entirely selfless and not wholly in accord with the generally proclaimed ethical standards.[11] But since the secrets of the human mind are ever hard to probe, and even long years of battling together against all manner of odds can enable men merely to glimpse each other’s characters (and even then not of all functionaries), no political party can be sure of excluding the self-seekers from its ranks. Even when communist parties can offer their members no immediate advantage, individuals may seek in them some kind of personal satisfaction, esteem perhaps, admiration, a following, or positions of power in the future.

And once a party grows big and powerful, with a promising political future before it, the speed of its advance will be more than equalled by the influx of time-servers and careerists. With proliferation of the Party machine, with jobs to be had in its press offices, in the administration of funds and so on, and later perhaps reaching out into co-operatives, friendly societies and other social institutions under its aegis, the moral profile of the establishment will undergo a rapid change. When operating legally in a democratic set-up (which happened in due course to all social democratic parties and, later, to some communist parties), able to dispense seats in Parliament, public offices and other desirable posts, a Communist Party will tend to move further and further from its theoretical image of a moral elite.

The image becomes entirely illusory in the case of a ruling party which, to clinch the matter, now has the sole and undisputed power to fill all offices of state and award all the attractive jobs. Many members then regard their party as the indispensable means to a career. No amount of checking up, screening and purging can stop the rot, for the upright members are in no position to detect the transgressors – none are as adept at disguising themselves as the careerists. In every ruling party, the hypocrites and the place-seekers spread like a fungus, gaining promotion and scheming to oust the ‘idealists’. With one-party rule, it is only a matter of time before these types depose from the seats of power those who are genuinely concerned with the general public interest.

We cannot dwell here on the mechanism whereby this takeover is accomplished. Suffice it to note that the impossibility of excluding the career men from the top posts, so that in some circumstances they may control policy entirely, signifies that such a party is not merely incapable of perceiving the public interest, that even its will to do so is gradually sapped. For should the genuine majority interest call for economic and political measures likely to undermine the power positions, the self-interest of the few will surely prevail.

That in elaborating the theoretical groundwork of socialism no thought was ever given to the possibility of a divergence between the Party, or government interests and the majority interests, that no system was devised and no guarantees sought to enable the variously structured interests in society to be asserted and that, lastly, reliance was placed solely on proclamations about the Party’s ethical purity – all this might, initially, be attributed to the naivety of the theoreticians. In time, however, it degenerated into a deliberately hypocritical pose. Reading today, with our knowledge of the real Stalin, his oration at Lenin’s graveside, the declaration about the solemn duty of communists to carry out the leader’s behest (although Stalin had suppressed the truth about Lenin’s last testament) stands out as a piece of blatant, propagandist hypocrisy.[12]

One is bound to view in the same light the vast influx of members to every Communist Party’ after it has taken power and established its dictatorship. The recruitment launched by Stalin after Lenin’s death added at a stroke 240,000 members to the previous total of 386,000.[13] The newcomers were joining a party already, firmly in the saddle, having crushed by force of arms all opposition to its supremacy (recall, for instance, the Kronstadt mutiny). To maintain that a party of this kind has preserved its ideological and moral ‘avant-garde character’, by virtue of which it should be endowed with the exclusive right to represent the popular interest, is sheer demagogy.

When there is no democratic machinery to reveal the discrepancies between the true interests of the population and its social groups, on the one hand, and the policies of any given party, on the other, the public welfare will inevitably be misconstrued or trampled upon. Theories of socialism which make no provision for a democratic system, including the necessary safeguards for political democracy, and, on the contrary, stifle all opportunity for democratic expression by, applying the principle of ‘the leading role of one party’, far from furthering the cause of a genuine socialist order, actually obstruct it.

Now, with all the evidence at our disposal, to ignore the truth of this is to refuse to face the facts. He who dismisses the democratic system as an unwieldy, impotent machine, while lauding the revolutionary power of centralized organization and of a ruling elite, cannot really have the welfare of the working people at heart, nor a true perception of their interests; he is more likely to be intent on implementing a set of ideas which may then be proclaimed to be for the public good. Whether original or imparted by others, ideas of this nature are often inspiring, they have an emotional appeal and are calculated especially to chime with the simple, instinctive moods and the stirrings of opposition among some sections of the population. And when the ‘arguments’ possess an intrinsic logic, giving them a scientific gloss, they are the more readily accepted.


Footnotes to Chapter Twelve

1. ‘The Communists are distinguished from 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.’ Marx, Engels, Selected Works (Moscow 1949), vol. I, p. 44 (Communist Manifesto).

2. ‘Human thought then by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths. Each step in the development of science adds new grains to the sum of absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposition are relative, now expanding, now shrinking with the growth of knowledge. “Absolute truth,” says J. Dietzgen in his Streifzügen, “can be seen, heard, smelt, touched and, of course, also be known; but it is not entirely absorbed (geht nicht auf) in knowledge.”

‘From the standpoint of modern materialism, i.e., Marxism, the limits of approximation of our knowledge to objective, absolute truth are historically conditional, but the existence of such truth is unconditional, and the fact that we are approaching nearer to it is also unconditional.’ Lenin, Selected Works (Lawrence & Wishart, London 1963), vol. XIV, pp. 135, 136.

3. ‘To this day, the adherents of Marxism display the psychology, typical of myth-bearers – the assurance and sense of superiority stemming from the belief that they possess the key, to all happenings in the world, the answers to all questions; the exalted sense of being part of the absolute process; the yet greater exaltation of belonging among the chosen; the thrill of attacking the dissenters who, not being possessed of the revealed truth, are basically incapable of voicing anything but nonsense and hostile propaganda. In every debate with a Marxist one soon discovers that, as Schumpeter rightly remarked, he regards the dissenters not merely as mistaken, but also as sinful and depraved. The rest consists of abuse.’ W. Theimer, Der Marxismus (Berne 1969), p. 149.

4. ‘But inasmuch as the criterion of practice, i.e., the course of development of all capitalist countries in the last few decades, proves only the objective truth of Marx’s whole social and economic theory in general, and not merely of one or other of its parts, formulations, etc., it is clear that to talk here of the “dogmatism” of the Marxists is to make an unpardonable concession to bourgeois economics. The sole conclusion to be drawn from the opinion held by Marxists that Marx’s theory is an objective truth is that by following the path of Marxian theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following any other path we shall arrive at nothing but confusion and lies.’ Lenin, op. cit., vol. XIV, p. 143.

5. ‘To effect this social revolution the proletariat must win political power, which will make it master of the situation and enable it to remove all obstacles along the road to its great goal. In this sense the dictatorship of the proletariat is an essential political condition of the social revolution.

‘Russian social democracy undertakes the task of disclosing to the workers the irreconcilable antagonism between their interests and those of the capitalists, of explaining to the proletariat the historical significance, nature, and prerequisites of the social revolution it will have to carry out, and organizing a revolutionary class party capable of directing the struggle of the proletariat in all its forms.’ Ibid., vol. VI, pp. 28-9.

6. ‘To be fully prepared for his task, the worker-revolutionary must likewise become a professional revolutionary.’ Ibid., vol. 1, p. 206.

7. ‘Bureaucracy versus democracy is in fact centralism versus autonomism; it is the organizational principle of revolutionary social democracy as opposed to the organizational principle of opportunist social democracy. The latter strives to proceed from the bottom upward, and, therefore, wherever possible and as far as possible, upholds autonomism and “democracy,” carried by the over-zealous to the point of anarchism. The former strives to proceed from the top downward, and upholds air extension of the rights and powers of the centre in relation to the parts.’ Ibid., p. 424.

8. ‘This brings us to a highly important principle of all Party organization and all Party activity: while the greatest possible centralization is necessary with regard to the ideological and practical leadership of the movement and the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, the greatest possible decentralization is necessary with regard to keeping the Party centre (and therefore the Party as a whole) informed about the movement, and with regard to responsibility to the Party. The leadership of the movement should be entrusted to the smallest possible number of the most homogeneous possible groups of professional revolutionaries with great practical experience. Participation in the movement should extend to the greatest possible number of the most diverse and heterogeneous groups of the most varied sections of the proletariat (and other classes of the people). The Party centre should always have before it, not only exact information regarding the activities of each of these groups, but also the fullest possible information regarding their composition. We must centralize the leadership of the movement. We must also (and for that very reason, since without information centralization is impossible) as far as possible decentralize responsibility to the Party on the part of its individual members, of every participant in its work, and of every circle belonging to or associated with the Party. This decentralization is an essential prerequisite of revolutionary centralization and an essential corrective to it.’ Ibid., vol. VI, pp. 248–9.

9. ‘When we have forces of specially trained worker-revolutionaries who have gone through extensive preparation (and, of course, revolutionaries “of all arms of the service”), no political police in the world will then be able to contend with them, for these forces, boundlessly devoted to the revolution, will enjoy the boundless confidence of the widest masses of the workers.’ Ibid., vol. 1, p. 207.

10. ‘When communist workmen associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need – the need for society – and what appears as a mean, becomes all end. You calln observe this practical process in its most splendid result, whenever you see French socialist workers together. Such things as smoking, drinking, eating etc. are no longer means of contact or means that bring them together. Company , association, and conversation, which again has society as its end, are enough for them; the brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, arid the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies.’ Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Lawrence & Wishart, London 1959). p. 124.

11. ‘You have to do this, to cover up the disagreeable tact that it is, indeed, a spirit of bureaucracy, a spirit of place-hunting that obsesses those who just could not bring themselves to work in the Party except as members of its central institutions. Yes, your behaviour has indeed clearly shown us that our Party suffers from a spirit of bureaucracy that puts office above work and shuns neither boycott nor disruption in the effort to get into office.’ Lenin, op. cit., vol. VII, p. 141.

12. ‘We Communists are people of a special mould. We are made of a special stuff. We are those who form the army of the great proletarian strategist, the army of Comrade Lenin. There is nothing higher than the honour of belonging to this army. There is nothing higher than the title of member of the Party whose founder and leader is Comrade Lenin ...

‘Departing front us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to hold high and guard the purity of the great title of member of the Party. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfil your behest with credit! ...

‘Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard the unity of our Party as the apple of our eye. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit!...’ History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) (Moscow 1939), pp. 268–9.

13. Ibid., pp. 262–9.

 


Last updated on 10 April 2021